The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details | Page 2

more important testimony, or appreciate fully the vast magnitude of the conspiracy; and there are many who having read only the indictment, have conceived the idea that if the charges therein alleged are true, the crime was confined to a few desperate and wicked men in Chicago alone, and that, therefore, it possessed but a local interest. Such a conclusion is wholly groundless. The history of this conspiracy is of the most vital interest for the people of every State in the Union, for had the conspirators not been foiled at a most opportune moment, their plans would have been successful in every particular, and once in operation they could not have been frustrated by any force we could have arrayed against them; and who shall say that had the savage hordes of Jeff. Davis then been turned loose upon an unarmed community, to carry desolation and ruin as they should sweep over our fair States, that to-day the Southern rebels would be, as they now are, in their last extremity--that victory would now be perched upon our banners wherever our noble pioneers of freedom advance, and that our brave boys of the Potomac would now be reposing from, their labors in the halls of the rebel capitol! Those who, upon investigation, fail to recognise the magnitude, the sagacity, the completeness of this Northwestern Conspiracy, and realise its immense importance to the rebel chieftains at the South, corroborated as the evidence before the Commission has been by incidents of almost daily occurrence for many months, have not learned to read correctly the history of the Great Southern Rebellion. If an idea ever entered the heads of malcontents at the North to establish a Northwestern Confederacy, it was speedily chased away by the more promising schemes of the arch traitor late of Richmond. It is to collect facts already elicited, and to give further information, and with a hope of aiding the cause of the Union so sacred and dear to us all, that the writer has yielded to the oft-repeated requests of his friends to present a connected and concise history of the Northwestern Conspiracy.
THE AUTHOR.

CHAP.I.
SECRET SERVICE TO SECURE SUCCESS OF SOUTHERN ARMS--STATE SOVEREIGNTY--THE GENERAL PURPOSES OF SECRET POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS--RECOLLECTIONS THAT CAN NEVER DIE--VOICES FROM OUR BRAVE SOLDIERS AT THE FRONT, BESPEAKING OUR PROTECTION FOR THEIR WIVES, CHILDREN, PARENTS AND HOMES FROM NORTHERN COPPERHEADS--CHARACTER OF THE LEADERS OF THE DIFFERENT SECRET ORDERS.
The signal potency of secret organizations at the South prior to the secession of States, and indeed the only really effective machinery by which an attempt at disunion by the people could have been made to appear possible, early in the great struggle engaged the earnest attention of the Southern leaders. Knowing as they did that had the question of secession been primarily an open one, for free discussion, that the masses of the people would have rejected the proposition with deserved scorn and indignation, and hung the ambitious adventurers who dared propose the sacrilege. They realized the importance of establishing the order in the North. The leaders saw with delight the working of secret organizations, where men were sworn to secrecy, and drawn onward step by step, till they reached the very brink of the fearful precipice. Thus did the people fasten upon themselves and each other the shackles of slavery, which they have since so unwillingly worn. The doctrine of State sovereignty proclaimed by John C. Calhoun, and which, together with its apostles, Jackson well knew how to receive, had been instilled into the minds of the people of the States, which since their admission into the Union had been at war with destiny, and in the hope of securing perpetuity of their peculiar institutions, they attempted the dissolution of the Union. Truly gratifying it must have been to the extremists in those States to have watched the gathering clouds, and to listen to the low murmuring thunder which presaged the coming storm, and well they knew how fearful would be its fury, but blinded to the inevitable result, they were confident of ultimate success, when they should have so far disseminated the Calhoun poison at the North, as to have made oath-bound slaves in such numbers as would paralyze the efforts of Union men, and render it necessary to recall our armies from the field to suppress insurrection at home, and to change the theatre of the war to Northern soil. None knew the importance of introducing the machinery of secret political organizations better than Davis himself, for he had not forgotten the Charleston Convention, the working of the secret orders then, and subsequent events had of course confirmed him in the opinion that a divided North would not be a formidable adversary, and that he was warranted in the firm belief that his wish to