Analysis Of The Knights Of The Golden Circle

The Knights of the Golden Circle started as an organization that wanted greater slave territories, and eventually lead to a group of hateful individuals that killed a noble, historic president, Abraham Lincoln. As so eloquently put by a blog dedicated to this association, the KGC was originally a northern organization that, “advocated the creation of an empire of slavery…this slave empire would control a monopoly on tobacco, cotton, sugar, rice, and coffee and become a world power to rival ancient Rome” (The Knights of the Golden Circle). This empire would include the territories of Mexico, Central America, the West Indies, and some of the Southern United States. The organization was first created by a doctor who moved to Cincinnati to share

It was the custom for members of the family to dine and sup with the white men who did the harvesting. Wilkes had a struggle with his pride and knew not which to abide by, his love of equality and brotherhood, or that southern reservation which jealously kept the white laborer from free association with his employer or his superior” (Clarke 48).

Wilkes then later goes on the star in several plays, and is instructed to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. He fails at his first attempt and then follows through with is second at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865.

Booth’s original plan for a confederate win was to kidnap Lincoln. However, when Lincoln cancelled his plans to go to the production at Campbell Hospital, Booth’s plot turned in to a much more sinister scheme. On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln attended the Ford’s Theater to watch the play, Our American Cousin. Little did he know that this would be the day that not only changed his life, but changed the nations. In the biographical book about Lincoln, Lincoln; The Prairie Years and the War Years, Lincoln’s means of death is gruesomely described as, “A lead ball somewhat less than a half-inch in diameter crashes into the left side of the head of the human target, into the back of the head, in a line with and three inches from the left ear” (Sandburg 582). The 16th president died later that next

The survival of the vice president allowed Andrew Johnson to become the 17th president of the United States, he assumed office directly after Abraham Lincoln died. Johnson and the U. S. Congress butted heads on many issues. One of the issues being reconstruction. Johnson rejected the idea of a radical for of reconstruction, a plan that Lincoln had full support of. In 1865 most states had been done with reconstruction, but southern states were enacting black codes, which greatly inhibited African Americans from voting, and Johnson did not do much to stope these codes. Congress vigorously disagreed with Johnsons reconstruction plan. Congress disagreed with Johnson so much that in 1868 he became the first president in the United States of America to be