That which was due, punctually arrived.  There now came into prominence those secret societies which, under a shifting variety of names, continued to scheme and to menace until the near and visible end of the war effected their death by inanition.  The Knights of the Golden Circle, The Order of American Knights, the Order of the Star, The Sons of Liberty, in turn enlisted recruits in an abundance which is now remembered with surprise and humiliation,—­sensations felt perhaps most keenly by the sons of those who themselves belonged to the organizations.  Mr. Seward well said:  “These persons will be trying to forget, years hence, that they ever opposed this war.”  These societies gave expression to a terrible blunder, for Copperheadism was even more stupid than it was vicious.  But the fact of their stupidity made them harmless.  Their very names labeled them.  Men who like to enroll themselves in Golden Circles and in Star galaxies seldom accomplish much in exacting, especially in dangerous, practical affairs.  Mr. Lincoln took this sensible view of these associations.  His secretaries, who doubtless speak from personal knowledge, say that his attitude “was one of good-humored contempt.”

As a rule these “Knights” showed their valor in the way of mischief, plotting bold things, but never doing them.  They encouraged soldiers to desert; occasionally they assassinated an enrolling officer; they maintained communications with the Confederates, to whom they gave information and occasionally also material aid; they were tireless in caucus work and wire-pulling; in Indiana, in 1863, they got sufficient control of the legislature to embarrass Governor Morton quite seriously; they talked much about establishing a Northwestern Confederacy; a few of them were perhaps willing to aid in those cowardly efforts at incendiarism in the great Northern cities, also in the poisoning of reservoirs, in the distribution of clothing infected with disease, and in other like villainies which were arranged by Confederate emissaries in Canada, and some of which were imperfectly carried out in New York and elsewhere; they also made great plans for an uprising and for the release of Confederate prisoners in Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana.  But no actual outbreak ever occurred; for when they had come close to the danger line, these associates of mediaeval tastes and poetic appellatives always stopped short.

The President was often urged to take decisive measures against these devisers of ignoble treasons.  Such men as Governor Morton and General Rosecrans strove to alarm him.  But he said that the “conspiracy merited no special attention, being about an equal mixture of puerility and malice.”  He had perfect information as to all the doings and plottings, and as to the membership, of all the societies, and was able to measure accurately their real power of hurtfulness; he never could be induced to treat them with a severity which was abundantly deserved, but