[The Rebel General Sterling Price being the chief Southern commander of this many-named treasonable organization, which in the North alone numbered over 500,000 men.
August, 1864.—See Report of Judge Advocate Holt on certain "Secret Associations," in Appendix,]
And it only lacked a few months of the time when quantities of copies of the treasonable Ritual of the "Order of American Knights"—as well as correspondence touching the purchase of thousands of Garibaldi rifles for transportation to the West—were found in the offices of leading Democrats then in Congress.
When, therefore, it is said, and repeated, that there were not wanting elements of proof, outside of Congressional utterances and actions, that leading Democrats in Congress were trusted Lieutenants of the Supreme Commander of over half a million of Northern Rebel-sympathizers bound together, and to secrecy, by oaths, which were declared to be paramount to all other oaths, the violation of which subjected the offender to a shameful death somewhat like that, of being "hung, drawn, and quartered," which was inflicted in the middle ages for the crime of Treason to the Crown—it will be seen that the statement is supported by circumstantial, if not by positive and direct, evidence.
Whether the Coxes, the Garret Davises, the Saulsburys, the Fernando Woods, the Alexander Longs, the Allens, the Holmans, and many other prominent Congressmen of that sort,—were merely in close communion with these banded "Knights," or were actual members of their secret organizations, may be an open question. But it is very certain that if they all were not oath-bound members, they generally pursued the precise methods of those who were; and that, as a rule, while they often loudly proclaimed loyalty and love for the Union, they were always ready to act as if their loyalty and love were for the so-called Confederacy.
Indeed, it was one of these other "loyal" Democrats, who even preceded Voorhees, in raising the Sectional cry of: The West, against New England. It was on this same Internal Revenue Bill, that Holman of Indiana had, the day before Voorhees's attack, said:
"If the Manufacture of the Northwest is to be taxed so heavily, a corresponding rate of increase must be imposed on the Manufactures of New England and Pennsylvania, or, will gentlemen tax us without limit for the benefit of their own Section? * * * I protest against what I believe is intended to be a discrimination against one Section of the Country, by increasing the tax three-fold, without a corresponding increase upon the burdens of other Sections."
But these dreadfully "loyal" Democrats—who did the bidding of traitorous masters in their Treason to the Union, and thus, while posturing as "Patriots," "fired upon the rear" of our hard-pressed Armies—were super-sensitive on this point. And, when they could get hold of a quiet sort of a man, inclined to peaceful methods of discussion, how they would, terrier-like, pounce upon him, and extract from him, if they could, some sort of negative satisfaction!
Thus, for instance, on the 22nd of January, when one of these quiet men —Morris of New York—was in the midst of an inoffensive speech, Mr. Cox "bristled up," and blusteringly asked whether he meant to say that he (Cox) had "ever been the apologist or the defender of a Traitor?"
And Morris not having said so, mildly replied that he did "not so charge"—all of which little bit of by-play hugely pleased the touchy Mr. Cox, and his clansmen.
But on the day following, their smiles vanished under the words of Spalding or Ohio, who, after referring to the crocodile-tears shed by Democratic Congressmen over the Confiscation Resolution—on the pretense that it would hunt down "innocent women and children" of the Rebels, when they had never a word of sympathy for the widows and children of the two hundred thousand dead soldiers of the Union—continued: