excitement. Their leaders believed, or professed to believe, that another general insurrection was threatened. Acting under this conviction, the Legislature passed a bill on the twentieth of February, 1867, to equip and call into active service, under the absolute command of the Governor, a State Guard to be composed solely of Union men. It also passed a joint resolution requesting the Governor to "apply to General Thomas, the commander of the department, for a sufficient force of United States soldiers to keep the peace and restore order and quiet in our State."[1] In response to this application several regiments were furnished by General Thomas, but he cautioned that they should be used only in aid of the civil authority.
These Ku-Klux outrages followed closely upon the passage of the Arnell Franchise Law. This bill, as we have pointed out, made the political disabilities of the ex-Confederate absolute and perpetual. It destroyed the last hope of regaining political control of the State, through legal and constitutional means. As a natural result, public opinion commenced to tolerate acts of violence which till then had been strongly condemned. The best men of the communities, while they did not take active part in the Ku-Klux movement, gave it their approval by a policy of acquiescence. Juries refused to commit, even upon the clearest evidence, persons accused of offences against negroes or Union men.
A crisis was reached in the spring of 1868. Mr. S. M. Arnell, the framer of the election law and Congressman from the Eighth District, was made the object of a Ku-Klux raid. Having narrowly escaped hanging through flight and concealment, he sent the following dispatch to the Governor: "The Ku-Klux searched the train for me last night, pistols and rope in hand. Empower me to call upon the military here, if necessary in your name, to suppress all
- ↑ Acts of Tennessee, 1867-68, p. 22.
