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 CHAPTER IX

KU-KLUX OUTRAGES

It does not fall within the limits of our subject to go into the general history of Ku-Klux Klan. This mysterious organization originated in Tennessee, but it soon spread beyond the borders of the State, and became the organ of all those who believed in resorting to violent measures to secure the emancipation of the Southern States from negro and carpetbag domination. Its history, therefore, belongs under the general history of Reconstruction. Nevertheless, the study of the civil disturbances in Tennessee resulting from the war would indeed be incomplete without some account of the operation of the Ku-Klux within the borders of the State. It formed the chief occasion for interferences with civil liberty, as well as for congressional legislation, which rendered the Radical government so hateful in the eyes of the ex-Confederates.

The first official reference to disturbances of an extraordinary character is found in Governor Brownlow's first message to the Legislature. In this, he calls the attention of the Legislature to "the roving bands of guerrillas and squads of robbers and murderers who frequent those counties remote from the military forces." He recommended that the criminal law of the State be so revised as to make house-stealing, and house-breaking, and highway robbery punishable with death. Acting upon his recommendations, the Legislature, in May, 1865, passed a bill to punish "all armed Prowlers, Guerrillas, Brigands, and Highway Robbers." But as yet there were no indications, either in the message of the Governor or the action of the Legislature, that these early disturbances were of a political character.