Knights of the Golden Circle

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In 1854, a medical practitioner of ambiguous credentials, George W. L. Bickley, founded the Knights of the Golden Circle. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Golden Circle was complete with passwords, quasi-Masonic rituals, secret signs and symbols. The Knights of the Golden Circle (later called the Order of the American Knights and, by February 1864, the Sons of Liberty) (Bruce Tap, Over Lincoln Shoulder, 73) quickly hatched lodges throughout Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. To identify themselves, members wore the head of Liberty cut out from the old-style copper pennies. (Tap, 74) Affectionately, their enemies called them Copperheads, a reference to the venomous snake.

Although there were many, it is arguable that the antiwar Copperheads rallied the most passionate around one leader, Clement Vallandigham. Born on July 29th, 1820 in New Lisbon, Ohio, Vallandigham was a brilliant individual, whose young mind at age two knew the alphabet, at twelve, spoke Greek and Latin, and who entered Jefferson College in Philadelphia at the age of seventeen. At nineteen, Clement Vallandigham became principle at Union Academy in Maryland, and at twenty was editor of an extremist Democratic newspaper. (Tap, 6)

Later in life, Vallandigham gained the reputation in Ohio as an unbeatable, eccentric, defense attorney. After a term as governor of Ohio, Vallandigham was elected to congress with the platform of anti-Abolitionist Democrat, advocating Confederate Independence and denouncing emancipation, but was defeated in 1862. (Chandra Manning, What This Cruel War Was Over, 99) In his last speech before Congress, Vallandigham urged his countrymen to stop fighting. (Roger L. Ranson, The Confederate States of America: What Mi...

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...nited States. (Ranson, 160) Lincoln’s reputation however won by over 400,000 popular votes and easily confirmed an electoral majority. Several states now allowed their soldier citizens to cast a ballot, a first in United States history. Soldiers in the army gave Lincoln over than 70% of their votes. (Manning, 148)

Meanwhile, as the list of dead and wounded hit northern newspapers, Vallandigham returned from Canadian exile to attend a convention condemning this “unnecessary war” and adopting resolutions in favor of an “immediate cessation of hostilities” and a negotiated peace. (Manning, 149) Once again up to his old tricks, Vallandigham would later disguise himself by stuffing a pillow under his shirt and donning a false mustache just in time to denounce Lincoln publically in the 1864 presidential election, where at which Lincoln will ignore him. (Dickson, 316)

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