The Anti-Masonic Party in the United States: 1826-1843

University of Kentucky UKnowledge Political History History 1983 The Anti-Masonic Party in the United States: 1826-1843 William Preston Vaughn North Texas State University Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Vaughn, William Preston, "The Anti-Masonic Party in the United States: 1826-1843" (1983). Political History. 13. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_history/13 The Antimasonic Party This page intentionally left blank The Antimasonic Party in the United States 1826-1843 WILLIAM PRESTON VAUGHN mE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Copyright © 1983 by The University Press of Kentucky Paperback edition 2009 The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-0-8131-9269-7 (pbk: acid-free paper) This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. ~&·&~ 1 ~ Member of the Association of 'I~ • American University Presses For My Mother This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix 1. The Morgan Affair and Its Consequences 1 2. The Origins of Antimasonry 10 3. Beginnings in New York, 1827-1829 21 4. New York, 1830-1835 35 5. Wirt's Presidential Candidacy of 1832 54 6. Vermont, 1829-1836 70 7. The "Union" Ticket of 1832 89 8. Pennsylvania, 1834-1843 99 9. Massachusetts, 1828-1836 115 10. Coalition Politics in Rhode Island 133 11. Coalitions on the Periphery 153 12. The Elections of 1836 and 1840 172 13. The Blessed Spirit 184 Notes 192 Bibliographic Note 228 Index 230 This page intentionally left blank Preface As the 1832 Antimasonic presidential campaign of William Wirt dragged to its dismal conclusion, the Boston Daily Advocate of May 9 exhorted the party faithful to remember that maintenance of princi ples was more important than electoral victory. Firebrand editor Benjamin F. Hallett declared that the remedy for the evils of Freema sonry was "in our political organization as an inflexible minority. Let this never be lost sight of. The character of Antimasonry is not understood. Perseverance insures to its principles respect, and will eventually triumph." On the basis of Hallett's editorial, it is possible to conclude that the Antimasonic party remained faithful to princi ples and ideology, making no bargains with any individuals or other political organizations. It is the purpose of this book to demonstrate, however, that although political Antimasonry during the period 1827- 1843 did generally remain adamant and inflexible with respect to its bitter foe, Freemasonry, it became quite open to all sorts of coalitions, deals, and alliances with the two major parties, the Jacksonian Demo crats and National Republicans (who later reorganized as Whigs). These alliances were made against the most bitter protests of the Antimasonic "purists," who opposed the crusade's becoming political in the first place, favored party existence and action only until Ma sonry was destroyed, or desired a continuation of political Antima sonry untainted by association with any other party. The major paradox and triumph of Antimasonry is that although it declined rapidly as an independent political entity after 1833, it achieved its major success as a social or reform movement in the nearly total, albeit temporary, destruction of Masonry in those states where it was an active force. Politically, Antimasonry's greatest achievements were the introduction of the national nominating con vention to American presidential politics and contributions to the formation and development of the Whig party. I thank the research and reference staffs of some forty libraries and research facilities in the United States and Great Britain who were consulted in the preparation of this book. I am grateful to the faculty research committee of North Texas State University and to Graduate X Preface Dean Robert B. Toulouse for research grants; to William Kamman, chairman, Department of History, North Texas State University, for his encouragement and cooperation, and to Ronald E. Marcello, who read and critiqued the entire manuscript. I also thank the membership of the Texas Lodge of Research, A.F. & A.M., for their support and encouragement, and the Advisory Conference of the Dallas Scottish Rite Bodies and its chairman, Robert L. Dillard, Jr., Thirty-third Degree, Past Grand Master, for special assistance in the publishing of the manuscript. As always, I must express heartfelt appreciation to my wife, Virginia Meyer Vaughn, for support and assistance during more than a decade of work on this project. 1. The Morgan Affair and Its Consequences On the night of September 12, 1826, William Morgan, an obscure and derelict stonemason, disappeared outside the jail at Canandaigua, New York, after serving time for failing to repay a debt of $2.69. Morgan had just finished writing an expose of the secret rituals of Freemasonry, of which he claimed to be a member, and his authorship was known to the increasingly alarmed Masons of this western New York area, a region known as the "infected," or "Burned-over," district because it was "burnt" by the flames of religious revivals. Morgan was never seen in public again, and the general public trans formed the crime of abduction into one of alleged murder and impli cated all Masons from the Finger Lakes westward to the Niagara frontier. Morgan's fate, never officially determined, "invested the conse quent horror with enchantment," and as law enforcement and investi gative procedures lagged, non-Masons came to believe that a great Masonic conspiracy in the United States had produced a "cover-up" of the true events. No other crime of the period attracted as much attention in the northern press, and for so long a period, as did the Morgan affair. Morgan's kidnapping revived a dormant hostility to Freemasonry and to all secret societies, which now swept most of the northeastern and Middle Atlantic states, taking shape first as a moral crusade and then, after 1827, as the impetus for the nation's first significant third, or minor, party.1 Writing in 1902 as the first scholarly historian of political Antima sonry, Charles McCarthy barely noted Morgan's abduction, describ ing it as "merely incidental"-an event that had happened at the right time and place to provide the thrust for a "sturdy, young political party." Of the earlier professional historians who wrote in a general context about Antimasonry, only John Bach McMaster observed the full impact of Morgan's abduction and the public's reaction to it. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Masonic authors, notably Rob Morris, premier Masonic man of letters, in 2 THE ANTIMASONIC PARTY emphasizing the "vile treachery" of Morgan and his confederates, made martyrs of the victims of the crusade. Later Masonic historians have generally been less argumentative, deemphasizing the impor tance of the affair and insinuating that Morgan was not abducted but went willingly, later living out his life in a foreign land.2 Two scholars of the late twentieth century, Ronald P. Formisano and Kathleen Smith Kutolowski, view the Morgan episode and its aftermath as a Masonic "Watergate." They declare that by early 1827 it was widely believed throughout western New York that Morgan had been murdered as well as abducted and that "reasonable" men outside the fraternity considered the Masons to have too much influ ence in the administration of the law. Many judges, prosecutors, and attorneys, and at least three sheriffs in the five counties holding Mor gan-related trials, were Masons. Many discharged th~ duties impar tially, but some ignored their obligations to the community. The general public came to believe that Masonic behavior had contra dicted "republican virtue," an attitude that opened the way for a concerted attack on Masonry. 3 The saga of William Morgan is fraught with confusing contradic tions and details.4 Morgan was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1774. Originally a stonemason, he became a merchant in Richmond for a time and then suddenly departed for York (Toronto), Canada, where he worked in a brewery and later on a farm. He subsequently returned to the United States, clerking in Niagara County, New York. In 1823 he resumed his trade as a stonemason, working first in Roch ester and then in Batavia, Genesee County. In 1819, at age forty-five, while still in Virginia, he had married Lucinda Pendleton, the sixteen year-old daughter of a Methodist minister. Morgan is usually

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