Southern speakers on the floor of the house in the debates which preceded the passage of the "act to enforce the fourteenth amendment," traced the origin of the Ku-Klux to the Union league, an association in the south composed chiefly of northerners. Charges were also made by statesmen once in the confederate army that "Tammany Hall" in New York furnished arms to the Klanists, in order that they might murder southern republicans. SUPPRESSED IN 1871 When the act suppressing the Klan was approved by President Grant on April 20, 1871, it was estimated that the night riders were operating in eleven states of the south. Six months later, in October, President Grant issued a proclamation calling on members of illegal associations in nine counties in South Carolina to disperse and surrender their arms and disguises in five days. Five days afterwards, another proclamation was issued suspending the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus in the counties named. More than 200 persons were arrested within a few days. It is believed that the Ku-Klux Klan was practically overthrown by the middle of the following January. CHAPTER II THE NEW KU KLUX KLAN _Must Every Citizen be a Slave of Fear Spread by Masked Night-Riders, or Will He Live under the Protection of the Constitution of the United States?_ Are you a citizen of the United States? If you are it is to your interest to inform yourself about the Ku-Klux Klan. As a citizen you are under the protection of the constitution of the United States. The Ku Klux Klan has set itself above the constitution. It has made laws of its own. Its members have inaugurated a reign of lawlessness that may drag you out of your bed at midnight and submit you to a coat of tar and feathers through the whims of some neighbor who does not like the country in which you were born, or who objects to your religion, your color, your opinions, your personal habits or anything else about you that does not suit his fancy. The constitution guarantees that your house, your person and your papers and effects are free from unlawful search and seizure; that you cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, which law must be publicly enforced in God's sunshine by persons legally chosen; that when you are accused of any delinquency or crime you shall have a speedy, public trial before a judge and an impartial jury; that you may be a member of any religious denomination or sect with whom you may worship as you please; that you have the right of free speech; that you cannot be held in involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime, for which you have been found guilty in a legal way; that you cannot be denied the right to vote on account of your color. MASKED MEN DEFY CONSTITUTION