The Nation's Peril.: Twelve Years' Experience in the South. Then and Now. The Ku Klux Klan, a Complete Exposition of the Order: Its Purpose, Plans, Operations, Social and Political Significance; The Nation's Salvation.Anonymous
History
The Nation's Peril.: Twelve Years' Experience in the South. Then and Now. The Ku Klux Klan, a Complete Exposition of the Order: Its Purpose, Plans, Operations, Social and Political Significance; The Nation's Salvation.
Anonymous
Campaign literature, 1872 -- Republican; Ku Klux Klan (19th century)
In addition to the testimony of Amerson, as to the terrible details of
this brutal murder, we have that of Mrs. Thompson and the two Hogans. Dr.
Mapp, a physician residing near Thompson, was called to see him, and at
the earnest entreaty of the wife dressed his wounds, although he saw that
the poor victim could not live possibly. He was literally beaten to a
jelly. One of his eyes had been forced completely out of its socket, and
he was otherwise almost totally unrecognizable.
Elihu Horn, _alias_ Capt. Smart, was known at the time as a respectable
member of society in Hamilton county, Fla., and a leader in the democratic
ranks in that vicinity, and violently opposed to the present
administration. He was determined that no one should preach what he was
pleased to term "the heresy of radicalism" in that county, and live, and
his threat was fully carried out upon the body of the unfortunate
Thompson.
In the light of such an outrage, can any one, of whatever creed or faith,
question the policy of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the
proclamation of martial law in such a community, or doubt the wisdom of
the executive head of the nation, in his efforts to suppress the unlawful
assemblages, who aspired to hold the life and liberty of our citizens in
the hollow of their hands, and annihilate the hopes of newly-made freemen,
by imposing upon them a bondage infinitely worse than that from which the
nation, through the blood of her sons, had but so recently released them?
BRUTAL WHIPPING OF A WHITE MAN FOR OPINION'S SAKE.
Shortly after the outrage which resulted in the death of Edward Thompson,
a Mr. Driggers, residing in the county of Echols, and not far from where
Thompson had been murdered, received a warning from the Ku Klux Klan, that
he must change his political opinions, or leave the State.
Mr. Driggers was a prominent republican, and had made no secret of his
political faith. He had freely expressed his opinions in that regard
whenever he desired to do so, and had steadily voted the republican, or
what was known to the Ku Klux as the radical, ticket. He was generally
esteemed among his fellows, and especially among the colored people, in
whose welfare he took a great interest, and this latter fact was deemed an
offense not to be tolerated by the defenders of the white man's
government.
Warning after warning was sent to him, and he was thus duly reminded,
that, unless he recanted, the fate of Thompson would surely be his; but,
he still regarded the matter as merely an idle threat, and time passed on
until the night of the 25th of August, 1871, when a party of five men,
armed, and disguised in black gowns and masks, visited his residence.
Mr. Driggers at once divined the object of this visitation, and was
expostulating with the leader, when he was quickly overpowered and
stripped in the presence of his family, and beaten with straps similar to
those used upon Thompson.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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