No Republican, no Union Leaguer, and no member of the G.
A.R.might become a member.

The members were pledged to oppose Negro equality of any kind, to favor emancipation of the Southern whites and the restoration of their rights, and to maintain constitutional government and equitable laws.
Prominent men testified that the order became popular because the whites felt that they were persecuted and that there was no legal protection, no respectable government.

General (later Senator) Pettus said that through all the workings of the Federal Government ran the principle that "we are an inferior, degraded people and not fit to be trusted." General Clanton of Alabama further explained that "there is not a respectable white woman in the Negro Belt of Alabama who will trust herself outside of her house without some protector....

So far as our State Government is concerned, we are in the hands of camp-followers, horse-holders, cooks, bottle-washers, and thieves..

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