Mary - Journeytohistory

276 From Slavery to FreedomIF HflS A UNION-MAN OR A fRHDM.!\N. be used as night follows day." A similarff17"'-';':::F""~_situation prevailed in Kentucky, wherethe major purpose of violence againstblacks was to eliminate their participationin politics. In 1874 a committee of theColored Convention assembled in Atlantainformed the state legislature that theycould not point "to any locality in Georgiawhere we can in truth say that our livesand our liberties are perfectly secure."Local efforts to suppress the outlaw organizationswere on the whole unsuccessful.In 1868 Alabama, for example, passed alaw imposing heavy fines and long jail sentenceson anyone caught away from homewearing a mask or committing such acts asdestroying property and molesting people,but this law was generally disregarded.Congress undertook to suppress the Klanand similar groups in a series of lawspassed in 1870 and 1871. It was a punishablecrfme for any person to prevent anotherfrom voting by bribery, force, or•YERDI CT ~ HANG THE D- YANKEE fiND NIGG[R'~intimidation, and the president was authorizedto use land and naval forces toEngrll\·jng by Tbomns Nllst, ll(lrper's Weeki)', Marcb prevent such crimes. In 1871 a second law23, 1867. It seemed not to matter if the lynchjn l was passed to strengthen the first. After anvictim was a Unionist or a fJ·,·edl1lfll1. Some felt that extensive investigation, members of Coneachwas equally descrving. ("I! He Is A Union Man or gress were convinced that the Klan was stillFreedman, I/enlict . .. " engrlL'Oing by Thomas Nast. active, and in April 1871 a law designed toHarper's Wee)dy, March 2J. 1 67.)put an end to the movement was enacted.The president was authorized to suspendthe writ of habeas corpus in order to suppress "armed combinations." Acts ofLegal action conspiracy were declared tantamount to rebellion and were tougainst the Klun be punished accordingly. As a result, hundreds of arrests wereIUld odJer nudaw made, and many were found guilty of conspiracy. In South Car­OI'gunizutjolls olina alone, nearly 100 were sentenced and fined in one year.The struggle between organized Southern whites on the one hand and theUnion League, Freedmen's Bureau, federal troops, and blacks on the other wasessentially a struggle for political control of the South. From the Northern pointof view it was a question of whether the gains of the war were to be nullified bythe rebels who had brought the nation to the brink of disaster in 1861. Fromthe Southern point of view it was a question of home rule-a right that theywould defend to the end-and of who should rule at home, a question that theyfelt was largely academic since blacks were not qualified. As surely as the