Successful as was the Ku Klux movement in these respects, it had at the same time many harmful results.Too often local orders fell under the control of reckless or lawless men and the Klan was then used as a cloak to cover violence and thievery; family and personal feuds were carried into the orders and fought out; and anti-Negro feeling in many places found expression in activities designed to drive the blacks from the country.It was easy for any outlaw to hide himself behind the protection of a secret order.So numerous did these men become that after 1868 there was a general exodus of the leading reputable members, and in 1869 the formal disbanding of the Klan was proclaimed by General Forrest, the Grand Wizard.The White Camelia and other orders also gradually went out of existence.Numerous attempts were made to suppress the secret movement by the military commanders, the state governments, and finally by Congress, but none of these was entirely successful, for in each community the secret opposition lasted as long as it was needed.The political effects of the orders, however, survived their organized existence.Some of the Southern States began to go Democratic in spite of the Reconstruction Acts and the Amendments, and there was little doubt that the Ku Klux movement had aided in this change.In order to preserve the achievements of radical reconstruction Congress passed, in 1870 and 1871, the enforcement acts which had been under debate for nearly two years.The first act (May 31, 1870) was designed to protect the Negro's right to vote and was directed at individuals as well as against states.Section six, indeed, was aimed specifically at the Ku Klux Klan.This act was a long step in the direction of giving the Federal Government control over state elections.But as North Carolina went wholly and Alabama partially Democratic in 1870, a Supplementary Act (February 28, 1871) went further and placed the elections for members of Congress completely under Federal control, and also authorized the use of thousands of deputy marshals at elections.As the campaign of 1872drew near, Grant and his advisers became solicitous to hold all the Southern States which had not been regained by the Democrats.Accordingly, on March 23, 1871, the President sent a message to Congress declaring that in some of the states the laws could not be enforced and asked for remedial legislation.
Congress responded with an act (April 20, 1871), commonly called the "Ku Klux Act," which gave the President despotic military power to uphold the remaining Negro governments and authorized him to declare a state of war when he considered it necessary.Of this power Grant made use in only one instance.In October 1871, he declared nine counties of South Carolina in rebellion and put them under martial law.
During the ten years following 1870, several thousand arrests were made under the enforcement acts and about 1,250 convictions were secured, principally in Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.Most of these violations of election laws, however, had nothing to do with the Ku Klux movement, for by 1870 the better class of members had withdrawn from the secret orders.But though the enforcement acts checked these irregularities to a considerable extent, they nevertheless failed to hold the South for the radicals and essential parts of them were declared unconstitutional a few years later.
In order to justify the passage of the enforcement acts and to obtain campaign material for use in 1872, Congress appointed a committee, organized on the very day when the Ku Klux Act was approved, to investigate conditions in the Southern States.From June to August 1871, the committee took testimony in Washington, and in the fall subcommittees visited several Southern States.
Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were, however, omitted from the investigation.Notwithstanding the partisan purpose and methods of the investigation, the report of the committee and the accompanying testimony constituted a Democratic rather than a Republican document.It is a veritable mine of information about the South between 1865 and 1871.The Democratic minority members made skillful use of their opportunity to expose conditions in the South.They were less concerned to meet the charges made against the Ku Klux Klan than to show why such movements came about.The Republicans, concerned mainly about material for the presidential campaign, neglected the broader phases of the situation.
Opposition to the effects of reconstruction did not come to an end with the dissolution of the more famous orders.On the contrary, it now became public and open and resulted in the organization, after 1872, of the White League, the Mississippi Shot Gun Plan, the White Man's Party in Alabama, and the Rifle Clubs in South Carolina.The later movements were distinctly but cautiously anti-Negro.There was most irritation in the white counties where there were large numbers of Negroes.Negro schools and churches were burned because they served as meeting places for Negro political organizations.The color line began to be more and more sharply drawn.Social and business ostracism continued to be employed against white radicals, while the Negroes were discharged from employment or were driven from their rented farms.
The Ku Klux movement, it is to be noted in retrospect, originated as an effort to restore order in the war-stricken Southern States.The secrecy of its methods appealed to the imagination and caused its rapid expansion, and this secrecy was inevitable because opposition to reconstruction was not lawful.As the reconstruction policies were put into operation, the movement became political and used violence when appeals to superstitious fears ceased to be effective.The Ku Klux Klan centered, directed, and crystallized public opinion, and united the whites upon a platform of white supremacy.The Southern politicians stood aloof from the movement but accepted the results of its work.It frightened the Negroes and bad whites into better conduct, and it encouraged the conservatives and aided them to regain control of society, for without the operations of the Klan the black districts would never have come again under white control.Towards the end, however, its methods frequently became unnecessarily violent and did great harm to Southern society.The Ku Klux system of regulating society is as old as history; it had often been used before; it may even be used again.When a people find themselves persecuted by aliens under legal forms, they will invent some means outside the law for protecting themselves; and such experiences will inevitably result in a weakening of respect for law and in a return to more primitive methods of justice.
