The morning papers one day brought news of several fresh Ku Klux outrages, beatings, shootings, hanging.

Mr. Dinsmore read the account aloud at the breakfast table, and again made some remarks against the organization.

Calhoun listened in silence, then as Mr. Dinsmore laid the paper down, “Uncle,” said he doubtfully, and with downcast troubled look, “don’t you think the reconstruction acts form some excuse for the starting of such an organisation?”

“Let the facts answer,” returned Mr. Dinsmore:  “the organization existed as early as 1866; the reconstruction acts were passed in March, 1867."[D]

[Footnote D:  See Reports of Congressional Committee of Investigation.]

“Ah, yes, sir, I had forgotten the dates; I’ve heard that reason given; and another excuse is the fear of a conspiracy among the negroes to rob and murder the whites:  and I think you can’t deny that they are thievish.”

“I don’t deny, Cal, that some individuals among them have been guilty of lawless acts, particularly stealing articles of food; but they are poor and ignorant; have been kept in ignorance so long that we cannot reasonably expect in them a very strong sense of the rights of property and the duty of obedience to law; yet I have never been able to discover any indications of combined lawlessness among them.  On the contrary they are themselves fearful of attack.”

“Well, sir, then there were those organizations in the other—­the Republican party; the Union Leagues and Redstrings.  I’ve been told the Ku Klux Klan was gotten up in opposition to them.”

“I presume so, but Union Leaguers and Redstrings do not go about in disguise, robbing, beating, murdering.”

“But then the carpet-baggers,” said Calhoun, waxing warm, “putting mischief into the negroes’ heads, getting into office and robbing the state in the most shameless wholesale manner; they’re excuse enough for the doings of the Ku Klux.”

“Ah!” said his uncle, “but you forget that their organization was in existence before the robberies of the state began:  also that they do not trouble corruptionists:  and why? because they are men of both parties; some of them men who direct and control, and might easily suppress the Klan.  No, no, Cal, judged out of their own mouths, by their words to their victims, with some of whom I have conversed, their ruling motives are hostility to the Government, to the enjoyment of the negro of the rights given him by the amendments to the Constitution, and by the laws which they are organized to oppose.[E] Their real object is the overthrow of the State governments and the return of the negro to bondage.  And tell me, Cal, do you look upon these midnight attacks of overpowering numbers of disguised men upon the weak and helpless, some of them women, as manly deeds?  Is it a noble act for white men to steal from the poor ignorant black his mule, his arms, his crops, the fruit of his hard labor?”