The name "Essex Junto" came from the fact that all of the leading plotters of destroying the United States, except for Judge Tapping Reeve, were born north in Essex County, Massachusetts (north of Boston).
They were instrumental in creating the Confederacy from the inside during the 1850s, in collaboration with Britain's Lord Palmerston and the British S.I.S. (Secret Intelligence Service). It is from the correspondence of George Cabot, Timothy Pickering, and Judge Tapping Reeve, that the following self-damning statements of the plotters are taken.
George Cabot to Timothy Pickering, February 14, 1804:
"At the same time that I do not desire a separation at this moment, I add that it is not practicable without intervention of some cause which should be very generally feIt and distinctly understood as chargeable to the misconduct of our southern masters . . . the essential alteration which may in the future be made to amend our form of government will be the consequences of only a great suffering, or the immediate effects of violence. . . . Separation will be unavoidable, when our loyalty to the union is generally perceived to be the instrument of debasement and impoverishment. If a separation should, by and by, be produced by suffering, I think it might be accompanied by important ameliorations of our theories."
A picture of the fellow-plotter to whom George Cabot wrote those observations is provided by excerpts from two items of Timothy Pickering's correspondence. The first is addressed to a Richard Peters, on the date of December 24, 1803:
"Although the end of all our Revolutionary labors and expectations is disappointment, and all our fond hopes of republican happiness are vanity, and the real patriots of '76 are overwhelmed by modem pretenders to that character, I will not yet despair: I would rather anticipate a new confederacy, exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence of the aristocratic Democrats of the South. There will be and our children at farthest will see it-a separation. The white and the black population will mark the boundary. The British Provinces, even with the assent of Britain, will become members of the Northern confederacy.... "
and, the 2nd, to George Cabot, on January 29, 1804:
"I do not believe in the practicability of a long-continued union. A Northern confederacy would unite congenial characters, and present a fairer prospect of public happiness; while the Southern States, having similarity of habits, might be left "to manage their affairs in their own way." . . . greatly doubt whether prudence should suffer the connection to continue much longer. . . . But when and how is a separation to be effected? ... If ... Federalism is crumbling away in New England, there is not time to be lost ... Its last refuge is New England; and immediate exertion, perhaps, its only hope. It must begin in Massachusetts. The proposition would be welcomed in Connecticut; and could we doubt of New Hampshire? But New York must be associated; and how is her concurrence to be obtained? She must be made the centre of the confederacy. Vermont and New Jersey would follow of course, and Rhode Island of necessity. Who can be consulted, and who will take the lead?"
From the correspondence of plotter Judge Tapping Reeve, to Connecticut Senator Uriah Tracy, on February 7, 1804:
"I have seen many of our friends; and all that I have seen, and most that 1 have heard from, believe that we must separate, and that this is the most favorable moment. The difficulty is, How is this to be accomplished?"
Source: "Treason in America: From Aaron Burr to Averell Harriman" by Anton Chaitkin