The Golden Circle was an unrealized pan-Caribbean political alliance, of the 1850s, that was possibly inspired by the Burr conspiracy. It would have incorporated multiple countries of the Americas into a federal union similar to the United States. The Golden Circle was centered in Havana and was 2,400 miles (3,900 km) in diameter. It included northern South America, most of Mexico, all of Central America, Cuba, Haiti/Dominican Republic and most other Caribbean islands, and the southern United States. The circle's border roughly coincides with the Mason-Dixon line, and it includes the cities of St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Mexico City, and Panama City.
One of the political arguments in favor of the Golden Circle involved slavery. European colonialism and the African slave trade had declined more rapidly in some countries than others, and by 1850 slavery had been abolished in all British and French territories, along with the northern U.S. states. Slavery was, however, still practiced in the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and in the Brazilian Empire. In the years prior to the American Civil War, abolitionism was one of several divisive issues in the country. In the United States, despite the closing of the slave trade in 1807, the slave population continued to grow during this time through natural increase.
The delicate balance of power between the northern and southern U.S. states was threatened by the proposed Golden Circle. Federalists feared that a new Caribbean-centered coalition would align the new Latin American states with the slave-state side. This would tilt the balance of power southward and weaken U.S. federalism in favor of the Pan-American confederalist union. Gold Circlists believed that an alignment with the remaining slaveholding Caribbean territories would reinforce their political strength.
The Knights of the Golden Circle was the U.S. organization formed to promote and help create the Pan-American union of states. It was organized in 1854 by George W. L. Bickley, a Virginia-born doctor, editor, and adventurer living in Cincinnati. It grew slowly until 1859 and reached its height in 1860. The membership, scattered from New York to California and into Latin America, was never large.
After the civil war, many Americans moved their slave-based operations to Cuba and Brazil (see Confederados), where slavery remained legal into the 1880s.
Other American adventurists in Latin America echoed some of the ideals of the Golden Circle; William Walker was the most successful of those individuals who attempted to build a Latin American empire. Some historians think that the Spanish-American War was a continuation of these policies.
The fictional speculative movie C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America which looks at a Southern victory in the Civil War, was inspired by a brief mention of the concept of the Golden Circle in Ken Burns' documentary The Civil War (see section on 'Directors Comment)' - though it is interpreted in the film as a plan enacted after the war, rather than one that ended in 1860 before the war started.