1.9 Competing Voices: Order Versus Freedom in the Reconstructed South
A Klan Member Tells Congress About the Organization
In 1871, John B. Gordon, a former Confederate general and member of the Ku Klux Klan, testified before a special joint congressional committee on Reconstruction. Notice how Gordon describes the Klan as a “peaceable” organization made up of the “best citizens” in Georgia. He defends the Klan as a defensive organization designed to protect the legitimate security needs of white southerners.
Question: What do you know of any combinations in Georgia, known as Ku-Klux, or by any other name, who have been violating the law?
Answer: I do not know anything about any Ku-Klux organization, as the papers talk about it. I have never heard of anything of that sort except in the papers and by general report; but I do know that an organization did exist in Georgia at one time. I know that in 1868—I think that was the time—I was approached and asked to attach myself to a secret organization in Georgia. I was approached by some of the very best citizens of the State—some of the most peaceable, law-abiding men, men of large property, who had large interests in the State. The object of this organization was explained to me at the time by these parties; and I want to say that I approved of it most heartily. I would approve again of a similar organization, under the same state of circumstances.
Question: Tell us about what that organization was.
Answer: The organization was simply this—nothing more and nothing less: it was an organization, a brotherhood of the property-holders, the peaceable, law-abiding citizens of the State, for self-protection. The instinct of self-protection prompted that organization; the sense of insecurity and danger, particularly in those neighborhoods where the negro population largely predominated. . . . We knew of certain instances where great crime had been committed; where overseers had been driven from plantations, and the negroes had asserted their right to hold the property for their own benefit. Apprehension took possession of the entire public mind of the State. Men were in many instances afraid to go away from their homes and leave their wives and children, for fear of outrage. Rapes were already being committed in the country . . . It was therefore necessary, in order to protect our families from outrage and preserve our own lives, to have something that we could regard as a brotherhood—a combination of the best men of the country, to act purely in self-defense, to repel the attack in case we should be attacked by these people. That was the whole object of this organization. . . .
I do not believe that any crime has ever been committed by this organization of which I have spoken, and of which I was a member. I believe it was purely a peace police—a law-abiding concern. . . . We apprehended that the sympathy of the entire Government would be against us; and nothing in the world but the instinct of self-protection prompted that organization. We felt that we must at any cost protect ourselves, our homes, our wives and children from outrage. We would have preferred death rather than to have submitted to what we supposed was coming upon us.
Frederick Douglass on “What the Black Man Wants”
The abolitionist Frederick Douglass told a Boston convention what freedom meant to him and to the almost 4 million blacks freed from bondage. He made clear that the right to vote was central to the demands for freedom, and he rejected those who called for patience.
What is freedom? It is the right to choose one’s own employment. Certainly it means that, if it means anything; and when any individual or combination of individuals undertakes to decide for any man when he shall work, where he shall work, at what he shall work, and for what he shall work, he or they practically reduce him to slavery. He is a slave. . . .
I am for the “immediate, unconditional, and universal” enfranchisement of the black man, in every State in the Union. Without this, his liberty is a mockery; without this, you might as well almost retain the old name of slavery for his condition; for in fact, if he is not the slave of the individual master, he is the slave of society, and holds his liberty as a privilege, not as a right. He is at the mercy of the mob, and has no means of protecting himself.
It may be objected, however, that this pressing of the Negro’s right to suffrage is premature. Let us have slavery abolished, it may be said, let us have labor organized, and then, in the natural course of events, the right of suffrage will be extended to the Negro. I do not agree with this. The constitution of the human mind is such, that if it once disregards the conviction forced upon it by a revelation of truth, it requires the exercise of a higher power to produce the same conviction afterwards. . . . This is the hour. Our streets are in mourning, tears are falling at every fireside, and under the chastisement of this Rebellion we have almost come up to the point of conceding this great, this all-important right of suffrage. I fear that if we fail to do it now, if abolitionists fail to press it now, we may not see, for centuries to come, the same disposition that exists at this moment. Hence, I say, now is the time to press this right.
It may be asked, “Why do you want it? Some men have got along very well without it. Women have not this right.” Shall we justify one wrong by another? This is the sufficient answer. Shall we at this moment justify the deprivation of the Negro of the right to vote, because some one else is deprived of that privilege? I hold that women, as well as men, have the right to vote, and my heart and voice go with the movement to extend suffrage to woman; but that question rests upon another basis than which our right rests. We may be asked, I say, why we want it. I will tell you why we want it. We want it because it is our right, first of all. No class of men can, without insulting their own nature, be content with any deprivation of their rights. We want it again, as a means for educating our race. Men are so constituted that they derive their conviction of their own possibilities largely by the estimate formed of them by others. If nothing is expected of a people, that people will find it difficult to contradict that expectation. By depriving us of suffrage, you affirm our incapacity to form an intelligent judgment respecting public men and public measures; you declare before the world that we are unfit to exercise the elective franchise, and by this means lead us to undervalue ourselves, to put a low estimate upon ourselves, and to feel that we have no possibilities like other men. . . .
John Gordon reflected the views of many Klan members when he described their efforts as noble and necessary. “This is an institution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy, and Patriotism,” the Klan stated in its founding document, claiming that its role was “To protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless, from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal.” The Civil War ended the economic and political control that white southerners had exercised for generations. The nation, however, had no blueprint for what a post-slavery society would look like. Like John Gordon, many white southerners framed the debate over Reconstruction as a battle between order and chaos. They saw the expansion of political and economic rights for freed slaves as a direct challenge to their power and therefore a threat to social stability. For many freedmen, however, emancipation meant not just an escape from slavery, but the opportunity to participate as equal citizens in society. As both men acknowledge, the end of slavery raised new questions and new possibilities. What rights would citizenship provide? Would freed people be able to vote and how would they be integrated into the economic life of the region? As Douglass pointed out, there could be no freedom without the right to vote and participate as equal in society. But how far was the war-weary North willing to go to push for equality? The answer to that question would shape the legacy of the Civil War and define what it means to be an American for the next century.
Questions for Analysis
Why does Gordon repeatedly refer to the “outrages” taking place in the South?
What does he see as the primary role of the Klan?
Why is the right to vote so important to Douglass?
Does Douglass see a connection between giving African Americans the right to vote and women’s suffrage?
Why was the question of granting African Americans the right to vote so controversial?
Do you see any similarities between the debate between “order” and “freedom” during Reconstruction and conflicts taking place today in America?