MORE?? What's this -- dessert??
OK OK I'll make room....
---- which ("serving the interest of") does not make them "Democrats" --- and more to the point you've deliberately and dishonestly cut off the quote, which, to flesh out more of its context, reads:
Note the bolded key words, and note why you left them out. "In effect" means indirect, and he writes here specifically of the Democratic Party of the South -- the same one that in 1860 could not abide the DP's Presidential candidate Douglas and ran its own (Breckinridge), resulting in the Democrat being entirely shut out of the South in the election and coming in fourth nationally, winning a total of one state (in effect before it seceded from the Union the South had already seceded from the Democratic Party, and certainly not the last time it would do that).
This was a cultural movement, specific to the defeated Confederacy and a military one of what we today call "insurgents" resisting (what they saw as) an occupying foreign force --- that's why the Klan (and various other groups that were not revived in 1915 with big PR campaigns) were founded by Confederate soldiers -- insurgency.
For more on this question of "who were they" we go to Foner's historian colleague Elaine Franz Parsons: [Parsons p 816]: {EDIT -- old link is dead, quoted and more background here}
If that's supposed to be a political movement ... it's anarchy. If it's supposed to be a cultural one --- Bingo. Bob's your uncle.
Thank me later.
They did indeed, and they were doing so before the Klan and before the Civil War as well. This was an already-existing perverted activity that was part of the entire reason for the Abolitionists to form the Republican Party, that and the necessity of the Underground Railroad (cf. Harriet Tubman), and the cacophony of legislation that for decades tried to dance around the issues of who owned or had to return escaped slaves, what new territories would practice it, and the entire power structure of the United States.
But we digress. These "night riders" a/k/a "slave patrols" were already the opposition to the Underground Railroad, and were, as Parsons notes above, vigilantes -- as were the Klan. When the latter was formed as an idle joke in 1865, said night riders took over its name and regalia and began its reign of terror. It even tried to legitimize itself above vigilantism in April 1867 by hiring noted general Nathan Bedford Forrest as a CEO figurehead. When Forrest issued his first and only General Order less than two years later disbanding the Klan and ordering its robes and other paraphernalia destroyed the disparate elements went back to decentralized vigilantism until they were wiped out as an organization within four years.
Of course this did not stop the activities of terrorism -- lynching if anything increased over the next half-century. Mobs require neither an organization nor a political party. They just mob.
It's also the South Carolina (Virginia, Alabama etc) of the 1850s before it, as outlined above. Context is crucial.
That could mean anybody.
OK OK I'll make room....
But....as the eternal optimist, I'll provide it once again.
- Liberal historian Eric Foner writes that the Klan was “…a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party…” Foner, “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877,” p. 425
---- which ("serving the interest of") does not make them "Democrats" --- and more to the point you've deliberately and dishonestly cut off the quote, which, to flesh out more of its context, reads:
"In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired the restoration of white supremacy. It aimed to destroy the Republican party’s infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life. To that end they worked to curb the education, economic advancement, voting rights, and right to keep and bear arms of blacks."
Note the bolded key words, and note why you left them out. "In effect" means indirect, and he writes here specifically of the Democratic Party of the South -- the same one that in 1860 could not abide the DP's Presidential candidate Douglas and ran its own (Breckinridge), resulting in the Democrat being entirely shut out of the South in the election and coming in fourth nationally, winning a total of one state (in effect before it seceded from the Union the South had already seceded from the Democratic Party, and certainly not the last time it would do that).
This was a cultural movement, specific to the defeated Confederacy and a military one of what we today call "insurgents" resisting (what they saw as) an occupying foreign force --- that's why the Klan (and various other groups that were not revived in 1915 with big PR campaigns) were founded by Confederate soldiers -- insurgency.
For more on this question of "who were they" we go to Foner's historian colleague Elaine Franz Parsons: [Parsons p 816]: {EDIT -- old link is dead, quoted and more background here}
"Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of antiblack vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers, coercive moral reformers, bored young men, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline, common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even a few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own. Indeed, all they had in common, besides being overwhelmingly white, southern, and Democratic, was that they called themselves, or were called, Klansmen."
If that's supposed to be a political movement ... it's anarchy. If it's supposed to be a cultural one --- Bingo. Bob's your uncle.
Thank me later.
2. . "The night riders move through the darkness, white against the black road....they go about their business, their horsed draped, guns and bullwhips banging dully against saddles.
They did indeed, and they were doing so before the Klan and before the Civil War as well. This was an already-existing perverted activity that was part of the entire reason for the Abolitionists to form the Republican Party, that and the necessity of the Underground Railroad (cf. Harriet Tubman), and the cacophony of legislation that for decades tried to dance around the issues of who owned or had to return escaped slaves, what new territories would practice it, and the entire power structure of the United States.
But we digress. These "night riders" a/k/a "slave patrols" were already the opposition to the Underground Railroad, and were, as Parsons notes above, vigilantes -- as were the Klan. When the latter was formed as an idle joke in 1865, said night riders took over its name and regalia and began its reign of terror. It even tried to legitimize itself above vigilantism in April 1867 by hiring noted general Nathan Bedford Forrest as a CEO figurehead. When Forrest issued his first and only General Order less than two years later disbanding the Klan and ordering its robes and other paraphernalia destroyed the disparate elements went back to decentralized vigilantism until they were wiped out as an organization within four years.
Of course this did not stop the activities of terrorism -- lynching if anything increased over the next half-century. Mobs require neither an organization nor a political party. They just mob.
....this is the South Carolina of the 1870s, not of the turn of a new millennium, and the night riders are the terror of these times. they roam upcountry, visiting their version of justice on poor blacks and the Republicans that support them,
It's also the South Carolina (Virginia, Alabama etc) of the 1850s before it, as outlined above. Context is crucial.
And nothing has changed....the most popular Democrat and former President has an unbroken record of racism throughout his entire political life.
That could mean anybody.