ed, if not by the order and
approbation of the Klan, at least by men who were members of it.[47]

The thoughtful reader will readily understand how this came about.

There was a cause which naturally and almost necessarily produced the
result. Men of the character of the majority of those who composed
the Klan do not disregard their own professed principles and violate
self-assumed obligations without cause. We have seen that the Klan was
in the main composed of the very best men in the country--peaceable,
law-loving and law-abiding men--men of good habits and character--men
of property and intelligence.

We have seen that the organization had no political significance; they
expressly and in solemn secret compact declared their allegiance to
the constitution and all constitutional laws, and pledged themselves
to aid in the administration of all such laws. To see such men defying
law and creating disorder, is a sight singular enough to awake inquiry
as to the causes which had been at work upon them. The transformation
of the Ku Klux Klan, from a band of regulators, honestly trying to
preserve peace and order, into the body of desperate men who, in 1869,
convulsed the country and set at defiance the mandates of both State
and Federal governments, is greater than the transformation which we
have already traced.

In both cases there were causes at work adequate to the results
produced; causes from which, as remarked before, the results followed
naturally and necessarily.

These have never been fully and fairly stated. They may be classed
under three general heads: (1). Unjust charges. (2). Misapprehension
of the nature and objects of the order on the part of those not
members of it. (3). Unwise and over-severe legislation.

As has already been pointed out, the order contained within itself, by
reason of the methods practiced, sources of weakness. The devices and
disguises by which the Klan deceived outsiders enabled all who were so
disposed, even its own members, to practice deception on the Klan
itself. It placed in the hands of its own members the facility to do
deeds of violence for the gratification of personal feeling, and have
them credited to the Klan. To evilly-disposed men membership in the
Klan was an inducement to wrongdoing. It presented to all men a
dangerous temptation, which, in certain contingencies at any time
likely to arise, it required a considerable amount of moral robustness
to resist. Many did