A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition]

by Eric Foner

Indeed, the silence of the most prominent white Southerners spoke volumes of what Maj. Lewis Merrill, who investigated the Klan in York County, South Carolina, called “the demoralization of public opinion.” Rather than dissociate themselves from the campaign of terror, prominent Democrats either minimized the Klau’s activities or offered thinly disguised rationalizations for them.