as early as 1866; the reconstruction acts were passed in March,
1867."[D]

[Footnote D: See Reports of Congressional Committee of Investigation.]

"Ah, yes, sir, I had forgotten the dates; I've heard that reason given;
and another excuse is the fear of a conspiracy among the negroes to rob
and murder the whites: and I think you can't deny that they are
thievish."

"I don't deny, Cal, that some individuals among them have been guilty of
lawless acts, particularly stealing articles of food; but they are poor
and ignorant; have been kept in ignorance so long that we cannot
reasonably expect in them a very strong sense of the rights of property
and the duty of obedience to law; yet I have never been able to discover
any indications of combined lawlessness among them. On the contrary they
are themselves fearful of attack."

"Well, sir, then there were those organizations in the other--the
Republican party; the Union Leagues and Redstrings. I've been told the
Ku Klux Klan was gotten up in opposition to them."

"I presume so, but Union Leaguers and Redstrings do not go about in
disguise, robbing, beating, murdering."

"But then the carpet-baggers," said Calhoun, waxing warm, "putting
mischief into the negroes' heads, getting into office and robbing the
state in the most shameless wholesale manner; they're excuse enough for
the doings of the Ku Klux."