The Knights of the Golden Circle

The Knights of the Golden Circle wanted to head off what they saw as the growing political power of the North. George Bickley said that Mexico alone could provide 25 new slave states to be added to the Union, and that would mean incidentally changing the laws in at least some of these places because slavery was illegal in Mexico. And it's interesting thatGeorge Bickley would start this organization favoring expanding slave holding territory when he himself was the author of an anti-slavery book modeled after Uncle Tom's cabin.