not only not fitted for the cares of selfcontrol, and maintenance so suddenly thrust upon them, but many of them entered their new role in life under the delusion that freedom meant license. They regarded themselves as freedmen, not only from bondage to former masters, but from the common and ordinary obligations of citizenship. Many of them Mooked upon obedience to the laws of the state which had been framed by their former owners-as in some measure a compromise of the rights with which they had been invested. The administration of civil law was only partially re-established. On that account, and for other reasons, there was an amount of disorder and violence prevailing over the country which has never been equaled at any period of its history. If the officers of the law had had the disposition and ability to arrest all law-breakers, a jail and court-house in every civil district would have been required.

The depredations on property by theft and by wanton destruction for the gratification of petty revenge, were to the last degree annoying. A large part of these depredations was the work of bad white

men, who expected that their lawless deeds would be credited to the negroes. But perhaps the most potent of all causes which brought about this transformation was the existence in the South of a spurious and perverted form of the "Union League."

It would be as unfair to this organization as it existed at the North, to charge it with the outrages committed under cover of its name, as it is to hold the Ku Klux Klan responsible for all the lawlessness and violence with which it is credited.

But it is a part of the history of those times that there was a widespread and desperately active organization called the "Union League." It was composed of the disorderly element of the negro population and was led and controlled by white men of the basest and meanest type just now referred to. They met frequently, went armed to the teeth, and literally "breathed out threatening and slaughter." They not only uttered, but

1 Sometimes called "Loyal League." See in regard to this secret society-Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, Ch. 16, and (West Virginia University) Documents relating to Reconstruction, No. 3.-Editor.

in many instances executed the most violent threats against the persons, families and property of men, whose sole crime was that they had been in the Confederate army. It cannot be truthfully denied that the Ku Klux committed excesses and were charged with wrongdoing. But they were never guilty of the disorderly and unprovoked deeds of deviltry which mark the history of the Southern "Union League." It was partly, I may say chiefly, to resist this aggressive and belligerent organization that the Ku Klux transformed themselves into a protective organization.1

Whatever may be the judgment of history, those who know the facts will ever remain firm in the conviction that the Ku Klux Klan was of immense service at this period of Southern history. Without it, in many sections of the South, life to decent people would not have been tolerable. It served a good purpose. Wherever the Ku Klux appeared the

1 On this point the testimony of Generals Forrest, John B. Gordon and E. W. Pettus, and J. A. Minnis, in the Ku Klux Report, is instructive. -Editor.

effect was salutary. For a while the robberies ceased. The lawless class assumed the habits of good behavior.

The "Union League" relaxed its desperate severity and became more moderate. Under their fear of the dreaded Ku Klux,, the negroes made more progress, in a few months, in the needed lessons of self-control, industry, and respect for the rights of property and general good behavior, than they would have done in as many years, but for this or some equally powerful impulse.

It was a rough and a dangerous way to teach such lessons, but under all the circumstances it seemed the only possible

way.

Of course, these men were trying a dangerous experiment. Many of them knew it at the time, and did not expect it on the whole to turn out more successfully than others of a similar character. But there seemed to be no other alternative at the time. Events soon occurred which showed that the fears of those who apprehended danger were not groundless, and it became evident, unless the Klan should be brought under better control

than its leaders at this time exercised over it, that while it suppressed some evils, it would give rise to others almost, if not fully, as great.1

1 Pease, "In the Wake of War," (fiction) gives a very good description of affairs in Tennessee by one who was thoroughly familiar with conditions there.