Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward полностью

On the positive side, there is no question of Lincoln's patriotism. His concern was in preserving the Union, not the Constitution, and his refusal to let the European powers split America into a cluster of warring nation-states was certainly wise. Lincoln believed that he had to violate part of the Constitution in order to save the whole. But that is dangerous reasoning. It can be used in almost any national crisis as the excuse for the expansion of totalitarian power. There is no reason to believe that the only way to save the Union was to scrap the Constitution. In fact, if the Constitution had been meticulously observed from the very beginning, the Southern minority could never have been legally plundered by the Northern majority and there likely would have been, no movement for secession in the first place. And, even if there had been, a strict reading of the Constitution at that point could have led the way to an honorable and peaceful settlement of differences.

The result would have been, not only the preservation of the Union without war, but Americans would be enjoying far less government intervention in their daily lives today.

WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE

There is one point that is clearly on Lincoln's side. While his political compatriots were howling for economic vengeance against the South, the President stood firmly against it. "With malice toward none" was more than a slogan with him, and he was willing to risk his political survival on that one issue. The reason he had GREENBACKS AND OTHER CRIMES 391

vetoed the Wade-Davis emancipation bill was because it would have applied a lien against Southern cotton at the end of the war to the benefit of New England textile manufactures. The cotton also would have been taken as security to pay off Southern debt which had been contracted before the war, thus providing the funds to buy back at face value all of the bonds which had been purchased at discount by Rothschild's agent, August Belmont. Such defiance of the financiers and speculators undoubtedly required great courage.

But the issue ran deeper than that. Lincoln had offered a general amnesty to any citizen in the South who would agree to take a loyalty oath to the Union. When ten per cent of the voters had taken such an oath, he proposed that they could then elect Congressmen, Senators, and a state government which would be recognized as part of the Union once again. The Republicans, on the other hand, had incorporated into the Wade-Davis bill the provision that each seceded state was to be treated like a conquered country. Political representation was to be denied until fifty-one per cent, not ten per cent, had taken an oath. Former slaves were given the right to vote—although women had not yet gained that right even in the North—but, because of their lack of education and political awareness, no one expected them to play a meaningful role in government for many years to come. Furthermore, those taking the oath had to swear that they had never taken up arms against the Union. Since almost every able-bodied white male had done so, the effect would have been to deny the South political representation for at least two generations.

Under Lincoln's amnesty policy, it would not be long before the Republicans would be overwhelmed in Congress by a large majority of Democrats. The Democrats in the North were already gaining strength on their own and, once they could be joined by the solid block of Democrats from the reunited South, the Republicans'

political and economic power would be lost. So, when Lincoln vetoed the bill, his own Party bitterly turned against him.

Running throughout these cross-currents of motives and special interests were two groups which found it increasingly to their advantage to have Lincoln out of the way. One group consisted of the financiers, Northern industrialists, and radical Republicans, all of whom wanted to legally plunder the South at the end of the war.

The politicians within that group also looked forward to further consolidating their power and literally establishing a military 392

THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

dictatorship.1 The other group was smaller in size but equally dangerous. It consisted of hothead Confederate sympathizers—

from both South and North—who sought revenge. Later events revealed that both of these groups had been involved in a conspiratorial liaison with an organization called the Knights of the Golden Circle.

KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

The Order of the Knights of the Golden Circle was a secret organization dedicated to revolution and conquest. Two of its better known members were Jesse James and John Wilkes Booth, ft was organized by George W.L. Bickley who established its first

"castle" in Cincinnati in 1854, drawing membership primarily from Masonic lodges. It had close ties with a secret society in France called The Seasons, which itself was a branch of the Illuminati.