Coupla course corrections:
First off, the KKK was NOT formed to fight, lynch or otherwise harm Blacks.
Blacks were no threat to the South. At all.
The KKK was formed to fight, murder and lynch WHITE Republicans.
True that the Klan was not formed to fight, lynch or otherwise harm --- anybody. It was a simple social club. That element came later --- 1866/1867 as I've posted earlier, from elements that already existed even before the Civil War. See post 865.
Specifically from that passage:
>> .... The [1867] Nashville Klan convention was called to grapple with these problems by creating a chain of command and deciding just what sort of organization the Klan would be. The meeting gave birth to the official philosophy of white supremacy as the fundamental creed of the Ku Klux Klan. Throughout the summer of 1867 the Invisible Empire changed, shedding the antics that had brought laughter during its parades and other public appearances, and instead taking on the full nature of a secret and powerful force with a sinister purpose.
All the now-familiar tactics of the Klan date from this period — the threats delivered to blacks, radicals and other enemies warning them to leave town; the night raids on individuals they singled out for rougher treatment; and the mass demonstrations of masked and robed Klansmen designed to cast their long shadow of fear over a troubled community. <<
Whether blacks were no threat to the South, well those whose world was turned upside down by the War and were now competing with, or forced to pay, those freed slaves in an entirely new economic paradigm didn't see it that way.
Finally -- again it was formed as a social club, but the element that soon and infamously took it over wasn't targeting any kind of political party, it was targeting what it saw as intruders and sycophants -- the former of which would include Union army personnel and nonmilitary "carpetbaggers", and the latter of which would have included the freed slaves and the native white "scalawags" which they saw as the equivalent of union 'scabs'. None of which have anything to do with political parties.
You see, the right to vote was being taken away from Southerners WHO FOUGHT UNDER THE REBEL FLAG. So they felt, rightly, that they had no representation.
And they formed the KKK to intimidate and, if necessary, murder REPUBLICANS NOT BLACKS.
Again, true at the start --- Tennessee was in fact disenfranchised and not part of the United States when the Klan was formed in 1865, so they had no vote anyway and yes had no representation until re-admittance the next year. Again the Klan wasn't formed to intimidate and murder anybody but when that element took it over, yes they murdered both Republicans and Blacks as well as 'carpetbaggers', 'scalawags' and even philandering and/or abusive husbands.
In fact (and this is historic FACT) the number of Blacks murdered by the KKK didn't start to equal the number of WHITE REPUBLICANS MURDERED until the 1880s
FACT
Actually -- the Klan was extinct before 1880. Fact. Lynchings certainly were not extinct, and if anything increased but the Klan wasn't re-formed until 1915.
In between, there were other entities such as....
- the American Protective Association (APA) (Iowa 1887 to 1914) (which targeted Catholics)
By 1896, claiming 2.5 million members nationwide*, the APA dominated local politics in Omaha, Kansas City, Toledo, Rockford, Duluth, Saginaw and Louisville while boasting strong outposts in Detroit, St.Louis and Denver
--- White Robes and Burning Crosses: A History of the Ku Klux Klan from 1866 (Michael Newton, McFarland, 2014)
It didn't spread into the South but kept the ground fertile for Simmons to exploit with his 1915 Klan. Note the presence of Omaha and Duluth, two sites of notorious lynchings in the area, and Detroit and Denver where Simmons-Klan candidates later made inroads
- And the White Caps (Indiana 1888-1906)*
* the White Caps' targets expanded from blacks Hispanics and Jews to "the poor whites and ne'er-do-wells of the American coutryside", "loose women" and "drunken, shiftless and wife-beating whites"
(ibid, p. 28)
--- yet another precursor to the 1915 Klan's targets of Jews, "loose women" and bootleggers.
