Matters continued to grow worse until it was imperatively necessary that there should be interference on the part of the government. In September, 1868, the legislature of Tennessee, in obedience to the call of Governor Brownlow, assembled in extra session and passed a most stringent anti-Ku-Klux statute. In some sections of the State a reign of terror followed and the governor was compelled to send troops and proclaim martial law in certain counties. In March, 1869, the Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire issued a proclamation to his subjects. This proclamation recited the legislation directed against the Klan and stated that the order had in large measure accomplished the objects of its existence. At a time when the civil law afforded inadequate protection to life and property, when robbery and lawlessness of every description were unrebuked, when all the better elements of society were in constant dread for the safety of their property, persons, and families, the Klan had afforded protection and security to many firesides and in many ways contributed to the public welfare. But greatly to the regret of all good citizens, some members of the Klan had violated positive orders; others, under the name and disguises of the organization, had assumed to do acts of violence, for which the Klan was held responsible. The Grand Wizard had been invested with the power to determine questions of paramount importance to the interests of the order. Therefore, in the exercise of that power, the Grand Wizard declared that the organization that had been known as the Ku-Klux Klan was dissolved and disbanded. For several years after March, 1869, the papers reported and commented on “Ku-Klux outrages” committed at various places.[200] The authors of these outrages no doubt acted in the name of the Klan and under its disguises, and it may be that in some cases they were men who had been Ku-Klux, but it cannot be charged that they were acting by the authority of the order. The report of the joint committee of Congress appointed to investigate the “Ku-Klux conspiracy” records a great deal of lawlessness and violence during the period 1866–71, a part of which may be justly attributed to the Klan. The greater part of the outrageous conduct attributed to the Klan belongs to a date subsequent to its disbandment, and is chargeable merely to the influence of the operations of the Klan. As one writer has put it, the birth of this order was an accident, its growth a comedy, and its death a tragedy. Its existence can be explained only when the anomalous condition of social and political affairs in the South during the years immediately succeeding the war is taken into account.