I tinkered around conducting my own deep political research for years, but it wasn’t until I began the study of secret societies that I made any real headway. My big breakthrough was exploring connections between the Sicilian men-of-honor society and the Central Intelligence Agency, two secret societies that plotted to assassinate Fidel Castro. But after JFK called off that murder, the same team assembled to kill Castro ended up killing Kennedy. If Congress ever holds a real investigation, this is the reality that will emerge, although I suppose the instigators will be long dead by then.
I could write about 9/11 today, after all it is the anniversary, but my musing on that subject don’t attract much attention and offend those who prefer to keep their heads in the sand. I’m sure Facebook downgrades 9/11 posts anyway, unless they support the official story. There’s so much mud in the water and games being played regarding 9/11 that it’ll probably take another 13 years for enough real evidence to emerge to start pointing fingers at the true culprits, though I am certain 9/11 was staged to jump-start two wars that killed over two million people and made billions for the military-industrial complex, while suspending most of our Constitutional rights, because that’s the way deep politics works.
You can’t fully understand the Lincoln assassination without understanding the pseudo-masonic Knights of the Golden Circle, one of the more powerful secret societies in America at the time of the assassination. Funny how almost nothing has been written about the Knights, although their existence was well-established before the Civil War. Apparently, the organization grew out of Southern Rights clubs in the South who wished to open up more territory to slavery. These secret clubs financed slave ships that continued to illegally abduct Africans after the slave trade was officially abolished in 1808. In 1844, the War with Mexico was championed by these clubs because they desired to invade Mexico so it could be carved-up into slave states to insure the balance of power in Congress remained with the South.
In 1855, a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, named George Bickley organized the Southern Rights movement into the highly secretive Knights of the Golden Circle (K.G.C.), a volunteer militia initially formed for a new invasion of Mexico. Eventually, tens of thousands joined the society, and many came from Northern states. A secret history of the society was written in 1861 and appeared a few years ago online here: https://archive.org/stream/authenticexposit00perri#page/n3/mode/2up
But only three years after the Civil War commenced, the K.G.C. was exposed. Some were leading pro-slave “peace movements” while others were acting as spies and dirty tricks operatives for the Confederacy. The Army spent months investigating the K.G.C. and the Judge Advocate General eventually produced an exhaustive report titled: “The Order of American Knights”, alias “The Sons of Liberty:” A Western Conspiracy in Aid of the Southern Rebellion, published by the Union Congressional Committee, Washington D.C., 1864. Among other things, the report identified most of the state leaders in the North and claimed Clement Vallindigham, leader of the Copperhead Democrats in Ohio, was the society’s Supreme Commander. Vallindigham had been a member of Congress, but after he lost his seat, President Lincoln had him deported to South Carolina as an enemy alien.
You can read the Congressional report here: https://archive.org/details/reportontheorder02unit
Isn’t it odd that none of Lincoln biographies or recent films mention K.G.C.?
In the 1930s an amateur historian and chemistry professor in Chicago put forth the theory that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was involved in the Lincoln assassination and played the crucial role in covering up the true origins of the plot.
After Lincoln’s death, Stanton seized all power in Washington D.C. and took charge of the investigation and ran a military court that swiftly hung some minor players. What nobody seems to mention, however, is that Stanton and Vallindigham were very close personal friends, and that Vallindigham funded Stanton’s rise in politics.
The transcripts of the trial are available online, or you can watch Robert Redford’s excellent film The Conspirator, which focuses on Mary Surratt, who was targeted as chief patsy and swiftly hung. Her son John was studying to be a Catholic priest but instead joined the Confederate secret service and became a primary courier for the Confederacy during the war, and was involved in Col. John S. Mosby’s plot to kidnap Lincoln so he could be traded for Confederate prisoners of war. But when Surratt discovered the kidnap plan had shifted to murder, he fled to Canada, where he remained in hiding while his mother was tried and hung as chief patsy.
Check out Surratt (left) wearing his Papal Zouave uniform. Surratt was such a devoted Catholic he volunteered to defend the Papal States during the final years of their existence. Eighteen months after his mother was hung, however, he was spotted in Egypt and escorted back to America to stand trial still wearing his Papal Zouave uniform. Fortunately for Surratt, a law had just been passed forbidding military courts from trying civilians so the government was unable to secure his conviction, although Surratt freely admitted associations with Booth, he claimed no part of the murder and most of the jury believed him.
Later on, a fake diary would be published, purporting to be from Surratt, and this hoodwink mentioned the K.G.C. on almost every other page. So there was an intense effort to misdirect researchers in this direction. You can read the diary here: https://archive.org/stream/privatejournali00surr#page/n5/mode/2up
Since Stanton was head of the investigation and running the country under martial law at the time, one wonders why Booth was executed instead of being brought in for interrogation, and why 15 pages of Booth’s diary disappeared immediately after Stanton got control of the manuscript.
If I had to make a guess, I’d say the Civil War was fomented in advance, based around a Boston abolitionist movement that was largely funded by founder of Yale’s Skull & Bones William H. Russell, who also covered the war for the British press. Russell was chief financial supporter for terrorist John Brown, who sparked the violence. After the war, Wall Street had captured the center of gravity on banking from Philadelphia, and wanted to pillage the South for profits, something Lincoln was opposed to. Killing Lincoln was not in the best interests of the South, but was in the interest of certain business alliances. After Lincoln’s death, Stanton engaged in a vicious power struggle with President Andrew Johnson, and lost by one vote.
There’s another thread to this saga that involves Freemasonry: Albert Pike, the most powerful Mason in America, was from Boston, but moved to Arkansas during the war, where he became a general for the Confederacy and organized Native Americas to conduct terror raids on Northern civilians. Just as British and American officers met frequently during the Revolutionary War in Masonic lodges (and sometimes on the eve of a battle), it’s safe to assume Masons on both sides of the Civil War held discussions in their temples throughout the war. Freemasonry has always been a refuge for spies.
Consider that Stanton was a devoted Freemason. Also consider the one man brought in to testify against Mary Surratt was a clerk who worked for Stanton at the Department of War. Consider Stanton placed John Frederick Parker as the sole bodyguard for Lincoln that fateful night even though Lincoln had been having nightmares about being assassinated for three nights running and expressed these fears to Stanton and requested additional protection. Since Parker had a reputation for visiting brothels, sleeping on duty and drinking heavily, he seems like an odd choice. Parker abandoned his post and went across the street for drink in a tavern where Booth was also imbibing before strolling across the street to execute the undefended President.
Although all the films show Booth jumping to the stage and yelling “sic semper Tyrannis,” in his final diary entries Booth claimed to have shouted those words immediately before firing the shot.
The Knights of the Golden Circle was a notorious pseudo-masonic secret society you may have never heard of. In 1861, a history of the K.G.C. was published stating the Southern Rights movement began in 1834, although the first charter for a K.G.C. “castle” (their name for a lodge) was in 1854. I suggest watching The Conspirator, a film produced by Robert Redford a few years ago. I much prefer it to Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.
Obviously, Lincoln’s assassination was a conspiracy, and Captain John Wilkes Booth of the Confederate Secret Service had been working with Col. John S. Mosby on a plot to kidnap Lincoln and hold him for ransom. But the kidnap plot was penetrated by Louis Weichmann, and then Booth was lured to New York City, where someone pitched him the assassination. Links to New York City, however, were never investigated by the tribunal. Instead, some innocents, including Mary Surratt, were railroaded into a military courtroom and quickly hanged, something that never could have transpired had they been afforded a regular trial and effective counsel. You have to wonder why Stanton was so eager to close the case with a fabricated trial stuffed with perjuries, and after some of his hoodwinks were unmasked, Stanton refused to vacate his office where the official records were stored. Stanton, it should also be noted, was a devoted Freemason, and his political connections ran wide and deep. Ben Wade and Thaddeus Stevens were his biggest supporters in Congress.
Stanton got his job as Secretary of War in 1862, one year after the war’s start because the previous secretary had just been sacked thanks to implementing a ruthless strategy that had initially been suggested by Stanton. Lincoln was unaware of that fact, and probably felt having a Democrat as Secretary of War provided some strategic advantage. Mostly, Stanton had the backing of the leaders of both houses of Congress, as well as a reputation as the best lawyer in the country.
I find it fascinating Stanton got his start with a $500 loan from Clement Vallandigham (left), who would go on to become leader of the pro-slavery “Copperhead” Democrats, so named by Republicans to sheep-dip them as venomous snakes. However, before the Civil War got started, the K.G.C. was collecting funds for an invasion of Mexico (similar to the plans of British spook Aaron Burr, who’d been arrested and tried for fomenting a similar plot).