Echoes of Reconstruction: Using the Media to Try to Control the Klan

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

By the time of 1868’s presidential campaign, the Ku Klux Klan had fastened itself onto America’s political imagination. In early 1866 the Klan did not exist. In 1867, the “Klaverns” were attracting some publicity with their demonstrative torture of Black people in which recalcitrant African Americans were whipped publicly on the streets and Republican activist were burned out or assassinated. By January 1868 the Klan dominated newspaper stories of resistance to Reconstruction and to equality for Blacks.

Some popular forms of media attacked the Klan and some backed the Klan’s political goals, even if not their violence. So, for instance, on January 12, 1868 the Cincinnati Gazette published a story on violence in Pulaski, Tennessee, where the Klan had started two years earlier. The story reprinted an army report of recent threats to peace there.

The article introduced the report by saying that the violence “threatened for a time to drench the whole town in blood.” The army report said that the military responded to reports that “riot and murder at that place of Orange Rhodes (colored) and the wounding of several other colored persons on the 7th instant.” Eighteen white men surrounded a building in which a number of Blacks were gathered. They opened fire on the eight black men inside and Orange Rhodes, who was characterized as one of “the best colored men in the county,” was killed. Four other Black men were wounded. The report says that “No white men were killed or wounded.”

The Army report concluded that the men belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. The report said; “Such an organization is in existence, it is called the Kuklux Klan having for its end the expulsion of loyal men, white and colored…and thus terrorizing ever the people as was the custom in this country about the time of the breaking out of the Rebellion… Sufficient, however, is known to warrant the prompt suppression of the Kuklux Klan.”

On January 18, 1868, the New York Tribune published an article on this incident. Several days after the Pulaski killing, there was an attack in nearby Linnville, Tennessee. Three Black men were beaten by whites. On January 20, the Tribune published another article titled “The ‘Ku-Klux’ Gang Again.” The same day, the New York Times headlined its story on the same incident with “The Ku-Klux Klan. The Rebel Organization in Tennessee—Its Outrages upon Unoffending Men.” These articles in the third week of January 1868 were the first national coverage of murders by the Ku Klux.

By summer 1868, the doctrine of opposing the Klan had been adopted by many in the Republican Party. While modern political campaigns typically employ popular music at rallies as walk-on music for candidates, in the 19th century most campaigns came armed with a panoply of songs for supporters to sing while marching in political parades. In 1868 the opposing candidates squared off against each other with explicit songs about their position on the racial question. The Democrats rallied for Horatio Seymour and Frank Blair to the tune “Raise High the White Man’s Banner.” Republicans sang this song, “Grant, Grant, Grant,” which promised that Ulysses S. Grant would make the “Ku Klux Klan…shiver in their shoes.”

Thomas Nast was America’s most powerful political cartoonist throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction. A strong supporter of the Republican Party during the 1860s, he backed Ulysses S. Grant during his run for president in 1868. Nast advocated for Black voting rights, and he opposed the growing power of the Ku Klux Klan in the South.

In an 1868 Harpers cartoon he showed the forces opposed to Black suffrage. The Black man is shown as Sampson, so strong, yet his power was being stolen from him by Shahaza representing “Southern Democracy” [the Democratic Party] as the Black suffrage was being taken away. In the background are the masterminds of the deprivation of the suffrage. From left to right are Wade Hampton (who would finance the legal defense of the Klan), Nathan Bedford Forrest (the reported “Grand Wizard of the Klan), a sitting Robert E. Lee, Horatio Seymour (the Democratic nominee wearing KKK on his buckle), and vice presidential candidate Frank Blair.

A close look at Horatio Seymour, who had been governor of New York during the New York City Draft Riots of 1863, shows him carrying a flag which bears a passing resemblance to the Confederate flag. The flag contains a number of phrases designed to identify Seymour and his crew with the Confederacy as well as violent resistance to Reconstruction. “Slavery,” “Last Cause,” “Fort Pillow,” and the “Ku-Klux Klan” are featured prominently on the flag.

There were also efforts to quell popular propaganda favoring the Klan. As printers and publishers throughout the South embarked on pro-Klan propaganda crusades in 1868, there were efforts to control what was said. For example, George Meade, the victor at Gettysburg, made an effort to dampen the rising storm in April 1868. Meade commanded the Third Military District which placed Georgia, Alabama, and Florida under his jurisdiction.

The Ku Klux Klan, originally based in Tennessee, was spreading rapidly on the Southeast, supported by many white-owned newspapers. On April 6, 1868 the New York Times reported that Meade had issued a general order directing the military and civilian officers to arrest and bring to trial persons who print the “incendiary publications of secret organizations.” Meade prohibited publishers from calling for “intimidation, riot, or bloodshed” in their papers. The Times editor added that “It is believed General Meade refers to the Ku Klux Klan.”

General Shepperd, Meade’s subordinate in Alabama, ordered civil and military authorities to arrest Klansmen and called for the destruction of “all placards and newspaper cards of the Ku-Klux Klan” that they find.

Congressional leaders could also use the increased awareness of the Klan to draw support for their legislative positions. During the trial for impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, the president’s lead counsel Attorney General Henry Stanbery took ill. The president’s side asked for a delay in the trial so that Stanbery could recover. The leader of the House Republicans in the impeachment trial, Ben Butler, opposed the delay. He believed that the president must be removed as soon as possible because of increasing violence from the Ku Klux Klan while the impeachment was going on. Klan and other white supremacist violence reached a high point in 1868.

Butler said that President Johnson refused to take action to protect the right of African Americans to vote, or even to guarantee the lives and safety of Black men and women. Butler said; “While we are waiting for the Attorney General to get well, numbers of our fellow-citizens are being murdered day by day. There is not a man here who does not know that the moment justice is done on this great criminal, the murders will cease…. While we are being courteous, the true Union men of the south are being murdered, and on our heads and on our skirts is this blood if we remain any longer idle…. I want these things to stop.”

Sources:
Parsons, Elaine Frantz. Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction (p. 147). The University of North Carolina Press.
Deans Halloran, Fiona. Thomas Nast: The Father of Modern Political Cartoons. University of North Carolina Press
New York Herald Tribune
New York Times
Harper’s Weekly