The ponderomotive force exerted by a circularly polarized electromagnetic wavefield in a uniform, magnetized plasma column is calculated. The effect of the self-consistent nature of the wavefields in the plasma is illustrated for the case of long wavelength excitation. The contribution to the total ponderomotive force of the interaction between the induced magnetization and the magnetic field is determined. It is shown that self-consistency plays a dominant role in determining the ponderomotive potential and induced magnetization of each plasma species if the wave frequency is in the vicinity of either the cyclotron frequency or an eigenfrequency of the plasma column.