The group's original goal was to provide a force to colonize the northern part of Mexico and the West Indies. Hounded by creditors, Bickley left Cincinnati in the late 1850s and traveled through the East and South, promoting an armed expedition to Mexico. ДЄn alleged secret history of the Knights of the Golden Circle published in 1863 Some Knights of the Golden Circle active in northern states, such as Illinois, were accused of anti-Union activities after the Civil War began in 1861. Records of the KGC convention held in 1860 state that the organization 'originated at Lexington, Kentucky, on the fourth day of July 1854, by five gentlemen who came together on a call made by Gen. The membership, scattered from New York to California and into Latin America, was never large. Membership increased slowly until 1859 and reached its height in 1860. Bickley, a doctor, editor, and adventurer who lived in Cincinnati, founded the association, organizing the first castle, or local branch, in Cincinnati in 1854. It was concentrated in the Deep South, on large plantations devoted to the commodity crops of cotton and sugar cane, but it was the basis of agricultural and other labor throughout the southern states. The slave population there had continued to grow due to natural increase even after the ban on international trade. In the years prior to the American Civil War, the rise of support for abolition of slavery was one of several divisive issues in the United States. The Spanish possessions of Cuba and Puerto Rico and the Empire of Brazil continued to depend on slavery, as did the Southern United States. 3 Plans to seize Lincoln and inaugurate Breckinridge as presidentД®uropean colonialism and dependence on slavery had declined more rapidly in some countries than others.Milligan, they were imprisoned for their activities.ДЄlthough nominally a secret society, the existence of the Knights of the Golden Circle was not, in fact, a secret. Дuring the American Civil War, some Southern sympathizers in the Union or Northern states, such as Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, were accused of belonging to the Knights of the Golden Circle, and in some cases, such as that of Lambdin P. In either case, the goal was to increase the power of the Southern slave-holding upper class to such a degree that it could never be dislodged. states south of the Mason-Dixon line to secede and to align with other slave states to be formed from the 'golden circle'. ДЄs abolitionism in the United States grew in opposition to slavery, the KGC members proposed a separate confederation of slave states, with U.S. Mexico and Central America had no interest in being part of the United States. In Cuba, the issue was complicated by the desire of many in the colony for independence from Spain. The KGC's proposal grew out of previous unsuccessful proposals to annex Cuba ( Ostend Manifesto), parts of Central America ( Filibuster War), and all of Mexico ( All of Mexico Movement). In the United States, the new country's northern border would roughly coincide with the MasonвЂ“Dixon line, and within it were included such cities as Washington D.C., St. In response to the increased anti-slavery agitation that followed the Dred Scott decision (1857) the Knights changed their position: the Southern United States should secede, forming their own confederation, and then invade and annex the area of the Golden Circle to vastly expand the power of the South. Originally, the KGC advocated that the new territories should be annexed by the United States, in order to vastly increase the number of slave states and thus the power of the slave-holding Southern upper classes. The country would have been centered in Havana and would have consisted of the Southern United States and a 'golden circle' of territories in Mexico (which was to be divided into 25 new slave states), Central America, northern parts of South America, and Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and most other islands in the Caribbean, about 2,400 miles (3,900В km) in diameter. Bickley, the objective of which was to create a new country, known as the Golden Circle ( Spanish: CГrculo Dorado), where slavery would be legal. The Knights of the Golden Circle ( KGC) was a secret society founded in 1854 by American George W. Seal of the President of the Knights of the Golden Circle, National Archives.

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