e than all this, Mr. Lincoln wrote, and
every one knew, that, "if the war fails, the administration fails," and
thus far the war had been a failure. So the grumblers, the malcontents,
and the Southern sympathizers argued that the administration also, at
least so far as it had gone, had been a failure; and they fondly
conceived that their day of triumph was dawning.

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 N