CONTENTS. PAGE Contents. APPENDIX:-REPUBLICAN PARTY PRESS-NATIONAL REPUB- LICAN LEAGUE-AMERICAN PROTECTIVE-TARIFF LEAGUE -HOME-MARKET CLUB-MCKINLEY'S LAST SPEECH- V THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. CHAPTER I. THE LIBERAL-REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT-CONVENTIONS, PLATFORMS, CAMPAIGN, AND ELECTION OF 1872. A LTHOUGH the work of reconstructing the Southern States had been nearly concluded before General Grant became President in 1869, still there was quite enough left to be done to necessitate legislation and bring both approval and criticism. Every State in the Union was fully represented in the Forty-first Congress, yet much of the Southern question was far from being settled. The Ku-Klux-Klan must in some way be thwarted, and to this end the so-called Ku-Klux act was passed. The Ku-Klux-Klan was a secret organization which sprung up about 1867 in all parts of the South, and with the same end in view in the various locations where it existed. A Congressional investigation, made in 1871, dislosed some of the workings of this famous organization. From its constitution or prescript, as it was termed, the following was learned: Their local lodges were called dens; the masters, cyclops; the members, ghouls. A county was a province; governed by grand giant and four goblins. A congressional district was a dominion, governed by a grand Titan and six furies. A State was a realm, governed by a grand dragon and eight hydras. The whole country was the empire, governed by a grand wizard and ten genii. Their VOL. II.-I. |