r, forcible truths are given their due emphasis, he
begs to assure the public that his utterances are no less strongly
inflected from a standpoint of contrasted locality and habits of political
thought. A man professing no politics but those of his grandfather, and,
despite settled opinions favoring such partisanship, is strongly tempted
at times to question _their_ integrity, would hardly be supposed guilty of
making an obnoxious necessity of some other man's property, in this most
precarious of titled possessions; and lest any should fail to perceive the
allegory which this sentence contains, the author begs to call attention
to it, and to appropriate the _situation_ which it presents. The public
mind is so excited regarding such topics at this moment, that it would
fail to meet expectation, if it should decline to suspect every shadow of
possessing substance, when projected from so suspicious a direction as the
subject chosen; and feeling this, and perceiving the inutility of any
other form of argument, the reader is invited, in conclusion, to adopt the
usual method in such inquiries, and determine for himself the _vexata
quaestio_.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Terms of Southern Surrender in the War of the Rebellion--Candor
of Paroled Troops--"Lee's Ragamuffins"--Generals Grant's and
Sherman's Proposed Amnesty--The "Rump Congress" and
Disfranchisement--What the Latter meant--Issues which the War
Settled--How these were Revived by the Pending Congress--Anarchy
in the South--The Loyal League 13

CHAPTER II.

CAUSES OF THE K. K. K. MOVEMENT.

Situation Produced by the War--Discontented Partisans--The War
District in the South--Words of a Northern Tourist--The Curse of
Slavery--President Johnson--How the Work of Reconstruction was
Inaugurated--The Law-making Power vested in Dummy Legislatures--
Disfranchisement--Enfranchisement--The Color Issue which these
Measures brought--A Singular Peace Policy--The War of the
Conservatives in the South against Radicalism did not Revive
Issues concluded by the late Civil Struggle, as the latter
Boasted--Loyal Epithets--"Traitor," "Guerilla," "Southern
Bandit," etc.--The Shamelessness of the State Officials--The
Uneducated Negro a Law-giver--Organization of the Loyal League--
Some of its Peculiariti