people of the land in maintaining and upholding the civil laws, and in putting down lawlessness. This proclamation was directed to all Realms, Dominions, Provinces and "Dens" in "the Empire." It is reasonably certain that there were portions of the Empire never reached by it. The Klan was widely scattered and the facilities for communication exceedingly poor. The Grand Wizard was a citizen of Tennessee. Under the statute just now quoted newspapers were forbidden to publish anything emanating from the Klan. So that there was no way in which this proclamation could be generally disseminated. Where it was promulgated, obedience to it was prompt and implicit. Whether obeyed or not, this proclamation terminated the Klan's organized existence as decisively and completely as General Lee's last general order, on the morning of the 10th of April, 1865, disbanded the army of Northern Virginia. When the office of Grand Wizard was created and its duties defined, it was explicitly provided that he should have "the power to determine questions of paramount importance, and his decision shall be final." To continue the organization or to disband it was such a question. He decided in favor of disbanding, and so ordered. Therefore the Ku Klux Klan had no organized existence after March, 1869.1 The report of the Congressional Investigating Committee contains some disreputable history, which belongs to a later date, and is attributed to the Klan, but not justly so. For several years, after March, 1869, the papers reported and commented on "Ku Klux outrages" committed at various points. The authors of these outrages may have acted in the name of the Klan, and under its disguises; it may be that in some cases they were men who had been Ku Klux. But it cannot be charged that they were acting by the authority of an order which had formally disbanded. They were acting on their own responsibility. Thus lived, so died, this strange order. Its birth was an accident; its growth was a comedy; its death a tragedy! / It owed 1 The local "Dens" were not affected by this order. Many had already disbanded; many more remained active as long as the Reconstruction régime lasted.-Editor. its existence wholly to the anomalous condition of social and civil affairs in the South during the years immediately succeeding the unfortunate contest in which so many brave men in blue and gray fell, martyrs to their convictions. There never was, before or since, a period of our history when such an order could have lived. May there never be again! APPENDIX I. PRESCRIPT OF KU KLUX KLAN ADOPTED AT A Convention of the Order Copied from the Original Prescript, line for line and page for page. The type used here is slightly larger than in the original document. |