The Unspoken Lincoln-Kennedy Parallels Click here to view media stream Gen. Baker: Conspirator Former Union General  Lafayette Baker, one of the twelve army officers in the Lincoln assassination, 1868. More his strange confession here... Scottish Rite Ambassadors for the Confederacy The Two Confederates for Whom England Threatened War with the Union LEFT to RIGHT: James M. Mason,  John Slidell The Threatened Three Front War Up to that time, the North had faced a series of crushing defeats and no significant victories-- e.g. The Battle of Bull Run in July of 1861, and the first great battle, Shiloh, in April of 1862. Pictured here are volunteer regiment of Elora, Ontario, May 1862. By 1870, the active militia numbered over 30,000 to defend against "threats" from the United States.  The photo of Canadian volunteers above was taken the following month, when victory seemed all but certain for the South.  Harpers Weekly illustration; Captain Charles Wilkes Union Account of the Boarding of the Trent Captain Charles Wilkes' account of the arrest of two Confederate traitors and Scottish Rite freemasons, James Murray Mason and John Slidell. Still at the height of power,  pro-slavery factions in England and America hoped to use this incident as a pretext to side with the Confederacy for a three front war.   John Slidell, freed through British intervention, would later be implicated as a key conspirator in the Lincoln assassination before fleeing  to Europe.  (Click image for full gif image inventory.)   "Neutral" England, the Arsenal of the South A British warship armed to challenge Northern sovereignty. The Edgar Cecil, loading cannon at Halifax. During the American Civil War the city's military reached 18,000, the Canadian militia was put on alert; England announced that it would defend its colonies with all its power and sent 14,000 officers and men as reinforcements. Not counting a Royal Navy then strong enough to ignore the Union blockade of the South, this alone put 32,000 men at Confederate disposal. (The Union was having enough trouble with blockade runners.) The Blockade Runners  A British blockade runner.  They were the fastest vessels of their day, and arrived "with the regularity of express trains."  They timed their departures to arrive at night, their most common route from English colonies in Nassau (the Bahamas) and Bermuda; traveling directly to their destination, Confederate ports. "At the beginning of the war the Union blockade of Southern ports was not effective, because the North lacked ships to make it so. Blockade-runners, mainly British, made fortunes by landing cargoes of munitions and scarce goods at Southern ports... "Although the Confederacy had no navy, it still found ways to cripple Northern commerce. In spite of its lack of shipyards, it managed to equip a number of ships for service at sea. It also ordered the construction or purchase of other ships in England. Over the protests of the Union government, three English-built ships, the Florida, the Alabama, and the Shenandoah, were delivered to Confederate naval officers and given the task of destroying the U.S. merchant fleet. These three raiders alone inflicted damage estimated at $16.6 million on Union shipping. The loss, while serious, was trivial in comparison to the effect of the Union blockade on the Southern economy..." Since the beginning of the war, the Confederacy had had a naval officer, James D. Bulloch, in Britain to buy or contract for cruisers to raid Northern commerce. In 1861 and 1862, Bulloch had managed to acquire and equip several Confederate ships.  If the United States were to supply warships and arms to the I.R.A. today, in equal proportion to that supplied by the British to the South in the Civil War, one could only imagine the fate of England and Ireland  today. And would historians dare care us neutral? A By-product of "Neutrality" Gettysburg-- a battle so massive the fighting encompassed over 25 square miles. Pictured below are Union dead.  This battle, a failed invasion of the North, was Gen. Lee's most earnest attempt to secure sovereign status for the Confederacy.  By proving the North could be defeated on its own ground, Lee hoped he could woo full-scale, pro-Confederate intervention by foreign states, particularly  Britain.

Introduction

"...At least eleven members of Congress were involved in the plot, no less than twelve Army officers, three Naval officers, and at least twenty-three civilians, one of which was governor of a loyal state. Five were bankers of great repute, three were nationally known newspapermen and eleven were industrialists of great repute and wealth..."

Former Union General  Lafayette Baker, one of the twelve army officers in the Lincoln assassination, 1868

On November 8, 1861, some seven months into the Civil War, Union Captain Charles Wilkes stopped the British ship Trent and arrested two Confederate ambassadors who had just slipped the Union blockade of Cuba. The prisoners, James Murray Mason (Britain) and John Slidell (France), were commissioned by the Confederacy to secure British and French aid. Officially none came. But in truth aid did come, from Britain, not just through arms and money; nor in their mockery of US naval blockade of the South, but through London and the Scottish Rite. This aid included the planning and concealment of the Lincoln assassination by an Anglo-American coalition of Masonic leaders.

In the Trent Affair, the reaction of the French and British differed considerably. It was the height of the Britain empire, and she was eager to capitalize on the event as an act of war at a time she knew the United States was critically divided. Seizing the opportunity, the British demanded an apology and the release of the two ambassadors. They did in fact threaten and mobilize for outright war over the incident. Likewise, because Captain Wilkes had become a hero in the Union partisans called for war against England.

President Lincoln, however, "cheerfully liberated" them after careful deliberation, and Britain agreed to accept Lincoln’s assurance that Captain Wilkes acted without authority in lieu of an apology. In this way, Lincoln is said to have averted a fatal conflict with Britain. But did he really?

The War of 1812 grew from the practice of impressment, or the seizure of American seamen for service in the British navy. The British government claimed that it only seized subjects of the Crown who sailed under the American flag to avoid wartime service in their own navy. But in fact, the British seized not only their own deserters, but also impressed a sizeable number of United States citizens—estimates suggest 6000 or more.

In the Trent Affair, the British would disingenuously cite the practice of impressment against its own citizens and likewise threaten war over the capture of two Scottish Rite ambassadors, John Slidell and James Murry Mason, who hoped to enlist European aid for the Confederacy.  These two prisoners, however, were not British citizens.   They were Southerners. The Union captain who boarded the Trent did not subject any British citizen to impressment, let alone naval service for the Union.  Yet it was acted upon as such.

When President James Madison declared war on Britain, it was vehemently opposed by the Scottish Rite's political apparatus in the North, the Federalists.  The reason cited was a fear that such a war would severely harm American trade. The Federalists, who were pro-British, actually led an opposition to the war that was so strong in New England that the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut refused to call up their militia in response to President Madison's request for troops.

By late 1814, delegates from the New England states, dissatisfied with the handling of the war, had met at the Hartford Convention in Connecticut (December 14, 1814-January 5, 1815). This group, which was dominated by disgruntled members of the Federalist political party, was reported to have formulated demands that amounted to a dissolution of the Union. Ironically,  this dissolution of the Union was decided upon after the War of 1812 ended with a peace treaty negotiated in Ghent, Belgium, and signed on December 24, 1814.

Unaware that a treaty has already ended the war,  and just three days after the Hartford Convention adjourned, an outnumbered Andrew Jackson dealt a crushing blow to British forces in New Orleans on January 8, 1814.

Because the meetings of the convention took place behind closed doors, and because the members were pledged to absolute secrecy that is the hallmark of Scottish Rite freemasonry, word spread to the effect that the New England states were contemplating secession from the Union. This irreparably damaged the reputation of the Federalist Party, already in disfavor because of its pro-British, aristocratic ideologies. The party did not survive the presidential election of 1816.

However, by the time of the Civil War, the South had a powerful fifth column in Northern Democrats.

In this exposition, we shall define freemasonry as any oath-bound, secret society which practices magical rites and rituals; in particular Druidism and Cabalism....

• continued

• Up