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
The Judge's speeches were always marked by vehemence, profanity
and violent gesticulation; he never spoke except to condemn the
administration, and to express his confidence in this Order to remedy
all the evils of the administration, and that we should very soon--"in
sixty days," have the power, and yet on several occasions he expressed
the belief that McClellan would not be elected. No one, not even the
most stupid in the first degree of the Temple, could fail to understand
how the Copperheads were to have the reins of the General Government
in sixty days, and yet that the party could not hope for success at the
polls. A man named William Hull, connected with the Order, rebuked
such speeches in unqualified terms, and as a consequence drew down upon
himself the odium of the Order. Mr. Hull expressed himself in favor of
compliance with the Constitution and the laws, and of the Union. His
denunciations of the rebels excluded him from the confidence of the
leaders, who began to regard him as a "dangerous man," and expressed the
belief that he would turn against them, and therefore required watching.
Mr. Hull was a man of good common sense, and made several Union speeches
in the Order, which confirmed the suspicion that had been expressed by
some, that he was a spy and detective, and it was said it would be far
better to _put him out of the way_, or in other words to kill him, lest
he might betray them, and further as the time of the election was so
near at hand, it was voted by the Sons of Liberty to destroy all their
records, so that in case of arrest no documentary evidence could be
brought against them. While the motion was pending, Mr. Richard T.
Semmes, one of the prisoners tried at Cincinnati, moved an amendment,
that the names of members be retained, so that in case any one should
betray the Order they might be known and hung, but it was not deemed
safe to preserve the record, and most of the memoranda was destroyed,
but for the edification of the members, we will add that we have on
deposit in Chicago an entire and correct list of names of the Chicago,
and most of the prominent Temples, and it may be deemed expedient to
publish it hereafter; this will be determined by the general behavior of
the members themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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