t was the
terror inspired by the shadows which lay behind them.

But to no one had these performances such constant and deep relish as the
aged patriarch or beldam, as the case might be, who was elevated by their
young suffragans to the post of mentor for the time being. They revelled
in this employment, first, because it suited their talents; and second,
because it was perfectly adapted to their emotional nature. An African,
moreover, is gratified beyond expression by the knowledge that he
possesses authority, no matter how brief or weak in extent, which may be
exercised over his fellows; and there is not, we believe, a living party
to such a bequest of social right and liberty over conscience as that to
which we have referred, who was not a sufferer under the arrangement to an
extent which he rarely admits to stranger confidences. But this
improvement of the occasion which came to him on the part of the
fiction-vender was not always done in mere wantonness. Not unfrequently
the result achieved was without design, and when the contrary was true,
the design was quite an intelligent one. When he acted intelligently, the
object kept in view was to gain such an ascendency over the minds of his
young auditory that he might reap either present benefits, or call it up
to advantage in the future; and when we reflect that his audiences were
largely composed of his young masters and mistresses, whose influence was
great at head-quarters, and who would one day succeed to the estate, the
wisdom of his conclusions must be conceded.

Trained up in this school, and knowing by their later experience of men
the precise extent to which the plantation darkey was controlled by the
superstitious notions which he disseminated (for he was no hypocrite), the
young white men of the South were at no loss in adopting countervailing
forces when the Loyal League storm burst upon the country. The
superstition of the negro was not a weakness, but a ruling characteristic;
and at this central idea of his being the Ku-Klux movement was directed.
Being thus addressed to his fears, it will be seen, by any one wishing
information on the subject, that the latter was designed to whip him into
obedience to what was then thought, but is now known, to be the ruling
element in Southern politics. We do not assert that it was a just
expedient; we cannot believe, in view of later developments in our local
politics, that it was a wise one; but its transactions have