whatever it may
have been at its origin, could hardly be doubted.

A member of the committee which took that testimony thus
sums it up:

The testimony shows that over 2,000 persons were killed,
wounded, and otherwise injured in that State within a few
weeks prior to the presidential election; that half the
State was overrun by violence; midnight raids, secret
murders, and open riot kept the people in constant terror
until the Republicans surrendered all claims, and then the
election was carried by the Democracy. The parish of Orleans
contained 29,910 voters, 15,020 black. In the spring of 1868
that parish gave 13,973 republican votes. In the fall of
1868 it gave Grant 1,178, a falling off of 12,795 votes.
Riots prevailed for weeks, sweeping the city of New Orleans,
and filling it with scenes of blood, and Ku-Klux notices
were scattered through the city warning the colored men not
to vote. In Caddo there were 2,987 Republicans. In the
spring of 1868 they carried the parish. In the fall they
gave Grant one vote. Here also there were bloody riots.

But the most remarkable case is that of St. Landry, a
planting parish on the River Teche. Here the Republicans had
a registered majority of 1,071 votes. In the spring of 1868
they carried the parish by 678. In the fall they gave Grant
no vote, not one; while the democrats cast 4,787, the full
vote of the parish, for Seymour and Blair.

Here occurred one of the bloodiest riots on record, in
which the Ku-Klux killed and wounded over two hundred
Republicans, hunting and chasing them for two days and
nights through fields and swamps. Thirteen captives were
taken from the jail and shot. A pile of twenty-five dead
bodies was found half buried in the woods. Having conquered
the Republicans, killed and driven off the white leaders,
the Ku-Klux captured the masses, marked them with badges of
red flannel, enrolled them in clubs, led them to the polls,
made them vote the Democratic ticket, and then gave them
certificates of the fact.

It is not my purpose to weary the reader with tedious citations from
the cumbersome reports of the "Ku Klux conspiracy." Those reports are
accessible to the reading public. They tell the bloody story of the
terrible miscarriage of the "Reconstruction policy;" they show how