The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling DetailsAyer, I. Winslow
History
The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details
Ayer, I. Winslow
Knights of the Golden Circle; Northwestern Conspiracy, 1864
It was a rule of the organization, that its members should all be well
armed and skilled in the use of weapons. The rapidity of increase in
numbers, rendered them conscious of their strength, and they became
openly defiant and talked treason upon the corners of our streets, and
wherever little groups of people assembled. The mob spirit was excited,
and all were ready for mischief whenever opportunity offered; and while
all were bound to wait submissively till their leaders should give the
signal for revolution, still many were restless and impatient for the
hour to come, and hoped that they would not long have to wait. The
suppression of the Chicago _Times_ was an auspicious moment for them,
and they made capital of it. They were never tired of talking of
Vallandigham, and while that worthy staid in Canada he was very
serviceable to the Order, as John Rogers was of more service to the
church dead than while living. Vallandigham made an excellent martyr and
an accomplished exile, but as an active member at home, old Doolittle,
or Charles W. Patten, or James A. Wilkinson, or J.L. Rock, or Obadiah
Jackson, Jr., Esq., or even Mrs. Morris herself, was worth two just like
him. Why he could not have staid in Canada for the good of the cause, we
cannot understand. What a Mecca was Windsor, and how great was Mahomet,
but alas, when the great, the Hon. Clement Vallandigham relapsed into
the three-cent fourth-class lawyer, in the little one horse city of
Dayton, "what a fall was there my countrymen." No more pilgrimages, no
more dinners with the great exile, no more texts of "arbitrary arrests"
to preach from, that could draw as Val used to draw.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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