The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details | Page 5

light and wisdom to the motley crowd who would so soon be
filling the hall with fumes of cheap tobacco and the poorest quality of
whiskey, mingled with the fragrance of onions, borne by gentle zephyrs
from yonder open vestibule. Yonder comes L.A. Doolittle, Esq., a
lawyer of some distinction and a justice of the peace; he wears a look
of wisdom, and you can read upon his face that he is certain that the
"despot Lincoln," and "Lincoln's hirelings," and "Lincoln's bastiles" are
all going under together beneath the wheels of the triumphal car drawn
by the opposition party, with Vallandigham as the leader. But we will
not try to find any great number of fine looking men in very close
proximity to the hall. Arriving on the fifth floor, and proceeding to a
door upon which you find the sign of the "American Protestant
Association," your friends casting furtive glances around and behind
them, disappear by the door and are lost to view; one by one, like stars
upon the approach of dawn, our constellation vanishes. You open the
door, but your curiosity is not repaid; the seedy friends who preceded
you but an instant are lost to sight--presto! the room is as vacant as a
last year's robin's nest, and observation detects a hole of six inches in
diameter in a door in one side of the room; you try the door, but it is
fast, and you may leave if you wish, but the idea of a Copperhead
crawling through a hole six inches in diameter will haunt your dreams
that night.

CHAP. II.

FOREIGN POWERS THE ENEMIES OF REPUBLICAN
GOVERNMENT--THEIR
PART IN THE
PROGRAMME OF THE REBELLION.
The event of the American revolution burst upon the world as the most
startling era in the history of nations. Monarchical Europe had long
envied the proud career and inevitable destiny of these States, which
had been shaken as the brightest jewels from the British Crown.
Monarchs, Emperors, Queens, lords, princes and diplomats, who wield
the sceptre of dominion, could not conceal the joy afforded them by a
scene, which executed, promised the speedy extinguishment of the
leading national power on the globe, and the final demolition of the
only altar of liberty upon which the fires of freedom had continued
bright.
The event created the more joy, because it was attributable partly to the
efforts so strenuously put forth for many preceding years by the
combined enemies of American Independence, to poison the American
mind and breed disunion in the ranks of a free, industrious and honest
yeomanry, with a view to the ultimate dissolution of the bonds of the
Union.
These enemies, however, for some time anterior to the development of
the fruit of their labors, had begun to despair of the cause in which they
had engaged, and it is possible that the scheme of American wreck and
ruin upon their part had been permanently abandoned, hence their
immediate demonstrations of joy at the triumph of their cause of
sedition.
But seeds sown, however barren the soil, seldom fail of some growth,
and subsequent to the presidential election of 1860, the great American
rebellion became transparent to both friend and foe. To enumerate and
examine in detail the different phases of the programme of artificial
causes which precipitated defiance of the General Government, and

gave origin to the chronic disorder of the people of different sections
upon the subject of their government, would occupy more space than
has been allotted this brief narrative, which is more especially intended
to embrace a readable compilation of the later movements of the
enemies of the Government to crown the Confederate cause with
success, through the bloody implement of Conspiracy and Revolution
in the Northern States.
Having alluded to the prominent part occupied by foreign hostile
powers in the general scheme of Conspiracy against the Federal
Government, a brief allusion to the part executed by the native born
American will not be out of place.
The cheek tingles with the blush of shame, when alas, it must be said
that the pride of the American has been humbled by his too faithful
adherence to the grand original compact of treason, even after the
second most potent auxiliary to the plan had been tenderly touched
with the wickedness of the scheme, and had withdrawn in dismay at the
approach of the enactment of crime so revolting.
All things material and tangible have their bases and starting points, so
too, had the Southern Rebellion its foundation stone laid deep and solid
in the minds of the people by John C. Calhoun, the first great Supreme
Commander of the germ from whence sprung the various elements of
treason, which have entered into the composition of the powers seeking
the destruction of the Federal