e Golden Circle_, or
as it is familiarly described, 'the K.G.C.' It was understood to be a
secret society, instituted for the purpose of extending, by the most
desperate means and measures, the institution of slavery, and with it,
of Southern Secession and all those social and political principles
which have been of late years so unscrupulously advocated by Southern
statesmen. It is, however, only of late that any thing definite relative
to this order has been published.

In July, 1861, the Louisville _Journal_ gave a full _expose_ of the
order, which has been recently republished in a pamphlet, by 'the U.S.
National U.C.,' a copy of which now lies before us. 'Of the authenticity
of this exposition,' says the introduction, 'there can be no doubt.'
George D. Prentice, Esq., the editor of the _Journal_, gives his solemn
assurance, as an editor and as a man, that the documents from which he
derived his information are authentic. He asserts, moreover, that he
received them from a prominent Knight of the Third Degree. The
genuineness of these documents has never yet been denied by any man
whose word can be regarded as valid testimony in the case. Corroborative
testimony was furnished in a violent newspaper quarrel which occurred
soon after the first publication was made, in which several 'Knights of
the Third Degree' were participants, the question in dispute being as to
the authorship of the revelations made to Mr. Prentice. After the
warfare had subsided, he informed them that they were all mistaken, and
that each one of the parties implicated was equally guiltless.

On the first page of the introduction referred to, the editor, after a
succinct statement that the K.G.C. is the direct descendant of the order
of the Lone Star and other secret fillibustering societies, and that
many of the 'old landmarks' of those unions may be traced in its
organization, quotes from an article in the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY for
January, 1862, as follows:

'This organization, which was instituted by John C. Calhoun,
William L. Porcher, and others, as far back as 1835, had for its
sole object the dissolution of the Union and the establishment of
Southern Empire--Empire is the word, not Confederacy or
Republic--and it was solely by means of its secret but powerful
machinery, that the Southern States were plunged into revolution,
in defiance of the will of a majority of their voting population.
Nearly every man of