Senate Discussion at Washington of Ku Klux Outrages.
WASHINGTON, March 18.—Mr. Sumner (Rep. Mass.), presented a memorial from the colored people of Georgia, representing that they are denied redress in the courts and attacked by mobs when asserting their rights, and asking protection from Congress. The Senate took up as the business of the morning hour Mr. Sherman's (Rep. Ohio,) resolution, alleging the subversion by armed, disguised, and lawless men, mainly soldiers of the late rebel army, of all civil authority in a large part of the late insurrectionary States, that persons and property are unsafe, the rights of citizens denied, and the courts powerless, on account of organized perjury, to punish crime, and instructing the Judiciary Committee to report remedial legislation. Mr. Sherman said every word contained in the resolution was strictly true, and that in 11 Southern States the condition was one of unparalleled horror and anarchy. Mr. Sherman resumed, after reading from the Ku Klux oath, to show the objects of the organization. They were political, to prevent colored men and others from enjoying their political rights, and its members were bound to murder, rob, and plunder under the discipline presented by their former rebel leaders. Mr. Sherman said he did not know any organization in history which for atrocity could compare with them. These men committed their crimes at night, and carried terror wherever they went. Every member of the Senate would admit that an organization so revolting to humanity should be put down. Their number in North Carolina had been stated at 40,000, but it was certainly 10,000, though any one reading the testimony would suppose it much larger. In Rockingham County, in that State, 62 of these outrages had been committed. In one case the magistrate of a town in that county testified to the hanging of a colored preacher at a late hour of the night by 75 disguised men, on horseback. The dangling body of the victim was found suspended from a tree in front of the court-house, with a paper pinned on it, on which were written the words: “Beware ye guilty, both black and white, K. K. K.” A poor half-idiot Negro, who had seen some of these men, was drowned several days afterward, to prevent their detection by him. Thirty-eight similar cases had been shown to have occurred in that same place. A notice has been posted on the bulletin board of the court-house in Union County, warning the sheriff, county commissioners, and school commissioners, to resign at once, and threatening severe penalties if they failed to obey. Feeling that their lives were in danger, they have resigned, and the county is without officers. Dispatches announcing other outrages have been received. The latest news from the capital of South Carolina is that Gov. Scott, State Treasurer, Parker, and Controller General Neagle, received notice from the Ku Klux, on Friday, to quit the State. Attorney General Chamberlain, of South Carolina, will meet the President to-morrow, and ask that troops be sent to that State.