The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details | Page 8

view. The damage it did was principally confined to the burning of United States transports on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and the moulding of the crude opinions of its members, which served as a solid foundation for the establishment of the Order of American Knights, which immediately succeeded its dissolution.
Like all institutions of iniquity, the sun of the Order of Knights of the Golden Circle went down in blood, but was the signal for the advent of an Order better calculated to meet the ends of its design.
It had been seen upon experiment that the Golden Circle had been successful beyond the most sanguine expectations of its instigators, and as the necessity of Northern revolution to insure the certain success of the Confederacy daily became more apparent to the rebels, both North and South, the Order of the American Knights was inaugurated--the executioner of that fell purpose. Its sun arose to its meridian with the suddenness of a meteor, doomed to flash across the canopy and burst in scattering atoms.
The Order of American Knights was erected upon the dissolved fragments of the Order of the Knights of the Golden Circle, which Order, in name, was abandoned for the additional reason that the suspicions of the Government had begun to be aroused as to the character of its movements. At the time of the extinction of the Golden Circle, its members were at once inducted into the Order of American Knights, so that this Order obtained much primary advantage, in point of numerical strength, over its predecessor, for the Golden Circle had already insidiously crept into the very hearts of several Northern cities and states. The American Knights being composed in the outset wholly of men who from experience had discovered whatever defectiveness may have been chargeable upon the Golden Circle, it was sought in the new Order to remedy the evils of the old Order.
With this in view, looking over the former and later phases of the Golden Circle as it had existed in the North and South, respectively, it was agreed to give the new Order still another capacity, and what was called the military branch or department was added, the incendiary capacity of the old Order being merged into this new military department.
We have seen that there had been in the North an Order mainly of educational capacity, contemplating revolution so soon as the public mind could be put in readiness for such an event, but now for the first time we find an Order prepared in its organic structure, to speedily collect together the elements of revolution and set them in motion. Such a concern was the Order of American Knights. True, the rise of the Order created a momentary excitement in political circles, as yet unaccustomed to dealing with the stern problems of Northern revolution by resort to arms. But, by the admirable adjustment of the administrative powers of the Order, into degrees, sub-degrees and departments of degrees and sub-degrees, the leaders were enabled to give to each adventurer in quest of the hidden mysteries of the so-called impartial maxims of genuine Democracy--that Democracy which boasts of having permeated through every fibre and artery of our political, commercial and social systems, a comfortable and genial sphere in which he was left to operate upon his good behavior.
Upon this ingenious plan the vast body and mass of the Order simply held the relation of probationary membership, until they were rendered competent through the educational capacity of the society, to advance into full fellowship with its diabolical design. A glance at this organization will suffice to show the shrewdness of the transient and local agents of the Confederacy, in their formation of an Order, having for its mission the attainment of so many incidental objects, without in the meantime subjecting themselves to the dangers of collision in their machinery. Accordingly, the Order was composed of three general degrees, viz.: First, the Temple Degree, second, the Grand Council Degree, and third, the Supreme Council Degree.
The first or Temple Degree, resembled the county organization of a State, and held the same relation to the second or Grand Council Degree (which was the state organization of the Order,) that our county government holds to our State government, and it was always sought to establish this first or Temple Degree at each county seat in a State, as expeditiously as possible, that the second or Grand Council Degree could the sooner be fully represented, and begin its State management of the Order. In other chapters the writer has made a passing, though sufficient allusion to the internal workings of these Temples, and doubtless the initiated reader, in different sections, will recognize the facts we have already and are further about to state, notwithstanding the "obligation" the author is supposed to have