Reconstruction

by Brooks D. Simpson

  The truth of the matter tells against Mr. Elliott’s position. The Ku-Klux are generally wild youngsters, badly trained and naturally reckless of moral and legal restraints, but often sons, or nephews, or cousins, of those who are excluded from office by their part in the Rebellion. This exclusion is a part of the raiders’ excuse for their crimes. They see those whom they most respect and honor proscribed for acts which they esteem righteous and patriotic; and they are impelled thereby to revenge themselves on those whom they regard as the abettors and upholders of this injustice. Mr. Elliott’s speech will confirm many in this malevolent and mischievous impression. “These niggers around us,” they will say, “profess all manner of good will and kindly feeling toward their White neighbors; but that fellow in Congress betrays their real animus. Only give them power, and they would disfranchise all who are not Black.” Mr. Elliott, we doubt not, is well-meaning; but he has done his race lasting harm by his first demonstration in the House. His allusion to Gen. Farnsworth as a sympathiser with the Rebellion was exceedingly injudicious and unfortunate.

  Congress ought not to adjourn without passing a generous measure of Amnesty and an efficient Ku-Klux suppression act. Each is needed and would prove signally beneficent. But, if Amnesty must still be waited for, the need of legislation aimed at the Ku-Klux becomes still more urgent and imperative. Amnesty would do somewhat toward disarming and dissolving the Ku-Klux; its failure will embitter thousands, and thus inflame the spirit which keeps that organization alive, active, and formidable. We entreat Congress not to adjourn without having accorded all the security that repressive laws can give to the imperiled loyalists of the South.

  New-York Tribune, March 16, 1871

  MR. ELLIOTT ON THE KU-KLUX OUTRAGES.

  To the Editor of The Tribune.

  SIR: In your issue of yesterday, you were pleased to bring under review, my brief remarks made in the House of Representatives last Tuesday, on the bill to relieve certain classes of persons of their political disabilities, introduced by Mr. Beck of Kentucky. The editorial, to which I refer, contains many errors of fact and reasoning, and as I feel assured that you intended to be just in your criticism, I respectfully request the privilege of your columns for a response.

  I did not assert that “the Ku-Klux disturbers of the South are the very class of men whom it is proposed to relieve of their political disabilities.” My views upon this point are embodied in the following extract from the speech to which you refer, as it appears, unamended by me, in The Congressional Globe of the 15th inst.:

  “The gentleman from Illinois, in his argument, was pleased to ask this question, which he proposed to answer himself: Are these men who are disfranchised, and prohibited from holding office, the men who commit the murders and outrages of which complaint is made? And his answer to that question was that they are not. But permit me to say to that gentleman that those men are responsible for every murder, responsible for every species of outrage, that is committed in the South. They are men who, in their evil example, by their denunciations of Congress, by their abuse of the President of the United States, and of all connected with this Government, have encouraged, aided, and abetted the men who commit these deeds. They contribute to this state of things by their social influence, by their money and the money sent from the Northern States—money furnished by Tammany Hall for the purpose of keeping up these outrages in order to insure a Democratic triumph in the South in 1872.”

  In proof that I was warranted in expressing the opinion that the armed bands who murder unoffending citizens because of their political opinions in the Southern States, derive more aid and comfort from the so-called “respectable” portion of the section in which they act, I submit the following letter which appeared in The Columbia (S. C.) Daily Union on last Tuesday, the very day on which that opinion was uttered.

  WINNSBORO, Monday, March 13, 1871.

  To the Editor of The Daily Union:

  Information has just been received here that two members of Capt. Jacob Moore’s company of militia, Hilliard Ellison and Thomas Johnson by names, were attacked in their houses yesterday morning, before day, by the Ku-Klux, and Hilliard Ellison was shot through the back and mortally wounded, and Thomas Johnson had his thigh shattered. There is no hope whatever of Hilliard Ellison. And it may be but proper to state that there are men of influence and wealth in this county, who are well known, who are in full sympathy with these deeds of violence, that are getting to be of nightly occurrence, and that have so disgraced the up-country of late. This took place about seven miles west of this place.

  Permit me to add, upon this point, that your own admission, in the editorial above referred to, fully justifies the opinion that has made me obnoxious to your harsh criticism, for you state: “The Ku-Klux are often sons, or nephews, or cousins, of those who are excluded from office by their part in the Rebellion.” Surely, then, it was not a very violent presumption that these gentlemen should sympathize with their kindred, and give them a moral, and, if need be, a material support?

  You state further, in speaking of the Ku-Klux: “They see those whom they most respect and honor proscribed for acts which they esteem righteous and patriotic, and they are impelled thereby to revenge themselves on those whom they regard as abettors and upholders of this injustice.” I must say, Mr. Editor, that this language would better befit the lips of an advocate endeavoring to “make the worse appear the better cause” in a defense of these masked murderers before a petit jury than the pages of THE NEW-YORK TRIBUNE. Your argument proves too much, and therefore proves nothing. If to continue the political disabilities imposed by the XIVth Amendment upon certain classes in the South is to “embitter thousands, and thus inflame the spirit which keeps that organization” (the Ku-Klux) “alive, active, and formidable,” then the adoption of that amendment, which THE TRIBUNE advocated so earnestly, was itself a grave mistake. Those who advocated the evacuation of Fort Sumter by the Union forces, and subsequently urged our Government to recognize the independence of the so-called Confederate States, in the “interest of peace,” fortified their opinions by a similar train of reasoning. Doubtless this is the true humanitarian mode of dealing with this matter. Doubtless, Congress should conform its legislation to the tender sensibilities of those who murder American citizens for their “opinion’s sake;” yet it would seem to be decent and proper that the Government should withhold its act of grace and amnesty to the murderer until the grass springs upon the graves of the murdered.

  Those loyal men who dwell among the scenes of violence now being enacted in South Carolina, in momentary expectation of murder, exile, or the lash, will deem amnesty an untimely grace, while the path of duty is the path of danger to the Southern Republican. Your editorial will not brighten the hopes or fortify the resolution of the loyal citizen of South Carolina, who is today,

  “A hunted seeker of the Truth,

  Oppressed for conscience sake.”

  Possibly, Mr. Editor, your graciousness to recalcitrant Confederates, would be somewhat modified if you lived, as I do, within the theater of their operations. The law of safe distances frequently molds our judgments in regard to men and their acts. Men often bear the misfortunes of their neighbors with great equanimity, and are ready most graciously to forgive wrongs to which they cannot be personally subjected. Thus the philosopher Seneca, seated in his magnificent villa, surrounded by symbols of opulence, wrote upon tablets of gold, his famous “Essay on the Beauties and Advantages of Poverty.” You reason, Mr. Editor, upon the Ku-Klux in the abstract, while I view them as living realities, who show no mercy and, therefore, deserve none.

  You are also mistaken in your statement that I made an “allusion to Gen. Farnsworth as a sympathizer with the Rebellion.” On the contrary, I spoke of him as “a man whom I have been taught long to regard as one of those who are unflinching in their devotion to the cause of liberty and the preservation and maintenance of this great Government.” I know Gen. ­Farnsworth as a Republican too well, and appre
ciate his services to the country and to my own race too highly, to cast the aspersion of “sympathizing with the Rebellion” upon him; nor do I believe that he so understood me. When, however, he presented an argument in favor of the bill then under discussion, drawing a parallel between the former master now disfranchised, and the former slave now enfranchised, I stated that he sympathized with the first in his present disfranchisement. In this, I differed from him, for I deem it safer for this Republican to intrust the ballot to ignorant loyalty rather than to cultivated treason. I am, Sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

  ROBERT B. ELLIOTT.

  Washington, D. C., March 17, 1871.

  New-York Tribune, March 21, 1871

  PROTECTING RIGHTS:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 1871

  Joseph H. Rainey:

  Speech in Congress on the Enforcement Bill

  MR. SPEAKER, in approaching the subject now under consideration I do so with a deep sense of its magnitude and importance, and in full recognition of the fact that a remedy is needed to meet the evil now existing in most of the southern States, but especially in that one which I have the honor to represent in part, the State of South Carolina. The enormity of the crimes constantly perpetrated there finds no parallel in the history of this Republic in her very darkest days. There was a time when the early settlers of New England were compelled to enter the fields, their homes, even the very sanctuary itself, armed to the full extent of their means. While the people were offering their worship to God within those humble walls their voices kept time with the tread of the sentry outside. But, sir, it must be borne in mind that at the time referred to civilization had but just begun its work upon this continent. The surroundings were unpropitious, and as yet the grand capabilities of this fair land lay dormant under the fierce tread of the red man. But as civilization advanced with its steady and resistless sway it drove back those wild cohorts and compelled them to give way to the march of improvement. In course of time superior intelligence made its impress and established its dominion upon this continent. That intelligence, with an influence like that of the sun rising in the east and spreading its broad rays like a garment of light, gave life and gladness to the dark and barbaric land of America.

  Surely, sir, it were but reasonable to hope that this sacred influence should never have been overshadowed, and that in the history of other nations, no less than in our own past, we might find beacon-lights for our guidance. In part this has been realized, and might have reached the height of our expectations if it had not been for the blasting effects of slavery, whose deadly pall has so long spread its folds over this nation, to the destruction of peace, union, and concord. Most particularly has its baneful influence been felt in the South, causing the people to be at once restless and discontented. Even now, sir, after the great conflict between slavery and freedom, after the triumph achieved at such a cost, we can yet see the traces of the disastrous strife and the remains of disease in the body-politic of the South. In proof of this witness the frequent outrages perpetrated upon our loyal men. The prevailing spirit of the Southron is either to rule or to ruin. Voters must perforce succumb to their wishes or else risk life itself in the attempt to maintain a simple right of common manhood.

  The suggestions of the shrewdest Democratic papers have proved unavailing in controlling the votes of the loyal whites and blacks of the South. Their innuendoes have been evaded. The people emphatically decline to dispose of their rights for a mess of pottage. In this particular the Democracy of the North found themselves foiled and their money needless. But with a spirit more demon-like than that of a Nero or a Caligula, there has been concocted another plan, destructive, ay, diabolical in its character, worthy only of hearts without regard for God or man, fit for such deeds as those deserving the name of men would shudder to perform. Is it asked, what are those deeds? Let those who liberally contributed to the supply of arms and ammunition in the late rebellious States answer the question. Soon after the close of the war there had grown up in the South a very widely-spread willingness to comply with the requirements of the law. But as the clemency and magnanimity of the General Government became manifest once again did the monster rebellion lift its hydra head in renewed defiance, cruel and cowardly, fearing the light of day, hiding itself under the shadow of the night as more befitting its bloody and accursed work.

  I need not, Mr. Speaker, recite here the murderous deeds committed both in North and South Carolina. I could touch the feelings of this House by the story of widows and orphans now wandering amid the ravines of the rural counties of my native State seeking protection and maintenance from others who are yet unable, on account of their own poverty, to grant them aid. I could dwell upon the sorrows of poor women, with their helpless infants, cast upon the world, homeless and destitute, deprived of their natural protectors by the red hand of the midnight assassin. I could appeal to you, members upon this floor, as husbands and fathers, to picture to yourselves the desolation of your own happy firesides should you be suddenly snatched away from your loved ones. Think of gray-haired men, whose fourscore years are almost numbered, the venerated heads of peaceful households, without warning murdered for political opinion’s sake. In proof I send to the desk the following article and ask the Clerk to read. It is taken from the Spartanburg (South Carolina) Republican, March 29, 1871.

  The Clerk read as follows:

  “Horrible Attempt at Murder by Disguised Men.—One of the most cowardly and inhuman attempts at murder known in the annals of crime was made last Wednesday night, the 22d instant, by a band of disguised men upon the person of Dr. J. Winsmith at his home about twelve miles from town. The doctor, a man nearly seventy years of age, had been to town during the day and was seen and talked with by many of our citizens. Returning home late, he soon afterward retired, worn out and exhausted by the labors of the day. A little after midnight he was aroused by some one knocking violently at his front door. The knocking was soon afterward repeated at his chamber door, which opens immediately upon the front yard. The doctor arose, opened the door, and saw two men in disguise standing before him. As soon as he appeared one of the men cried out, ‘Come on, boys! Here’s the damned old rascal.’ The doctor immediately stepped back into the room, picked up two single-barreled pistols lying upon the bureau, and returned to the open door. At his reappearance the men retreated behind some cedar trees standing in the yard. The doctor, in his night clothes, boldly stepped out into the yard and followed them. On reaching the trees he fired, but with what effect he does not know. He continued to advance, when twenty or thirty shots were fired at him by men crouched behind an orange hedge. He fired his remaining pistol and then attempted to return to the house. Before reaching it, however, he sank upon the ground exhausted by the loss of blood, and pain, occasioned by seven wounds which he had received in various parts of his body. As soon as he fell the assassins mounted their horses and rode away.

  “The doctor was carried into the house upon a quilt, borne by his wife and some colored female servants. The colored men on the premises fled on the approach of the murderers, and the colored women being afraid to venture out, Mrs. Winsmith herself was obliged to walk three quarters of a mile to the house of her nephew, Dr. William Smith, for assistance. The physician has been with Dr. Winsmith day and night since the difficulty occurred, and thinks, we learn, that there is a possible chance of the doctor’s recovery.

  “The occasion of this terrible outrage can be only the fact that Dr. Winsmith is a Republican. One of the largest land-holders and tax-payers in the county, courteous in manner, kind in disposition, and upright and just in all his dealings with his fellow-men, he has ever been regarded as one of the leading citizens of the county. For many years prior to the war he represented the people in the Legislature, and immediately after the war he was sent to the senate. Because he has dared become a Republican, believing that in the doctrines of true republicanism only can the State and country find lasting peace and prosperity, he has become t
he doomed victim of the murderous Ku Klux Klan.

  “The tragedy has cast a gloom over the entire community, and while we are glad to say that it has generally been condemned, yet we regret to state that no step has yet been taken to trace out and punish the perpetrators of the act. The judge of this circuit is sitting on his bench; the machinery of justice is in working order; but there can be found no hand bold enough to set it in motion. The courts of justice seem paralyzed when they have to meet such issues as this. Daily reports come to us of men throughout the country being whipped; of school-houses for colored children being closed, and of parties being driven from their houses and their families. Even here in town there are some who fear to sleep at their own homes and in their own beds. The law affords no protection for life and property in this county, and the sooner the country knows it and finds a remedy for it, the better it will be. Better a thousand times the rule of the bayonet than the humiliating lash of the Ku Klux and the murderous bullet of the midnight assassin.”

  Mr. RAINEY. The gentleman to whom reference is made in the article read, is certainly one of the most inoffensive individuals I have ever known. He is a gentleman of refinement, culture, and sterling worth, a Carolinian of the old school, an associate of the late Hon. John C. Calhoun, being neither a pauper nor a pensioner, but living in comparative affluence and ease upon his own possessions, respected by all fair-minded and unprejudiced citizens who knew him. Accepting the situation, he joined the Republican party in the fall of 1870; and for this alliance, and this alone, he has been vehemently assailed and murderously assaulted. By all the warm and kindly sympathies of our common humanity, I implore you to do something for this suffering people, and stand not upon the order of your doing. Could I exhume the murdered men and women of the South, Mr. Speaker, and array their ghastly forms before your eyes, I should not need remove the mantle from them, because their very presence would appeal, in tones of plaintive elo­quence, which would be louder than a million tongues. They could indeed—