extension of ku klux act (speech of hon. daniel d. pratt)

8/3/2019 Extension of Ku Klux Act (Speech of Hon. Daniel D. Pratt)

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1 Extension of Ku Klox Act,

SPEECH

HON. DANIELD.

PEATT,OF IISTDI^N^,

DELIVERED

/IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

MAT U, 1872.

WASHINGTON:F. & J. RIVES & GEO. A. BAILEY,

REPORTERS AND PRINTERS OP THE DEBATES OP CONaRESS.1872.


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Extension of Ku Klux Act.

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, hav-ing under consideration the bill (S. No. 656) to ex-tend the provisions of the fourth section of the actapproved April 20, 1871

Mr. PRATT saidMr. President: The bill under considera-

tion has been introduced by the chairmanof the joint committee of Congress raised at

the last session to inquire into the allegedoutrages in the southern States, and by theauthority of that committee. Ir, simply con-tinues in the President of the United Statesthe power of suspending the privilege of thewrit of habeas corpus to the end of the nextsession of Congress, as that power was givenby the act of April 20, 1871. eniilled " An actto enforce the provisions of the fourteenthamendment to the Constitution of the UnitedStates." The power which the bill confers isno other or different in the circumstances of itsexercise from that which has been so benefi-

cently employed by him in nine counties inthe State of South Carolina. Fortunately forthe country, he has found it necessary to usebis discretion in but a single State, and in buta small portion of that. The result of its use,in connection with the action of the Federalcourts, and the employment of military forcein their aid, has been to put a complete stopto outrages in that section of the country.

Looking at the good results which have beenaccomplished in that most disturbed districtof the entire South, who can doubt that Con-gress acted wisely and in the interest of hu-manity and justice in investing the Presidentwith this power? Nobody has suffered, sofar as I am aware, who was not engaged in the


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conspiracy to deprive any portion or class ofthe people of their rights under the law, byintimidation, violence, and outrage; to over-throw the laws which guard the life and libertyof the citizen ; when the local courts are ultei lypowerless to deal with the criminals; wherethe conspiracy manifests itself by bands ofarmed men too numerous and powerful for thecivil officers to deal with them ; when arrestswith a view to trial and punishment would bemade nugatory through the complicity or fearsof the constituted authorities of the State,there exists the same necessity for a suspen-sion of the privilege of the writ as in case ofinvasion and rebellion.

Indeed the state of things I have describedis a rebellion, which is simply a revolt againstthe laws. Its purpose is to set them aside or

overthrow them ; and it makes no differencewhether this purpose is restricted to a countyor spreads over a Slate. Among the Romans,from whom the terra is borrowed, a rebellionwas open resistance to their government bythe nations that had been subdued in wjir; butits most commonly accepted definition is"open resistance to lawful authority." ButCongress has defined with great minutenesswhat sh;ill constitute a rebellion, in the fourthsection of the act 1 have referred to, and Iwill not detain the Senate by reading it. It isadapted to the state of affairs which has pre-vailed in some parts of tlie South since theyear 18G8.

Mr. President, the question is, shall thegrant of this power of suspension be continued,not indefinitely, but until the 4th of Marchnext? The answer to this question mustdepend upon another question, whether thepublic safety requires it. The committee ofwhich I have spoken, have spent months intaking testimony from every part of" the Souih.We have had volume upon volume of the evi-dence printed, amounting to several thousandpages. The report of the cominiitee and theviews of the minority, in which the evidenceis summed up, alone amount to over one thou-sand pages. Even the minority do not deny,and 1 now quote their language, "that bodiesof disguised men have in several of the Stalesof the South been guilty of the most flagrantcrimes." They admit "they are not to bepalliated or excused." Tiiat is sufficient lormy purpose, although they make haste to denythat liie Ku Klux organization is a generalone, or thai its acts have any political signifi-cance. But it seems to me lliat a case is madeout for extraordinary measures when it isproved beyond the power of contradiction that

m manycouniies in dillerent Slate.", the local

authorities arc; whdily incapai)le of affordingprotection to life, liberty, and property, andare unable to convict ami punish the men whoopenly defy ami spurn ihe laws. Weare deal-ing with tirrible lacts which none are so iiardyas to deny. It is not a question whether the;plan of reconstruction was right or wrong,

nor whether negro suffrage was just or politic,nor whether it has proved a success or failure ;nor is it. a question whether the State govern-ments of the South have abused their oppor-tunities, plundered the people, loaded themwith debts, and squandered the [lublic money.All this may be admitted for the sake of theargument ; and yet the issue is not met.

This Government is charged with the dutyof suppressing rebellion and seeing to it thatall men entitled to its protection are protected.Government is of little value to the governedif large bodies of armed men may with im-punity prowl at midnight through the country,commit murders, arsons, and cruel outragesupon defenseless people. The worst despotismis better than such anarchy and lawlessness.

Sir, when I turn to the testimony spread

before Congress by this committee, takenunder oath and bearing the stamp of truth,my heart sickens with the recitals of thewrongs committed and heaped upon the hum-ble, loyal, people of the South. The cold-blooded murders committed by the Ku KluxKlan are not numbered by hundreds, but bythousands. In a single county in Alabamathey number fbriy ; in another, Tuscaloosacounty, in Alabama, as testified to by thevenerable chief justice of thalState, they num-ber fifty. The cruel scourgings and mutila-tions exceed by a hundredfold the murders.The cruelties inflicted of whatever descriptionare marked by a ferocity, a hearllessness, anindifference to human suffering that find noparallel in the barbarities of savages.

The guilty perpetrators add to the bodilysufferings the terrors of superstition. The KuKlux clothe themselves in horrid disguises

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when they go forth u[)on their adventures,whii^h give them a supernatural I shouldrather say an infernal appearance and theydisarm the superstitious negro of all hope ofdefense against such emissaries from anotherworld by announcing themselves as spirits ofthe conl'ederate dead, clothed with immortal

power, who have come down from their homein the moon to visit punishment upon him forhis misdeeds. Silently and swiftly in martialarray, at the dead hour of night, and when theinmates of the humble cabin are buried inpeaceful sleep after the toils of the day, theycome unannounced save by the sharp barkingof the house dog. They come in squads of allsizes, from a dozen up to a hundred ; some-times on foot, most commonly on horseback.Tliey and their horses are completely dis-guised, and their disguises are such as wouldshake the stoutest heart. They are liioroughly

armed.Theirs is

an errand of war andvio-

lence. By false and deceitful devices theyseek to enter the cabin. The Ku Klux isas cowardly as he is cruel, as lying anddeceitful as his victim is credulous. Hefears tlu! gun of the siirgle man in that hum-ble fortress opposed to an hundred. Hewould not give him a single chance for his

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life ; be would not allow him to sell that lifeat the expense of one of his cowardly murder-

ers. Most, commonly they effect an entranceby deceitful accounts and promises. Wherethese fail the cabin is stormed, the door

brolien down, and the house filled by armedmen. Then the tragedy opens. The obnox-ious negro, whose crime is that he is a Radi-cal, is torn from his family, assailed with

blows, dragged to the neighboring wood, andhung to a tree, or dispatched by bullets andknives. Often the females of the family are

subjected to outrages such as I may not de-scribe. Not his cabin only, but many others,a whole neighborhood, is visited by this partyof disguised troopers, where similar scenes areenacted, and the work of the night is done.They cannot tarry till the crowing oF the cock,

or until morning sends forth upon the high-ways its witnesses. They go as mysteriouslyas they came: no one has seen them save thestartled sleeper from his window, or the be-lated loiterer who crouches in the busheswhile the ghostly troop sweep by. The briefsummer night is passed. Morning has comedispelling its mysteries and silence, and thesun, which looked down upon Abel's bloodand his brother's crime, sheds his glory overthe world. Birds of sweetest music greet

his rising. Flowers and blossoms of peerlessbeauty do him homage, and shed abroad their

fragrance in the early morning. All natureis glad and beautiful and full of peace, savewhere ihe devilish passions of man have turnedthis heaven of beauty and love into a hell.The preparations which follow death begin.Few words are spoken, for the spell of fearand horror is upon all. Of course there isthe mockery of an inquest which proves noth-ing, involves nobody, which simply finds thatthe mangled deceased has come to his death byunknown hands; and then the dead are hastilyburied in rude cofiBns, and the affrighted fam-ilies fly the dangerous neighborhood to other

parts, and there are fewer Radical votesin

thatprecinct at the next election.

And is this all? Alas, sir, it is. What, youask, was there no rising of an indignant com-munity; did not justice follow fast upon thefootseps of the retreating murderers; was notvengeance swift on their track? No, sir;nothing of the sort. I have heard of a fewcases and they are but a few where thesheriff followed the next day with a meagerposse the tracks of the party to the river orcounty line, and then turned back. Possiblythe matter was talked over by the next grandjury, sotne of whom, or their sons, mayhave been in the raid. Possibly, witnesseswho knew nothing, or knew too much,were sent for and examined. But nothingcame of this grand inquest, whose office was tolearn everyiliing, and whose powers were asgreat as their duty was plain. They couldLave brought every man, woman, and child ofthe county before them and compelled them

to testify. The law and the common safetydemanded that no means should be left unem-ployed to find out and present the murderers.

Now, sir, what I want to emphasize andwhat I want the whole country to understand

in re-spect to these Ku Klux outrages, is this:that out of the hundreds and thousands whichhave been committed in the cotton Slates,there does not exist the record of a single con-viction in a single court where the murderedman or the mutilated man was a loyal negroof Radical faith, and his murderers were KuKlux. I am speaking now of the State courts,and with six or seven thousand pages of testi-mony before me, taken by the committee ; andif a single exception exists where punishmenthas followed, I hope to be corrected.

I have myself questioned intelligent men all

through Alabama and Mississippi, while en-gaged in this committee work, whether theyknew or had ever heard of any such punish-ment, and the answer has been unif)rm. Iought to except a few sporadic cases whereit was said negroes had Kukluxed negroes.But the general fact remains, the testimonyis mountain high that this carnival of crimehas gone on for years and nobody has beenfound out ; no one has been punished untillatterly since Congress has armed the Federalcourts with power to grapple with this terribleorganization.

Now, sir, before going further I wantto

meetand answer the excuse commonly given by theintelligent white men of the South the menwho went into the rebellion; the men whoconstitute the backbone of the Democraticparty in the South for this failure of justice.1 have asked them a score of times, where isthe intrinsic difficulty in discovering and bring-ing to justice the criminals? The answer gen-erally given is, that the men concerned in thislawlessness are so effectually disguised and dotheir bloody work at such an hour of the night,that detection is impossible simply impos-sible ; and they say this with a look of virtuousdespair. The less discreet or more honest,admit that it would be attended with hazardto push inquiries too far or closely; tliat med-dlers bent on satisfying their curiosity mightdraw on themselves the attention of this secretorder. Then, again, it, is suggested that uponevery grand jury would be tbund men whoseinterest it was to prevent the truth coming tolight ; that the witnesses summoned may tht-m-selves have been engaged in ihe raid or hadsons or fathers, brothers or friends in it.

To sum up the excuses it is said they are soeffeclually disguised, move in such numbers,are so bound together by oaths and a commonsense of danger, and frequently come fromsuch a distance, that it is impossible to dis-

cover who the guilty parties are. But to thisI answer that the Federal courts, since thejurisdiction has been extended to them, haveiiad no trouble of the kind. They have foundwithin the last year hundreds of indictments


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in the States of North and South Carolina,Alabama, and Mississippi, against these KuKlux gentlemen, and hirnished a few of themlodgings in the peniientiary. That is sufficientanswer of itself, and proves the excuse set up

for the criminal default of the State courtsa sham and a l>ing pretense.

But the pretense is absurd in itself. It isa well-se^iled axiom in the administration ofcriminal justice that just in proportion as the

secret of a crime is shared by two or more thechances of detection increase. It is alwayssafest when deposited in a single breast. Then,again, how is it possible that fifty men shouldbe concerned in a midnight enterprise of crimewithout previous concert? As they move ina body they must have come together at someplace at a particular hour and by previous ar-rangement. They have had a rendezvous some-where on the route. Now, the query is, howcould so many men provide themselves withhorses, disguises, and arms, leave so many dif-ferent homes, come together by so many dif-ferent routes, and be absent all night, withoutanybody knowing it? These men have, all ofthem, parents, or brothers and sisters, wivesor children. They all belong to some house-hold where they sleep and eat. They them-selves and their horses must show signs of thenight's hard ride, possibly of its murderouswork. Somebody nuist note and rememberthese signs. Somebody has furnished thehorses, the arms, the ammunition, the mate-rials for the disguises worn. Somebody, someperplexed tailor, has fabricated these ghostlygarments and artistic head coverings, withtheir openings and horns. These horses haveall left foot-prints in the earth. A diligentsearch would track half the horses to the sta-bles or fields to which they were returned.If the whole neighborhood were not in con-spiracy to hide the crime and screen the per-petrators, some of these many threads to dis-covery would lead to their detection. It couldnot be otherwise in a sound, healthy commun-ity, which had any disposition to maintain thelaws. It is a reproach to the intelligence andenterprise of the southern people to suggestthat such crimes could remain hidden. It isamazing that to shelter such miscreants theywill stultify themselves.

While the committee were prosecuting thisinvestigation, and inlelligent Democratic wit-nesses were puititig up this pretext, and jire-tending that this thing went on unchecked bytheir courts because of" the impossibility ofdiscovering the guilty parties, they never couldor would give a straigiitforward answer to thisquestion. "You say it is impossible to findthem out. Now, suppose the case reversed ;suppose a white citi/en of standing and in-fluence were tims taken out of his bed at nightVjy disguised men and scourged or murdered,would there be the same apathy, the samefeeble elfort, the same alleged dilliculty in dis-covering the guilty parlies? On the contrary,

would not the community rise up as one man,would not a thousand eyes be on the alert tonote every sign which might lead to discovery

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would men rest or let the thing drop until thecriminals were found and brought to justice ?"

Without dwelling longer, I trust I have dis-posed of this shallow pretext.

But, sir, who are the guilty parties, andwhat are their motives? I know whatis claimed by the Opposition here, andI know the theory on this subject of thosewho give tone to public opinion in theSouth. They pretend that these cr:mes haveno political significance whatever, but arethe work of the poor, the lawless, andirresponsible white men of that region, who,it is said, are the enemies of the freedman,jealous of his lately acquired civil and polit-ical rights, envious of the planter's preferencefor his labor, and bent on getting rid of hiscompetition. Such is the theory of the mi-nority of the committee. They insist thatthese outrages are neither committed norsanctioned by the respectable classes, andthat they are not to be held responsible forthem. But is this true? So far from be-ing true, I insist that the investigations, thor-

ough and exhaustive, which hav3 been madeby the congressional commiitee and in theFederal courts, have conclusively implicatedthe intelligent and property-holding classes inthese outrages, and fixed the responsibility on

them for their indulged continuance withoutpunishment or prosecution even. From whombut this class come the funds which supportthese costly military organizations, which sup-ply the horses, equipments, arms, ammuni-tion, and disguises ; the intelligence whichdirects the movements of these lawless bodiesand prevents discovery? Who have thegreatest motives for inflicting these pun-ishments? Suppose the charge to be thata freedman has stolen cotton, corn, or cattle ;the planter is the injured party, and not thepoor white class, who have nothing to be

stolen. He is the one interested in punishingthe thief. He may employ these poor whitesas his instruments, but he is the movingpower ; he is the responsible party.

Colored schools are broken up and the school-houses burned by the hundred. This is afavorite pastime with the Ku Klux genilemen.These brave fellows .specially delight to dealwith school mistresses. There is no dangerthere. But whoare most interested in breakingup schools and instigating raids upon the teach-ers and school-houses? I answer, the men ofprt)]ierty, the tax-payers, the men who holdlax- payers' conventions and denounce taxes,and compel those who levy them to resignthe men who fill the country with their clamorthat they are iinpoverislHjd, robbed, and plun-dered under the new order of things!

And then again, whoare the most interestedin acquiring the political control in the Stateand in the counties? There is no cause so


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often assigned for Ku KIux misdeeds as the onethat the victim is a Radical and votes the Rad-ical ticket. You may take ten cases of whip-ping, and nine of them shall be for this cause,if the victim, who knows best, is to be be-lieved. He hears and knows from the mouthsof his persecutors what he is whipped for.Now, I ask, who is most interested in the freed-man's political conversion? Who about elec-tion times go to him with smooth speech anduse persuasive argument to induce him to votethe Democratic ticket? I answer, it is the oldruling class, the property-holders.

I am tempted, Mr. President, to turn asidea moment to repeat the argument. He isreminded how harmonious was the relationbetween the two races when the one was themaster, the other the slave ; how he was fed,clothed, and cared for in sickness ; how in hisindigence he must still look to his old masterfor employment, food, raiment, protection.He is reminded that the two races are depend-ent on each other, the one having the capital,the other supplying the labor, and that theyshould act in concert ; he is warned not toput his faith in these Radical strangers, whohave come down South spreading perniciousdoctrines, and who aim to ride into office andpower on the negro vote and enrich themselvesat the public expense.

In stating their argument I have shown, sir,

who are responsible for these scourgings foropinion's sake. It is the old ruling class, themen who own the plantations and property,and must pay the taxes. They are the menmost interested in molding the opinions ofvoters.

Mr. SAULSBURY. Will the Senator allowme to interrupt him a moment? Do I under-stand him to say that the investigation of thiscommiitee and the investigation of the Federalcourts prove that the property-holders in theSouth are the responsible parties for the out-rages that he alleges to have been committed

there?Mr. PRATT. The Senator understands mecorrectly.

Mr. SAULSBURY. Then I ask if he knowsof any instance where those men have beenprosecuted under the provisions of the actpassed last session, which gives ample powerto punish any person who has entered into anyconspiracy ?

Mr. PRATT. Certainly ; the records of thecourts in three or four States are full of suchcases.

Mr. SAULSBURY. How many ?Mr. PRATT. If you will examine the re-

port of the majority of this committee you willascertain how many prosecutions have been in-stituted in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Mr. SAULSBURY. I beg to be excusedfrom examining the seven thousand pages oftestimony.

Mr. PRATT. I will take great pleasure inshowing them to the honorable Senator from

Delaware after I get through with my remarks.The seven or eight thousand pages of testi-mony the committee have taken from quite abulky piece of literature, and I commend it tomy honorable friend ufion next Sunday orupon some leisure day for his reading. Hewil l f ind it profitable if not pleasant.

Mr. SAULSBURY. I certainly would beinclined to avail myself of any suggestion ofthe honorable Senator from Indiana in refer-ence to what is profitable reading for the Sab-bath ; but he must excuse me if I see properto turn to the pages of the old Bible in prefer-ence to the report of this committee. But Iunderstood the honorable Senator to be indict-ing the whole class of property holders in theSouth. I wanted to call the attention of theSenator from Indiana before he made thewholesale charge against the respectable prop-erty-holders of the southern States to thebroad terms of the indictment which he wasmaking against that people. I do not believfethat the declaration of the Senator (worthyand highly as he is honored in his own State,in the Senate, and in the country) will have theeflfect to blast the reputation of the whole south-ern people unless he lays his hands on the factsand shows the evidence on which that opinionis founded.

Mr. PRATT. If the honorable Senator willhear me through, I hope to convince himbefore I am done ; and if he will do the com-mittee the justice to read through the testi-mony, he will find abundance of cases estab-lishing the propositions that I claim here.

Mr. SAULSBURY. Then 1 would suggestto the honorable Senator not to make his in-dictment a wholesale indictment against theproperty-holders of the South. Limit it tothe men who the evidence shows are implicatedin crime.

Mr. PRATT. As I said, sir, before the inter-ruption, in stating the argument of the slave-holders, I have shown who are responsible for

these scourgings for opinion's sake. It is theold ruling class, the men who own the plant-ations and property, the men who must paythe taxes. They are the men most interestedin molding the opinions of voters.

Then in regard to national elections theirinterest is, if possible, still stronger. Theyregard the whole policy of the Republicanparty as having b6en hostile to their class fromits organization. They point to the constitu-tional amendments, the civil rights bill, theFreedmen's Bureau, the test-oath, the penaltiesagainst disloyalty, the enforcement bill, thesuspension of the habkas corpus,

andthe pres-

ence of soldiery in the disturbed districtsand their panacea for all these ills is to putdown the Republican party. That is thedearest wish of the entire Democratic heartin the South. They see no end to whatthey call their grievances except in the over-throw of the party in power. They are thesame men who were so impatient of the re-


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straints of Government that in 1801 theyplunged the country in war and bloodshed,stopping at no measures of unscrupulous vio-lence in order to overthrow the Governmentmany of them had so ofien sworn to maintain.

Now, sir, who shall tell me that this senti-ment of hate toward the party in power, and thislust for the political control they once wielded,are not sufficient motives to account for theseoutrages and fix the responsibility where 1believe, before God, it belongs, upon theseinfluential classes of the South?

Where since the close of the war riots haveoccurred and blood has run in the streets, hasit not been on the eve of elections? Look atthe massacres in Louisiana alone in 1808, whentwo thousand freedmen were slaughtered inorder to carry the election. The negroes holdin their hands the power of determining polit-

ical results not in the State only but in thenation. In three of the States they outnum-ber tlie whites, and in every soutliern Statethey huid the balance of power. If they canLe coerced, intimidated, or cajoled into votingthe Democratic ticket, or prevented from votingat all, then of course the Democrats will suc-ceed, and have things their own way.

This is the key to the whole Ku Klux pro-gramme. Here is motive enough to tix thereS;iuiisibility of these whippings and murders,not only upon Democrats, but upon the intel-lige!it and property-holding class of that party.To be sure, they may employ the poor whitesas their instruments; and who doubts that theydo? But I fix the responsibility on them, andreason and all the proofs show they must bearit. Who would care to incur the risks of thehalter but the men so vitally interested in elec-tion results? Do I press this argument toofar? Alas! sir, we have had melancholyproof what men will do to overturn dynastiesand administrations all along the track of his-tory, culminating in the assassination of thegrca" and good Lincoln. From their stand-point, the old ruling cla^s of the Snuth havethe most powerful motives which can sway

men's minds to obtiiin political ci'uiiol, andthere is no way to do this but to stifle iha negrovote or convert it.

'J'here may be other causes for wiiich thenegroes are visited by the Ku Kliix; we knowthere are ; but I believe tliisthe most commonone. So the negroes v/hipped all say. Sothe motives I have endeavored to set forthdemonstrate. And yet the minority say thereis no political significance in these outrages !

Again, Mr. President, it is said in excuseof the Ku Klux violences that they are in thenature of punishments inflicted because of

misdemeaiiors which the courts will not orcannot punisii by reason of the lack of legalevidence, while the moral proof is suflicient topalisfy Judge Lynch ; or that theoOTensps pun-ished are of a character not cognizable in acourt of law. Thus : a negro has used insult-ing language to a white man, or has refused

to work for him, or has dunned him for hiswages, or sued him in court. Perhaps he hasbought himself a bit of land and ia workingon it ; and not only that, but having freedmenat work for ' im, and to that extent diminish-ing thesupply of laborto the plantation owners.

Or perhaps he is lazy and trifling, or talks toomuch or too loudly of the rights of his people.Perhaps he is a preacher, and suspected ofadvising his race as to their true interest andcourse of action. He may be a bold fellowwho understands what the law has done forhim, and is free to tell his fellow blacks oftheir legal rights, as for instance their right tocarry arms and defend their persons andhomes. He has been so bold as to say insome political harangue that labor has itsrights, and if justice were done the wealth ofthe South, mainly created by his people, should

be divided between the races.All these things in the past have been

deemed valid causes why the obnoxious negroshould be visited and chastised or killed out-right by the Ku Klux. Now, sir, in so far asmisdemeanors are concerned, if there is anyproof they were committed, the courts candeal with them. If there is no proof, or theproof is insufficient, that is the best reason inthe world why punishment should not be in-flicted lest the innocent be confounded withthe guilty.

There is another cause for these out-rages, not the less true because unavowed.They are inflicted often to curb the growingspirit of independence in the colored man ; tohumble his pride ; to teach him his place; toshow him that though a fceedman, citizen, andvoter, he is only so on parchment ; that thereis a power controlling his destiny higher thanconstitutions atid laws ; to teach him that hiscondition is changed in nothing; but name ;that he is still the hewer of wood and drawerof water he was before slavery was abolished,and his status in that respect is not and willnot be changed.

It is sometimes pretended that the Ku Kluxviolences are not punished because of theinefficiency of the carpet-bag court,s ; but theywho make this charge confess its insincerityand untruth when they admit in the next breaththat justice is administered between man andman fairly and without cause of complaint.

Again, it is urged in excuse, where coloredmen confined in jail have been taken out andhanged by a masked mob, as has been fre-quently the case, that this was done to saveany risk of their being cleared on the trial,i'he truth is, there is no trouble in any south-ern court in convicting a negro of a crime

whore the evidence warrants it, and therenever has been ; the danger has been all theother way, that though innocent he would beconvicted.

Now, sir, to go back a step and answer theplea that the Ku Klux outrages have no polit-ical significance. I have given some reasons to


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prove they have. One remains, and that is,that the rule is so general as to be almostuniversal, that the persons who are the objectsof Ku Klux vengeance are all Radicals; andI use the term by which all Republicans are

known and called in the South. I can recallscarcely an exception in the volumes of tes-timony which have been taken. It is a mostsignificant fact, which I wish the v/hole countryto know, that when the negro votes the Demo-cratic ticket he is never Ku Kluxed ; he istaken under protection at once and shieldedfrom harm. It is a talisman, a charm, a signupon the lintel of his door that he is to bepassed over. Hundreds, yes, thousands, sir,of the colored people have bought their peaceand earned their security by voting with theirold masters ; and when they do, all is well withthem. The ghostly troop is seen no more ;they sleep the sleep of security; they are

patronized and kindly treated, restored toconfidence and friendship.

Those who are smart are put forward atDemocratic meetings to speak of the beautyand loveliness of Democratic principles andpractices. Nay, colored orators of the rightstamp are imported from other States by Dem-ocratic committees, as was done at Huntsville,to harangue mixed crowds of white and black.Will ii be credited that in that proud city, theseat of intelligence, wealth, taste, and refine-

ment, during the last presidential canvassprominent Democrats, the rulers in the Dem-ocratic church, actually imported one negrofrom Tennessee and another from furthernorth to address a Democratic political meet-ing? How those white aristocrats applaudedthe sable speakers to the echo. How rever-ently they inclined their ears and heard theDemocratic gospel dispensed by the sweet-scented orators ! Ah, sir, in the stifledatmosphere of that great political gathering,they smelt nothing that was not fragrant andaromatic. There were seen the proud men of

that city, the Athens of the South, her lawyers,editors, and plantation owners, listening withrapt attention to the utterances of these coloredapostles who preached the true faith. Forgotten were the distinctions of color, of caste,and of previous condition. The common causefused the audience into one homogeneouspolitical mass. It, was a political love-teast!

And thus, sir, do I demonstrate that theobjection of southern men is not to the ne-gro's voting, but to his voting the Radicalticket. They would welcome universal suf-frage to day if the colored men would vote with

them.Their real cause of grief is that they

vote with the party which freed them.You have heard, sir, and it has been rung

through the whole country as the originalexcuse for the Ku Klux organization, thatLoyal Leagues were formed among the col-ored people with mi.schievous purposes; thatthey were banded together by oaths; that theywere controlled by unscrupulous carpet-bag-

gers, who inflamed their passions and operatedupon their fears, by persuading them that, theirold masters intended to reduce them again toslavery, and that their only method of escapewas to vote the Republican ticket and fill theoffices with Republicans. But this argumentfails in the certain and well-known fact thatthe purposes of the League were wholly peace-able. There was nothing in its constitutionwhich looked to violence. Its meetings wereheld in daylight in public ))laces, and therewas nothing in the oath taken or proceedingshad which the whole country did not know.

The very idea is absurd that a secret couldbe locked up in an order composed mainly ofignorant, simple-hearted blacks. The whites,suspicious of its objects, took early and char-acteristic measures to possess themselves of

such secrets as there were. In the testimonytaken at Livingston, Alabama, there is a casein point. A Democratic editor for three nightsensconced himself in an adjoining room wherehe could see and hear all that took place, andthe beginning and the end of the whole schemewas to promote by union and consultaiion thesuccess of the Republican party, not by vio-lence, but by persuasion and concert of action.I do not deny that a certain social ostracismwas practiced toward such negroes as votedthe Democratic ticket against the instinctsand convictions of the race ; but that was all;

nothing of violence or intimidation toward thewhites was attempted or counseled.

Again, it has been urged in excuse of theKu Klux order that after the war the negroeswere taught to believe that the country was tobe parceled out among them, at least in part;that each negro was to have his forty acres ofland and a mule; and it is said that unscrupu-lous men went among them and sold thempainted stakes with which to mark the cornersof their land, and that one of the purposes ofthis order was to arrest this dmgerous heresy.I do not deny, sir, that such an idea took a

fast hold on the colored mind. It was sug-gested, no doubt, by the order of GeneralSherman giving the blacks possession of theabandoned sea islands and adjoining coastlands. The practice of the Government in seiz-ing abandoned plantations and leasing themencouraged tlie idea. It had its foundationin the belief that the rebels had forfeited theirlands by their treason, and that the coloredrace, who had iu a great degree been the cre-ators of the wealth of the South, had the bestright to occupy and use the lands their laborhad cleared, fenced, drained, and tilled. Wastheir belief without some foundation injustice?

Mr. President, all the wealth of the worldsprings from the creative power of industry.Need I elaborate this economic axiom? Theprecious stones must be shaped and polishedby the lapidary. The gold and silver oresmust be dug from the bowels of the earth indistant mountains, crushed and separated;and the shining product represents iu its value


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the labor which has produced it. The raahog-ony and black walnut trees standing in the forestrepresent small values until fashioned by laborand skill into costly furniture. The magnifi-cent structures in our cities, what are they butso much clay and stone, iron and wood, wroughtby labor into marvelous forms of usefulness andbeauty ? The great Capitol in which we assem-ble, one of the proudest structures in tlie world,has all been wrought out from the quarry andthe mine. And passing from these works ofmen's hands to the great outlying fields whenceare gathered the fruits which feed and theplants which clothe, and on whose pasturesfeed the animals which furnish food and rai-ment, the same law obtains. For withoutlabor, persistent and intelligent, these werestill bogs, or forests, or unfruiiful lands. Andso in the domains of thought. In yonderlibrary are gathered the products of mentaltoil, from the dawn of civilization. \Vhen Ilisten here daily to the words of wisdom, Iknow that many generations have made theircontributions to the learning which here findsexpression. When I turn to the distinguistiedSenator from Massachusetts on my lett, [Mr.Sumner,] I know that he is the product of thecivilization of twenty centuries, and that hisbands have gleaned the fields of science andliterature of all these ages ; that his labors,joined to the mental toilers who have gone

before him, have made him the scholar and

statesman the country honors.Now, sir, knowing as we do that the slavelabor of tlie South filled it with most of itswealth, should we be surprised that the coloredrace really thought at the close of the war thatit was their right to have a portion ol" the land ?Had not Congress declared that property, bothreal and personal, should be deemed as aban-doned when the owner was absent and en-gaged in rebellion, and directed the sale ofthat which wns personal and the leasing outof the lands? Had they not seen Treasuryagents swarming through the country takingpossession of the property of the enemy, leas-ing plantations, and all in the name of theGovernment? Was it not generally supposedthat confiscation, as one of the punishments oftreason, would be visited on the men who wentvoluntarily into the rebellion and strove todestroy the (io^ernment? 1 do not know, sir,but ihatasastrict measure of justice and to theextent the Constitution would allow, it wouldnot have been right to have confiscated theestates of the leading rebels and [


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second section (page 90, act of 18G5) pro-

vided that all freedmen, free negroes, andmulattoes of Mississippi over the age of eighteen

years found on the second Monday in January,

18G6, or thereafter, with no lawful employmentor business, should be deemed vagrants, and onconviction thereof might be fined as high as fifty

dollars, and imprisoned, ac the discretion ofthe court, not exceeding ten days. Anothersection provided in case the fine imposed wasnot paid in five days and you will notice, sir,it may range as high as fifty dollars the sheriffshould hire the freedman out until his wagespaid fine and costs. If he could not be hired,then he was to be dealt with as a pauper; andhow that was we shall presently see.

It was enacted that as white persons werecompelled to support their paupers, so the

freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes, shouldsupport theirs. To effect this the boards ofcounty police in each county were required tolevy a' poll-tax on each colored person, and as Iread the law, of both sexes, between the agesof eighteen and sixty years, which was to con-stitute a freedmen's pauper fund, and beapplied to the maintenance of the poor. Nowmark what follows. This law provides that ifany one, young or old, no matter what theexcuse, should fail to pay the tax, it shall bedeemed evidence of vagrancy, and the sheriff isrequired to arrest him and hire him out, giving,of course, the preference to the employer.

Again, by another law it was made lawfulfor a freedman to charge a white person byaffidavit with a crime committed on his per-son or property. But mark, sir, the penalty incase the accusation was not maintained, andto use the language of the law ''was falselyand maliciously made:" judgment was to berendered against him for all costs in the case,and a fine and imprisonment might be added,a fine of fifty dollars, and imprisonment in thecounty jail for twenty days. If the fine, costs,and jail fees were not promptly paid by thefreedman, the sherifl'might sell him into slaveryuntil ii-om his wages he could redeem himself.

I might multiply citations from the laws ofthat session. They were all adapted to thatcondition of ignorance, poverty, and helpless-ness of the blacks by which they could beagain reduced substantially to slavery. Thiswas the object of the men who framed thelaws. They had no right to complain that thefriends of the negro told him so when he came

i to be a voter and the question was with whichparty he should cast his vote. And yet, in theface of these laws, great complaint is made

because the freedman was reminded of them,and warned that if by his vote the Democraticparty were installed in power he would bereenslaved. It is a terrible crime in the eyesof these old masters to be told of their hypoc-risy 1 Examine the volumes of the testimonytaken by the committee, and you shall find nocomplaint more frequent or bitter on the partof the men who had lost their slaves thau this

one, that the confidence of the negro in thesincerity and honest purpose of his formermaster was alienated by the teachings of themen who came among them.

I shall notice but a single grievance more,loudly complained of, and then I shall be done.We are told the South has been impoverishedby bad government ; that the taxes are burden-some beyond endurance; that there is noprosperity there ; in fact that a blight has fallenon their country.

It is now but seven years since the warclosed. We know the condition of the Southat that time; that its resources were allwasted, its people impoverished. We know-that the charity of the Government gavethem food. We know that two unfruitful sea-sons followed the war; that the South sentemissaries among the people of the Northasking alms, and that they were freely given.And yet complaint is made that the South isnot restored to its old-time prosperity, and itis set down to misgovernment, to bad laws, tothe policy pursued by Congress. The verystatement of the argument contains the refuta-tion. No allowance is made tor the ravagesof war, for bad seasons, nor for the disturbedcondition of society there, which repelled im-migration, and for which nobody is responsiblebut themselves.

But there is much that is false in the chargeitself. It is true that the basis of taxation hasbeen changed, and the land-owners are nowcompelled to pay their share of taxation whichbefore the war they did not. But 1 deny thatState, county, and city taxation is as high inthe South as in most of the Statesof the North.A reference to the census tables will prove thatin 1870 the rates of taxation were higher inNew York, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, andMissouri, than in the eleven States whichrebelled. The total taxes levied in theseeleven States in that year were but a fraction

upward of thirty-two millions on an assessedvaluation of property of S;2, 206, 440,971, orone cent and a half on the dollar. In the Stateof New York taxes were levied in that yearto the amount of $48,500,000 on an assessedvaluation of $1,967,001,185, being at the rate

of $2 46 on the $100. That single State paidmore taxes than the eleven southern States,by $16,000,000, and on a less property basis.Why, sir, my own State, the smallest, exceptVermont, which has been admitted into theUnion since the Constitution was formed, paidin that same year, 1870, about eleven million

dollars taxes, one third of the entire amountpaid by the eleven insurrectionary States. Theper cent, of tax on the assessed value in Indi-ana was $1 62 on every $100, while in theSouth, as I have stated, it was but $1 50.

It will do very well for unscrupulous politi-cians to make the world believe that the Southhas been eaten up by taxation, but these arethe cold facts as given by the census returns.


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nesses. They control juries in the State courts, andBometimes in the courts of the United States. Sys-tematic perjury is one of the means by which pros-ecutions of the membersare defeated. From inform-ation given by officers of the State and of theUnited States, and by credible private citizens, Iam justified in affirming that the instances of crim-inal violence perpetrated by these combinationswithin the last twelve months, in the above-namedcounties, could be reckoned by thousands."

This is not my language ; it is the languageof a citizen of Georgia, at the time he wroteit, the Attorney General of the United States.

The present Attorney General, on the 19thday of last month also laid before the Presidentthe following communication, which 1 makeno apology for reading at length :

Department of Justice,Washington, April 19, 1872.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge, through

your reference, the receipt of the resol ution reportedby Mr. Poland to the House of Representatives,from the joint select Committee to enquire intothe Condition of the late Insurrectionary States,which was agreed to.

In answer to the first clause of the resolution " inreference to portions of the State of South Caro-lina," I have the honor to inclose herewith a copyof a report made to this Department by Mr. D. T.Corbin, United States attorney for that district,marked Exhibit A. The report contains a list, acopy of which is herewith transmited, "of five hun-dred and one names of persons who have been ar-rested in that State in pursuance of the authorityconferred by act of Congress, approved April 20,1871;" the names of fifty-three persons who volun-tarily confessed in open court that they aj; the timeof confession " were or had been members of thecombinations and conspiracies forbidden and maciepenal by said act;" who pleaded guilty to indict-ment, the number and character ot whose sentencesare annexed; the names of five who were tried byjury at the November. 1871, term of United Statescircuit court, the number and character of whoseindictments and their sentences are annexed; thenames of one hundred and sixty-two persons whowere indicted at the same term of court, but nottried the number and character of whose indict-ments, are annexed ; the names of two hundred andeighty-one persons who were arrested but not tried;the names of one hundred and eighty-five personsliving in York county alone who have been paroledto appear when required, " and who confessed theirconnection with" said conspiracies; the names ofothers who were paroled are found on Exhibit A,

from page3 to

page20 inclusive;

the number andcharacter of offenses forbidden by said " acts namedin said indictme ts, or ascertained by confessions orother information," being ninety-one conspiraciesunder sections six and seven, act of May 31, 1870,thirty-one conspiracies under section two, act ofApril 20, 1871, including eleven prosecutions formurder, said offenses having " been committed inthe respective counties in which the privilege of thewrit of habeas corpiin has been suspended in theState of South Carolina," and "the dates of saidalleged offenses" being stated on pages from 20 to30 of Exhibit A, in the third column.

Other information relative to the execution of thelaws in these counties is found in the letter of theUnited States attorney, marked Exhibit B.

Exhibit C contains a copy of report by Mr. D. H.Starbuck, United States attorney for North Caro-lina. It presents a list of the names of thirty-sevenpersons who were convicted or pleaded guilty ofviolations of the acts of Congress approved April 20,1871, and May 31, 1870, with their sentences annexed ;the names of nine hundred and forty-four otherpersons indicted at Raleigh for similar violations.

There are one hundred and five indictments onthe docket, embracing the larger number of personsmentioned above for conspiracies.

The report marked Exhibit D details the necessityfor an enforcement of the laws in North Carolinafor the security of life and person and property.

The United States attorney for the southern dis-trict of Mississippi reports, in regard to the enforce-ment of the acts aforementioned in his district, alist of one hundred and fifty-two names of personsindicted in the United States courts, with theoffenses charged against each. This report is datedFebruary 17, 1872, and marked Exhibit E.

The United states attorney for the northern dis-trict, G. Willey Wells, esq., reports four hundred andninety names of persons who have been indicted*;two hundred of persons arrested ; one hundred andseventy-two of persons arrested and bound over;twenty-eight of persons who pleaded guilty; four-teen of persons who confessed and gave State'sevidence; which facts are shown by his report,marked Exhibit F.

Ilaving no facilities for obtaining information rel-ative to the security of life, person, and property inthe States mentioned in the resolution, otherwisothan by reports from the officers of this Department,I addressed communications to the several districtattorneys asking for information upon this subjectas to their districts, and I inclose herewith copies of

their reports, marked Exhibits G, H, I, J, K.Reference is also made to the evidence taken uponthe trials of persons charged with violations of thelaw in different United States courts in said States,some of which has been published and is now in thepossession of the jointSelect Committee on SouthernOutrages.

For answer to that part of the resolution askingfor "all information relative to the existing conflictbetween office-holders in Louisiana." I would re-spectfully invite attention to the inclosed copies oftelegrams and communications, marked Exhibit L,as furnishing all the information in the possessionof this Department in relation to this matter.

Very respectfully, your obpdient servant,GEO. H. WILLIAMS.

Attorney General.The President.

It would consume too much time to read thevarious reports of the district attorneys fromwhich the summary of the AttorneyGeneral ismade up, and 1 must content myself with areference to two only. The district attorneyof South Carolina, in a letter dated February20 last, uses this language:

"In regard to the execution of the State laws, Ihave to say that not a single instance of successfulprosecution of a Ku Klux outrage in any State courthas come to my knowledge. On the other hand, Ihave heard of several attempts to prosecute; butin each instance there was a lamentable failure.Unquestionably, the laws of this State, if they could

be enforced, furnish ample means for the prosecu-tion and punishment of these Ku Klux outrages;but from the nature of the offenses, and the numberof the white inhabitants engaged in them, it isutterly impossible, in my judgment, to successfullyprosecute in the State courts in any of the counties,"

The district attorney of North Carolina, ina letter to the Attorney General of the 24thof January last, uses this language:

Office United States Attorney,Salem, North Carolina, Ftbrv.arp 24, 1872.

Sir: * * * * These indictments arefor conspiracies to commit deeds of violence or terror,to deter and drive from the ballot-box Union men,and to destroy the freedom of elections, to enablethe enemies of the Union, through their secret, oath-bound, midnight organizations, to obtain (withoutopen revolt) as complete and effectual control overthe State as they maintained by open warfare duringthe rebellion.

The evidence in these cases discloses the horridfacts of the tearing of fathers, sons, and brothersfrom the bosom of their families at the hour ot mid-night, and the infliction upon their naked flesh ofthe torture and the lash, the brutal exposure ofhelpless females, and, occasionally, the commissionof murder by bands of disguised men to make theirintimidations the more emphatic.


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Indeed, every means which the most fertile ima-gination of these fiendish monsters and enemiesof the Union oould invent have been resorted to toinspire the Unionists with fear and terror, and todestroy their freedom of thought, action, and man-hood.

Had it not been for the passage of said acts ofCongress and the active enforcement of them thespirit of treason would to-day revel in high carnivalover the entire South, and effectually crush out andoverawe the Union sentiment of the southern coun-try, as it did in the days of the rebel government.

But the conviction of a number of these persons,and their punishment, and the indictment of thislarge number of others, together with the exerciseby the President of the right to suspend the writ ofhabeas corpus in such localities where treason hasusurped such dominion as to render the civil au-thorities powerless or insufficient to enforce the law,seem for the present to have broken the power ofthis widespread conspiracv against the friends ofthe Union in the South. Yet the utmost vigilancein the rigid enforcement of these acts of Congressis and will be necessary to suppress the spirit oftreason lurking in the hearts of the disaffected andtreacherous enemies of the Government, and to pre-serve the freedom of the citizen in the full and freeexercise and enjoyment of the elective franchiseand the rights and immunities of citizenship.

I am, very respectfully, yours. &c..D. H. STARBUCK.

District Attorney for North Carolina.Hon. George H. Williams,

Attorney General United States, Washington.

This, sir, is not my language; it is the lan-guage of Mr. Starbuck, present district attor-ney for North Carolina.

Pardon me, Mr. President, before con-cluding the documentary proofs showing thenecessity of the legislation by Congress andthe vindication of the President in whathe has done in suspending the privilege

of the writ of habeas corpus, in adducingone further piece of evidence. I veill nowsubmit the facts presented by the grand juryof the United States circuit court at itsrecent term at Columbia, in South Caro-lina. It is a summing up of the wholeKu Klux troubles in that State. It estab-lishes three facts to which before read-ing the presentment I desire to draw theattention of the Senate: first, that the mem-berHhij) of the Ku Klux Klan in that Staleembraces a large proportion of the whole pop-ulation of every profession and class; second,that for the violations of law and order andthe sacred rights of citizens the leading influ-ential men were responsible, being frequentlymembers of the order; third, that the opera-tions of the Ku Klux were invariably directedagainst members of the llepublican party, bywarnings to leave the country, by wiiippings,and by murder. This is the presentment ofthe grand jury :

/'resrnlmiiit of the (Irnnd Jury.

To the Judii'X of the Un iteil Sltttrx cinuit court :In cloning the labors of the present term, the grand

jury beg leave to submit the lollowiiig proseutuiont:during the whole .ses.-ion Wf have been engaged ininvestigations of llii' iiio.st grave and extraordinarycharacter invc-'tigations of the crimes committedby the organization known as the Ivu Klux Klan.The evidence eliciti;d \\;\. been voluminous, gatheredfrom the victims themselves and t heir families, aswell as those who belong to the Klan and partici-pated in its crimes. The jury has been shockedbeyond measure at the developments which have

been made in their presence of th number andcharacter of the atrocities committed, producing astate of terror and a sense of utter insecurity amonga large portion of the people, especially the coloredpopulation. The evidence produced before us hasestablished the following facts:

1. That there has existed since 1868, in many coun-ties of the State, an organization known as the '" KuKlux Klan," or "Invisible Empire of the South,"which embraces in its membership a large propor-tion of the white populationof every profession and

2. That this Klan, bound together by an oath,administered to its members at the time of theirinitiation into the order, of which the following is acopy

Obligation.

"I, [name,] before the immaculate Judge of heavenand earth, and upon the holy evangelists of AlmightyGod. do, of my own free will and accord, subscribeto the following sacredly binding obligation:

"1. We are on the side of justice, humanity, andconstitutional liberty, as bequeathed to us in itspurity by our forefathers.

'2. We oppose and reject the principles of theRadical party.

"3.

Wepledge mutual aid to each other in sick-

ness, distress, and pecuniary embarrassment."4. Female friends, widows, and their households,

shall ever be special objects of our regard and pro-tection.

"Any member divulging, or causing to be divulged,any of the foregoing obligations, shall meet thefearful penalty and traitor's doom, which is death,death, death 1"

That in addition to this oath the Klan has a con-stitution and by-laws, which i)rovidcs, among otherthings, that each member shall furnish himselfwith a pistol, a Ku Klux gown, and a signal instru-ment. That the operations of the Klan were exe-cuted in the night, and were invariably directedagainst members of the Republican party by warn-ings to leave the country, by whippings, and bymurder.

3. That in large portions of the counties of York,Union, and Spartanburg, to which our attentionhas been more particularly called in our investiga-tions, during part of the time for the l:ut eighteenmonths the civil law has been set at defiance, andceased to afford protection to the citizens.

4. That the Klan, in carrying out the purposes forwhich it was organized and armed, inflicted sum-mary vengeance on the colored citizens of thesecounties, by breaking into their houses at the deadof night, dragging them from their beds, torturingthem in the most inhuman manner, and ia manyinstances murdering them; and this, mainly, on ac-count of their political affiliations. Occasionallyadditional reasons operated, but in no instance wasthe political feature wanting.

5. That for this condition of things, for all theseviolations of law and order, and the sacred rightsof citizens, many of the leading men of those coun-ties were responsible. It was proven that largenumbers of the most prominent citizens were mem-bers of the order. Many of this class attendedmeetings of the Grand Klan. At a meeting of theGrand Klan, held in Spai taiiliiir^c county, at whichthere were reprc'scnl alu c< tidiii the various dens ofSi)artanburg, York, I'lii.iii, nnd (jliester counties,in this State, besides a iiumborlroin North Carolina,a resolution was adopted that no raids should bo un-dertaken, or any imo whipped or injured by mem-bers of the Klan, without orders from the GrandKlan. The penalty for violating this resolution wasone hundred lashes on the bare back for the firstofl'ense, and for the second, death. This testimonyestablishes the nature of the discipline enforced inthe order, and also the fact that many of the menwho were openly and publicly speaking against the

i Klan, and pretending to deplore the work of thismurderous conspiracy, were influential members 9fthe order, and directing its operations even in detail.

The jury has been appalled as much at the num-ber of outrages as at their character, it appearingthat eleven murders and over six hundred whip-l)ings have been committed in York county alone.


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when Congress enacted laws, and the Presi-dent put them in force calculated to hurtthe enemy and directed against the same mennow engaged in this minor rebellion. Therewas scarcely a law proposed lor the vigorousprosecution of the war which did not encounter

the opposition of the Democratic party, andwhich was not denounced as unconstitutionalby Democratic organs all over the country.And it was so as to every law enacted tosecure the results of the war and give equalrights to those who had been in slavery.It was so a year ago when the remedy givenby this bill and which has proved so potentfor good was proposed and enacted into a law.

And yet, despite the gloomy forebodings weheard then, the public liberties have beenpreserved, the country has enjoyed a highdegree of prosperity, and nobody has beendisturbed in the enjoyment of his lawfulrights. Nobody has been hurt by the denial

of this writ of habeas corpus except the crim-inal men whom the courts have been able topunish by reason of its suspension. Let thesegentlemen croak on ; it is their occupationand stock in trade. We shall never do vio-lence to this sacred instrument while in thefuture, as in the past, we legisla'e to secureto all and everywhere the blesi-ings of life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.


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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

013 744 729 o

p6i2nulife

pH83

extension of ku klux act (speech of hon. daniel d. pratt)

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