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Although the Dispatch is critical of the Kuklux Bill, the reporter is glad to know that it is not exclusive to southern states, the target of recent legislation during Reconstruction.

It is a source of some satisfaction to know that the Kuklux bill as it passed the House of Representatives applies to all the Slates alike; and it is a singular commentary upon the speeches which have been made in Its favor-all of which contained assertions of terrible troubles and outrages in the South calling for its passage-that the State of Pennsylvania should now be the scene of a riot which the President, if such a law were now in force, might send Federal troops to quell. If Congress had the right to pass such a bill, we should not object to the one now pending. It is because we dislike to see the people accustomed to encroachments of the Federal power upon the reserved rights of the States that we oppose the passage of the bill in question.

“No Title,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed June 1, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/2030.