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Those were hard times for us; for it must be remembered that this was in the days of reconstruction and the Ku-Klux-Klan, and if to this be added the fact that my father, a young and inexperienced man, had started out with a family of six on his hands, some idea of the situation may be had. I can recall having been without food many a day, and the pangs of hunger drove me almost to desperation.
A special Act of Congress was passed to put down the Ku-Klux-Klan, and the victorious army of the Union was again sent South to carry it into execution. But this time it found an enemy more invulnerable than Lee had been invulnerable because invisible. The whole white population was in the conspiracy and kept its secrets.
Negroid Governments survived in three only South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. For these the end came four years later. The professional politicians of the North, whose motive for supporting the indefensible régime established by the Reconstruction Act has already been noted, used, of course, the "atrocities" of the Ku-Klux-Klan as electioneering material in the North.
Later the Ku-Klux-Klan for such is ever the peril of Secret Societies and the great argument against them when not demanded by imperative necessity began to abuse its power. Reputable people dropped out of it, and traitors were found in its ranks. About 1872 it disappeared. But its work was done. In the great majority of the Southern States the voting power of the Negro was practically eliminated.
The mighty secret society called the Ku-Klux-Klan was justified by the only thing that can justify secret societies gross tyranny and the denial of plain human rights. The method they employed was the method so often employed by oppressed peoples and rarely without success the method by which the Irish peasantry recovered their land. It was to put fear into the heart of the oppressor.
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