t they
should restrain their own members from lawlessness.

The Klan felt all this; and in its efforts to relieve itself of the
stigma thus incurred, it acted in some cases against the offending
parties with a severity well merited, no doubt, but unjustifiable.[49]
As is frequently the case they were carried beyond the limits of
prudence and right by a hot zeal for self-vindication against unjust
aspersions.

They felt that the charge of wrong was unfairly brought against them.
To clear themselves of the charge they did worse wrong than that
alleged against them.

The Klan from the first shrouded itself in deepest mystery; out of
this fact grew trouble not at first apprehended. They wished people
not to understand. They tried to keep them profoundly ignorant. The
result was that the Klan and its objects were wholly misunderstood and
misinterpreted. Many who joined the Klan and many who did not, were
certain it contemplated something far more important than its overt
acts gave evidence of. Some were sure it meant treason and revolution.
The negroes and the whites whose consciences made them the subjects of
guilty fears, were sure it boded no good to them.

When the first impressions of awe and terror which the Klan had
inspired, to some extent, wore off, a feeling of intense hostility
towards the Ku Klux followed. This feeling was the more bitter because
founded, not on overt acts which the Ku Klux had done, but on vague
fears and surmises as to what they intended to do. Those who
entertained such fears were in some cases impelled by them to become
the aggressors. They attacked the Ku Klux before receiving from them
any provocation. The negroes formed organizations of a military
character and drilled by night, and even appeared in the day armed and
threatening. The avowed purpose of these organizations was "to make
war upon and exterminate the Ku Klux." On several occasions the Klan
was fired into. The effect of such attacks was to provoke counter
hostility from the Klan, and so there was irritation and
counter-irritation, till, in some places, the state of things was
little short of open warfare. In some respects it was worse; the
parties wholly misunderstood each other. Each party felt that its
cause was the just one. Each justified its deed by the provocation.

The Ku Klux, intending wrong, as they believed, to no one, were
aggrieved that acts which they had not done should be charged to them;
and motives which