No wonder that under such circumstances, the news of such a gathering of the Northern Democratic sympathizers with Treason, and of their adoption of such treasonable Resolutions, should encourage the Rebels in the same degree that Union men were disheartened! No wonder that Lee, elated by this and other evidences of Northern sympathy with Rebellion, at once determined to commence a second grand invasion of the North, and on the very next day (June 14th,) moved Northward with all his Rebel hosts to be welcomed, he fondly hoped, by his Northern friends of Maryland and elsewhere! As we have seen, it took the bloody Battle of Gettysburg to undeceive him as to the character of that welcome. Further than this, Mr. Cox had stumped Ohio, in the succeeding election, in a desperate effort to make the banished Traitor, Vallandigham--the Chief Northern commander of the "Knights of the Golden Circle" (otherwise known as the "Order of the Sons of Liberty," and "O. A. K." or "Order of American Knights")--Governor of that great State. [The Rebel General Sterling Price being the chief Southern commander of this many-named treasonable organization, which in the North alone numbered over 500,000 men. August, 1864.--See Report of Judge Advocate Holt on certain "Secret Associations," in Appendix,] And it only lacked a few months of the time when quantities of copies of the treasonable Ritual of the "Order of American Knights"--as well as correspondence touching the purchase of thousands of Garibaldi rifles for transportation to the West--were found in the offices of leading Democrats then in Congress. When, therefore, it is said, and repeated, that there were not wanting elements of proof, outside of Congressional utterances and actions, that leading Democrats in Congress were trusted Lieutenants of the Supreme Commander of over half a million of Northern Rebel-sympathizers bound together, and to secrecy, by oaths, which were declared to be paramount to all other oaths, the violation of which subjected the offender to a shameful death somewhat like that, of being "hung, drawn, and quartered," which was inflicted in the middle ages for the crime of Treason to the Crown--it will be seen that the statement is supported by circumstantial, if not by positive and direct, evidence. Whether the Coxes, the Garret Davises, the Saulsburys, the Fernando Woods, the Alexander Longs, the Allens, the Holmans, and many other prominent Congressmen of that sort,--were merely in close communion with these banded "Knights," or were actual members of their secret organizations, may be an open question. But it is very certain that if they all were not oath-bound members, they generally pursued the precise methods of those who were; and that, as a rule, while they often loudly proclaimed loyalty and love for the Union, they were always ready to act as if their loyalty and love were for the so-called Confederacy.