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Enemies Within The Pacific Northwest
(The following podcast has been produced by the Museum of History and Industry in partnership
with Jack Straw Productions.)
HELEN DIVJAK: This is Helen Divjak speaking with Dr. Lorraine McConaghy, Historian from
the Museum of History and Industry. Lorraine, 9/11 is considered a defining tragedy for
our nation, but terrorism has been a constant factor throughout our nation’s history.
Can you tell me about the Knights of the Golden Circle and how they posed a threat?
LORRAINE MCCONAGHY: The Knights of the Golden Circle in the Pacific Northwest are sort of
a subset of a much larger, national movement. The Knights of the Golden Circle originated
in the late 1840s and into the 1850s in Cincinnati, Ohio and then into Texas, and then spreading
throughout the Southeastern states. The notion was this: that Cuba would be the dead center
of an enormous circle, and that that huge circle would become slave-holding territory
under the flag or perhaps outside the flag. When we research the Knights of the Golden
Circle at the Oregon Historical Society we find that the Knights were a secret society.
To join, one had to own a long gun and a handgun and forty rounds of ammunition for each. Every
member of the Knights of the Golden Circle was sworn to absolute secrecy, and every member
also had to support the Confederacy with real money. The Knights of the Golden Circle in
the Pacific Northwest, particularly in Washington Territory, were organized in order to replace
the Lincoln-appointed government here in Washington with a Confederate-appointed government. The
idea was to take out Washington, Oregon, Nevada and California as a Pacific Republic, a confederacy
all of its own allied with the Confederacy in the Southeast. The Knights of the Golden
Circle here drilled with the handgun and the long gun and all of that, in secret, in the
dark, in barns, and in the middle of the woods, perfecting their aim so that they could assassinate
the governor, Governor Pickering, who had been appointed by Abraham Lincoln, and all
of the other political patronage positions here in Washington. This is true terrorism,
and the Governor was truly terrified. There’s a letter of his to the military governor of
this Pacific Northwest region with all underlinings of words and exclamation marks about the thousands
of members of Knights of the Golden Circle in Washington alone who he thought were after
his head. Surely, the number was exaggerated but his fear was not, and he was terrified.
He perceived the Knights of the Golden Circle as terrorists.
HD: So there was a threat of terrorism, there was a sense of terrorism, but was there evidence
to back that up? Did the Knights of the Golden Circle actually commit acts of violence that
would evidence the fact that they were actually terrorists?
LM: No, but they wanted to; they were ready to. That’s why they were drilling. They
were waiting at the drop of a hat for someone to say, “Go and assassinate the governor,
the postal workers, all of the Lincoln appointees. There are Confederates ready to take their
place.” This was very real. It didn’t happen. And there’s a kind of presentism
to looking back at an event like this and saying, “Well, since it didn’t happen
these people weren’t terrorists.” The Knights of the Golden Circle were willing
to use terror and violence to further their own aims. They were perceived as terrorists,
and they themselves viewed themselves as terrorists. The term terrorism was very common at the
time, and it was bandied about during the Civil War. Knights of the Golden Circle and
Democrats would call Republicans “Abolition terrorists.” It was a common term, a common
slur.
HD: During the Civil War the Union Government—Abraham Lincoln—highly censored what Confederate
sympathizers, including the Knights of the Golden Circle, could say publicly. Isn’t
censorship an infringement upon our First Amendment rights?
LM: You were not permitted to dissent with the Civil War. Dissent with the Civil War
was treason in the eyes of Republicans. And slurring someone as a Knight of the Golden
Circle, slurring him as an enemy within, became a way of controlling and intimidating dissent
on the Civil War home front.
(Continue the discussion on domestic threats and the protection of American civil liberties
with MOHAI’s other podcasts produced in conjunction with the exhibit, The Enemy Within:
Terror in America 1776 to Today, at MOHAI through May 2nd. Visit seattlehistory.org,
for more information.)