...the KGC called for the creation of a geographic "Golden Circle" - an independent political and economic zone to include the southern and border states, Mexico, Central America, and Cuba. At the productive center of this "circular" Southern Empire, with a radius of 1200 miles extending from Havana through the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, would be a slave-based, agrarian society.
The secret order's immediate task was to incite rebellion - to "fire the Southern Heart" - through its "castles," its local cells or chapters spread across the South, North, and border states(18).
...It was through the capture of Bickley and his wife later in July 1863 while traveling in Indiana after the failed Northern Uprising, that a number of revealing KGC documents and artifacts came to light...A card containing nineteen items of the KGC's principles describes a key fraternal hand signal used to indicate KGC membership. It calls, in code, for placing the index finger against the thumb to make a circle.
"A golden circle, encasing a dark or iron hand clasped on a scroll; whole to be about the size of a dime(19)".
The prompt and vigorous action of the whole Secession movement, by which states with a majority attached to the Union were hurled, scarce knowing how, into rebellion, would never have been accomplished save by a long established and perfectly drilled organization. It is not enough to sway millions that the leaders simply know what to do, or that they have the power to do it. There must be organization and subordination, if only to control the independent action of demagogues and selfish politicians, who abound in the South, as elsewhere. Had the existence of the KGC never been revealed, the historian would have detected it by its results, and been compelled in fairness to admit that it was admirably instituted to fulfill its ends, evil as they were, and that its work was well done(21).
The KGC elite realized that the South had insufficient capital, material, and troops to prosecute the war alone without European assistance, particularly after giving up key logistical advantages along the Mississippi. Better, they reasoned, to take firm steps to build resources and command structure below ground for a renewed fight on more equal footing, at a time of their choosing and with an emphasis on guerilla warfare...This enormous enterprise was undertaken late in the war, and all but escaped scrutiny(23).
...A citizen, captured by a guerilla band in Kentucky last summer, records the fact that the establishment of a new Confederacy as the deliberate purpose of the Western people was boastfully asserted by these outlaws, who also assured their prisoner that in the event of such establishment, there would be a greater rebellion than ever! Lastly, it is claimed that the new Confederacy is already organized; that it has a "provisional government," officers, departments, bureaus, etc in secret operation(43).
Charleston was the crucible. The aristocratic coastal city, in whose busy harbor the Civil War would commence, spawned the KGC in its embryonic, nameless form in the 1830s. Two powerful social forces led to the formation of the secret organization.
The first of these influences was the nullification/states' rights/secession movement led by the formidable South Carolina statesman, aristocrat and pro-slavery ideologue, John C. Calhoun.
The second was the establishment by the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of a national Supreme Council in May 1801(44).
Some researchers believe that the persecuted monk warriors (excommunicated by Clement V in 1312 originally took refuge in Scotland and England, hiding within the stone-mason guilds. That "masonic" link between the United Kingdom - particularly Scotland - and the Continent likely further developed when two Scottish Masons living in exile in Paris in the early 1700s, Charles Radclyffe and Andrew Michael Ramsay, sparked a surge of interest in Freemasonry in France. All of this, in some combination, may have engendered the term Scottish Rite(45).
Beyond any philosophical affinity, old-line Scottish Rite Freemasonry provided an organizational structure for the underground states' rights/secessionist movement that would become the KGC. The Rite promoted democracy and democratic values, at least rhetorically. But it built its own governing structure pyramidally, with its select "Supreme Council" members at the top, in command of the most valued information and highly guarded secrets. The Rite, to be sure, pursued a universalist base, yet one overseen by an enlightened elite. With its ascending ritualistic degrees of initiation, code words, tacit understandings, secret geometry, and cryptic symbolism, this complex order of Masonry provided an ideal basis for the KGC to establish a hidden politico-military network(45).
In the volatile political mix that stirred in antebellum Charleston, these two forceful sociopolitical influences of secessionism and Scottish Rite Freemasonry became intertwined in the parlors and meeting rooms. Nowhere was this more potently felt than within the redbrick building on the corner of Church and Broad Streets in Charleston - headquarters of the Scottish Rite's Mother Supreme Council of the World(45).
John C. Calhoun emerged as the intellectual father of the KGC, and a number of Civil War-era commentators describe his as such. He was so inspirational for the pro-slavery secret society that KGC members initially used "Nuohlac" - Calhoun spelled backwards - as their password. A brilliant orator and debater, he stood apart as the Southern Rights advocate who held the respect of even his toughest foes in Washington. In addition to representing South Carolina as a distinguished congressman and senator, Calhoun would able serve the nation in various high-level positions, twice as vice president, and as secretary of war and secretary of state, before his death in 1850(46).
The cause being promoted behind closed doors was the establishment of "The Golden Circle" - the imperial expansion of the Southern slave economy, which required both new slaves and new territory(48).
-Getler, Shadow of the Sentinel
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