Echoes of Reconstruction: The Reconstruction Era Ku Klux Klan Constitution

Emerging Civil War is pleased to welcome back Patrick Young, author of The Reconstruction Era blog.

The “first” American terrorist organization is believed to be the Ku Klux Klan. Although later Klan lore said the group was founded at Christmas 1865, historians now believe it did not get its start until June 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee. The group was started by Confederate veterans, most of whom came from the educated class of the small city. During its first six months of its existence, the group, which adopted secrecy as its byword, was known only to people living near Pulaski. However, in 1867 it staged several public actions which began to attract attention and members.

Very few documents of its early stage still remain. However, we will look at two today.

The Prescript of the original Ku Klux Klan was adopted in Nashville in April 1867 and is available here. As with many documents from clandestine organizations, its provenance is not entirely certain. The 1867 edition only has two existing original copies still in existence. A local Confederate general, George W. Gordon, is believed to have drafted the Prescript. Gordon was a lawyer who created the “laws” of the Ku Klux Klan.

Interestingly, the document, which looks like a set of bylaws, begins with two presumably spooky poems:

What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel, Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon, Making night hideous; and we fools of nature, So horridly to shake our disposition, With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

An’ now auld Cloots, I ken ye’re thinkin’, A certain Ghoul is rantin’, drinkin’, Some luckless night will send him linkin’, To your black pit; But, faith! he’ll turn a corner jinkin’, And cheat you yet.

The Klan acknowledges the supremacy of God and the Federal government:

Creed.

We the * * reverently acknowledge the Majesty and Supremacy of the Divine being,

and recognize the Goodness and Providence of the Same.

Preamble.

We recognize our relations to the United States Government and acknowledge the supremacy of its laws.

In later documents, the Klan would claim it considered many of the laws of the Federal government illegal and its members were not required to follow them.

In looking at early KKK documents you will see “***” often used. Because the Klan was secret, they used one to three asterisks to symbolize the organization.

The titles of the officers of the Klan have always seemed comical to people. Here they are:

Titles.

Art. II. The officers of this * shall consist of a Grand Wizard of the Empire and his ten Genii; a Grand Dragon of the Realm and his eight Hydras; a Grand Titan of the Dominion and his six Furies; a Grand Giant of the Province and his four Goblins; a Grand Cyclops of the Den and his two Night Hawks; a Grand Magi, a Grand Monk, a Grand Exchequer, a Grand Turk, a Grand Scribe, a Grand Sentinel, and a Grand Ensign.

Sec. 2. The body politic of this * shall be designated and known as “Ghouls.”

The Klan had a wide variety of hellish names for its men, but in many accounts of Klan attacks, witnesses rarely heard the terrorists refer to each other by their Klan titles. They typically heard the commanders referred to by their old rank in the Confederate army; “Colonel” or “Major.”

The Klan judicial body were a bunch of “Yahoos” as described in the Prescript:

Judiciary.

Art. VI. Sec. 1. The Tribunal of Justice of this * shall consist of a Grand Council of Yahoos, and a Grand Council of Centaurs.

Sec. 2. The Grand Council of Yahoos, shall be the Tribunal for the trial of all elected officers, and shall be composed of officers of equal rank with the accused, and shall be appointed and presided over by an officer of the next rank above, and sworn by him to administer even handed justice. The Tribunal for the trial of the Grand Wizard, shall be composed of all the Grand Dragons of the Empire, and shall be presided over and sworn by the senior Grand Dragon. They shall have power to summon the accused, and witnesses for and against him, and if found guilty they shall prescribe the penalty and execute the same. And they shall have power to appoint an executive officer to attend said Council while in session.

Sec. 3. The Grand Council of Centaurs shall be the Tribunal for the trial of Ghouls and non-elective officers, and shall be composed of six judges appointed by the Grand Cyclops from the Ghouls of his Den, presided over and sworn by him to give the accused a fair and impartial trial. They shall have power to summon the accused, and witnesses for and against him, and if found guilty they shall prescribe the penalty and execute the same.

While the names and procedures of the “court” sound bizarre, please remember that the penalty could be death for those found guilty.

In 1868 the Klan adopted its Revised and Amended Prescript. Whereas the original Prescript might be mistaken as bylaws for a secret fraternal organization, the 1868 version was clearly political and advocated white supremacy. In the Fall of 1867, the Klan had engaged in violence that got many former Confederate veterans to join and it had spread beyond the environs of Pulaski. New “Realms,” state-based organizations of the Klan, were being set up in most states of the old Confederacy. Men coming into the Klan would no longer be guided by the oral instructions of the original founders and so the group made more explicit how to keep out spies or men who might believe in African American equality. Hence a number of questions for potential members was drawn up:

1st. Have you ever been rejected, upon application for membership in the * * *, or have you ever been expelled from the same?

2d. Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Radical Republican party, or either of the organizations known as the “Loyal League” and the “Grand Army of the Republic?”

3d. Are you opposed to the principles and policy of the Radical party, and to the Loyal League, and the Grand Army of the Republic, so far as you are informed of the character and purposes of those organizations?

4th. Did you belong to the Federal army during the late war, and fight against the South during the existence of the same?

5th. Are you opposed to negro equality, both social and political?

6th. Are you in favor of a white man’s government in this country?

?7th. Are you in favor of Constitutional liberty, and a Government of equitable laws instead of a Government of violence and oppression?

8th. Are you in favor of maintaining the Constitutional rights of the South?

9th. Are you in favor of the re-enfranchisement and emancipation of the white men of the South, and restitution of the Southern people to all their rights, alike proprietary, civil, and political?

10th. Do you believe in the inalienable right of self-preservation of the people against the exercise of arbitrary and unlicensed power?

When you read “the South,” or “Southern people” in the Prescript, please keep in mind that while a third of Southern people were Black, the Klan only referred to whites using those terms.

Sources:

Ku Klux: The Birth of the Klan During Reconstruction by Elaine Parsons published by the University of North Carolina Press (2015)

Ku Klux Klan: Its Growth and Disbandment by J.C. Lester with notes by Walter Fleming published by Neale Pub. (1905)

White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction by Allen W. Trelease published by LSU Press (1971)