Letters and addresses on freemasonry

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LETTERS AND ADDRESSES

ON

FREEMASONRY.

By JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

"I shall never disavow my old work or shrink from the attribution
of it ta my hand, whether in private or in public.

" Very truly yours. C. F. Adams."

3 August. 1875.

DAYTON, OHIO:

UNITED BRETHREN PUBLISHING KOUSE.

J- -1 0 i ■>) ,)

THE NATIONAL CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIfIN

•3 9

A a i

CONTElSrTS.

PAGE.

To a Reviewer of Sheppard's Defense of the Masonic Institution. 49

To Edward Ingersoll, Esq., Philadelphia 55

To the same - 59

To the same 65

To the same 7^

To William H. Seward, Esq., Auburn, New York 77

To Richard Rush, Esq., York, Pennsylvania 79

To His Excellency, Levi Lincoln, Governor of Massachusetts... 83

To William L. Stone, Esq., New York 89

To the same 9°

To the same 9^

To the same 99

To the same 109

To the same 119

To the same 129

To the same ^39

To His Excellency, Levi Lincoln, Governor of Massachusetts... 141

To Alexander H. Everett, Esq., Boston I43

To Richard Rush, Esq., York, Pennsylvania 146

To Benjamin Cowell, Esq., Providence, Rhode Island 153

To James Morehead, Esq., Mercer, Pennsylvania 158

STo Edward Livingston, Esq 161

To the same ^75

To the same '^9

To the same 203

To the same 210

To the same " 232

6 CONTENTS.

To Messrs. Timothy Merrill, Henry F. Janes, Martin Flint,
Charles Davis, Edward D. Barber, Samuel N. Swett, and
Amos Bliss, Committee of the Antimasonic State Conven-
tion, held at Montpelier, in the State of Vermont, on the
26th of June, 1833 253

To James Morehead, Esq., Secretary of the Meadville (Penn.)
Antimasonic Convention 261

To R. W. Middleton, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 266

Address to the People of Massachusetts 269

APPENDIX.

Entered Apprentice's Obligation 327

Fellowcraft's Obligation 327

Master Mason's Obligation 328

Royal Arch Oath 329

Knight Templar's Oath 330

Fifth Libation 331

Extract from a Plan of a Penal Code for the State of Louisiana,
by Hon. Edward Livingston .331

PREFACE.

This publication of Mr. Adams' Letters on Freemasonry
was undertaken because it was believed that so able and
valuable a work should again be put in print in a style suit-
able for a place in libraries. Mr. Adams intensely hated all
that he conceived to be wrong, and it will be seen that in
these letters he, with all the fervor of his soul, labored to
show the wrongs, corruptions, and blasphemies of the lodge.
To the decadence of the order these letters greatly contrib-
uted ; and when, after many years, it began to show signs of
reviving Mr. Adams' letters as they appear were published
in a neat volume at Boston, with an eloquent introduction
by Charles Francis Adams, two pages of which were omit-
ted, as being deemed inappropriate to this publication.

As will be seen by the letter in review of Mr. Sheppard's
defense of Freemasonry, Mr Adams endured abuse and
misrepresentation long for his Antimasonic views before he
came out in public to declare and defend those views.

These letters are mainly a series addressed to Edward
Ingersoll, to William L. Stone, and to Edward Livingston.
Others not less able, nor scarcely less important, were writ-
ten to men of national distinction, as William H. Seward,
Richard Rush, and Levi Lincoln.

The letters to the committee of the Antimasonic state

8 PREFACE.

convention of Vermont and that of the secretary of the
Antimasonic state convention of Pennsylvania partake
somewhat of the natujre of public addresses, to which is
to be added his lengthy and masterly address to the people
of Massachusetts.

It is proper to state that the letters to Colonel William L.
Stone, of New York, were in reply to letters addressed to
him by Mr. Stone in apology, though not in justification, of
the Masonic institution. In these letters he shows most
clearly the absurdity of those apologies by one who, though
he had abandoned the lodge, still had not formally seceded
from the order.

The letters addressed to Hon. Edward Livingston, of
Louisiana, who had accepted the office of general grand
high-priest of the order stands out as a terrible arraignment
of the order, and as a most effective defense of Antimasons
from the imputations made against them.

INTRODUCTION.

The institution of Masonry was introduced into the
British colonies of North America more than a hundred
years agoi It went on slowly at first ; but from the time
of the Revolution it spread more rapidly, until in the first
quarter of the present century it had succeeded in winding
itself through all the departments of the body politic in the
United States, and in claiming the sanction of many of the
country's most distinguished men. Up to the year 1826
nothing occurred to mar its progress, or to interpose the
smallest obstacle to its triumphant success. So great had
then become the confidence of the members in its power,
as to prompt the loud tone of gratulation in which some
of its orators then indulged at their public festivals ; and
among these none spoke more boldly than Mr. Brainard,
in the passage which will be found quoted in the present
volume. He announced that Masonry was exercising its
influence in the sacred desk, in the legislative hall, and on
the bench of justice ; but so little had the public attention
been directed to the truth he uttered, that the declaration
passed off, and was set down by the uninitiated rather as
a flower of rhetoric with which young speakers will some-

2 INTRODUCTION.

times magnify their topic, than as entitled to any particu-
larly serious notice. Neither would these memorable
words have been rescued from oblivion, if it had not
happened that the very next year after they were uttered
was destined to furnish a most extraordinary illustration
of their significance.

In a small town situated in the western part of the State
of New York an event occurred in the autumn of the year
1826, which roused the suspicions first of the people, living
in the immediate neighborhood, and afterward of a very
wide circle of persons throughout the United States. A
citizen of Batavia suddenly disappeared from his family,
without giving the slightest warning. Rumors were
immediately circulated that he had run away ; but there
were circumstances attending the act which favored the
idea that personal violence had been resorted to, although
the precise authors of it could not be distinctly traced.
The name of the citizen who thus vanished as if the earth
had opened and swallowed him from sight, was William
Morgan. He had been a man of little consideration in
the place, in which he had been but a short time resident.
Without wealth, — for he was compelled to labor for the
support of a young wife and two infant children, — and
without influence of any kind, it seemed as if there could
be nothing in the history or the pursuits of the individual
to make him a shining mark of persecution on any
account. So unreasonable, if not absurd, did the notion
of the forcible abduction of such a man appear, that it was
at first met with a cold smile of utter incredulity. Among
the floating population of a newly-settled country, the

INTRODUCTION. 3

single fact of the departure of persons having few ties to
bind them to any particular spot would scarcely cause
remark or lead to inquiry. Numbers, when first called to
express an opinion in the case of Morgan, at once jumped
to the conclusion that he had voluntarily fled to parts
unknown. So natural was the inference that even to this
day many who have never taken any trouble to look into
the evidence are impressed with a vague notion that it is
the proper solution of the difficulty. In ordinary circum-
stances the thing might have passed off as a nine days'
woncier, and in a month's time the name of Morgan might
have been forgotten in Batavia, had it not been for a single
clue which was left behind him, and which, at first followed
up from curiosity, even excited wonder, and from this
led to astonishment at the nature of the discoveries that
ensued.

The single clue which ultimately unwound the tangled
skein of evidence was this: The sole act of Morgan, while
dwelling in Batavia, which formed any exception to the
ordinary habits of men in his walk of life, was an under-
taking into which he entered, in partnership with another
person, to print and publish a book. This book promised
to contain a true account of certain ceremonies and secret
obligations taken by those who joined the society of Free-
masons. The simple announcement of the intention to
print this work was known to have been received by many
of the persons in the vicinity, acknowledged brethren of
the order, with signs of the most lively indignation. And
as the thing went on to execution, so many efforts were
made to interrupt and to prevent it, even at the hazard

4 INTRODUCTION.

of much violence, that soon after the disappearance of the
prime mover of the plan doubts began to spread in the
community, whether there was not some connection, in
the way of cause and effect, between the proposed publi-
cation and that event. Circumstances rapidly confirmed
suspicion into belief, and belief into certainty. At first
'the attention was concentrated upon the individuals of
the fraternity discovered to have been concerned in the
taking off. It afterward spread itself so far as to embrace
the action of the lodges of the region in which the deed
was done. But such was the amount of resistance expe-
rienced to efforts made to ferret out the perpetrators and
bring them to justice, that ultimately the whole organiza-
tion of the order became involved in responsibility for
the misdeeds of its members. The opposition made to
investigation only stimulated the passion to investigate.
Unexampled efforts were made to enlist the whole power
of the social system in the pursuit of the kidnappers,
which were as steadily baffled by the superior activity of
the Masonic power. In time it became plain that the
only effectual course would be to go, if possible, to the
root of the evil, and to attack Masonry in its very citadel
of secret obligations.

The labor expended in the endeavor to suppress the
publication of Morgan's book proved to have been lost.
It came out just at the moment when the disappearance
of its author was most calculated to rouse the public
curiosity to its contents. On examination, it was found
to contain what purported to be the forms of oaths taken
by those who were admitted to the first three degrees of

INTRODUCTION. 5

Masonry — the Entered Apprentice's, the Fellowcraft's,
and the Master Mason's. If they really were what they
pretended to be, then indeed was supplied a full explana-
tion of the motives that might have led to Morgan's
disappearance- But here was the first difficulty. Doubts
were sedulously spread of their genuineness. Morgan's
want of social character was used with effect to bring the
whole volume into discredit. Neither is it perfectly certain
that its revelations would have been ultimately established
as true, had not a considerable number of the fraternity,
stimulated by the consciousness of the error which they
had committed, voluntarily assembled at Leroy, — a town
in the neighborhood of Batavia, — and then and there,
besides attesting the veracity of Morgan's book, renounced
all further connection with the society. One or two of
these persons subsequently made far more extended pub-
lications, in which they opened all the mysteries of the
Royal Arch, and of the Knight Templar's libation, besides
exposing in a clear light the whole complicated organiza-
tion of the institution. Upon these disclosures the pop-
ular excitement spread over a large part of the northern
section of the Union, It crept into the political divisions
of the time. A party sprung up almost with the celerity
of magic, the end of whose exertions was to be the over-
throw of Masonry. It soon carried before it all the power
of western New York. It spread into the neighboring
states. It made its appearance in legislative assemblies,
and there demanded full and earnest investigations, not
merely of the circumstances attending the event which
originated the excitement, but also of the nature of the

6 INTRODUCTION.

obligations which Masons had been in the habit of
assuming. Great as was the effort to resist this movement,
and manifold the devices to escape the searching opera-
tion proposed, it was found impossible directly to stem
the tide of popular opinion. Masons who stubbornly
adhered to the order were yet compelled under oath to
give their reluctant testimony to the truth of the disclosures
that had been made. The oaths of Masonry, and the
strange rites practiced simultaneously with the assumption
of them, were then found to be in substance what they
had been affirmed to be. The veil that hid the mystery
was rent in twain, and there stood the idol before the gaze
of the multitude, in all the nakedness of its natural
deformity.

Strange though it may seem, it is nevertheless equally
certain, that the most revolting features of the obligations,
the pledges subversive of all moral distinctions, and the
penalties for violating those pledges, were not those things
which roused the most general popular disapprobation.
Here, as often before, the shield of private character,
earned by a life and conversation without reproach, was
interposed with effect to screen from censure men who
protested that when they swore to keep secret the crimes
which their brethren might have committed, provided
they were revealed to them under the Masonic sign, they
did nothing which they deemed inconsistent with their
duties as Christians and as members of society. It is the
tendency of mankind to mix with all abstract reasoning,
however pure and perfect, a great deal of the alloy of
human authority, to harden its nature. Multitudes pre-

INTRODUCTION. 7

ferred to believe the Masonic oaths and penalties to be
ceremonies, childish, ridiculous, and unmeaning, rather
than to suppose them intrinsically and incurably vicious.
They refused to credit the fact that men whom they
respected as citizens could have made themselves parties
to any promise whatsoever to do acts illegal, unjust, and
wicked. Rather than go so far, they preferred to throw
themselves into a state of resolute unbelief of all that
could be said against them. Hence the extraordinary
resistance to all projects of examination, that great wall of
brass which the conservative temper ot society erects
around acknowledged and time-hallowed abuses. Hence
the determination to credit the assurances of interested
witnesses, who seemed to have a character for veracity to
support, rather than by pressing investigation, to under-
mine the established edifice constructed by the world's
opinion.

Neither is there at bottom any want of good sense, m
this sluggish mode of viewing all movements of reform.
Agitation always portends more or less of risk to society,
and tends to bring mere authority into contempt. It is
therefore not without reason that those who value the
security which they enjoy under existing institutions l.es -
tate at adopting any rule of conduct which may materially
diminish it. Such hesitation is visible under all forms of
government; but it is nowhere more marked than in the
United States, where the popular nature of il.e institutions
makes the tendency to change at all times imminent. ;__^The
misfortune attending this natural and pardonable con-
servative instinct is, that it clings with indiscriminate

8 INTRODUCTION.

tenacity to all that has been long established — the evil as
well as the good, the abuses that have crept in equally
with the useful and the true. It was just so in the case of
Masonry. A large number of the most active and re-
spected members of society had allowed themselves to
become involved in its obligations, and rather than
voluntarily to confess the error they had committed, and
to sanction the overthrow of the institution by a decided
act of surrender, they preferred to support it upon the
strength of their present character, and upon the
combination of themselves and the friends whom they
could influence to resist the assaults of a reforming and
purifying power. Great as was the strength of this re-
sistance, it could only partially succeed in accomplishing
the object at which it aimed. The opposition made to
the admission of a palpable moral truth had its usual and
natural effect to stimulate the efforts of those who were
pressing it upon the public attention. Admitting in the
fullest extent everything that could be said in behalf ot
many of the individuals who as Masons became subjected
to the vehemence of the denunciatiotis directed against the
fraternity, it was yet a fact not a little startling that even
they should deem themselves so far bound by unlawful
obligations as at no time to be ready to signify the
smallest disapprobation of their character, not even after
the fact was proved how much of evil they had caused.
After the disclosure of the Morgan history it was no
longer possible to pretend that the pledges were not
actually construed in the sense which the language plainly
conveyed. That after admitting the pt ssibility of such a

INTRODUCTION. 9

construction the association which for one moment longer
should give it countenance made itself responsible for all
the crime which might become the fruit of it, can not be
denied. Yet this reasoning did not appear to have the
weight to which it was fairly entitled, in deterring the
respectable members of the society from giving it their
aid and countenance. De Witt Clinton still remained
Grand Master of the order after he had reason to know
the extent to which it had made itself accessory to the
Morgan murder. Edward Livingston was not ashamed
publicly to declare his acceptance of the same office,
although the chain of evidence which traced that crime to
the Masonic oath had then been made completely visible
to all. When the authority of such names as these was
invoked with success to shelter the association from the
effect of its own system, it seemed to become an impera-
tive duty on the part of those whose attention had been
aroused to the subject to look beyond the barrier of
authority so sedulously erected in order to keep them
out, to probe by a searching analytic process the moral
elements upon which the institution claimed to rest, and
to concentrate the rays of truth and right reason upon
those corrupt principles which, if not effectively counter-
acted, seemed to threaten the very foundations of justice
in the social and moral system of America.
^ It was the province here marked out which Mr. Adams
voluntarily assumed to fill when he addressed to Colonel
William L. Stone that series of letters upon the E^ntered
Apprentice's oath, which will be found to make a part of
the present volume. Although this obligation may be

10 INTRODUCTION.

considered as constituting the lowest story and least
commanding portion of the edifice of Freemasonry, yet he
singled it out for examination as the fairest test by which
he could try the merits of all that has been built above it.
If that first and simple step proved untenable, it followed,
as a matter of course, that no later or more difficult one
could fare a whit better. Of the result of the investiga-
tion thus entered into, it is thought that no difference of
opinion can now be entertained. No answer worthy of a
moment's consideration was ever made. It is confidently
believed that none is possible. lAs a specimen of rigid
moral analysis the letters must ever remain —not simply
as evincing the peculiar powers of the author's mind, but
also as a standing testimony against the radical vice of
the secret institution against which they were directed. J

When the books of Morgan, and Allyn, and Bernard,
the admissions of Colonel Stone and of the Rhode Island
legislative investigation, had left little of the mysteries of
Freemasonry unseen by the public eye, the impressions
derived from observation were curious and contradictory.
Upon the first hasty and superficial glance a feeling might
arise of surprise that the frivolity of its unmeaning cere-
,monial, and the ridiculous substitution of its fictions for
the sacred history, should not have long ago discredited
the thing in the minds of good and sensible men every-
where. Yet upon a closer and more attentive examina-
tion this first feeling vanishes, and makes way for aston-
ishment at the ingenious contrivance displayed in the
construction of the whole machine. A more perfect
agent for the devising and execution of conspiracies

INTRODUCTION. 11

against church or state could scarcely have been con-
ceived. At the outer door stands the image of secrecy,
stimulating the passion of curiosity. And the world which
habitually takes the unknown to be sublime, could scarcely
avoid inferring that the untold mysteries which were sup-
posed to have been transmitted undivulged to any external
ear, from generation to generation, must have in them
some secret of power richly worth the knowing. Here
was the temptation to enter the portal. But the unlucky
wight, like him of the poet's hell, when once admitted
within the door, was doomed at the same moment to leave
behind him all hope or expectation of retreat. His mouth
was immediately sealed by an obligation of secrecy, im-
posed with all the solemnity that can be borrowed from
the use of the forms of religious worship. Nothing was
left undone to magnify the effect of the scene upon his
imagination. High-sounding titles^ strange and startling
modes of procedure, terrific pledges and imprecations,
and last, though not least, the graduation of orders in an
ascending scale, which, like mirrors placed in long vistas,
had the effect of expanding the apparent range of vision
almost to infinitude, were all combined to rescue from
ridicule and contempt the moment of discovery of the
insignificant secret actually disclosed. Having thus been
tempted by curiosity to advance, and being cut off by
fear from retreat, there came last of all the appearance
of a sufficient infusion of religious and moral and benevo-
lent profession to furnish an ostensible cause for the
construction of a system so ponderous and complicate.
The language of the Old Testament, the history as well as

12 INTKODUCTION.

the traditions of the Jews, and the resources of imagination,
are indiscriminately drawn upon to deck out a progressive
series of initiating ceremonies which would otherwise
claim no attribute to save them from contempt. Ashamed
and afraid to go backward, the novice suffers his love of
the marvelous, his dread of personal hazard, and his hope
for more of the beautiful and the true than has yet been
doled out to him, to lead him oa until he finds himself
crawling under the living arch, or committing the folly
of the fifth libation. He then too late discovers himself
to have been fitting for the condition either of a dupe or
of a conspirator. He has plunged himself needlessly into
an abyss of obligations, which, if they signify little, prove
him to have been a fool, and if, on the contrary, they
signify much, prove him ready, at a moment's warning,
to make himself a villain.

Such is the impression of the Masonic institution that
must be gathered from all the expositions that have been
lately made. Yet, strange though it may seem, there is
no reason to doubt that the society has had great success
in enrolling numbers of persons in many countries among
its members, and keeping them generally faithful to the
obligations which it imposed. This, if no other fact,
would be sufficient to relieve the whole machine from the
burden of ridicule it might otherwise be made to bear.
Perhaps the strongest feature of the association is to be
found in the pledge it imposes of mutual assistance in
distress. On this account much merit has been claimed
to it, and many stories have been circulated of the benefits
which individuals have experienced in war, or in perils

INTRODUCTION. 13

by sea and land, or in other disasters, by the ability to
resort to the grand hailing sign. This argument, which
has probably made more Freemasons than any other,
would be good in its defense were it not for two objec-
tions. One of them is, that the pledge to assist is indis-
criminate, making little or no difference between the good
or bad nature of the actions to promote which a co-opera-
tion may be invoked. The other is, that the engagement
implies a duty of preference of one member of society to
the disadvantage of another who may be in all respects'
his superior. It establishes a standard of merit conflicting
with that established by the Christian or the social system,
either or both of which ought to be of paramount
obligation. And this injurious preference is the more
dangerous because it may be carried on without the
knowledge of the sufferers. The more scrupulously
conscientious a citizen may be, who hesitates at taking
an oath the nature of which he does not know beforehand,
the more likely will he be to be kept down by the artificial
advancement of others who may derive their advantage
from a cunning use of their more flexible sense of right.
That these are not altogether imaginary objections, there
is no small amount of actual evidence to prove. There
has been a time when resort to Masonry was regarded as
eminently favorable to early success in life; and there
have been men whose rapidity of personal and political
advancement it would be difficult to explain by any other
cause than this, that they have been generally understood
to be bright Masons. Such a preference as is here sup-
posed can be justifiable only upon the supposition that

14 INTRODUCTION.

Masonic merit and social merit rest on the same general
foundation — •& supposition which no person will be able
to entertain for a moment after he shall have observed
the scales which belong respectively to each.

Another argument which has been effectively resorted to
as an aid to Freemasonry is drawn from its supposed
antiquity. To give color to this notion, a very ingenious
use has been made of much of the sacred history ; but it
appears to have no solid foundation whatsoever. What-
ever may have been the nature of the associations of
Masons who built the gothic edifices of the middle ages,
the investigations entered into by those who opposed
speculative Freemasonry sufficiently proved that the latter
scarcely dates beyond the early part of the last century.
The air of traditionary mystery, like the cerugo on many a
pretended coin, has been artificially added to heighten
its value to the curious. Yet such has been its effect, that
this cause alone has probably contributed very largely to
fill up the ranks of the society. The rapidity of its growth
during the period of its legitimate existence is one of the
most surprising circumstances attending its history. Origi-
nating in Great Britain somewhere about the beginning
of the eighteenth century (171 7) it soon ramified not only
in that country, but into France and Germany ; it spread
itself into the colonies of North America, and made its
way to the confines of distant Asia. Although the seeds
of the institution were early planted in Boston and
Charleston, they did not fructify largely until after the
period of the Revolution, j The original form of Masonry
was comprised in what are now called the first three

INTRODUCTION. 15

degrees^ — the Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and
Master, — but during the first quarter of the present cen-
tury, so thoroughly had the basis been laid over the entire
surface of the United States, that the degrees have been
multiplied more than tenfold, and in all directions the
materials have been collected for a secret combination of
the most formidable character. It was not until the history
of Morgan laid open the consequences of the abuse of the
system, that the public began to form a conception of the
dangerous fanaticism which it was cherishing in its bosom.
Even then, the endeavor to apply effective remedies to
the evil was met with the most energetic and concerted
resistance, and the result of the struggle was by no means
a decided victory to the opponents of the institution.*
Freemasonry still lives and moves and has a being, even
in New York and Massachusetts. And at the seat of the
federal government, Freemasonry at this moment claims
and obtains the privilege of laying the corner-stone of the
national institution created upon the endowment of James
Smithson, for the purpose of increasing and diffusing
knowledge among men.

An obvious danger attending all associations of men
connected by secret obligations, springs from their sus-
ceptibility to abuse • in being converted into engines for
the overthrow or the control of established governments.
So soon was the apprehension of this excited in Europe
by Freemasonry, that many of the absolute monarchies
took early measures to guard against its spread within
their limits. Rome, Naples, Portugal, Spain, and Russia

"'This was written over twenty-five years ago.

16 INTRODUCTION.

made participation in it a capital offense. Other govern-
ments more cautiously confined themselves to efforts to
control it by a rigid system of supervision. In Great
Britain the endeavor of government has been to neutralize
its power to harm, by entering into it and by placing
trustworthy members of the royal family at its head. Yet
even with all these precautions and prohibitions, it is
believed that in France at the period of the Revolution,
and in Italy within the present century, much of the
insurrectionary spirit of the time was fostered, if not in
Masonic lodges, at least in associations bearing a close
affinity to them in all essential particulars. With regard
to the United States, there has thus far in their history
been very little to justify any of the most serious objections
which may be made against Masonry in connection with
political affairs. Yet the events which followed the death
of Morgan first opened the public mind to the idea that
already a secret influence pervaded all parts of the body
politic, with which it was not very safe for an individual
to come into' conflict. The boast of Brainard, already
alluded to, was now brought to mind. It was found to
bias, if not to control, the action of officers of justice of
every grade, to affect the policy of legislative bodies, and
even to paralyze the energy of the executive head. This
power, by gaining a greater appearance of magnitude
from the mystery with which it was surrounded, was
doubtless much exaggerated by the popular fancy during
the period of the Morgan excitement ; but after making
all proper allowances, it is impossible from a fair survey
of the evidence to doubt that it was something real, and

INTRODUCTION. 17

that it might, in course of time, have established an
undisputed control over the affairs of the Union, had not
its progress been somewhat roughly broken by the conse-
quences of the violent movement against Morgan, which
had its origin in the precipitate but fanatical energy of
one division of the society. And even since the agitation
of that day, there is the best reason for believing that
throughout the region most affected by it an organization
was made up after the fashion of Masonic lodges, the
object of which was directly to stimulate a concerted
insurrection against the governing power of a neighboring
country, Canada, calculated to give rise to a furious
contest with a foreign nation, and to mature plans by
which such an attempt could be most effectually aided by
citizens of the United States in spite of all the national
declarations of neutrality and in defiance of all the fulmi-
nations of government at home.

But at the time of Morgan's mysterious disappearance,
the investigations then pursued, imperfect as they were,
and more than once completely baffled for the moment,
brought forth the names of sixty-nine different individuals,
many of them of great respectability of private character,
who had been directly concerned in the outrages attending
his taking off. These sixty-nine persons were not living
within a confined circle. They had their homes scattered
along an extent of country of at least one hundred miles.
That so many men, at so many separate points, should
have acted in perfect concert in such a business as they
were engaged in, would scarcely be believed without com-
pelling the inference of some distinct understanding exist-
2

18 INTRODUCTION,

ing between them. That they should have carried into
effect the most difficult part of their undertaking, a scheme
of the most daring and criminal nature, in the midst of a
large, intelligent, and active population, without thereby
incurring the risk of a full conviction of their guilt and the
consequent punishment, would be equally incredible but
for the light furnished by the phraseology of the Masonic
oath. The several forms of this oath, as shown to have
been habitually administered in the first three degrees, will
be found in the appendix to the present volume. These,
together with the ceremony attending the Royal Arch
and the Knight Templar's obligation, have been deemed
all of Masonry that is necessary to illustrate the letters of
Mr, Adams. They are believed sufficient to account for
the successful manner in which Morgan was spirited away.
It is not deemed expedient to dwell here upon their
nature, when it will be found fully analyzed in the body
of the present volume. It is enough to point out the fact
that obedience to the order is the paramount law of asso-
ciation } that it makes every social, civil, and moral duty
a matter of secondary consideration ; that it draws few
distinctions between the character of the acts that may be
required to be done, and that it demands fidelity to guilt
just the same as if it were the purest innocence. Every
man who takes a Masonic oath forbids himself from
divulging any criminal act, unless it might be murder or
treason, that may be communicated to him under the
seal of the fraternal bond, even though such concealment
were to prove a burden upon his conscience and a violation
cf his bounden duty to society and to his God. The

INTRODUCTION. 19

best man in the world, put in this situation, may be com-
pelled to take his election between perjury on one side
and sympathy with crime on the other. The worst man
in the world, put in this situation, has it in his power to
claim that the best shall degrade his moral sense down to
the level of his own, by hearing from him, without
resentment, revelations to which even listening may be a
participation of dishonor.

The facts attending the abduction of Morgan, not
elicited without the most extraordinary difficulty by sub-
sequent investigation, have been so often published far
and wide as to make it superfluous here to repeat them.
It may be enough to state that from the day when the
partnership between Morgan and David C. Miller, a
printer of Batavia, made for the purpose of publishing
the "Illustrations of Masonry," was announced, no form
of annoyance which could be expected to deter them
from prosecuting their design was left unattempted. The
precise nature of these forms may be better understood
if we class them under general heads, until they took the
ultimate shape of aggravated crime.

1. Anoymous denunciation of the man Morgan, as
an impostor, in newspapers published at Canandaigua,
Batavia, and Black Rock, places at some distance from
each other, but all within the limits of the region in
which the subsequent acts of violence were committed.

2. Abuse of the forms of law, by the hunting up of
small debts or civil offenses with which to carry on vexa-
tious suits or prosecutions against the two persons hereto-
fore named.

20 INTRODUCTION.

3. The introduction of a spy into their counsels, and
of a traitor to their confidence, employed for the purpose
of betraying the manuscripts of the proposed work to
the Masonic lodges, and thus of frustrating the entire
scheme.

4. Attempts to surprise the printing-office by a con-
certed night attack of men gathered from various points,
assembling at a specific rendezvous, the abode of a high
member of the order, and proceeding in order to the
execution the object, which was the forcible seizure of
the manuscripts and the destruction of the press used to
print them.

5. Efforts to get possession of the persons of the two
offenders, by a resort to the processes of law, through the
connivance and co-operation of offtcers of justice, them-
selves Masons. These efforts failed in the case of Miller,
but they succeeded against Morgan, and were the means
by which all the subsequent movements were carried into
execution.

6. The employment of an agent secretly to prepare
materials for the combustion of the building which con-
tained the printing materials known to be employed in
the publication of the book and to set them on fire.

Such were the proceedings which were resorted to at
the very onset of this conspiracy; and upon looking at
them it will be seen at a glance that the prosecution of
them involved the commission of a variety of moral and
social offenses, the commission of which 7nay be fairly
included within the literal injunction of the Masonic oath.
Had the matter stopped here it would have furnished

INTRODUCTION. 21

abundance of evidence to establish the dangerous character
of a secret institution, when its interests are deemed to
conflict with those of individual citizens or of society at
large. But what has thus far been compressed in the six
preceding heads appears as nothing when compared with
the startling developments of the remainder of the story.
On Sunday, — of all the days in the week, — the tenth of
September, 1826, the coroner of the county of Ontario,
himself master of the lodge at Canandaigua, applied to a
Masonic justice of the peace of that town for a warrant
to apprehend William Morgan, living fifty miles off at
Batavia. The offense upon which the application was
based was larceny, and the alleged' larceny consisted in
the neglect of Morgan to return a shirt and cravat that
had been borrowed by him in the previous month of
May. Armed with this implement of justice — which as-
sumes in this connection the semblance of a dagger
rather than of its ordinary attribute a sword — the coroner
immediately proceeded in a carriage, obtained at the
public cost, to pick up at different stations along the
road of fifty miles ten Masonic brethren, including a
constable, anxious and willing to share in avenging the
insulted majesty of the law. At the tavern of James
Ganson, six miles from Batavia, the same place which
had been the head-quarters of the night expedition
against Miller's printing-office, the party stopped for the
night. Had that expedition proved successful, it is very
probable that this one would have been abandoned. As
it was, the failure acted as a stimulus to its further prose-
cution. Early next morning five of the Masonic beagles,

22 INTRODUCTION.

headed by the Masonic constable, having previously
procured a necessary indorsement of their writ, to give it
effect in the county of Genesee, from a Masonic justice
of the peace, proceeded from Ganson's house to Batavia,
where they succeeded in seizing and securing the man
guilty of the allged enormity touching the borrowed shirt
and cravat. A coach was again employed, the Masonic
party lost no time in securing their prey, and at about
sunset of the same day with the arrest, that is, Monday,
the eleventh day of September, they got back to Canan-
daigua. The prisoner was immediately taken before the
justice who had issued the warrant, the futility of the
complaint was established, and Morgan was forthwith
discharged. The case affords a striking illustration of the
abuse of the remedial process of the law to the more
secure commission of an offense against law. Morgan was
free, it is true, but he was at a distance of fifty miles from
home, alone, and without friends, brought through the
country with the stigma resulting from the suspicion of a
criminal offense attached to him, and all without expense
to the parties engaged in the undertaking, as well as
without the smallest hazard of a rescue.

•It turned out that the person of whom the shirt and
cravat had been originally borrowed had never sought to
instigate a prosecution for the offense. The idea origina-
ted in the mind of the Masonic coroner himself. He had
executed the plan of using the law to punish an offense of
Masonry, to the extent to which it had now been carried.
Morgan had been brought within the coil of the serpent,
but he was not yet entirely at its mercy. Another abuse

INTRODUCTION. 23

of legal forms yet remained to complete the operation.
No sooner was the victim landed upon the pavement,
exonerated from the charge of being a thief, than he found
the same Masonic grand master and coroner tapping
him on the shoulder, armed with a writ for a debt of two
dollars to a tavern-keeper of Canandaigua. Resistance
was useless. Morgan had neither money nor credit, and
for the want of them he was taken to the county jaiL
The common property and the remedial process of the
state was thus once more employed to subserve the vin-
dictive purposes of a secret society.

Twenty-four hours were suffered to pass, while the
necessary arrangements were maturing to complete the
terrible drama. On the evening of the succeeding day,
being the twelfth of September, the same grand master
coroner once more made his appearancp at the prison.
After some little negotiation Morgan is once more re-
leased, by the payment of the debt for which he had been
taken. But he is not free. No sooner is he treading the
soil of freedom, and perchance dreaming of escaping
from all these annoyances, than upon a given signal a
yellow carriage and grey horses are seen by the bright
moonlight rolling with extraordinary rapidity toward the
jail. A few minutes pass; Morgan has been seized and
gagged and bound and thrown into the carriage, which is
now seen well filled with men, rolling as rapidly as before,
but in a contrary direction. Morgan is now completely
in the power of his enemies. The veil of law is now
removed. All that remains to be done is to use the arm
of flesh. Morgan is now taking his last look of the to.vn
of Canandaigua.

24 INTRODUCTION.

It is a fact that this carriage moved along, night and
day, over a hundred miles of well-settled country, with
fresh horses to draw it supplied at six different places, and
with corresponding changes of men to carry on the enter-
prise, and not the smallest let or impediment was experi-
enced. With but a single exception, every individual
concerned in it was a Freemason, bound by the secret tie;
and the exception was immediately initiated by a unani-
mous vote of the lodge at Lewiston. It afterward
appeared in evidence that the lodge at Buffalo had been
called to deliberate upon it, and moreover that the lodges
at Le Roy, Bethany, Covington, and Lockport, as well as
the chapter at Rochester, had all of them consulted upon
it. There is no other way to account for the preparation
made along the line of the road traveled by the party.
Nowhere was there delay, or hesitation, or explanation, or
discussion. Evei'ything went on like clock-work, up to
the hour of the evening of the fourteenth of September,
when the prisoner was taken from the carriage at Fort
Niagara, an unoccupied military post near the mouth of
the river of that name, and lodged in the place originally
designed for a powder magazine, when the position had
been occupied by the troops of the United States. The
jurisdiction was now changed from that of the state to
that of the federal government, but the power that held
the man was one and the same. It was Masonry that
opened the gates of the fort, by controlling the will of the
brother who for the time had it intrusted to his charge.

On this same evening there was appointed to take place
at the neighboring town of Lewiston an installation of a

INTRODUCTION. ' 25

chapter misnamed benevolent, at which the arch- conspir-
ator was to be made grand high-priest, and an oppor-
tunity was given to all associates from distant points to
come together, and to consult upon what it was best to
do next. Here it is, that in spite of the untiring labors of
an investigating committee organized for the purpose, and
in spite of the entire application of the force of the courts
of the country to the eliciting of the truth, and details of
the affair which thus far have been clearly exposed, begin
to grow dim and shadowy. There is reason to believe
that Morgan was carried across the river in a boat at night,
and placed at the disposal of a Canadian lodge at Newark.
The scruples of one or two brethren, who hesitated at the
idea of murder, brought on a refusal to assume the trust.
Consultations on this side of the river followed, and mes-
sengers were dispatched to Rochester for advice. The
final determination was that Morgan must die, to pay the
penalty of his violated oath. After this, everything at-
tending the catastrophe becomes more and more uncertain.
It is affirmed that eight Masons met and threw into a hat
as many lots, three of which only were marked. Each
man then drew a lot, and where it was not a marked lot,
he went immediately home.* There is reason to believe
that the three who remained were the persons who on
the night of the 19th or 20th of September took their
victim from the fort, where he had been kept for sacrifice,
carried him in a boat to the middle of the stream, and,

*Thi8 is now fully confirmed by the testimony on his death-bed of H,
Vallance, of Racine, Wisconsin, one of the three actual murderers of
Morgan,

26 INTRODUCTION.

having fastened upon him a heavy weight, precipitated
him into eternity.

Such is a condensed statement of this eventful history
— a. history which in many of its details will vie in inter-
est with any narrative of romance. That such a tragedy
couM be executed in the United States, a country fortified,
as the people fondly imagine, by all known securities to
life and liberty ; that it could be carried on through a
period of ten days, in a populous Christian community,
without thought of rescue; that it could enlist as actors
so large a number of citizens of good repute, in so many
difierent quarters, as were members of the various lodges
privy to the transaction ; and finally, that it could secure
the co-operation of the chosen ministers of justice, and
even of some set apart to the service of the Deity, one of
whom could be found bold enough to invoke the blessing
of God upon the contemplated violation of his most solemn
law; that it could involve all these possibilities, was a
thing well calculated to rouse the human mind to a high
pitch of wonder, until the problem found its natural solu-
tion in the disclosure of the Masonic oath. Construed as
this obligation was construed by the members of the order
in western New York, all cause of surprise at the conse-
quences instantly disappears.

Yet, strange as is this narrative, fearful as is the dis-
closure of the fanaticism of secret association which could
impel men holding a respectable rank in society, walk-
ing by the light of modern civilization, acknowledging the
influence of Christianity over their daily life, to the
commission of outrages so flagrant as were the abduction

INTRODUCTION. 27

and murder of William Morgan, it would not of itself have
sufificed to justify attaching even a suspicion to the entire
institution of Freemasonry in the United States, or even
to any considerable branch of it existing without the limits
of the region where the events happened. Whatever might
have been the private sentiments entertained of the danger
attending the assumption of secret obligations, the exact
nature of these was at the outset too little understood to
sanction the inference that they allowed criminal enter-
prises. Extensive as the conspiracy against Morgan and
Miller appeared to be, yet similar things have been done
under the influence of passion, and in open and acknowl-
edged violation of moral and religious duty, in all stages
of the world's progress. It was hence no unreasonable
thing to conclude that it might have happened once more.
Censure was to be directed, if anywhere, against those
overzealous members of the order who could be believed
to have overstepped the bounds of reason and of justice,
acknowledged as well by the law of the fraternity as by
the higher one of God and of civil society. It was reserved
for events coming somewhat later to develop the fact
that in the instance of Morgan, Freemasons, so far from
thinking themselves to be violating, were literally follow-
ing the injunction which they felt to be laid upon them
in their oaths. ^ThQ law of Masonry was to them more
than that of civil government or of the Deity, even when
it was known directly to conflict with them. It was the
truth of this proposition, slowly and gradually wrested ^
from the lips of adhering members, that turned the current
of popular indignation from the guilty individuals toward

28 INTRODUCTION.

the institution itself. It was the proof furnished of this
truth which created, the moral power of the political party
that soon sprung up in New York and Pennsylvania, and
that under the banner of opposition to all secret societies
rallied its tens of thousands in a fierce and vindictive, and
at times even a fanatical persecution of everything that
bore even the semblance of dreaded Freemasonry ."^

It would be tedious to recapitulate all the particulars of
the evidence which ultimately fastened upon the public
mind a conviction of the reality of the proposition above
named. It may be sufficient to state the manner in which
the powerful efforts made to discover the guilty pa/ties and
to bring them to justice were perpetually baffled. The
first and most natural impulse operating upon those who
united in an endeavor to maintain the law was to look to
the chief executive magistrate of New York for energetic
support. The person who held that office at the moment
was a no less distinguished man than the celebrated De
Witt Clinton. But he was at the same time a Freemason,
and what is more, he was high-priest of the General
Grand Chapter of the United States, in other words, the
highest officer of the order. The fact was known through-
out the region of western New York, and was unquestion-
ably relied upon as a protection from danger by those
who were concerned in the deeds of violence. Indeed it
afterward came out that what purported to be a letter
from him was freely used for the purpose of instigating
the members of the order to prosecute their schemes.
There are many living who yet suspect that the letter
was actually genuine ; but that suspicion is believed to be

INTRODUCTION. 29

unjust to the memory of the late Governor Clinton, who
did what he could, as soon as he became apprized of the
character of the offense, to bring the guilty to punishment,
^he fact, however, furnishes an instructive illustration of
the great danger attending the existence of secret ties,
which may even be suspected to conflict in the mind of a
high officer of state with the performance of his public
duties. The moral influence of his situation was thus
wholly lost upon men who believed that, whatever he
might say in public to the contrary, his sympathies were
all with them ; who supposed that his private obligations
to conceal and never to reveal the secrets of his brother
Masons, as well as to aid and assist in extricating them
from any difficulty in which they might become involved,
might be depended upon, at least so far as to shelter
them from the legal consequences of their own misdeeds,
within the sphere of the executive influence. Was this
an inference wholly unwarranted from the language of the
Masonic oath? Let any impjartial individual examine its
nature, and answer affirmatively if he can. Doubtless
De Witt Clinton was wholly innocent of guilt, but his
situation was not the less clearly one of conflict between
his Masonic and his social and religious duty. Although
he may have escaped contamination, another and weaker
individual might have made himself accessory to the
crime. At all events, it must be conceded that the
situation in which he was thrown was one not unnaturally
the consequence of his assumption of conflicting obliga-
tions, and one in which no high civil officer under any
government should ever be suffered to stand.

30 INTRODUCTION.

The second manifestation of the force of the Masonic
obligation was made visible in the courts of justice, which
are established to try persons charged with the commission
of offenses against human life or liberty. The sheriffs,
whose duty it was under the laws of New York to select
and summon the grand-juries, were, in all the counties in
which the deeds of violence against Morgan had been
committed. Freemasons. Several of them had themselves
been parties to the crime. They did not hesitate to make
use of their power as officers of justice to screen the crim-
inals from conviction. The jurors whom they summoned
were m6st of them Masons, some of them participators in
the offenses into which it became their civil duty to in-
quire. The consequence may readily be imagined. Money,
time, and talent were expended in profusion, for the
purpose of bringing the perpetrators of the crime com-
plained of to condign punishment ; but almost in vain.
Some of the suspected persons were found and put upon
their trial; but the secret obligation prevailed in the
jury-box, and uniformly rescued them in the moment of
their utmost need. Others vanished from the scene, and
eluded pursuit even to the farthest limits of the United
States. One man, and probably the most guilty, was
tracked to the bosom of a lodge in the city of New York,
by the members of which he was secreted, put on board
of a vessel below the harbor, and dispatched to a foreign
land. Five years were consumed in unavailing efforts to
obtain a legal conviction of the various offenders. Nothing
that deserves the name of a true verdict followed. Such
a history of deeply-studied, skillfully-combined, and sue-

INTRODUCTION. 31

cessfully-executed movements to set at naught the lawful-
ly-constituted tribunals of justice, has at no other time
been made evident in America, Important witnesses were
carried off at the moment when their evidence was
indispensable, and placed beyond the jurisdiction of the
state ; or if present and interrogated, they stood doggedly
mute ; or else they placed themselves entirely under the
guidance of legal advisers employed to protect them from
criminating themselves. It was made plain to the most
ordinary capacity that the order was assuming the re-
sponsibility of the crime of some of its members. It was
exerting itself to throw over the guilty the protecting
garb of the innocent.\^ The obligation of Freemasonry
was then the law paramount, and the social system sunk
into nothing by the side of itT^ Even distant lodges
responded favorably to the call made upon them to aid in
the defense of the endangered brethren, by actually
voting and forwarding sums of money for their relief.
And the brief and insignificant period of imprisonment
which two or three of them paid as a penalty for compara-
tively light offenses, was spent by them in receiving the
sympathy of a martyr's fate, J The end of all was, that for
the first time Masonry enjoyed its complete triumph. The
men who actually participated in the murder have gradu-
ally dropped off, until it may be said that not a single
individual remains within the United States. ^ But they
lived and died secure from every danger of legal punish-
ment. The oath of Masonry came in conflict with the
duty to society and to God, and succeeded in setting it
aside.

32 INTRODUCTION.

The ends of justice were defeated ; but the labors of
those indefatigable persons who had striven day and night
to promote them, were not altogether thrown away. The
materials were collected to show the world the chain of
connection wove by the Masonic obligations between the
subordinate lodges of western New York and the higher
authorities in the East. The popular attention was turned
to every Masonic movement — not solely in the state in
which had been the cause of offense, but in all of the
neighboring states. Extraordinary powers to pursue the
investigations to its source were demanded of various leg-
islative bodies, and the treatment of these applications
elicited the fact that Freemasonry exercised a power almost
as great in the deliberative assemblies as in the executive
council chamber, or in the jury-box of the courts. The
opposition to Masonry became gradually more and more
intensely political, and in the process took up an aspect of
extreme and illiberal vindictiveness toward all who vent-
ured to stay its progress. The other parties were com-
pelled to bend to the force of the blast that was sweeping
over them. The revelation made by Morgan, in the book
which cost him his life, though at first called an imposture,
proved on examination to be strictly true. But they em-
braced only the first three degrees of Masonry. Other
persons, disgusted and indignant at the proceedings of
their adhering brethren after the fate of Morgan was
known to them, voluntarily came forward and supplied all
the remaining forms used in America, and many of those
which had been adopted in Europe. A considerable
number openly and voluntarily seceded from the order.

INTRODUCTION. 33

A meeting of such persons held at Le Roy ended, as has
been already stated, in a formal renunciation by them of
all their obligations. Here and there in other states the
example was followed by a few. There were more who
silently seceded, having made up their minds never again
to visit a lodge. Yet in spite of all this, in spite of the
earnest exhortation addressed to his brethren by Colonel
W. L. Stone, in a book written by him to prevail upon
them to dissolve the lodges and chapters and to abandon
Masonry altogether, it must be admitted that the great
majority of the society remained equally unmoved by de-
nunciation, flattery, or prayer. Some had the assurance
publicly to deny the truth of all the allegations made
against Masonry, and further to affirm that they had never
taken obligations as Masons not compatible with their
duties as citizens. Others — and the most important of
these was Edward Livingston, then uniting with the pos-
session of one of the chief posts of responsibility in the
general government, that of the highest dignity in the
Masonic hierarchy, made vacant by the death of Clinton,
— deemed it the part of wisdom to remain sullenly dumb,
abstaining from all controversy, and suffering the excite-
ment against Masons to blow over and spend itself in
vain. In this spirit Mr. Livingston proceeded to deliver
what he called an Address to the General Grand Royal
Arch Chapter of the United States, upon the occasion of
his installation as general grand high-priest. He recom-
mended that all attacks made upon the order to which
they belonged should be met with dignified silence — as
if dignified silence were not equally a resource for the

34; INTRODUCTION.

most atrocious criminal and for the most unspotted citizen.
The charge as against Mr. Livingston was surely worthy
of some little consideration when connected with the
evidence already laid before the public to sustain it. It
was neither more nor less than this, that he, being secre-
tary of state of the United States, one of the confidential
advisers of the president, and moreover the reputed author
of a strong proclamation issued by the chief-magistrate
against those in danger of falling into treasonable practices
by their connection with South Carolina nullification,
was yet himself under secret obligations which required
him to conceal the evidence of all the offenses denounced
in that state paper, provided only that it should be com-
municated to him under the seal of Masonic confidence.
Not to answer such a charge as this implied rather a
doubt of the ability to do so satisfactorily than a perfect
reliance upon the consciousness of innocence. If Masonry
was free firom all the objections raised by its opponents,
what more effective step to establish its innocence than a
simple statement of the truth ? If it was a valuable in-
stitution, worthy of preservation, surely the effort to
sustain it against injurious calumnies was worth making.
Could it be supposed that the unanimous testimony to the
alleged character of the oaths, brought by hundreds of
respectable persons who had taken them, but who now
renounce them, was to be discredited by the merely nega-
tive action of adhering Masons, however individually
respectable, or however exalted in position ? Consider-
ing the precise nature of the difficulties by which they
were surrounded, it is clear that no defense could have

INTRODUCTION. 35

been assumed by them, in its character more nugatory.
It manifested only the consciousness of wrong, combined
with a dogged resolution never to admit nor to retract it.

The address of Mr. Livingston, such as it was, proved
the inciting cause of the publication of a series of letters
directed by Mr. Adams to him, which will be found to
make a part of the present volume. In these papers the
argument against the Masonic obligation, as the root of
all the crimes committed in the case of Morgan, was
pushed with a force which carried conviction to the minds
of many persons at the time, and which seems even at this
day scarcely to admit of reply. Mr. Livingston himself
made no attempt at rejoinder. This was the part of dis-
cretion, for had he done so, there is little reason to doubt
that Mr. Adams would have fulfilled his promise when he
said to him, " Had you ventured to assume the defense
of the Masonic oaths, obligations, and penalties ; had you
presumed \.o commit your name to the assertion that they
can by any possibility be reconciled to the laws of moral-
ity, of Christianity, or of the land, I should have deemed
it my duty to reply, and to have completed the demon-
stration before God and man that they can not^

The opportunity for a complete and overwhelming y
victory was thus denied to Mr. Adams by the tacit seces-
sion from the field of Mr. Livingston. Yet the effect of
his letters was by no means trifling in many states. The
moral power of the opponents of Masonry visibly increased,
and with it the earnestness of their political hostility to
those who practiced its rites. It showed itself in the gen-
eral election of state officers, both in New York and

36 INTRODUCTION.

Pennsylvania, and in the nomination of Mr. William Wirt
as a candidate at the ensuing election for the presidency
of the United States, in opposition to General Jackson,
the incumbent, who was found to be a Freemason. Neither
was Mr. Adams himself suffered to remain disconnected
with the movement of political opinions upon the subject.
A large convention of citizens of Massachusetts unani-
mously called upon him to suffer his name to be used in
the canvass for the office of governor, which took place in
that state in the year 1833. Reluctant as he was to enter
into the arena, and to sacrifice his preference for the posi-
tion in the House of Representatives of the United States,
which he then occupied, the nature of the appeal made to
him overcame all his scruples. The election took place.
It terminated in the failure to make choice of any person
by the requisite constitutional majority. The power of
the party which had for a long time held the control of
the government of Massachusetts, and with which Mr.
Adams had up to this period co-operated, was broken
under the effort to sustain Masonry against him. Had
he determined to persevere, it is quite uncertain what
might have been the consequences to the position of the
commonwealth. But it was not his wish to press the
matter beyond the point which a sense of duty dictated.
No sooner was it ascertained by the return of the votes
that a continuance of the contest in the legislature of the
state was to be the result of his adherence to his position,
than he determined to withdraw his name from the can-
vass. At the same time that he took this step, he caused
to be published an address to the people of the common-

INTRODUCTION. 37

wealth, explaining his views of the connection between
Masonry and the poHtics of the country, and justifying
himself from the charges with which he had been most ,
vehemently assailed. With this paper, the last in the
present volume, and the close of which is in a strain of
eloquence which alone should secure its preservation, Mr.
Adams appears to have terminated his public labors in
opposition to secret obligations and to Freemasonry. But
their effects were soon afterward made visible, by the
adoption of laws prohibiting the administration of extra-
judicial oaths, by the voluntary dissolution of many of
the subordinate lodges, and by the tacit secession of a
large number of individual members. Indeed, such was the
silence preserved for a long time respecting the institution,
that its existence in Massachusetts might almost have been
questioned. The purposes for which the organized oppo-
sition had been made seemed so completely answered
that the motives for maintaining it were no longer strongly
felt. The current of public affairs soon afterward took a
new turn. Antimasonry gradually disappeared as an
agent to effect changes in the political aspect of the states,
and the individuals who had associated themselves in the
movement again joined the ordinary party organizations
with which they most nearly sympathized.

Thus it happened that Freemasonry, by cowering under
the storm, saved itself from the utter prostration which
would have followed perseverance in the policy of resist-
ance. Years have passed away, and it again gives symp-
toms of revivification. A new and kindred institution
has suddenly manifested an extraordinary degree of

J. -1 \). 1 -J d

X

38 INTRODUCTION.

development under the guise of benevolence. What the
precise nature of the obligations may be, which bind great
numbers of citizens, mostly young, active men, into this
connection, has not yet been fully brought to light. The
objects are stated to be charity and the rendering of mu-
tual aid. If these are all the purposes of the association, it
can not be otherwise than meritorious. Yet it can scarcely
be maintained that any unlimited pledge of secrecy is es-
sential to the successful execution of them. In a republi-
can form of government, the only real and proper fraternity
is the system of civil society. To that every member is
bound to bow. The obligations which it imposes neeb
no veil of secrecy to cover them. Illustrated by the law
of love enjoined by the superior authority of divine
command, it marks out with distinctness to each individual
the paramount duty of charity, of benevolence, and of
mutual aid and support. There can be, therefore, no
good excuse for resorting to smaller and narrower spheres
for the invidious exercise of such virtues among those who
ought to stand upoa a perfectly even footing, when the
broad and general one better answers to every useful and
honorable exertion. The disadvantages attending the
formation of all associations connected by secret obliga-
tions, no matter how harmless may be their appearance,
are, first, that if they have any effect at all, it is injurious
to those who do not choose to join them ; secondly, that
they substitute a private pledge of a doubtful nature to a
few who have no moral right to the preference, for a clear
and well-defined and entirely proper one given to the
many. In all similar cases, the tendency to introduce

INTRODUCTION. 39

objects of exertion in the smaller circle which conflict
with those of society at large, and which may sometimes
even threaten its safety, is obvious. It is the temptation
presented to conspiracy which has made secret associations
the objects of denunciation by the monarchs of Europe.
The same thing should at all times render them marks for
jealousy and distrust in republican states. They threaten
the harmony of the community wherever they are. The
pledge of political preference which was rapidly becoming
ingrafted upon the Masonic institution in the United
States, at the time of the Morgan excitement, and which
had already produced visible results in many of the
smaller towns of New York and New England, by unac-
countably exalting some individuals to the depression of
neighbors equally worthy, furnishes a good illustration of
the mode in which social discord of the bitterest descrip-
tion may be made in the end to spring up. In view of
the possibility of this hazard, it would seem as if few could
be found, when once made sensible of the difficulty,
willing deliberately to give occasion to it.

It is confidently believed that in the materials of the
present volume will be found a solemn warning, conveyed
by a voice in the feebleness of age still powerful over the
sympathy of American citizens against the formation of
secret obligations. As time rolls on its swift career, and
as the generation which nursed the infant republic into
strength disappears from the scene, the duty becomes
stronger on those who succeed, to heed the counsels which
its wisest and most experienced men leave behind them.
The arguments of Mr. Adams, although directed against

40 INTRODUCTION.

the particular order of Freemasonry, will yet be found
susceptible of broader application, and extending them-
selves over all societies of which the radical error is, that
they shun the light of day. The pride of freemen — living
under a system of equal laws, with guaranties of the rights
of each individual — should be to sustain the junction of
innocence with liberty, the union of an open, honest heart
with an efficient and liberal hand. Such a state can not
co-exist with secret obligations. The person who lies under
an engagement which he must not reveal, whatever may
betide, can indeed be innocent and energetic, but he will
not be perfectly frank nor just to all men alike. Occa-
sions may arise in which his fidelity to his private pledges
will come into conflict with his duty to society. Who is
then to decide for him what he must do ? On either side
is moral difficulty and mental distress. If he betray his
associates, he spots his heart with violated faith. If he de-
sert his country, he fails in a duty of even higher obligation.
The alternative is too painful to a conscientious spirit ever
knowingly to be hazarded with propriety. That such an
alternative is by no means impossible, who can doubt after
the cases of Eli Bruce, of De Witt Clinton, and of Edward
Livingston, in the Masonic history of the murder of Mor-
gan? Much as he might regret it, what Freemason was
there in 1826 who did not perceive at a glance that his
pledge to his associates was to conceal the crime and to
shelter the criminal ; while his duty to state and to heav-
en, to disclose the guilt and to denounce the author, was
written with a sunbeam on his heart? And how many
were there, who, instead of judging rightly of the relative

INTRODUCTION. 41

importance of the obligations, actually made themselves
accessories after the fact, by supplying the means of
escape from justice to their unworthy brethren? The
damning evidence of this truth must remain in the minds
of men as long as Masonry shall endure. It may indeed
be that other associations will spring up which may be
free from all the grossly objectionable engagements of that
institution. But who shall be secure against the intrusion
of evil when the portal stands invitingly open to its admis-
sion ? Who shall be able to protect himself against the
designs of those of his associates to whom he has given a
secret control over his will ? These are questions which
every citizen must answer for himself. It is with the
design that he may have at hand the means of acting
understanding! y, that the present volume is put forth.
Young persons, who are especially liable to be carried
away by the fascination that always attends mystery, are
hereby furnished with an opportunity to weigh the argu-
ments of a powerful remonstrant against any secret steps.
May they read, weigh, and deeply ponder the words of
wisdom, and may the effect of them be to preserve them
in the paths of liberty, of friendship, and of faith, early
marked out by their adviser as the guides of his own career,
unincumbered by obligations which they fear to disclose,
unembarrassed by promises which they know not how
conscientiously to perform !

MR. ADAMS' LETTERS

ON THE

MASOOTC INSTITUTION.

Adams' Letters, Addresses, Etc,

TO A REVIEWER OF SHEPPARD'S DEFENSE OF
THE MASONIC INSTITUTION.

The following letter from John Quincy Adams explains
the views of his illustrious father, and of himself, on the
subject of Freemasonry. It was written in reply to a note
from our correspondent, who is reviewing Mr. Sheppard's
Defense of the Masonic Institution. It may be recollected
that Mr. Sheppard claimed the elder Adams as a patron of
the order ; and our correspondent took the liberty of ad-
dressing Mr. Adams, asking for information on this point.
— Boston Press.

Quincy, 22 August, 1831.

Sir: — The letter from ray father to the Grand
Lodge of Massachusetts, which Mr. Sheppard has
thought proper to introduce into his address, was
a complimentary answer to a friendly and patriotic
address of the grand lodge to him. In it he ex-
pressly states that he had never been initiated in
the order. He therefore knew nothing of their
secrets, their oaths, nor their penalties. Far less
kad their practical operation been revealed by the
4

50 LETTEUS AND OPINIONS

murder of William Morgan. Nor had the hand
of the avenger of blood been arrested for five long
years — and probably forever — by the contumacy
of witnesses setting justice at defiance in her own
sanctuary. Nor had the trial of an accomplice in
guilt marked the influence of one juror under Ma-
sonic oaths upon the verdict of his eleven fellows.

That Mr. Sheppard should resort to a .etter
from my father, a professedly uninitiated man, to
liberate the Masonic institution from the unre-
futed charge of unlawful oaths, of horrible and
disgusting jjenalties and secrets, the divulging of
which has been punished by a marder unsurpassed
in human atrocity, is to me passing strange. All
that my father knew of Masonry in 1798 was that
it was favorable to the siq)port of civil authority;
and this he inferred from the characters of inti-
timate friends of his, and excellent men who had
been members of the society. The inference was
surely natural ; but he had never seen the civil
authority in conflict with Masonry itself. To
speak of the Masonic institution as favorable to
the support of civil authority at this day, and in
this country, would be a mockery of the common
sense and sensibility of mankind.

My father says he had known the love of the
fine arts, the delight in hospitality, and the devo-
tion to humanity of the Masonic fraternity. All

ox FREEMASONRY. 51

these qualities, no doubt, then were, and yet are,
conspicuous in many members of the society.
They, and qualities of a jet higher order, were
not less conspicuous in the Order of the Jesuits.
They were conspicuous in many of the monastic
orders — in the Inquisition itself, whose ministers
in the very act of burning the body of the heretic
to death were always actuated by the tenderest
and most humane regard for the salvation of his
soul.

The use of my father's name for the purposes
to which Mr. Sheppard would now apply it is an
injury to his memory, which I deem it my duty,
as far as may be in my power, to redress. You
observe he says he had never been initiated in the
Masonic order. And I have more than once heard
from his own lips why he had never enjoyed that
felicity.

Mr. Jeremy Gridley, whom he mentions as hav-
ing been his intimate friend, was grand master of
the Massachusetts grand lodge. He was also the
attorney-general of the Crown when, in October,
1758, my father, having finished his law studies
and his school-keeping at Worcester, presented
himself, a stranger, poor, friendless, and obscure,
to ask of him the favor to present him to the su-
perior court of the province, then sitting at Bos-
ton, for admission to the bar. Mr. Grridley, in his

52 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

own office, examiued the youthful aspirant with
regard to his professional acquirements; gave him
advice truly parental and dictated by the purest
virtue ; and then presented him to the court with
a declaration that he had himself examined him,
and could assure their honors that his legal ac-
quirements were very considerable, and fully
worthy of the admission which he solicited.

This kindness of Mr. Gridley was never forgot-
ten by my father; I trust it never will be forgotten
by his children. From that day forth, while Mr.
Gridley lived, he was the intimate friend, per-
sonal and professional, of my father. He died in
1767. My father often resorted to him for friend-
ly counsel, and, as he was grand master of the
lodge, once asked his advice, whether it was worth
his while to become a member of the society. In
the candor of friendship Mr. Gridley answered
him, No, adding that by aggregation to the soci-
ety a young man might acquire a little artificial
support, but that he did not need it, and that
there was nothing in the Masonic institution
worthy of his seeking to be associated with it.

So said at that time the Grand Master of the
Massachusetts Masons, Jeremy Gridley; and such,
I have repeatedly heard my father say, was the
reason why he never joined the lodge.

The use of the name of Washington to give an

ON FREEMASONRY. 53

odor of sanctity to the institution as it. now stands
exposed to the world is, in my opinion, as unwar-
rantable as that of my father's name. On the
mortal side of human existence there is no name
for which I entertain a veneration more profound
than for that of Washington. But he was never
called to consider the Masonic order in the light
in which it nmst now be viewed. If he had been,
we have a pledge of what his conduct would have
been far more authoritative than the mere fact of
his having been a Mason can be in favor of the
brotherhood.* If you wish to know what that
pledge is, please to consult the recently-published
writings of Thomas Jefterson, vol. I., from page \
416 to 422 ; and especially the paragraph begin- A
ning at the middle of page 418. I would earnest-
ly recommend the perusal and meditation of the
whole passage to all virtuous and conscientious
Masons, of whom I know there are great numbers,

'^Treating of the order of the Cincinnati. — a secret society composed
of soldiers of the Revolution,— Mr. JeflPerson says: " The uneasiness
excited by this institution had very early caught the notice of General
Washington. Still recollecting all the purity of the motives which
gave U birth, he became sensible that it might produce political evils,
which the warmth of those motives had masked. Add to this, that it
was disapproved by the mass of citizens of the Union. This alone was
reason strong enough in a country where the will of the majority is the
law, and ought to be the law. He saw that the objects of the institution
wore too light to be opposed to considerations as serious as these; and
that it was become necessary to annihilate it absolutely. On this,
therefore, he was decided. The first annual meeting at Philadelphia,

5i LETTERS AND OPINIONS

If they wish to draw precepts for their own con-
duct from the example and principles of Wash-
ington, or from the deliberate and anxious opin-
ions and solicitude of Jefferson, they will find in
those pages lessons of duty for themselves which
they might consider it as presumption in me to offer
them. The application of the principles in a case
mot identically the same, but in every essential
point of argument similar, and in many respects
from a weaker to a much stronger basis, I would
leave to their own discretion, though first divested
of its passions. It is, in my opinion, an unanswer-
able demonstration of the duty of every Mason in
the United States at this day.

I never heard and do not believe that the Rev.
Dr. Bently ever delivered or published a sermon
censuring my father for anything he had ever
said upon the subject of Masonry.

was now at hand. He went to that, determined to exert all his influence
for its suppression. He proposed it to his fellow-officers, and urged it
with all his powers. It met an opposition which was observed to cloud
his face with an anxiety that the most distressful scenes of the war
scarcely ever produced. It was canvassed for seven days, and, at
length, it was no more a doubt what would be its ultimate fate. The
order was on the point of receiving its annihilation by the vote of a
great majority of its members." (Jefferson's Works, Vol. I. page 418.)
Owing to the influence of French envoys, — who were greatly tinctured
with infidelity, and filled with the spirit of Red Republicanism, — the
society, contrary to the ardent wish of Washington, did not disband ;
but it was modified. Mr. Jefferson's conclusive reasons for disapproval
of such institutions, are given in the succeeding pages of his works,
and they are mostly equally applicable to all other secret orders.— [Ed3.

ON FREEMASONRY. 55

The electoral vote of Massachusetts in 1801 was
unanimous for mj fatlier.

You are at liberty to make what use of this let-
ter you please, giving notice if you publish it that
it is an answer to a letter of inquiry received by
me.

I am, very respectfully, sir,

Your obedient servant,

John Quincy Adams.

TO EDWARD INGERSOLL, ESQ., PHILADELPHIA

[extract.]

September 21, 1831.
Mr. Chandler has truly informed you that I am
a zealous Anti mason, — to this extent: It is my
deliberate opinion that from the time of the com-
mission of the crimes committed at the kidnap-
ping and murder of William Morgan, it became
the solemn and sacred, civic and social duty of
every Masonic lodge in the United States either
to dissolve itself, or to discard forever all adminis-
tration of oaths and penalties and all injunctions
of secrecy of any kind to its members. I believed
it also their duty, though of less imperious obliga-
tion, to abolish all their ill-assorted, honorific ti-
tles, and childish or ridiculous pageants.

56 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

I believed it also a duty sacredly incumbent
upon every individual Freemason in the United
States to use all the influence in his power to pre-
vail upon his brethren of the order to the same
end, that is, to the total abolition of the order, or
to its discarding forever all oaths, all penalties, all
secrets, and all fantastic titles, exhibitions, and
ceremonies heretofore used in the institution.

Believing these to be their duties I did not feel
myself called to take an active part in the contro-
versy which I saw arising in the community con-
cerning them. I took considerable pains to avoid
entering into that controversy. I endured from
individuals of the fraternity, instigated from the
passions of the order, falsehood, by statements in
their newspapers' that I was one of their members;
ferjiiry, to atfcct the presidential election, by an
affidavit sworn to before a Masonic magistrate by
a Master Mason that he had sat with me twice at
meetings of a lodge at Pittsfield ; insulting, cajol-
ing, threatening anonymous letters from Masonic
sources ; abusive slander and vituperation in Ma-
sonic newspapers, pamphlets, and even volumes ;
and other wrongs of which it behooves me not to
speak. All these I have endured for a space now
of at least four years, without reply, without com-
plaint, never disguising in the conversation of so-
cial intercourse the opinions above expressed;

ON FREEMASONRY.'^ 57

never seeking occasion to promulge tliem ; and
declining time after time, on many occasions and
in various forms, to engage in the turmoil of Ma-
Bonic and Antimasonic warfare. At last an Ens:-
lish shepherd of Masonic sheep at "Wiscasset, in
Maine, has the impudence to vouch in my father
as a witness to the sublime and transcendent vir-
tues of Masonry, and in the same pamphlet casts
a due portion of his Masonic filth at me ; for
what? Because in a confidential letter, not in-
tended for the public, and published without my
consent, I had once written that I should never
be a Mason ; and because I had twice, by special
invitation, been present as a mere spectator at
meetings of Antimasons in Boston. Still I should
have overlooked Mr. Sheppard and his Masonic
virtues, with the rest, but that the editor of the
Boston Press, undertaking to review his defense
of Masonry, wrote to me to inquire what I knew
of this pretended panegyric upon Masonry by my
father. I then wrote the letter which you have
seen, and which the friendly commentary of Mr.
"Walsh — to whom you may, if you please, with my
compliments, show this letter — attributes to the
" eri'or of the moon."

I said, " the crimes committed at the kidnapping
and murder of "William Morgan." Do you know
what they were ? Were they not,

58 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

1. Fraudulent abuse in repeated forms of tlie
process of tlie law to obtain, upon false pretenses,
possession of the person of Morgan.

2. Infamous slander in those false pretenses
by first arresting him on a charge against him of
petty larceny.

3. Previous slander in newspaper advertise-
ments denouncing him as a swindler and impos-
tor, calling upon brethren and companions partic-
ularly to observe, mark, and govern themselves ac-
cordingly, and declaring that the fraternity had
amply provided against his evil designs.

4. Conspiracy of Masonic lodges assembled in
great numbers, ferfas et nefas, by the commission
of any crime to suppress his book.

5. Arson, by setting iire at night to Miller's
printing-ofiice, in which building were eight or
ten persons asleep, whose lives were saved only
by the early discovery of the projected conliagi-a-
tion.

6. Fraud, deception, and treachery in procur-
ing from Morgan himself a part of his manuscript,
which was finally sent by a special messenger to
the General Grand Chapter of the United States
in session at iN'ew York.

7. Kidnapping, - too successfully practiced
upon Morgan, — attempted upon Miller.

8. False imprisonment and transportation of

ON FREEMASONRY. 59

Morgan beyond the bounds of the United States
into a foreign territory.

9. A murder, taking nine days in its perpetra-
tion, keeping tlie wretched and helpless victim
throughout tlie whole of that time in a state of
continual and cruel torture.

Sleep upon this list of peccadilloes, and to-mor-
row I will give you upon them a word of com-
ment. Yours,

John Quincy Adams.

TO EDWARD INGERSOLL, ESQ.

QuiN'CY, September 22, 1831.

Dear Sir: — I gave you in my last letter a list ot
?iine crimes, among the most atrocious that can
be perpetrated by human agency, committed in
the original transactions connected with what has
been, oy an exceedingly inappropriate euphony
called, the abductmi and murder of William Mor-
gan. Abduction is a word of lamb-like innocence
compared with the ingredients of wickedness
which composed the crime of his taking oft".
Language sinks under the eftbrt to express its
complicated malignity.

These crimes I allege were committed by the
fraternity. They were instigated by no impulse

60 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

of individual passions, — by none of the stimulants
to the ordinary outrages of man upon man, — by no
personal animosity, — by no purpose of robbery.
They were the crimes of the craft, of which the
guilty agents by whom they were consummated
were but the fanatical instruments.

And here I pray you to remark that I have stat-
ed these crimes interrogatively. I have inquired
of you whether they were not the crimes commit-
ted in those transactions, to the end that if yoi^
find upon inquiry that I have set them down in-
correctly or with exaggeration, you may reduce
them in number or in virulence to their just and
well-proportioned standard.

I charge them upon the craft as the means by
which public notice had been given beforehand
that the fraternity had amply provided against his
designs.

In these crimes several hundreds of persons ap-
pear to have participated, as principals or acces-
sories, before or after the fact. The measures
were taken not individually, but as results of cor-
porate deliberation in sundry lodges.

Mr. Miner, one of the most amiable and benev-
olent of men, has mistaken the terms of the Anti-
masonic proposition. There are no doubt degrees
of exasperation of different temperature among
the Antimasons : but I know of none disposed to

ON FREEMASONRY. 61

hold every individual Mason responsible for the
tragedy of Morgan's murder. All know that
there are now, as there always have been, Masons
among the most respectable and virtuous mem-
bers of the community. But they belong to a
vicious institution, and it is their duty to with-
draw from that institution, to abolish it, or to
purify it from its vices, oaths, penalties, and
secrets.

That the institution is vicious might be very
conclusively inferred from the effects disclosed in
the nine crimes above enumerated, even if their
causes were yet secret. But those causes have
been divulged. We know that every Entered Ap-
prentice of Masonry has, hoodwinked and with a
halter round his neck, administered to him an
oath, the words of which he is required to repeat
with his lips, never to divulge the secrets of the
order, and binding himself by " no less a penalty
than to have his throat cut across, his tongue torn
out by the roots, and his body buried in the rough
sands of the sea at low-water mark, where the
tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four hours."
Morgan divulged these secrets, and his fate is the
practical commentary upon the penalty.

The oath, the penalty, the secret, and Morgan's
corpse at the bottom of Niagara River, where a
shrewd brother of the craft "guessed he would

62 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

publish no more books," are illustrations of each
other which it would take much sophistry to ob-
scure, much prevarication to confuse. Mr. Miner
has taken this oath, and bound himself by no less
than this penalty. It is wise and prudent in him
therefore not to violate the oath; and he would
assuredly not have been the man to execute the
penalty upon Morgan for considering it a dead
letter.

But will Mr. Miner tell you that the penalty is,
or that it is not, a dead letter? If it is, surely the
oath is the same, and then it is mere profanity ;
a taking of the name of God in vain; odious in
proportion to the disgusting solemnity of the form
n which it is administered. If it is not a dead
letter, what is it? Some of the Masonic- defenses
allege that it is only an imprecation — "under no
less a penalty than to have my throat cut " — a mere
imprecation ! Is it not then a paltering with
words in double senses ? A penalty is not an im-
precation, and to have the throat cut across, and
the tongue torn out by the roots, is not expulsion
from a lodge. The substance of the defense is
that the penalty is a brutum fulmen ; that there is
no authority existing in or conferred by the insti-
tution to carry it iilto execution ; and that it is a
special charge to all Masons upon their admission
to observe faithfully the laws of God and of the

ON FREEMASONRY. 63

land. But for every degree of Masonry ttere is a
separate oath and a diversified penalty ; and in
some ot the higher degrees it includes a promise
to carry into eflect the punishments of the fra-
ternity; I have heard of the instructions from
the owner of a piratical cruiser to his captain, di-
recting him to take, burn, sink, or destroy any
merchant vessel of any nation that might fall in
his way, and to dispose of the people on board of
them so as that they might not prove afterwards
troublesome ; but to be specially careful not to in-
fringe upon the laws of nations or of humanity.
This man must have been a Mason of at least the
Royal Arch degree-
That the oaths and penalties of Manonry were
not understood by the multitudes of Masons ac-
cessory to the commission of the nine crimes
enumerated in my list as mere imprecations is
self-evident. By them they were understood ac-
cording to their plain, unambiguous import, as an
absolute, unequivocal forfeiture of life, and an ex-
plicit consent of the person taking the oath that
he should be put to death in the horrid manner
described in the terms of the penalty if he should
divulge the secrets of the order. But whether the
penalty be, as it purports, a real penalty, or a
mere imprecation, will Mr. Miner say that it is a
form of words and obligations fit to be adminis-

64 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

tered with a solemn invocation of the name of
God to a Christian and a freeman ? Cruel and
unusual punishments are equally abhorrent to the
mild spirit of Christianity, and to the spirit of
equal liberty. The infliction of them is expressly
prohibited in the Bill of Rights of this Common-
wealth, and yet thousands of her citizens have at-
tested the name of God to subject themselves to
death by tortures which cannibal savages would
instinctively shrink from inflicting*

It has therefore been, in my opinion, ever since
the disclosure of the Morgan murder crimes, and
of the Masonic oaths and penalties by which they
were instigated, the indispensable duty of the Ma-
sonic order in the United States, either to dissolve
itself, or to discard forever from its constitution
and laws all oaths, all penalties, all secrets; and, as
ridiculous appendages to them, all mysteries and
pageants. Believing this to be the duty of the
whole order, I have deemed it a duty equally in-
dispensable of every individual Mason to use in
calmness and moderation all his influence with
the fraternity to come to one or the other of these
results. And I have, since the New York elec-
tions of the last autumn, deemed this to be a duty
especially and above all incumbent upon Mr. Clay.
I mean that he should have set a similar example
to that of Washington, in endeavoring to prevail

ON PREEMASONRY. 65

upon the Order of the Cincinnati to dissolve them-
selves, or at least to discard the most exception-
able parts of their constitution, in which latter
purpose he succeeded. I have not said this to Mr.
Clay because in the estimate of his duties he must
be his own counsellor, and I know he has had ad-
vice from another quarter, which he has doubtless
deliberately weighed. But it brings me to a point
upon which I shall ask a few minutes further of
your patience for your friend hereafter.

John Quincy Adams,

TO EDWARD INGERSOLL, ESQ.

Quincy, 23 September, 183X.

Dear Sir: — From the nature of the Masonic
oaths, penalties, and secrets, and the construction
given to them — not a forced and unnatural one,
but conformable to the plain import of their terms
— by multitudes of Masons in the western part of
IsTew York, the crimes immediately connected
with the murder of Wm. Morgan were commit-
ted. I charge them therefore upon the institu-
tion ; and if Masonry had been until then a per-
fectly innocent and even useful institution, from
the time of the commission of those crimes it
would have ceased to be so. From that time the
6

66 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

comraiiintj acquired the right of calling upon the
fraternity to discontinue and renounce at least the
administration of oaths, the imposition of all
forms of penalties, and all secrets whatever.

A large and increasing portion of the commu-
nity have made this demand, — a demand just and
reasonable in itself, and the more so as the oaths,
penalties, and secrets have been divulged, not only
by Morgan's book, but by the concurring testi-
mony of numerous seceding Masons. The oaths,
the penalties, and the secrets— whether all disclosed
with perfect accuracy or not, whether understood
as they were by the murderers of Morgan or as
explained by the defenders of Masonry, — are un-
reasonable, odious, and, I believe, unlawful. The
oaths of all Masons heretofore admitted, if they
ever had any binding force, are dissolved by the
fact of the public disclosure of the secrets which
they had bound themselves to keep. Their coun-
try calls upon them to disclaim henceforth and
forever all secrets, and as incidental to the injunc-
tion of them, all oaths and penalties. This rea-
sonable and moderate call has not only been re-
sisted by the great body of Freemasons through-
out the United States, but no man, high or low,
eminent or obscure, has dared to avow this opin-
ion and unite in this call without being assailed
in his reputation, robbed of his good name, in

ON FREEMASONRY. 67

suited, abused, and vilified openly and in secret,
by individual Masons, and by organized lodges, a
body of at least two hundred thousand men scat-
tered over the whole Union — all active and voting
men, linked together by secret ties for purposes of
indefinite extent; bound together by oaths and
penalties operating with terrific energy upon the
imagination of the human heart and upon its
fears; embracing within the penalty of its laws
the president of the United States and his leading
competitors ; and winding itself round every great
political party for' support, like poisonous ivy
round a sturdy oak, and round, every object of its
aversion like the boa-constrictor round its victim.
Such in faint and diluted colors is at this time the
image of the Masonic institution in these United
States. Commanding despotically a large portion
of the public press, intimida,ting by its terrors
multitudes of others, and amid all its internal
dissensions uniting with the whole mass of its
power against every common adversary, one of
the most alarming and pernicious characters in
which it now presents itself, is that of its political
dominion. You tell me that you are Antimason-
ic in your opinions and feelings, but are perplexed
by the mixture of politics with Antimasonry.
But you place herein the effect before the cause.
The mixture of politics is with Masonry. It is

68 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

the misfortune of Mr. Clay to be entangled with
Masonry, and I sincerely regret that he has not
felt it his dut}', as I think it was, to shake oft' his
shackles. His motives, I have no doubt, were
generous, but the eft'ect is that he sustains and
identifies himself with "the Masonic cause. That
cause is now sustained only by such artificial and
unnatural pillars. Neither Mr. Clay nor you (for-
give me for saying) estimate at its true value the
cause of Antimasonry. You look chiefly to the
motive ot its supporters, and distrust them too
much.

You ask if 3Iasonry should be made answerable
for the crimes of a few individual Masons. Should
the royal government of Kome have been abol-
ished for the violence committed upon a single
woman ? Should the decemvirate have been sub-
verted for the murder of Virginia by her own
father? Should the tribe of Benjamin have been
exterminated for the brutal abuse of one Levite's
concubine ? Should the British nation have gone
to war with Spain for the cutting oft" by a few
Spaniards of one smuggler's ears ? In all those
cases, and in numberless others which swarm in
human history, the connection between the crime
and the institution made answerable for it was in-
finitely more remote than the duster of Morgan
murder crimes is from the vitals of Masonry. But

ON FEEEMASONRY. 69

1 have spoken only of tho crimes committed at
the time. Look at the government of the State of
iSTew York, struggling in vain from that time to
this, — five long years, — to bring the perpetrators of
the murder to punishment. See judges, sheriffs,
witnesses, jurors, entangled in the net of Masonry,
and justice prostrated in her own temple by the
touch of her invisible hand. Several of the "a6-
ductors" have indeed been convicted, and among
them one sheriff of a county. Three or four upon
their own confes:*ion of guilt. You say you " have
been told by men who care much more for truth
than for Masonry that there is no reason to be-
lieve that any Mason has refused to give testimony
on account of Masonic obligations." My dear sir,
go to the records of the courts. You will find
witnesses refusing to testify upon the express
ground of Masonic obligations, avowing that they
consider those obligations paramount to the laws
of the land. You will see them contumacious to
the decisions of the court, fined and imprisoned
for contempt, suffer the punishment ather than
bear the testimony, and, instead of expulsion, l)e
refunded, at least in part, for their fines by con-
tributions from the lodges. I give you names :
Isaac Allen, Eli Bruce, Ezekiel Jewett, John
Whitney, Orsamus Turner, Erastus Day, Sylvanus
Cone, Elisha M, Forbes, Benjamin Enos.

70 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

You will find much more. You will find Ma-
sonic grand and petit juries, summoned by Mason-
ic slierifi's, eager to sit upon the trials, perverting
truth and justice when admitted on the array, and
often excluded upon challenge to the favor ; and
last of all, you will find one of the men most deep-
ly implicated in the murder, screened from con-
viction by one Mason upon his jury.

" It is not and it can not come to good."

That this enormous train of abuses should be
sustained by those who have it in abhorreuce, and
that every individual denouncing it should be
hunted down as if he himself were a pest to soci-
ety, because Masonry has fastened itself to the
skirts both of General Jackson and Mr. Clay, to
sink or swim with them, is itself one of the most
objectionable properties of the institution. Clay
Masonry has become not only the familiar denom-
ination of a great political party, but of a party
which, to put down a high, pure, and virtuous
manifestation of popular sensibility, takes to its
bosom Jacksonism itself. So it was in all the
iN'ew York elections of last ISTovember. So it has
been in the elections of the last Massachusetts
legislature. Clay Masons gave N"ew York to the^
Regency to put down the Antimason Granger.
Clay Masons made a Jackson man a senator for

ON FREEMASONRY. 71

our county of Plymouth over a National Repub-
lican, with three hundred more popular votes,
because, forsooth, he was the Antimasonic and his
competitor the Masonic candidate. And yet I
hear Masons complain of jDroscription and dis-
franchisement.

I may, perhaps, publish part of these letters,
but without at all implicating you. Show them,
if you please, to Mr. Walsh, as the moon-struck
visions of your friend.

John Quinct Adams.

TO EDWARD INGERSOLL. ESQ.

OuiNCY, 22 October, 1831.
Dear Sir: — One month has elapsed since, in an-
swer to some remarks in a friendly letter from
you on the subject of Masonry and its antidote, I
gave yon wnth freedom and candor my sentiments
concerning them, and a view of the progressive
steps by which I had been reluctantly drawn into
a pnVjlic participation in this controversy. I au-
thorized you to show my letters to Mr. Walsh,
because having long been with me upon terms of
private friendship and of personal confidence, he
had denounced me to the public as a madman
(upon this subject) for a letter written and pub-

72 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

lislied in vindication of my father's reputation
from Masonic slander. I liad no expectation of
converting Mr. Walsh, though I did hope that
this mode of noticing the severity of his censure
might awaken a sentiment of kindness in his mind,
which either liad departed or was slumbering
when he consigned me to the jurisdiction of the
moon. lie since has made me more than amends
by his notice of my eulogy upon Mr. Monroe,
and, as I have always been a friend of toleration
in politics as well as in religion, I must compro-
mise for being considered by him a lunatic upon
Masonry and the Hartford Convention, in consid-
eration of an over-allowance of merit upon points
on which his opinions concur with mine.

Within that month events in relation. to the
Masonic controversy have occurred of no trifling
magnitude. That Mr. Walsh and Mr. Sargeant
consider Antimasonry as yet a subject for scorn
certainly staggers my faith in the correctness of
my own impressions. A wery sincere respect for
their opinions calls upon me for a severe review
of my own, and makes me feel with double force
the admonition, in your kind letter of the 17th
instant, to be specially cautious of error and exag
geration in anything that I may say on this score
to the public. It was indeed under that convic-
tion that I submitted to you interrogatively the list

ON FREEMASONRY. 73

of nine atrocious crimes committed, as I believed,
in connection with the murder of William Morgan,
and which I charged upon the Masonic institu-
tion. If mistaken either in the number or aggra-
vation of the crimes, or in the principle of imput-
ing them to the institution, I was desirous of be-
ing corrected by your enlightened judgment and
more accurate information. I. am, therefore, hap-
py to learn that Mr. Miner will reply to my letters
in full. But he is the last man in the world with
whom I would willingly have a controversy. I
am perfectly willing to publish in his Village
Record that portion of my letters to you which I
shall ultimately conclude to publish at all; but
before that I wish to have the benefit of your cor-
rections as well in point of fact as of principle, de-
rivable from the inquiries which at my suggestion
you have made. I should also be glad to know
if Mr. Miner or you yourself would be willing to
have your names in the publication; you, as the
person to whom the letters were addressed ; he, as
the person referred to in them. In naming him
it did not occur to me that he would see the let-
ters ; but I fully approve of your course in show-
ing them to him, and also to the other persons
whom you have mentioned. From the nature of
the controversy, and precisely because Masonic
warfare is secret, I have determined to publish

74 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

nothing against Masonry but under the respon-
sibility of my name. I have no right, however, to
take the same liberty with the names of others,
and shall carefully avoid using them without per-
mission or special justifying reason.

The nomination of Messrs. Wirt and Ellmaker
at Baltimore is one of those prominent events
which have occurred since my last letters to you
were written. Mr. Miner has sent me a copy of
a printed hand-bill addressed to the citizens of
Chester County, signed by himself and seventeen
other Masons, heading a republication of Mr.
"Wirt's letter to the convention at Baltimore, and
declaring their concurrence in every word and
sentiment of that letter. But that letter most
distinctly declares Mr. Wirt's approbation both
of the end and the means of the Antimasous ; the
end being the abolition of Freemasonry, and the
means the ballot-box against all adhering Masons
and all neutrals. What part of my charges, then,
does Mr. Miner mean to contest ?

The declarations of General Peter B. Porter
and W. B. Rochester have also been made public
since the date of my letters to jou. What is
there in my charges that is not fully sanctioned
by them ? They unequivocally advise the surren-
der of the charters. They say Mr. Clay thinks
with them. Why has Mr. Clay refused to say so?

ON FREEMASONRY. 75

Delicacy? Has Mr. Clay ever considered it a
matter of delicacy for a candidate to give pledges
of his opinions upon controverted points of polit-
ical interest ? Does Mr. Clay sco7ii Autiniasonry,
like Mr. Walsh and Mr. Sargeant? If he does,
it is evident General P. B. Porter and W. B.
Rochester do not.

I am happy to find you do not. Mr. Wirt
frankly tells the Baltimore convention that until
two or three days before they met he had consid-
ered Antimasonry as a jarce^ and wondered how
such an excitement should have been blown up
from what he thought so trifling a cause. He
scorned Antimasonry. Why ? Because he knew
nothing of the facts, and believed Masonic mis-
representations. The moment the facts were dis-
closed to him, or rather the moment he could
bring himself to turn his face to them, the scales
fell from his eyes, — he approves the end of the
Antimasons, and he approves their means. His
case is the case of thousands and tens of thou-
sands. Yet Mr. Wirt had sworn to keep the
secrets of Masonry upon no less a penalty than
the fate of Morgan. He had forgotten the secret,
and perhaps the oath. How such a man as Mr.
Wirt could ever have taken such an oath and
then forgotten it, is among the inscrutables and
uuaccountables of human conduct

76 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

The Antimasons of tliis commonwealth have
nominated Samuel Lathrop for governor in the
place of Mr. Lincoln. They first did me the
honor to nominate me, but I declined. Grovernor
Lincoln is my personal friend, and I approve of
his administration in general. I regretted that
they did not nominate him. 'Ho answer accept-
ing this nomination has yet appeared from Mr.
Lathrop. Mr. Lincoln will at all events be re-
elected, for there is not a state in the Union
where Masonry is so strong as in this ; and the
Masons will support Lincoln, though his answer
to the Antimasonic Committee is as severe
against Masonry as anything I have ever said or
written. But there was something in his remarks
upon Antimasonry which they took for scorn —
though I did not. Their candidate is a man of
excellent character, a warm Federalist, and here-
tofore the Federal candidate for governor.

The State of Vermont is now purely Anti-
masonic in all its branches, with a governor,
council, and majority of the House of Representa-
tives, elected as Antimasons against both Clay
and Jackson Masonry. Vermont is the first state
where this victory has been achieved. Yet it
was not there that Morgan was murdered.

I shall expect somewhat anxiously your exposi-
tion of facts conflicting with my statements. I

ON FREEMASONRY. 77

know Mr. Stoue, of the 'New York Commercial,
believes that the kidnappers of Morgan did not
at first intend to murder him. Perhaps he
believes that the arrest of him for petty larceny
was not connected with the project to kidnap
him. I know too well that he dwells much upon
the alleged baseness of Morgan's moral character,
I set the question of his character aside ; but a
charge of theft against a man for neglecting to
return a borrowed shirt — what chance has char-
acter against slander like that ?

Very respectfully, your friend,

John Quincy Adams.

TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD, ESQ., AUBURN, N. Y.

Quincy, 17 October, 1831.

Dear Sir: — Your letter from Boston of Septem-
ber 15th was duly received, and not immediatelj''
answered, chiefly from a doubt as to where to ad-
dress a letter which would reach you without
delay at that time.

The nomination of candidates for the next elec-
tion of president and vice-president of the
United States by a unanimous vote, relieved me
from the only apprehension I had previously en-
tertained,— that the convention at Baltimore
would not be able to agree in their choice.

78 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

Much now depends — for the cause of Antima-
sonry, perhaps everything depends — upon the
course pursued by the party in the approaching
elections in the State of 'New York. I learn that
in those of Pennsylvania the present year will
indicate rather a falling off from the cause,
though no real defection of its supporters, in
this commonwealth the result may be the same.
I shall regret this, because the more attentively I
have observed the character of the Masonic in-
stitution as it noiD exists in the United States the
more thoroughly I am convinced that it is the
greatest political evil with which we are now
afflicted.

The Antim£isons in this state have concluded to
support a candidate against the present governor,
much to my regret. They did me the honor to
nominate me, but I felt it my duty to decline the
offer. They have nominated Samuel Lathrop,
but it is doubted whether he will accept. The
opinions of the present governor are very decid-
edly against Masonry, and the opposition to him
will deter many from joining the Antimasons
who would otherwise have voted with them.

I pray your acceptance of the within eulogy
upon James Monroe, and I am.

Very respectfully, dear sir,

Your obedient servant,

John Quincy Adams.

ON FREEMASONRY. 79

TO RICHARD RUSH, ESQ., YORK, PENN.
[extract.]

QuiNCY, 25 October, 1831.
The Masonic and Antimasonic controversj
drags along, — deepening, widening, embittering,
as it proceeds. In proportion as the popnlar ex-
citement against Masonry spreads, the Masons
close their ranks and rally round their hideous
idol. Of the Antimasons, I wish that the discre-
tion and the plain dealing and consistency were
equal to the goodness of their cause. I can not
absolutely say they arc not ; but I do not under-
stand some of their recent movements, and must
wait to see their consequences before passing
judgment upon them. It has been circulated by
some of them here, as it was stated to you, that I
had suggested to them the name of Mr. Wirt for
their nomination at Baltimore ; but it is not so. I
much prefer the nomination of Mr. Wirt to that
of Mr. McLean, which I fully expected ; but of
the proceedings at Baltimore there are rumors
circulated by the Masonic party which I hope are
without foundation. It is said, among other
things, that the convention was as equally
divided between Mr. Wirt and Mr. McLean as

80 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

forty-one to thirty-eight, aud that it is very
doubtful whether the party will sustain the Dom-
ination of their convention. Here an Antiraa-
Bonic convention did me the honor to nominate
me for the office of governor of this common-
wealth, but I felt it my duty to decline the
nomination. They tlieu nominated Samuel
Lathrop, a very worthy man, but it is said
that without declining their nomination, he has
answered that he is and will be a strong sup-
porter of Mr. Clay for the presidency. They
have not yet published either my answer or Mr.
Lathrop's.

About a month since, Edward IngersoU made
in a letter to me some remarks upon this contro-
versy, in answer to which I wrote him three
letters, part of which I informed him I might
probably publish. I charged in the form of in-
terrogations niiie specific atrocious crimes in the
transactions connected with the murder of Wil-
liam Morgan, independent of all the subsequent
judicial prevarications, contumacies, and per-
juries. I charged them not upon all individual
Masons, but upon the Masonic institution, — upon
its oaihSj penalties, and secrets ; and I asked him if
my list of crimes were overcharged in number or
measure to reduce them to the standard of truth ;
and if they were not chargeable upon 3Iasonry,

ON FREEMASONRY. 81

to answer the reasons which I gave him for so
considering them. Mr. Ingersoll, who avows
himself Anti masonic in principle and feeling, has
shown my letters to several persons, and among
the rest to our friend Miner, who I understand;
has undertaken to reply to my letters in full. I
learn further that your grand lodge or grand
chapter are about to enter upon the arena and
make a powerful defense of Masonry. A princi-
pal object of my letters to Ingersoll was to bring
out the Masons upon the Morgan-murder crimes '
Their tactics hitherto have been to smuggle them
out of sight. Sheppard's Defense speaks of the
murder itself as doubtful, and styles it as a mere
drunken scrape at which Masons were jpresent. The
formal defense of Masonry by the grand lodge of
Rhode Island says they can not tell whether Mor-
gan was or was not murdered, for that they knoio
nothing about it. So effectually have they, by
their management of the press, kept those trans-
actions out of view that thousands and thousands,
like Mr. Wirt, have gone on year after year
scorning and laughing at Antimasonry as a farce,
and thinking Masonry a Sir Roger de Coverly
Club, because they could not look at the facts. My
interrogatory specification of an Anti-Parnassus
of crimes was intended to bring the Masons to an
issue upon the fact and law, fairly out before the

82 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

tribunal of the public. I have promised that if I
do publish aay part of my letters to Ingersoll
they shall first appear in Mr. Miner's Village
Hecord. Miner himself will reply to them, and
between him and me I shall be content to stand
alone; but if the grand lodge or grand chapter
of Pennsylvania come down upon me, especially
during the session of congress, I shall want
auxiliary force, and hope you will be in the field
again.

Vermont is now completely Antimasonic, be-
cause, from their proximity to the Morgan mur-
der, the facts have forced themselves upon the
public eye in spite of all Masonic suppressions.
The letters of General Peter B. Porter and W. B.
Rochester give a foreboding of the prospects of
the New York elections now at hand. There is
danger of a falling off in this state, owing to the
Antimasonic nomination against Governor Lin-
coln

Ever faithfully yours,

John Quinct Adams.

ON FREEMASONRY. 83

TO HIS EXCELLENCY, LEVI LINCOLN, GOVERNOR
OF MASSACHUSETTS.

[extract.]

Washington, r8 December, 1831
My Dear Sir : — I can not forbear immediately
to acknowledge the receipt of your two kind
letters of the 11th and 12th instants, although a
heavy and quite unexpected burden of occupa-
tion, imposed upon me by the duties of the
station in which I fear I have rashly permitted
myself to be placed, will deprive me of the
opportunity of which I did propose to avail my-
self of communicating with you upon one topic
especially of transcendent interest to my mind.
I mean neither more nor less than the institution
of Freemasonry in these United States.

The speaker of the House of Representatives
of the United States has thought proper to ap-
pjoint me chairman of the Committee of Manu-
factures,— a station from which I have in vain
endeavored to obtain a release. It will leave me
little time for anything else, and particularly not
for the review, which it was my purpose to
take of the Masonic controversy now in prog-
ress in our own and the neighboring states, and

84 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

which I believe destined to produce consequences
deeply affecting the interests, the happiness, and
the liberties of our country.

The design must for the present be postponed,
and perhaps my undertaking would, at all events,
have been premature. It is now a little more
than five years since the true character of Free-
masonry ^ as existing in this Union, was disclosed
to the public eye. It first exploded by the catas-
trophe of one of the deepest tragedies that ever
was enacted upon the scene of human being,
exploded by a Complication of nine or ten of the
most atrocious crimes that ever were conceived in
human hearts or committed by human hands, —
crimes committed not by men in the stations of
life to which ignorance is a snare, intemperance a
stimulant, or indigence a temptation, — not by
men under the instigations of malice or re-
venge,— ^but by men in the educated classes of
society; men who had been instructed in the
duties of Christians and citizens ; men above the
pressure of want; men, in other respects and
independent of their secret and mystical ties to
this institution, of fair and respectable lives;
men enjoying the confidence of their fellow-citi-
zens, and holding offices of trust committed to
them by that confidence.

We see these men, not in the solitary depravity

ON FREEMASONRY. 85

of a single heart, but after repeated consultation
in lodges and chapters, combined, and for the
commission of more than one of the crimes,
abusing the sacred authority of the law with
which they had been invested for the furtherance
and execution of justice, to the commission of
swindling, slander, theft, false imprisonment,
man-stealing, treachery, arson, transportation of
a citizen beyond the limits of his country, and to
close the catalogue, /ow? and midnight murder.

Such was the first disclosure of the secrets of
Freemasonry, — such was the practical exposition
of its laws. The laws themselves were afterward
revealed. It was to prevent the revelation of
them that all these crimes were committed, and,
by the retributive justice of Providence, it was
the very commission of the crimes which brought
the laws to light.

It is not then to Freemasonry as a secret society,
of mysteriously concerted operation and por-
tentous power ; of strangely mingled royal and
priestly titles with fantastical fooleries of attire
and pageantry; of ostentatious devotion and
hidden carousals; of charity and of revelry in
the proportion of Sir John Falstafif's tavern bill
for bread and for sack, — it is not to this society,
such as it was before the murder of William Mor-
gan, that I intended to entreat your attention as

86 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

a citizen, a Christian, a magistrate, and a man.
Preemasonry, as known to the world before the
commission of the Morgan-murder crimes, might
not be worthy of your attention. From the time
when the crimes were committed, and the laws by
which they were committed were revealed, that a
citizen of the United States should exist,, who
can ask himself, " What is this to me ? " is as un-
accountable as the fascinations of Freemasonry
itself.

But the disclosure of the crimes and the dis-
closure of the laws were not enough. Five years
has the government of New York been strug-
gling, not as it ought instantly to have done,
to strangle this hydra with unnumbered heads,
but to execute upon the criminals a feeble and
inefiectual justice; five years, in the face of this
nation, have Masonic sheriffs, jurors, and wit-
nesses betrayed their duty to their country and
their God, to screen the guilty from punishment ;
five years have lodges, chapters, and encamp-
ments aided and abetted in the concealment of
the crimes and in the escape of the criminals
from justice, while a gang of two hundred thou-
sand Masons, from every nook and corner of the
Union, are joining in one concerted yell of per-
secution ! persecution ! and certifying and swear-
ing that they never took an oath incompatible

ON FREEMASONRY. 87

with their duty to their religion or the laws of
the land. " In generalihus latet dolus" was the
maxim of the old logicians. The denial of the
Royal Arch oath is a miserable prevarication.
The Entered Apprentice's oath and penalty is
itself a violation of all religion and of the con-
stitution of our commonwealth. To say that
such an oath is not to affect religion or politics,
is to unite impossibilities. It is to take a fire-
brand in the hand, by thinking of the frosty
Caucasus. The four Royal Arch Masons who
sunk Morgan's body in the Niagara River inflict-
ed upon him the penalty of the Entered Appren-
tice's oath. Their names are known probably to
every lodge in the State of New York, but they
can not be convicted, for none will testify, and the
grand chapter at New York which has tlie
power of expulsion throughout the state, so far
from expelling any one of the kidnappers or mur-
derers of Morgan, has aided them with money to
support them in prison and to pay their fines.
But I must abridge this letter. From the com-
bined consideration of these three elements, —

1. The practical disclosure of the character
and laws of Masonry by the Morgan-murder
crimes.

2. From the subsequent disclosure of its writ-
ten laws, oaths, and penalties in literal conformity

88 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

and obedieuce, to which these crimes were com-
mitted.

3. From the struggle of five years' duration
between the government of New York to bring
these crimes to punishment, and the successful
Masonic combination to defeat the law of the
land and to screen the guilty from its power.

From these combined considerations there
appear to me to result solemn and sacred duties
to every citizen of the Union, and especially to
every citizen invested with authority. It was
therefore that I commenced this correspondence
by the inquiry whether you were acquainted with
the facts. They are known to few. I find by
your answer that some of them, not important,
are still unknown to you. The extent of the
combination, preceding the murder of Morgan, is
even now known only to the surviving accom-
plices in the guilt. Of the four immediate per-
petrators of the murder, one may yet reveal the
horrid tale, the minute particulars of which are
known to many worthy brothers of the craft.
Much of Masonic participation, both before and
after the fact, will probably never be known
abroad from the recesses of the lodge. With
these observations I have mingled no reference
whatever to the Antimasonic party, their pro-
ceedings or their leaders. I look only to their

ON FREEMASONRY. 89

cause; and if that is under bad management, I
can only express the hope that it may be more
energetically taken into their own hands by the
virtuous and the wise.

I am, very respectfully, dear sir,
Your friend and servant,

John Quinct Adams.

TO WILLIAM L. STONE, ESQ.

Washington, 24 December, 1831.
Dear Sir: — The British acts to parliament, to
which I referred in our conversation the other
evening, are two, —

1. Statute 37 George 3d, ch. 123, (19th July,
1797,) making the administration of unlawful
oaths felony, punishable by transportation for
seven years.

2. Statute 39 George 3d, ch. 79, for the sup-
pression of seditious societies (12 July, 1799).

The fifth, sixth, and seventh sections of this
last statute except from its penalties, under
very rigorous restrictions of police, the lodges of
Freemasons as they have long been usually held in
Great Britain; but not chapters or encampments.
From Professor Robinson's book, and other
sources, I have been informed that the lodges

90 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

usually held in Great Britain never confer
beyond the first three degrees in Masonry, and
content themselves with avenging the murder of
Hiram Abiff by those historical personages,
Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum. I sought you yes-
terday immediately after the adjournment of the
House, in, the library of congress, and afterward
at Gadsby's without success. It was to give you
the above information concerning the British
statutes, and to ask the favor of your company
to dine with me to-morrow, Christmas day, at five
o'clock. Let me expect you, and believe me your
assured friend.

John Quincy Adams.

TO WILLIAM L. STONE, ESQ., NEW YORK.

Washington, 30 June, 1832.
Dear Sir: — I have received your kind letter and
the elegant volume which you have done me the
honor of addressing to me on the subject of Ma-
sonry and Antimasonry. Anticipating in the
course of a few days a release from occupations
which deprive me at this moment of the power
of perusing your work with the deep attention
which the importance of the subject requires, I

ON FREEMASONRY. 91

shall avail myself of tlie first hours at my disposal
to devote them to that purpose. In the meau
time I cherish the hope that the influence of this
comprehensive and impartial survey of the Ma-
sonic institutions upon the public mind, will con-
tribute to induce the voluntary abandonment or
renunciation of it, which I have lon^ thought,
and more firmly believe from day to day, to be
desirable for the peace and quiet of the commu-
nity.
I am, with great respect and esteem, dear sir.
Your friend and obedient servant,

JouN QuiNCY Adams.

TO WILLIAM L. STONE, ESQ.

OuiNCY, 19 August, 1832.
Dear Sir: — On receiving at Washington the
volume of Letters upon Masonry and Antima-
sonry, which you did me the honor of addressing
to me, I wrote you a few lines of acknowledg-
ment, with the assurance of my intention to read
with deep attention the work, to the composition
and publication of which I felt great satisfaciion
in believing that I had contributed to give occa-
sion. I have accordingly perused it with the
most earnest solicitude, and the result has been

92 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

f

not only a confirmed conviction that the institu-
tion of Freemasonry ought in these United States
to be totally and forever abolished, but that this
event is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

In the three letters which I wrote about a year
since to a friend in Philadelphia, and which were
submitted to your perusal, I presented in the form
of interrogation a list of nine atrocious crimes
under the denomination of Morgan - Murder
Crimes^ with the inquiry whether they had not
been so committed as in a great degree to have
lost the character of individual guilt in their per-
petrators and to have assumed that of associate
or corporate offenses; as conspiracies, in which
numerous bodies of men constituting lodges,
chapters, and encampments of Freemasons were
implicated; and inquiring further, whether the
commission of those crimes had not been pre-
viously instigated by the oaths administered, the
obligations imposed, and the penalties impre-
cated or denounced, in the ordinary forms of the
admission of candidates to the numerously grad-
uated hierarchy of Freemasonry.

That these crimes had been committed, — that
the efficient impulse to the commission of them
had been the Masonic oaths, obligations, and pen-
alties,— and that they were corporate crimes con-
ceived, projected, and matured for action in the

ON FREEMASONRY. 93

Masonic deliberative bodies in the western part
of the State of New York, I firmly believe from
a mass of irresistible evidence, which had been
growing into certainty for a series of years. On
the other hand, many of the most important facts,
both in relation to the commission of the crimes
and to the purport ot the Masonic oaths and
obligations, had been vehemently contested. A
considerable number of seceders from Masonry
had revealed all the secrets of all the degrees,
and all the oaths, and obligations, and penalties,
as established in the lodges, chapters, and encamp-
ments in all the region round where the murder
had been perpetrated. The books of David Ber-
nard and Avery Allyn, both seceding Knights
Templars, had been published. Bernard had been
admitted to the ineffable degrees in IsTew York,
Allyn at New Haven in Connecticut. The Rev.
Moses Thatcher and Pliny Merrick had declared
that the Royal Arch oath was in many lodges in
Rhode Island and Massachusetts administered
with the words, " murder and treason not except-
ed." That it was so administered in the State of
New York, had been testimony extorted and
most reluctantly given upon oath by Royal Arch
Masons upon trials before courts of justice, — and
yet adhering Masons were solemnly declaring
that they had taken no such oaths j that they

94 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

acknowledged no obligation incompatible with
the laws of God or of the land; that the only
penalty ever inflicted was expulsion; and that
they did not believe the oaths and obligations were
otherwise understood by Masons everywhere.

In the controversial conditions of the facts upon
the issue which seemed to have been made up
between the adhering and the seceding Masons, I
had preferred stating them to our friend at Phil-
adelphia in the form of interrogation rather than
to assume them as granted. He was a Mason,
inclining to Antimasonry, but unwilling to join
its political standard. He knew little of what
had taken place in the western counties of the
State of Kew York, and had been made to dis-
believe the most prominent facts of the tale of
horror connected with the fate of Morgan. I was
desirous, if possible, to keep myself entirely dis-
entangled from all the politics of Antimasonry ;
but this was becoming exceedingly difl&cult. * I
wished for a more perfect exposition of facts from
a source fully informed,* — from a person in whose
candor and integrity I could place entire reliance,
and not so connected with either of the parties asi
to be under a bias disqualifying to the perception
or to the judiciary faculty. I was well assured
that I should find this in your book, and I have
not been disappointed. The book is marked with

ON FREEMASONRY. 95

integrity and candor, which not even the fifth
libation has been able to prevent.

There is a lingering attachment to the institu-
tion, as it had been in better days, — like the aflec-
tion of a parent discovering in bitterness of soul
the profligacy of a favorite child, — which adds a
double seal of confirmation to the disclosures
which you have had the intrepidity to make and
to sustain. There are many things in the volume
which I do not see as you do; but the sincerity
of your own conviction of the truth of all that
you affirm is apparent in every page. I speak of
the intrepidity of your disclosures, because I have
not dissembled to myself the peculiar position in
which you stand toward the institution, both as a
man and as a member of a responsible profession.
I see you as neither an adhering nor a seceding
Mason. I think I perceive the conflict in your
own mind between the obligation of Masonry
which you had taken upon you and the duties of
your profession as the editor of a public journal —
duties to a community at large, which you had
resolved never to compromise or to betray. I
think I see that when you took the oaths of the
Entered Apprentice, the Master Mason, the Royal
Arch, and the Knights Templars, you little imag-
ined the temptations, the trials, and the dangers
into which they were to lead you by their conflict

96 LETTERS AI^D OPINIONS

witli your duties as a man, a Christian, and a citi*
zen, You seem scarcely to be aware even now
that the trials through which you are passing
originated there. You are unwilling to acknowl-
edge it to yourself. But the trials are around
you. You have betrayed no Masonic secret. You
have forfeited no obligations of your own. But
you have justly concluded that of what had been
divulged by others it would be absurd to make
longer a secret, and dishonest to deny it as false.
Yet you are in the midst of brother Masons, —
men whom you respect and esteem, who still
hold themselves bound by the ties which you con-
sider as dissolved, who still tyle the lodge and
swear the candidates, upon horrible penalties, to
keep secrets now as common as the stairs that
mount the capitol. These men look upon you as
an unworthy brother, even if they have not dared
to expel you. How will these men tolerate your
exposure of the contrast between the public proc-
lamation and the secret appropriation of the
Grand Koyal Arch Chapter of the State of New
York, at which upward of one hundred and ten
subordinate chapters were represented in February,
1829, as detailed in your twenty-first letter ? How
will they endure your confirmation of the essen-
tial facts in Avery Allyn's affidavit, that Richard
Howard had confessed himself the executioner of.

ON FREEMASONRY. 97

Morgan ; that he made this confession at an
encampment of Knights Templars at St. John's
Hall, in the city of New York, under the sealed
obligation, and had then been furnished with
money and means to abscond and go to Europe,
as related in your twenty-second letter? How
will they bear the twenty-fifth letter ? the
account of the unblushing grant of money by the
grand lodge of the State of New York to one
of the most active conspirators ? of the debates
in which you bore a part ? and of the appropria-
tion, since which you have never crossed the
threshold of a lodge-room? You are still sur-
rounded by members of the grand lodge, of the
grand chapter, and of the encampment at St.
John's Hall. And although perhaps you may
receive no more i^etters from Washington like
that of the 25th of February, 1827, there are
other modes of hostility in which we well know
that the Masonic power can make itself felt.

But if the boldness with which you have duied
to speak is nc^ without its perils now, neither will
it, I trust, be without its remembrance or its
recompense hereafter. I believe your letters to
be well adapted to promote a great national
reform of morals in the abolition ot Freemasonry ;
and the more extensively they are r-ead the more
beneficial will be their effect.

98 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

This letter is confidential, and if satisfactory to
you may be followed by others suggested by the
information contained in your book, and perhaps
discussing some of your opinions. The Masonic
controversy will form a large chapter in the
annals of this Union probably for several years to
come. It presents already a prominent feature
in the canvass for the presidential election, and
that is precisely the reason for wishing to meddle
as little with it as possible until that question
shall have been settled. It will assuredly survive
that event, and in all probability will form an
essential ingredient in more than one quadrennial
choice of president, if more than one we are
destined to have. It is my deliberate opinion that
the Antimasouic party ought not to subside, or to
suspend its exertions, till Freemasonry shall have
ceased to exist in this country. The career before
them is long and dreary, but not discouraging;
the object is single, just, and honorable. You
have put your hand to the plow. Let it not be
withdrawn. For contributing so largely to the
end you will deserve to be ranked among the
benefactors of mankind.

I am, very respectfully, your friend,

John Quincy Adams.

ON FREEMASONKY. 99

V TO WILLIAM L. STONE, ESQ.

QuiNCY, 25 August, 1832.

Dear Sir: — lu my last letter I observed, with
the freedom and candor which I thought due to
you as the best return I could make for the honor
and. obligation you had conferred upon me by
addressing to me your letters upon Masonry and
Antimasonry, that there were many things in
the book which I did not see as you did.

Some further explanation is due from me upon
the subject. The principal objects of your book
were two. First, to vindicate the character of an
eminent and illustrious citizen of K"ew York, the
late governor of the state, Be Witt Clinton, from
the opprobrium cast upon him, of having been
personally and deeply concerned in the murder
of Morgan ; and, secondly, to prove, by a fair
and impartial statement of the abuses to which
the Masonic institutions have been perverted, that
they Ought to be voluntarily surrendered and
abolished.

These objects were just and laudable. They
are in your volume faithfully perused ; nor is
there in the execution of your plan anything in
the letters unsuited or redundant. You observe,

100 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

in the first letter, that it is no part of your design
to write a vindication of Freemasonry as such,
but to describe Freemasonry as you received,
understood, and practiced it yourself, and as it
has been received, understood, and practiced by
hundreds of virtuous and intelligent men, with
whom you have associated in the lodge-room. To
this, the first ten letters are devoted, and they are
in my estimation not less valuable than those
which succeed them. But as Bishop Watson
wrote an apology for the Bible, I trust you will
not consider me as intending any disparagement
to that part of your work, if I consider it in the
light of an apology for Freemasonry, as received,
understood, and practiced by yourself and many
others. In that light it is exceedingly well
adapted to its purpose. It is the only rational
jplea for the institution that I have seen since this
controversy began, for all the other defenses of
the handmaid, which have come to my knowl-
edge, have smacked too much of the obligation
to come to the aid of a distressed brother and
extricate him from his difficulties right or wrong,
to pass for anything other than aggravations of
the Morgan-murder crimes.

You have taken all the degrees to, and
including that of, the Knight Templar. The
oaths, obligations, and penalties, as administered

ON FREEMASONRY. 101

to and understood by you, contained nothing
incompatible with your dutiea to your country
and your kind. Whatever there might be in
them, apparently incongruous with the prior and
paramount duties of the citizen and Christian,
was explained and given in charge in such man-
ner as to be made entirely subordinate to them.
The obligations, as understood by you, are all
auxiliaries to Christian benevolence and patriot-
ism, and so they are undoubtedly understood by
great multitudes of Masons in all parts of the
United States. That they are otherwise under-
stood, also, by multitudes of the worthy brethren
of the craft (worthy according to the Masonic
meaning of the word) is apparent in every page
of your book.

In your third letter, page 23, you allude to an
opinion which I once expressed to you in the fol-
lowing terms : " You, sir, have assured me that
the obligations supposed to be administered in
conferring the first degree is quite enough in your
view to establish the wicked character of the
institution."

"Whether I did make use of terms quite so
strong in the freedom of unrestrained conversa-
tion, or whether your reference to it is by
inference of your own, from words not quite so
comprehensive, is not material. The sentiment

102 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

whicli I do recollect to have expressed, and which
is rooted in my conviction, was, " that the Enter-
ed Apprentice's oath, obligation, and annexed
penalty, was in itself vicious, and such as ought
never to be administered by man to man ; " that
no explanation of it could take away its essen-
tially immoral character, and that the institution
of Freemasonry, requiring absolutely the admin-
istration of it to every candidate for admission,
necessarily shared in its immorality.

In saying this, I disclaim all intention of cen-
sure upon any individual who has ever taken this
oath. I consider it according to its own import —
stripped of all warrant of authority from the
great names of illustrious men who may have
taken it.

My objections to it are these :

1. That it is an extrajudicial oath, and, as such,
contrary to the laws of the land.

2. That it is a violation of the precept of Jesus
Christ — swear not at all,

3. That this oath pledges the candidate, in the
name of God, that he will always hail, forever
conceal, and never reveal any of the secret arts,
parts, or points of the mysteries " of Freemasonry, to
any person under the canopy of heaven, except it
shall be to a true and lawful Mason, or within the
body of a just and regular lodge of such, and not

ox FREEMASONRY. 103

unto him or them until after due trial, strict
examination, or by the lawful information of a
brother, I shall have found him or them as justly
and lawfully entitled to the same as I am myself."

The arts, parts, points, and mysteries of Ma-
sonry are afterward, in the oath, denominated
the secrets of the craft. These are general and
indefinite terms. The candidate, when he takes
the oath, is kept in total ignorance of what these
secrets of the craft consist. He knows not the nature
nor extent of the oath that he takes. He is sworn
to keep secret he knows not what. The general
assurance that it is not to affect his religion or
politics is the mere word of another man. The
assurance that it is not to interfere with any of
his duties is but a mockery, when the adminis-
tration of the oath itself is a violation of law.

He swears to reveal the secrets of the craft to
uo person under the canopy of heaven, except to
a brother Mason, or a lodge. The single excep-
tion expressed is an exclusion of all others. There
is no exception for the authority of law, or for
the confession enjoined upon the Catholic breth-
ren by their religion. I use this illustration to
show that the intrinsic import of the oath is
uicompatible with law, civil and religious.

Now what these secrets of the craft are to the
keeping of which the candidate, thus ignorant of

104 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

their import, is sworn, is never defined. They
are differently understood by different Masons.
The oaths, obligations, and penalties themselves
have, until very recently, been understood, I
believe, universally to form a part of these secrets.
Those of the first three degrees were first revealed
by the publication of Morgan's book ; those of
the subsequent degrees, to that of the thrice illus-
trious order of the cross, were divulged by the
convention of the seceding Masons at Le Roy, on
the 4th of July, 1828. Those in Morgan's book I
understand to be admitted on all hands to be cor-
rect. But with regard to the obligation of the
Red Cross Knights and the Templars, as disclosed
by that convention, you say that, although you
have received those degrees and assisted in con-
ferring them, you know of no such obligations in
any of the degrees. Your impression is that they
must have been devised westward of Albany and
imposed upon candidates without the sanction of
any governing body. You do not question the
correctness of the publication of these degrees by
the convention of seceding Masons. You are
authorized to state that when the forms of those
oV>ligatiotis were received in the city, measures
were taken by the grand encampment to ascer-
tain whether any encampment under its jurisdic-
tion had, in fact, ever administered any such

ON FREEMASONRY. 105

obligations, and if bo, where and by wbom tbey
bad been imposed.

It is earnestly to be hoped that the grand
encampment will sincerely and seriously pursue
this inquiry, and make known the result of their
researches to the world. In the mean time, ob-
serve the inferences to be drawn from this
extreme diversity of the terms and import of the
obligations as administered in different lodges,
chapters, and encampments ; but all under the
sanction of this tremendous oath of the Entered
pledge, given in advance, and in ignorance of
Apprentice ; all secured by this soul-shackling
what they are to be, and all riveted by the
penalty to which I shall next advert.

4. " All this I promise and swear, binding
myself under no less penalty than that of having
my throat cut across from ear to ear, my tongue
torn out by its roots, and my body buried in the
rough sand of the sea, at low-water mark, where
the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four
hours."

We have been told, over and over again, that
this is understood by Masons to be merely an
invocation ; and the committee of investigation
of the legislature of Rhode Island have gravely
told the world that the explanation given by Ma-
sons to this penalty is, " that I would rather have,

106 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

or sooner have, my throat cut than to reveal," &c.
It is unfortunate that this explanation is in direct
contradiction to the plain and unequivocal import
of the words of the oath. The oath incurs the
penalty for its violation. The explanation promises
fidelity, though at the expense of life. The oath
imprecates the death of a traitor, as a •penalty for
treachery. The explanation claims a crown of
martyrdom for constancy. If Benedict Arnold
had been taken in the act of treason to his
country, he would have suffered no less a 'penalty
than death — though not the barbarous and brutal
death of the Masonic obligation. When Joseph
Warren suffered death on Bunker Hill, is there
an explanatory Mason who dare tell you that he
suffered 2i penalty? Yet so it is that the Masonic
oath, and its explanation, confound all moral dis-
tinctions to the degree of considering the death
of a martyr and the death of a traitor as one and
the same thing.

This explanation of the penalty annexed to the
Entered Apprentice's oath, it must be acknowl-
edged, is not ingenuous, — it is not even ingenious.
It is a grand hailing sign of distress ; or it is a
Masonic murder of the English language.

I say this with the less hesitation, because in
your seventh letter, containing your defense of the
Masonic obligations, you have disdained to take

ON FREEMASONRY. 107

this preposterous explanation of the Ehode Island
Masons. You know too well the import of words.
You candidly avow that the oaths and obligations
are out of season, — out of reason, — and ought to
be abolished. I will therefore forbear to press
upon you the still grosser absurdity'' of the pre-
tended Rhode Island explanation, when applied
to the Master Mason's and Royal Arch penalties.
The Master Mason's penalty is to have his body
severed in two in the midst, and divided to the
north and south, his bowels burnt to ashes in the
center, and the ashes scattered before the four
winds of heaven, that there might not the least track
or trace of remembrance remain among men or Ma-
sons of so vile and perjured a ivretch as I shoidd be.
And this, according to the Rhode Island explana-
tion, is to be the consequence of his dying like
Hiram Abiff, rather than betray the Masonic
secrets.

My fifth objection is to the horrible ideas of
which the penalty is composed. It is an oath of
which a common cannibal should be ashamed.
Even in the barbarous ages of antiquity. Homer
tells you that when Achilles dragged the dead
body of Hector round the walls of Troy, it was a
dishonest deed, — aeikea medeio erga; and Plato
severely censures Homer for even introducing this
incident into his poem. A mangled body, after

108 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

death, was a thought disgusting even to heathens.
From the very thoughts, and still more from the
lips, of a Christian it should be forever excluded,
like indelicacy from the mouth of a female. The
constitution of the United States, and of Massa-
chusetts, prohibit the infliction of cruel or unusual
punishments, even by the authority of the law.
But no butcher would mutilate the carcass of a
bullock or swine, as the Masonic candidate swears
consent to the mutilation of his own, for the
breach of an absurd and senseless secret. I can
not assent to your denomination of these penalties
as idle or unmeaning words. They are words of
too much meaning — of hideous significancy. The
Masons are bound for their own honor to expunge
them from their records forever. "Would that
they could be expunged from the language, dis-
honored by their introduction into its forms of
speech.

I remain, very respectfully, your friend,
John Quincy Adams.

ON FREEMASONRY. 109

^ TO WILLIAM L. STONE. ESQ.

QuiNCY, 29 August, 1832.

Dear Sir: — -Long, and, I fear, tedious, as you
have found my last letter, I was compelled by a
reluctance at making it longer, to compress the
observations in it upon the intrinsic nature of the
Masonic oaths, obligations, and 'penalties within a
compass insufficient to disclose my opinion, and
the reasons upon which it is founded.

I had said to you that the institution of Free-
masonry was vicious, in its first step, the initia-
tion oath, obligation, and 'penalty of the Entered
Apprentice. To sustain this opinion, I assigned
to you five reasons. Because they were,

1. Contrary to the laws of the land, extrajudi-
cially taken and administered.

2. In violation of the positive precept ot Jesus
Christ.

3. A pledge to keep undefined secrets, the
swearer being ignorant of their nature.

4. A pledge to the penalty of death for viola-
tion of the oath.

5. A pledge to a mode of death — cruel, unusual,
unfit for utterance from human lips.

If, in the statement of these five obJectionSy upon

110 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

principles of law, religion, and morals, there be
anything unsound, I invite you to point it out.
But if you contest either of my positions, I must
entreat you not to travel out of the record.

I might ask you not to consider it a refutation
of either of these reasons, to say that you and all
other honest and honorable Masons have never so
understood or practiced upon this oath, obliga-
tion, and penalty. The inquiry is not what you
practice, or that of others has been, but what is
the obligation, its oath, and its penalty.

I must request of you to give me no explanation
of this oath, obligation, and penalty, directly con-
trary to their unequivocal import, — that you will
not explain black by saying that it means white, or
even by alleging that you so understand it. I
particularly beg not to be told that honorable,
intelligent, and virtuous men — George Washing-
ton and Joseph "Warren for example — understood
that the penalty of death for treachery meant the
death of martyrdom for fidelity.

I would willingly be spared the necessity of
replying to the averment that the patterns of
honor and virtue whom I- have just named, with a
long catalogue of such men, have taken this oath,
and bound themselves to this obligation, under
this penalty ; for I might deem it proper to
inquire whether the very act of binding such

ON FREEMASONRY. Ill

men, by sucli oath, to such obligation, under such
penalty, is not among the sins of the institution.

I must ask you to suppose that such institution
had never existed, — that it were now to be
formed, and that you were one of ten or twenty
virtuous and intelligent men about to found a
charitable and convivial secret association. Sup-
pose a committee of such a meeting appointed to
draw up a constitution for the society should
report th-e Entered Apprentice's oath, obligation,
and penalty, as a form of initiation for the admis-
sion of members. I do not ask you whether you
would vote for the acceptance of the report ; but
what would you think of the reporters ?

I consider this as the true and only test of the
inherent and essential character of Masonry, and
it was under this conviction that I told you that
the Entered Apprentice's oath was sufficient to
settle, in my mind, the immoral character of the
institution.

It is, perhaps, too much to ask of you an ex-
plicit assent to these positions, because you may
consider it an acknowledgment of error. But
this is the first and fundamental consideration,
from which I draw the conclusion that Masonry
ought forever to be abolished. It is wrong, —
essentially wrong, — ^^a seed of evil which can
never produce any good. It may perish in the

112 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

ground — it may never rise to bear fruit; but
whatever fruit it does bear must be rank poison ; it
can never prove a blessing but by its barrenness.

My objections to this seminal principle of Ma-
sonry apply, in all their force, to the single
obligation, the form of which is given in the
appendix to your volume (page 3), where it is
stated to have been the only obligation, taken for
all three degrees, so late as 1730, when only three
degrees of Masonry were known. The oath is in
fewer words, but more comprehensive; for tho
obligation is to keep " the secrets or secrecy of Ma-
sons or Masonry J^ There is indeed a qualification
in the promise not to write, print, mark, &c.,
which seems to keep the obligations within the
verge of the law. For the promise is to reveal
nothing whereby the secret might be unlawfully
obtained. The penalty is also death, not for con-
stancy, but for treachery, " so that there shall be
no remembrance of me among Masons."

The oath, obligation, and penalty, the only one
taken in all ,the degrees of Masonry known but
one century ago, is the prolific parent of all the
degrees, and all the oaths, obligations, and penal-
ties since invented, and of the whole progeny of
crimes descended from them. The natural and
unavoidable tendency of such an obligation is the
multiplication of its kind. This tendency ia

ON FREEMASONRY. 113

among the most obvious causes which have led to
the interdiction of all such oaths and obligations,
by the civil, the ecclesiastical, and the moral law.
The obligation is to keep undefined secrets. As
they are undefined in the obligation itself, there
is nothing in the constitutions of Masonry to
define them, or to secure uniformity either of the
secrets or of the obligations. Every lodge may
vary the secrets, obligations, and penalties ; and,
accordingly, they have been so varied that
scarcely any two adhering Masons give the same
account of them. Almost the only defense of
Masonry, after the publication, of the books of
David Bernard and Avery Allyn, consisted in
efforts to discredit them, by denying that the
oaths, obligations, and penalties were truly stated
by them. A secret institution in three degrees,
the secret of each degree being withheld from
the members of the degrees inferior to it, is a
perpetual temptation to the initiated to multiply
the secrets and the degrees. Thus it is that the
lodges have grown into chapters, the chapters
into encampments, the encampments into con-
sistories; and, so long ago as December, 1802, the
grand inspectors of the United States of America
issued, at Charleston, South Carolina, a circular
announcing the existence and names of the thirty-
three degrees of Masonry,
8

114 LETTEKS AND OPINIONS

The secrets, to the keeping of which the En-
tered Apprentice is svrorn, are indefinite. In
genuine Masonry, when revealed to hira, he finds
them friDolous. You acknowledged that your
first feeling upon receiving them was disappoint-
ment. So must it be with every reflecting, intel-
ligent man ; nor is it conceivable that any such
Entered Apprentice, on leaving the lodge after his
admission, should fail to have observed, with pain
and mortification, the contrast between the awful
solemnity of the oath which he has taken, and
the extreme insignificance of the secrets revealed
to him. It is to meet this unavoidable impression
that the institution is graduated. The lure of
curiosity is still held out, and its attractive power
is sinewed, by the very disappointment which the
apprentice has experienced. He takes the degrees
of Fellowcraft and Master Mason, and still finds
disappointment — still finds himself bound by
tremendous oaths to keep trifling and frivolous
secrets. The practice of the institution is accep-
tive and fraudulent. It holds out to him a
promise which it never performs. Its promise is
light ; its performance is darkness.

But it introduces him to intimate, confidential,
and exclusive relations, with a select and limited
circle of other men, — and to the same confiden-
tial and exclusive relations, with great multitudes

ON FREEMASONRY. 115

of men belonging to every civilized nation
throughout the globe. The Entered Apprentice's
oath is merely an oath of secrecy ; but the candi-
date who takes it has pledged himself, by his
application for admission, to conform to all the
ancient established usages and customs of the fra-
ternity. And the charge of the master, given him
upon the Bible, compasses, and square, presents
him with three precious jewels, — a listening ear, a
silent tongue, and a faithful heart, — all, of course,
exclusively applicable to the secrets revealed to
him; and he is told that the listening ear teac'ies
him to listen to the instructions of the worshipful
master, but more especially to the cries of a
worthy distressed brother ; and the faithful heart
teaches him to be faithful to the instructions of
the worshipful master at all times, but more
especially to keep and conceal the secrets of Ma-
sonry, and those of a brother, when given to him
in charge as such, that they may remain as secure
and inviolable in his (the Entered Apprentice's)
breast as in his (the brother's) own. Two check-
words are also presented to him, — truth and union,
— the explanation of which concludes that the
heart and tongue of Freemasons join in promoting
each other's welfare, and rejoicing in each other's
prosperity.

Thus the essential nature of the Entered Ap-

116 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

prentice's oath, preceded by "his pledge to conform
to all the established usages and customs of the
fraternity, and followed by the charge of the
master, is secret and exclusive favor, assistance, and
fidelity to the brotherhood and brothers of the
craft.

Now combine together the disappointment
which every intelligent accepted Mason must feel,
at the puerility of the secrets revealed to him,
compared with the appalling solemnity of the
oath exacted from him for the purchase of his
lambskin apron, and the secret ties with which
he has linked himself with multitudes of other
men, exclusively to favor, assist, and be faithful
to each other, and acknowledge that the tempta-
tion to make the secrets more important, and to
turn them to better account to the craft, must be
irresistible. Judge this system a pnon, without
reference to any of the consequences which it has
produced, and say if human ingenuity could
invent an engine better suited to conspiracy of
any kind. The Entered Apprentice returns from
the lodge with his curiosity stimulated, his imag-
ination bewildered, and his reason disappointed.
The mixture of religion and morality, blended
with falsehood and imposture, which pervade all
the ceremonies of initiation, is like arsenic min-
gled up with balm.

ON FREEMASONRY. 117

" Most dangerous
Is that temptation which doth lead us on
To sin in loving virtue."

If the candidate has been educated to a sincere
and heart-felt reverence for religion and the Bible,
and if he exercises his reason he knows that all
the tales of Jachin and Boaz, of Solomon's tem-
ple, of Hiram AbifF and Jubela, Jubelo, and
Jubehim, are impostures, — poisons poured into
the perennial fountain of truth, — traditions ex-
actly resembling those reprobated by Jesus Christ,
as making the word of God of none effect. If,
as in this age but too often happens, he enters the
lodge a skeptic, the use of the Bible there, if it
have any effect upon him, will turn him out a
confirmed infidel. The sincere and rational be-
liever in the gospel can find no confirmation of
his faith in the unwarrantable uses made of the
Holy Scriptures to shed an unction of their
sanctity around the fabulous fabric of Freema-
sonry; while the reprobate miscreant will be
taught the uses to which fraud and secrecy may
turn the lessons of piety and virtue, inculcated in
the sublimest effusions of divine inspiration. In
those Scriptures we are told that when "the chil-
dren of Israel did secretly those things that were
not right against the Lord their God," they
became idolators, and were carried into captivity.

118 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

Their cities then were soon filled with a mongrel
race of Babylonians and Assyrians, who perverted
the word of God with the impostures of pagan-
ism ; burned their children in fire, to the gods of
Sepharvaim ; and *■'■ feared the Lord and served their
graven images," — an emblem of Freemasonry far
more illustrative of its character than the tragedy
of Hiram Abifi*.

The Entered Apprentice's oath is, therefore, in
its own nature, a seminal principle of conspiracy ;
and this objection applies to the only oath origin-
ally taken in all the degrees of Freemasonry at
its first institution. The ostensible primitive pur-
poses of Freemasonry were all comprised in good
felloivship. But to good fellowship, whether of
labor or refreshment, neither secrecy, nor oath,
nor penalties are necessary or congenial. In the
original institution of Freemasonry there was
then an ostensible and a secret object, and by the
graduation of the order the means were supplied
of converting it to any evil purpose of associated
power, screened from the danger of detection.
Hence, all the bitter fruits which the institution
has borne in Germany, in France, in Mexico, and
lastly, in this our beloved country. Nor could
they have failed to be produced in Great Britain,
but that, by sharp and biting statutes, they have

ON FREEMASONRY. 119

been coufined within the limits of the ostensible
object of the brotherhood — good fellowship,
am, with much rcs[)ect, dear sir,

Your friend and servant,

John Quincy Adams.

TO WILLIAM L. STONE, ESQ.

OuiNCY, 6 September, 1832,

Dear Sir: — In my two preceding letters you
have seen my objections drawn from the fountains
of law, religion, and morals, against the first step
of Freemasonry, — the oath, with its obligation and
penalty, administered to the Entered Apprentice
at his initiation. You will certainly understand
that, in this denunciation of the thing, it is not
my intention to include a charge against any
individual who has ever taken the oath ; as, on
the other hand, I exclude all palliation or justifi-
cation of it, upon the mere authority of the great
names of men by whom it has been taken.

It is a pledge of faith from man to man solemn-
ized by an appeal to God, and fortified by the
express assent of the swearer to undergo the pen-
alty of death, and mutilation at or after death,
for its violation. Such it is in itself, and no
explanation can, without doing violence to the

120 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

natural connection between thought and lan-
guage, take away this its essential and unequiv-
ocal import.

The objections are, 1. To the oath. 2. To the
promise. 3. To the penalty.

1. To the oath, as a double violation of the law
of the land, and of the law of God. Upon this
there appears, by your seventh letter, to be very
little if any difference of opinion between you
and me. The principles assumed and admitted in
the introduction to your seventh letter are un-
questionably correct with reference to law, to
religion, and to morals ; and it is equally clear that
the}'" are all disregarded in the administration of
the Masonic oaths. It is a vice of the institution
which no example can justify, and which no
sophistry can extenuate. Your acknowledge-
ment is magnanimous — your argument unan-
swerable.

But if the administration of the oath is, of
itself, a violation of the laws both of God and
man, as well by him who administers as by him
who takes it, is it not a further mockery of both,
for the master, in the very act of transgressing
the laws, and of suborning the candidate to
transgress them with him, to say to him, " This
obligation is not intended to interfere with your
duty to yourself, your neighboi-, your country, or

ON FREEMASONRY. 121

your God." Is there not falsehood and hypocrisy
superadded to the breach of the law, and profana-
tion of the name of God, in the injunction and
explanation itself? He calls upon the candidate
to perform an unlawful act ; and he tells him that
it is not to interfere with his religion or politics,
or, with deeper duplicity, that it is to interfere
with none of his civil, moral, or religious duties.
This self-contradiction of word and deed is the
very essence of all sanguinary religious fanati-
cism. It is the very vital spark of the spirit which
armed with daggers the hands of Ravaillac Bal-
thasar Girard. Under the excruciating pangs of
the torture, Ravaillac, to his last gasp, protested
that he thought he was serving God by the assas-
sination of a king who was about to declare war
against the pope; and he signed his name to one
of the interrogatories at his trial — Frangois
Ravaillac —

Ceu toujours dans mon coeur
Jesus soit le vainqueur.

" In my heart, forever, may-
Jesus hold conquering sway,"

If the murder of Henry IV., of France, had
been concerted in a Masonic lodge-room, and the
master had administered to the perpetrator, as a
part of his oath, the obligation to commit that

122 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

deed, he might, with just as much reasou and
consfstency, have assured him that this oath
wouhl not interfere with his religion or politics,
or with his duty to himself, his neighbor, his
country, or his God, as the master of a Masonic
lodge can now give such an assurance to a candi-
date for admission before administering to him
the oath of an Entered Apprentice.

2. To the promise.

The promise is to keep the secrets of Masonry,
and never to reveal them to any human being
not already initiated. I have already objected
that this promise is indefinite. The promiser
knows not the nature of the secrets he is sworn
to keep; nor are they ever explained to him. In
your seventh letter (page 71) you have explicitly
stated your own understanding of what the secrets
were, and that you have always found your intelli-
gent brethren ready to concur in that opinion.
Your definition of them is so clear and satisfactory
that, if it were in its very terms so explained by
the master, before administering the oath, this ob-
jection would be removed.

" The essential secrets of Masonry (you say)
consisted in nothing more than the signs, grips,
pass-words, and tokens, essential to the preserva,-
tion of the society from the inroads of impostors,
together with certain symbolical emblems, the

ON FREEMASONRY. 123

tecliiiical terms appertaining to wliich served as a
sort of universal language, by wliich the members
of the fraternity could distinguish each other, in
all places and countries where lodges were insti-
tuted and conducted like those of the United
States."

In nothing more. But no such explanation is
ever given to the candidate for admission, when
the oath is administered to him, or ever after-
ward ; and you candidly admit that this is not the
understanding entertained of the secrets of Ma-
sonr}^ by " the foolish brethren." Now, herein
consists my objection to the promise. It is to
keep secret he knows not what, — he never
knows, — and this indefiniteness is essential to
preserve the graduation of the order. It is essen-
tial to keep alive the curiosity of the candidate
who, at each degree that he attains, is ahvayK
comforted in his disappointment by the assurance
that there is, in the next degree, a secret worth
knowing.

"If it be saiifil that the exaction of a promise to
keep a secret must necessarily precede the com-
munication of the secret itself, and that, there-
fore, no promiser can know in advance what it is
that he pledges himself to keep secret, I reply
that my objection is to the indefiniteness not only
of the secFet itself, but of the promise. Jurors

124 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

in courts of law are sworn to keep secret tlie
counsels of their fellows and their own. The
juror, to be sure, knows not what the counsels of
his fellows will be, when he swears to keep them
secret, but he knows that they can not extend
beyond the line of their duty to decide the matter
committed to them, — and there is nothing indefi-
nite in the obligation from the moment when it
becomes binding upon him. The Masonic swearer
is ignorant of the extent both of the oath and of
his promise, — and after his admission he still is
never informed what are the secrets which he has
been sworn to keep.

In ?/0Mr enumeration of the essential secrets of
the order, you do not include the oaths them-
selves, as administered to the candidates for
admission. These, therefore, are not secrets
which any Mason is bound to keep. But has
this been the understanding of intelligent Masons
heretofore ? Why, then, have the forms of the
oaths never been made public in the Masonic
books published by authority, or without objec-
tion from the order ? "Why have they become so
different in different places? Why, in all the
trials which have arisen from the murder of Mor-
gan, and in which evidence of the forms of these
oaths, obligations, and penalties was essential to
the issue, have not authenticated copies of them

ON FREEMASONRY. 125

been produced in court by the Masonic witnesses
themselves ? In Massachusetts, in Vermont, in
Rhode Island, there have been numerous defenses
of Masonry, by individual Masons and Masonic
lodges, very indignantly denying that they ever
took or administered the obligation with the
words, "murder and treason not excepted;" and
generally denying that they were under any obli-
gation contrary to the laws of God, or that of
their country. But anxious as they have all been
to fix the charge of slander upon Avery Allyn
and David Bernard, and to make the world
believe that the forms of Masonic oaths, obliga-
tions, and penalties, disclosed in their books, were
fabrications of their own, never used by any Ma-
sonic body, still, in no single instance have they
ever produced or certified to the oaths, obliga-
tions, and penalties as used or administered by
themselves, until the investigation instituted last
winter by the legislature of Rhode Island, and
conducted in a spirit so friendly to Masonry, and
so adverse to Antimasonry,.that it could scarcely
have been more so, had every member of the
investigating committee but one been himself an
adhering Mason. In that investigation the com-
mittee, like yourself, considered the secrets of
Masonry to consist of the signs, grips, pass-words,
and emblematic figures of speech, and no more, —

126 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

and, with regard to these, they indulged the
brotherhood, not by inquiring into them, by
interrogation of adhering Masons, — giving notice
that they should take all these profound mysteries
to have been correctly set forth in the books of
Allyn and Bernard, unless positive testimony to
the contrary should be voluntarily offered by
adherino: Masons.

But the committee did require testimony from
the adhering Masons, of the oaths, obligations,
and penalties, as taken in the lodges, chapters,
and encampments in Rhode Island, and it was
given. The appendix to the report of the com-
mittee contains this evidence, and authenticates
upon full, adhering Masonic authority, the oaths,
obligations, and penalties, as taken and adminis-
tered in Rhode Island, of eleven degrees, from
the Entered Apprentice to the Royal Master.

It is, therefore, to the indefiniteness of the
promise in this authenticated obligation of the
Entered Apprentice that I take my iirst objec-
tion,— and this indefiniteness is not only intrinsic
in the terms of the obligation itself, but is aggra-
vated by the previous pledge of the candidate to
conform to the established usages and customs
of the order, and by the charge given by the
master who administers the oath, which charge
enjoins it upon the candidate as a duty to obey

ON FREEMASONRY. 127

the instructions of the master of the lodge, and
to keep the secrets of a brother Mason, committed
to him as such. The obligation includes also the
pledge to keep secret the transactions of the lodge
— without exception.

There are thus, according to the understanding
of the Rhode Island Masons, and to yours, three
distinct classes of secrets to which every accepted
Mason was bound. First, to the secrets of Ma-
sonry, consisting only of the signals of communi-
tion and tokens of mutual recognition between
the members of the fraternity; secondly, the
secrets of brother Masons, communicated as such ;
and, thirdly, the transactions in the lodge. And
of these, you and they consider the first class only
as essential to the order. But what is the principle
of this distinction? None such is found in the
oaths themselves, nor in any of the Masonic
books, nor in the charges given by the master to
the candidate for admission. Does the promise
of secrecy, given by the Entered Apprentice, ex-
tviud to tie transactions of the lodge ? It does not,
in ihe terms of the oath. It does not, by the
practice of the Rhode Island lodges, — for they
enjoin this portion of the secrets by their by-laws
upon the penalty of expulsion ; but those same
by-laws contain no provision whatever for the
violation of the essential secrets. In all the oaths

128 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

and obligations subsequent to the degree of the
Entered Apprentice, the promise includes the
secrets of a brother Mason, communicated as
such, but not the transactions of the lodge, chap-
ter, or encampment. These are deemed binding
only by virtue of the other promise of the candi-
date, that he will conform to the usages, customs,
and regulations of the fraternity. Eut this dis-
tinction itself proves that, in Masonic contempla-
tion, the obligation to keep secret the transactions
of the lodge is not the obligation, with the oath
and penalty, to keep the essential secrets of the
craft. For disclosing the transactions of the
lodge, the penalty is expulsion. But the by-laws
contain no such penalty for disclosing the secrets
of the craft. What is this but a recognition that
the penalty for divulging the secrets of the craft
is different from the penalty for revealing the
transactions of the lodge? — that it is a crime of
much higher order, sanctioned by the oath with
its penalty, and for which it would be alike incon-
sistent and absurd to provide by a by-law or reg-
ulation of the lodge.

My first objection to the promise of the Entered
Apprentice's obligation is its indejfiniteness, — and
this objection extends to all the obligations of the
subsequent degrees, and to the institution itself,
which is nowhere limited to any number of

ON FREEMASONRY. 129

degrees, and is thereby rendered a ready engine
of conspiracy for any evil purpose.

A second objection to the promise is its univer-
sality. It is to keep the secrets of the craft, and
never to reveal them to any 'person under the can-
opy of heaven. The single exception has no other
efiect than to exclude all other exceptions. It is
confined to initiated brothers and regular lodges,
to whom the Entered Apprentice can, of course,
reveal nothing, they being already in possession
of secrets which he promises to keep. The
promise, therefore, is never to reveal the secrets
of Masonry to any person under the canopy of
heaven.

I shall pursue this subject in another letter.

John Quincy Adams.

TO WILLIAM L. STONE, ESQ.

Quincy, io September, 1832.
Dear Sir. — The second objection to the promise
of the Entered Apprentice's obligation is its uni-
versality. The candidate swears that he will never
reveal any of the undefined " arts, parts, or points
of the mysteries of Freemasonry, to any person
under the canopy of heaven." This promise, like

9

130 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

the administration of the oath, is, in its terms,
contrary to the law of the land. The laws of this,
and every civilized country, make it the duty of
every citizen to testily the whole truth of facts,
deemed by legislative bodies or judicial tribunals,
material to the issue of the investigation before
them. It is also the duty of a good citizen to de-
nounce and reveal to the authorities established to
execute the laws against criminals, any secret
crimes of which he has in any manner acquired
the knowledge. !N"ow, there is nothing in the
arts, parts, or points of the mysteries of Freemasonry
which, in the trial of a judicial cause, or in an
investigation of a legislative assembly, may not
be justly deemed material to the issue before the
court or the legislature. Of its materiality, the
judges or the legislators have the exclusive right
to decide. No witness, called before the court of
justice or an authorized committee of a legisla-
ture, can refuse to answer any question put to
him by the court or the committee, on the ground
that he deems it immaterial to the trial before
them. This principle becomes more glaringly
obvious, when applied to the promise never to
reveal the secrets of a brother Mason, communi-
cated to him as such, contained in the Master
Mason's oath. But the principle is identically
the same. The Entered Apprentice promises

ON FREEMASONRY. 131

never to reveal to any person under the canopy
of heaven, that which the laws of his country-
may, the next day after he makes the promise,
make it his duty to reveal to any court of justice
before which he may be summoned to appear, or
to any committee of the legislature of the state in
which he resides, or of the Union. The promise
is therefore unlawful, by its universality.

You will remember that I am maintaining the
position that the obligation, under oath and pen-
alty, administered to and taken by the Entered
Apprentice, is, in itself ^ essentially vicious. I now
state the promise in the words universally admit-
ted to be used in that ceremony. Do you deny
that they contain an unlawful promise ? Yes,
say you, because the candidate is told, by the
master who administers the oath, that " he is ex-
pressly to understand that nothing therein con-
tained is to interfere with his political or religious
principles, with his duty to God, or the laws of
his country." And you, and all honest aud
worthy Masons, take and administer the oath
with this understanding. Well, then, the promise
is, in its terms, contrary to the law of the land, —
but you take and administer it with tacit reserva-
tion, furnished to you not by the action of your
own understanding, but by the previous notifica-
tion of the m i^^ter who administers the oath to

132 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

you. So, aud so only, you say, the terms of the
promise are to be construed. But, in the first
place, this is not a question of construction, but a
question of mental reservation. The words are
plain and unequivocal ; but you pronounce them
with a reservation, that the promise shall bind
you to nothing contrary to law. !N"ow, what pos-
sible reason or justification caij there be for exact-
ing a promise, under oath, the real meaning of
which is totally different from that of the terms
in which it is couched ? You swear a man to one
thing, and you tell him it means another. But,
secondly, how far does your exception extend ?
You say the promise extends only to the essential
secrets of Masonry, and to the lawful transactions
in the lodges, and to the secrets of Masons, not
criminal, — the former of which you consider of
not the least consequence to the world, but essen-
tial for the preservation of the society. The
secrecy of transactions in the lodges you believed
to be merely conventional; and the promise of
keeping the secrets of a brother Mason are can-
celled, when the secret confided to you by him is
of a crime committed by himself.

Now, all these exceptions resolve themselves
into the tacit reservation, authorized by the
declaration of the master, before administering
the oath, that it contains nothing contrary to law.

ON FREEMASONRY. 133

If the oath is taken with that reservation, it ap-
plies equally to the promise to keep the essential
secrets of the order, and to all the others. And,
therefore, a Freemason, summoned before the
committee of a legislature or a court of justice, is
bound not less to disclose the grips, signs, due
guards, and tokens, than he is to divulge the
crimes of a brother Mason, known to him.

The simple question I take to be this : I sup-
pose a Freemason to be summoned before a legis-
lative committee or assembly, or judicial tribunal,
to testify. Is he or is he not bound to answer
any interrogatory put to him by their authority,
and which they require of him to answer, respect-
ing the essential secrets of the craft? If he is, how
can these secrets be kept, and of what avail are
all the oaths administered to Masonic candidates,
whether with or without penalty ? If he is not,
then the obligation oath supersedes the obligation
of the law of the land. And if the Masonic oath
of secrecy is paramount to the law of the land,
with regard to the mysteries of the craft, where is
the principle which restores the supremacy of the-
law, to require the disclosure of the Masonic
crimes ? The Masonic oath makes no discrimina-
tion between the secrets, — the promise to keep
them all. The declaration of the master that
there is nothing unlauful in the oath, makes no

134 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

discrimination, — it applies to all, or it applies to
none.

"With this view of the subject, you will perceive
that I deem it altogether immaterial to the argu-
ment, whether the words " murder and treason
not excepted" are or are not included in the
Royal Arch Mason's promise of secrecy, — whether
he promise to espouse the cause of a brother
Mason, right or wrong, or not, — and whether the
words, " and they left to my own election," are or
are not an innovation in the Master Mason's oath.
But when you ask me, as an act of "justice, to
believe that, should a brother Mason tell you, as a
secret, that he had robbed a store, you would very
speedily make the matter public in the police
office," I must, while very cheerfully and sincerely
believing you," observe that it would be at the ex-
pense of the very explicit import of the Master
Mason's oath. By that oath the Master Mason
promises to keep the secrets of a brother Master
Mason as secure and inviolable as if they were in
his own breast, " murder and treason except-
ed." That is, excepting two specific enumerated
crimes. What, then, is the meaning of this ex-
ception, and why are they excepted? The
naming of them emphatically leaves all other
crimes included in the promise and excluded from
the exception. The Master Mason's promise does,

ON FREEMASONRY. 135

therefore, by the plain import of its terms, pledge
him to keep secret the knowledge of any crime
committed by a brother Master Mason, and com-
municated to him as a Masonic secret, other than
the two specified b}' name ; and if you should be
iu the unfortunate condition of having" such a
secret communicated to you, and should give
notice of it at the police office, you would dis-
charge your duty to your country, only by con-
sidering your Mason?c promise as null and void.
For here is the dilemma. If the Masonic prom-
ises are all made with the tacit reservation that
nothing contrary to law is understood to be
included in them, then the exception of murder
and treason in the Master Mason's oath is not
only superfluous, but deceptive, — since it limits
to two specific crimes, the exception already
referred to, of all crimes whatsoever. And if the
Masonic promises are made without the reserved
exception of all unlawful things, then the excep-
tion of murder and treason, from the secrets
which the Master Mason pledges himself to keep,
le ives all other crimes as distinctly under the
shelter of the promise as if they had been included
in it expressly by name

3. To the promise. Death by torture and muti-
lation.

I have, in a former letter, exposed the fallacy —

136 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

I must say the disgenuous fallacy — of the
attempt to defend this part of the Masonic obli-
gation in the late Rhode Island legislative inves- ,
tigation. In the tale of "January and May,"
when the doting, blind, and abused husband, by
the miraculous interposition of the king of the
fairies, receives instantaneous restoration of sight
to witness his own dishonor, the queen of fairies,
with equal promptitude, suggests to the guilty
wife an explanation. The Masonic brotherhood
of Rhode Island are as ready to take a suggestion
from the queen of fairies as the youthful and
studious May. The committee of the Rhode
Island legislature was composed of men too intel-
ligent to be duped like the wittol January; yet
were they contented to be told, and to believe,
that the penalty of death for revealing a secret,
was identically one and the same thing as the
heroic martyrdom of death rather than to reveal
a secret. All language is a system of logic ; all
language is a system of morals; all figurative
language is translation. The words may say one
thing and intend another ; but translation must
not confound moral distinctions, and irony and
denuncications are the only figures of speech
which are permitted in human intercourse to
" wash an Ethiop white.'
Your own exposition of this penalty is more

ON FREEMASONRY. 137

candid and more plausible. Yon consider the
words in which the penalty is expressed as un-
meaning, because the candidate has been told that
the obligation contains nothing contrary to law ;
and because the society neither possesses nor
exercises the power to authorize the execution of
the penalty. This, of course, considers the pen-
alty as null and void.

And so, one would think, it must be considered
by every fair-minded and honorable man. And
why, then, do fair-minded and honorable men ad-
here to this penalty ? Is it worthy for fair-minded
and honorable men to use words full of sound
and fury, signifying nothing ? to use them as the
sanction of a promise ? to use them with an ap-
peal to the everlasting God ? Are the words so
charming in themselves, is the thought conveyed
by them to the mind so irresistibly fascinating,
that even now twelve hundred fair-minded and
honorable men of Massachusetts declare, in the
face of their country and of mankind, that they
will not renounce the use of them ? Oh, say not
what fair-minded and honorable men will or will
not do ! Twelve hundred men of Massachusetts,
men of fair and honorable minds, even now,
after all the arts, parts, and points of the mys-
teries of Freemasonry have been revealed and
published to the world, nay, after the very check-

138 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

word, transmitted to them for their protection
against the intrusion of book-Masons upon their
mysteries, had been divulged witli all the rest, —
after all this, twelve hundred Masons of Massa-
chusetts have declared that they will not renounce
or abandon the mysteries of Freemasonry ; that
they will still continue to hold their meetings, to
tyle their lodges, to brandish their drawn swords
for the exclusion of cowans and eavesdroppers,
and to swear the knave or simpleton who will
henceforth submit to take the oath, never to re-
veal, never to write, print, cut, carve, paint, stain.
or engrave, secrets known to every one who will
take the trouble to read, — secrets, in their own es-
timation, insignificant and puerile, — secrets, in
the estimation of great multitudes of their fellow-
citizens, disgusting and blasphemous; that they
will continue to swear the candidate to this oath
of secrecy, under no less a penalty than that of
having his throat cut across from ear to ear, his
tongue torn out by the roots, and his body buried
in the rough sand of the sea, at low-water mark,
where the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four
hours; but that they will take care to explain to
him that this only means he will rather die than
reveal to any person under the canopy of heaven
these secrets known to all the world; that his oath
is not to interfere with his religion or politics, nor

ON FREEMASONRY. 139

with any of his duties to his neighbor, his coiin-
trj, or his God. For thus speaks the mystic
muse of Masonry :

And many a holy text around she strews,
To teach Masonic moralists to die.

Have I proved that the Entered Apprentice's
oatJt is a breach of law, human and divine? that
\tQ promise is undefined, unUxwful, and nugatory?
that its peyialty is barbarous, inhuman, murderous
in its term, and, in its least obnoxious sense, null
and void? If so, my task is done. The first
step in Freemasonry is a false step. The Entered
Apprentice's obligation is a crime, and, like all
vicious usages, should be abolished.

John Quincy Adams.

TO WILLIAM L. STONE, ESQ.

Quincy, 4 September, 1832.
Dear Sir: — On the 19th ult. I wrote you a
letter containing some observations upon the vol-
ume of letters upon Masonry and Antimasonry,
which you have done me the honor of addressing
me It was confidential, and intimated my inten-

140 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

tion to pursue the subject hereafter. So far as it
is connected with the presidential election now
approaching, I abstain from all interference with
it. But the abolition of Freemasonry in this
Union is a cause which you have made your own,
and which I trust you will not abandon.

In the seventh letter of your volume, in con-
firmation of the statement that the Masonic
obligations are administered in very different
phraseology in different places, you refer me to
inclosed copies of the obligations of the seven
degrees as they were given twenty-five years
since in the lodge and chapter of an eastern city.
You add among other things that these forms
were introduced and adopted at Rochester, in the
State of New York, when Royal Arch Masonry
was introduced there. And you invite my atten-
tion to the difference between the Royal Arch
obligation as contained in this manuscript and
that in Bernard's book.

There is in the volume a reference to the note
B, in the appendix. But there I find only an
apology for the omission of this manuscript be-
cause it would have swelled the volume to a size
beyond your intention.

If it would not give you too much trouble I
should be obliged to you for a communication to
me of this manuscript, which you can forward by

ON FREEMASONRY. 141

the mail, and which will be returned to you as
you may direct.

I am ..very respectfully, dear sir,

Your friend and servant,
John Quincy Adams.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY, LEVI LINCOLN, GOVERNOR
OF MASSACHUSETTS.

[extract.]

Washington, i February, 1832.
Dear Sir: — My Antimasonry has cooled down
a little while objects less important but more
urgent absorb my time and attention ; but it has
not been extinguished by the mental reservations
of the twelve hundred certifiers to their own
integrity, which I never thought of- impeaching,
nor has it been remarkably edified by the ostensi-
ble investigation of the committee of the Rhode
Island legislature, or its results. I share in no
spirit of Antimasonic proscription, if such there
be ; but if I had any right of person or property
pending in a court of justice with an Entered Ap-
prentice or a Knight Templar for my adversary,
I should much disincline to see any man sworn
upon my jury who had been present at the mur-

142 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

der and resuscitation of Hiram Abiff, and still
more to any one who should have crawled upon
all-fours under the living arch. In other words,
I do hold as disqualified for an impartial juror, at
least between a Mason and an Antimason, any
man who has taken the Masonic oaths and ad-
heres to them, not excepting the twelve hundred
certifiers theraselyes. With regard to church-fel-
lowship, I am not prepared to speak so particu-
larly. I am in church-communion with several
of the twelve hundred, and have perfect con-
fidence in their integrity. But I would challenge
them as jurors, between me and the Master Mason
who made oath that he had been twice present
with me at a lodge in Pittsfield; or between me
and the Master Mason who had the impudence to
vouch in my father as a patron of Masoury.

I have said that I share in no Antimasonic
proscriptions, if such there be ; and I repeat the
assurance, that so far from approving or counte-
nancing their nomination of any candidate iu
opposition to you, I did unequivocally disapprove
of that measure, and as far as I could dissuade
them from it. I am happy to give you this
assurance, nor will I press further for the name
of him who attempted to induce in your mind a
different belief. I have no doubt he was acting
under Masonic law as faithfully as the brethren

ON FREEMASONRY. 143

of the Royal Arch, who Morganized the bottom
of i^iagara River. Agnosco fratrem.

John Quincy Adams.

TO ALEXANDER H. EVERETT, ESQ., BOSTON.
[extract.]

Quincy, i8 August, 1832.

With respect to conciliating the Antimasons in
this commonwealth, though it is rather late for
the ISTational Republicans to begin, it may be bet-
ter late than never. I most sincerely and heartily
wish that they would. The National Republicans
of this commonweath have not understood — they
do not and I fear will not understand — the state
of the Antimasonic question. About a year ago
the grand lodge of Rhode Island published a
formal defense of Masonry, in which they said
they could not tell whether Morgan had been
murdered or not, for they knew nothing about it. i
have read a declaration published on the last day
of the last year, signed by twelve hundred Ma-
sons of this our own state, who speak of a high
excitement, which had been in the public mind,
carried to it " by the 'partial and inflammatory
representations of certain offenses committed by a

144 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

few misguided members of the Masonic institution
in a sister state." The National Republicans of
Massachusetts know nothing about these certain
offenses; but they have for two years past taken
most especial care to turn out of office every Anti-
mason upon whom they could lay their hands, all
the while bitterly complaining of the persecuting
and proscriptive spirit of political Antima-
sonry.

The cause of Antimasonry must and will sur-
vive the next presidential election. And if the
Kational Republicans of Massachusetts really
wish for the co-operation of Antimasons, I have
no doubt they can obtain it. "Whether they can
agree upon a ticket for the presidential election
now so near at hand, is doubtful in my mind; but
I take it for granted that for this time the Nation-
al Republicans can carry their elections without
them. The Masonic declaration of last winter, to
which I have alluded, considers the Antimasonic
excitement as having subsided, and they certainly
did appear to have lost ground in this state, and
at least to have gained none in the states of New
York and Pennsylvania. There is now an appar-
ent union of the two parties in New York, but
whether it will be cordial or successful is very
problematical. The National Republicans there
are more sanguine than the Antimasons, and

ON FREEMASONRY. 145

there are wounds between tliem not easily to be
healed. You know how it is here.

Upon the subject of Antimasonry I have no
suffered myself to be excited, although there has
been no lack of provocations. But I do know
something about the Masonic murder of Morgan,
and the clusters of crimes perpetrated for the sup-
pression of his book. I know something also of
the laws, oaths, obligations, and penalties of Ma-
sonry, and I have not been unobservant of their
practical effect, from murder under the sealed
obligation, down to the prevarication of pretend-
ing that to have the throat cut from ear to ear
means expulsion from the lodge. If the Masonic
controversy were now raging in Cochin-China,
and the name of Hiram Abiff had never been
heard upon this continent, the subject would be
worthy of investigation, as a philosophical inquiry
into the mysteries of human nature. I have
endeavored to consider it as a question upon the
first principles of morals. I have sought for the
facts from the Masonic as well as from the Anti-
masonic side, and have read Henry Brown, as well
as Avery Allyn and David Bernard. Col. Stone's
letters, which you have doubtless seen, were ad-
dressed to me, in consequence of inquiries which
I had addressed to a brother Mason of his in
Philadelphia, which were communicated to him.

10

146 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

Stone is a Knight Templar, and, as yon know, a
very ardent ITational Republican, His Masonic
spirit lingers with him through his whole book,
but he is an honest man, — unperverted even by
the fifth libation, — and a bold one, or he never
w^ould have dared to proclaim the truths con-
tained in those letters. I ask your particular
attention to the letters from twenty-one to
twenty-five inclusive, and to the forty-eighth,
and I wish you would recommend the perusal of
them to those of your National Republican
friends, who are accessible to reason upon this
subject. I abstain purposely from any public
manifestation of opinion upon this topic, to avoid
all appearance of interfering with the approach-
ing presidential election.

Faithfully your friend,

John Quincy Adams.

TO RICHARD RUSH ESQ., YORK, PENNSYLVANIA.

Quincy, 30 August, 1832.
My Dear Sir': — Since my letter of the third
instant, I have not had the pleasure of hearing
from you. In the interval I have been solicited
with some urgency, on one hand by the !N"ational
Republicans, and on the other by the Antimasons

ON FREEMASONRY. 147

of this commonwealth, to repair to their respect-
ive standards, which are not here the same
There is yet some obscurity with regard to the
result of the compromise, said to have taken
place in New York and Pennsylvania; and there
is no prospect of an agreement between them
here.

Of this I have had the opportunity to satisfy
myself, and it has confirmed my conviction of the
propriety of my abstaining from interference with
the elections. I have therefore declined attend-
ing as a delegate at the Antimasonic state con-
vention, to be held at Worcester on the 5th of
next month, to make nominations for the offices
of governor and lieutenant-governor of the com-
monwealth, and of an electoral ticket for the
choice of president and vice-president of the
United States.

But while refraining from all agency in the ap-
proaching elections, I am, as a true and faithful
Antima&ou, in search of light. Now there are
three modes of lighting a lamp, with which I am
almost equally familiar. One at noon-day, with
a burning-glass, by the radiance of the sun ; one
in times of clouds and darkness with flint, steel,
tinder, and a match ; and one either by night or
day, in sunshine or in shade, kindled at the light
of another lamp. In the analogy between the

148 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

worlds of matter and of mind, electioneering
seems to me to light the lamp by the collision of
flint and steel. But I, reserving that process for
use when the others fail, or can not be applied,
content myself for the present with lighting my
lamp by the flame of another, or by the concen-
trated illumination from the source of light.

I have, therefore, since my return home, read
with close and critical attention the volume of
letters addressed to me by Col. Stone. This book
was, if not composed, at least addressed to me in
consequence of those letters, which about this
time last year I wrote to Edward Ingersoll, and
which he then communicated to Mr. Stone. They
contained a specification of nine crimes, atrocious
as any that can be committed by man, with
inquiries whether they had not been committed in
the transactions connected with the murder of
Morgan, and whether the organized institution
of Freemasonry, its corporate bodies of lodges,
chapters, and encampments, were not accessory to
all these crimes, before or after the fact.

Mr. Stone's book is the answer to these in-
quiries. He is, against the institution, the best
of witnesses. He has taken ten degrees of Ma-
sonry, and is, in Masonic language, a worthy Sir
Knight Templar. He has never renounced nor
ever formally seceded from the institution. Long

ON FREEMASONRY. 149

after the murder of Morgan he believed that no
Masonic lodge had in any manner polluted itself
with the guilt of his blood. But, as the editor
of a respectable journal, he did not sufter his Ma-
sonic obligations to control his moral duties. He
disdained to justify, to connive at, or to suppress
the commission of crimes. His journal did give
to the public statements of the facts as they
became authenticated, and this soon brought him
into collision with numbers of adhering Masons,
and with the grand lodge of the State of JSTew
York. Then after a sharp altercation and bitter
reproaches for his admission into the columns of
his newspaper of truth against Masonic murder;
and after an ineffectual struggle to save the grand
lodge from the turpitude of an appropriation of
money for the benefit of the western sufferers, he
withdrew, and says he has never set his foot in a
lodge-room from that day.

Col. Stone, I have said, is the best of witnesses
against Masonry, for he is an upright, intelligent,
and most unwilling witness. He testifies under
the shackles of all his Masonic obligations, and
with the knowledge that he is incurring the
vindictive and unforgiving resentment of the
craft. This is the destiny of every non-adhering
Mason, and it places him in a position of no
trifling or inconsiderable peril. His testimony

150 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

coufirms, far beyond any anticipation that I had
formed, the extent to which the lodges, chapters,
and encampments of the State of 'New York are
implicated in the Morgan-murder crimes. It
demonstrates beyond all possibility of reply, not
only that nine crimes specified in my letter to
Edward Ingersoll have been committed, but that
lodges, chapters, and encampments have been
accessory to every one of them, before or after the
fact. It proves also that the crimes committed
were more numerous than my specifications, and
that several others should be added to the list.
As you have Stone's book, I refer you to the
letters from twenty-one to twenty-five inclusive,
and to letter forty-eight, and will ask at your
leisure for your thoughts on the facts there dis-
closed.

"With a view to the ultimate object of Antima-
sonry, the abolition of Freemasonry in these United
States, it appears to me to be an important point
gained, if we produce on the public mind a full
conviction that those crimes have been committed,
and that Masonry is responsible for them.

The honest, adhering Masons turn away their
eyes from the facts, and urge the people to do
the same. The reason of this is that they can
not look at the facts, and defend the institution,
but they give thereby an immense advantage in

ON FREEMASONRY. 151

the controversy to their adversaries. For an
argument must be founded upon facts ; he who
has most perfect possession of facts, must have
the firmest foundation for argument.

But after establishing the facts, first of the
crimes committed, and secondly of the participa-
tion of many organized Masonic bodies in them,
there is another point of view, to which it seems
advisable to call the attention of the public to
induce them to look at the institution a 'priori, to
examine and analyze it, as it is in its nature. In
a conversation with Col. Stone, after he had pro-
posed to address the letters to me, but before he
had begun the work, he was pleading, as he does
in his book, for the institution as he had known
and shared in it, and denied that he had ever
taken the oath with the words " murder and
treason not excepted.''^ I said to him that the first
step of Masonry was a stumbling-block to me.
That the Entered Apprentice's oath was vicious,
and infected the whole institution. He has stated
this observation of mine in his book, in terms I
think rather stronger than those that I used. I
have therefore written him two letters, with a
full development of the sentiment which I did
express to him, and of the reasons upon which it
is founded. I have not written them for the pur-
pose of present publication; audi inclose them

152 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

to you, before transmitting them to him, and will
be grateful to you for any remarks that may
occur to you upon the perusal of them, after
which I will ask you to return them to me. You
will perceive that a concentration of legal, relig-
ious, and moral objection against the very first
act of initiation to Masonry is, in truth, laying
the corner-stone to the edifice of Antimasonry.
This part of the system seems to me not to have
been sufficiently canvassed. The adhering and
seceding Masons have been disputing about sin-
gle items in the Master Mason's, Ro3^al Arch, and
Templar's obligations, which are differently ad-
ministered in different lodges, chapters, and
encampments, while the vital question seems to
me to be in the Entered Apprentice's oath, obli-
gation, and penalty. The chemist who detects
arsenic in a cup of coffee may inquire, for
curiosity, whether it was mingled up with the
powder of the berry, or poured into the boiling
kettle ; a motive of more intense interest to those
who repair with the pitcher to the fountain
should be to examine whether the poison has not
been deposited there.

You will estimate the confidence which I repose
in your candor as well as in your judgment when
I add, that in submitting the inclosed letters to
your examination I have not forgotten that you,

ON FREEMASONRY. 153

like "Wasliington and "Warren, had once taken the
Entered Apprentice's oath yourself.
Accept the assurance of

my respect and affection.

John Quingy Adams.

TO BENJAMIN COWELL, ESQ., PROVIDENCE, R. I.
Washington, 28 November, 1832.

Sir: — Your letter of the 22d instant, inclosing
your address before the Antimasonic convention,
held at Providence on the 2d instant, proposes
a question of considerable difficulty, namely, by
what means the institution of Freemasonry, with
all its exceptionable properties, may be put down.

I answer, by the voluntary dissolution of the
society, or by its extinction by the forbearance of
others to contract its obligations.

I have hoped that the virtuous and intelligent
members of the order, upon finding that all their
secrets have been revealed and made public ; upon
perceiving the numerous atrocious crimes connect-
ed with the murder of Morgan, and to which their
oaths, obligations, and penalties have given rise ;
and upon discovering the general obloquy into
which the institution was gradually sinking,
would frankly have abandoned it, of their own

154 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

accord. This expectation has not been fully
realized. But great numbers of Masons have
ceased to frequent the lodges ; numbers of lodges
and chapters have suffered their charters to ex-
pire ; and I believe the instances are now few in
which they swear a man upon the penalty of hav-
ing his throat cut from ear to ear, to keep secret
from every human being, what every human
being, who will read the books of David Bernard
and Avery Allyn knows as well as the brightest
Masons of the land, — still, the majority of Ma-
sons do adhere to the craft, and refuse to give
up their idol. The only way to deal with them
is, to bring to bear upon them public opinion ;
and that mode of treatment has been pursued
with regard to the disease, with considerable
and encouraging success.

I concur with you in the opinion that the ad-
ministration of Masonic oaths, obligations, and
penalties ought to be prohibited by statutes of the
state legislatures, with penalties annexed to them,
not of cutting throats from ear to ear, nor of cut-
ting the body in two by the middle, nor of open-
ing the left breast and tearing out the heart and
vitals, nor of smiting off the skull to serve as a
cup for the fifth libation ; but with good, whole-
some penalties of fine and imprisonment, ade-
quate to their purpose of deterring every mastex",

ON FREEMASONRY. 155

grand master, grand king, or other dignitary of
the sublime and ineft'able degrees, from evermore
polluting his lips with the execrable formularies,
which have at length been dragged into light.
Most cordially would I, were I a member of any
state legislature in the Union, give my voice and
vote for the enactment of such monitory statutes.
But this can not be effected so long as Masonry
controls the majorities in the state legislatures, —
that is, so long as the people continue to elect, as
members of the state legislatures, adhering Free-
masons, or men who are neither Masons nor Anti-
masons, or what you call moral Antimasons;
men who disapprove Masonry, but are afraid of
mcurring Masonic vengeance by raising a finger
or uttering a word against it ; men whose virtue
consists in neutrality between right and wrong,
and who are willing to believe that to refuse their
votes to a man because he is an adhering Free-
mason is 'persecution. So long as the people con-
tinue to constitute majorities of their state legis-
latures of such men as these, so long will it be
idle to expect any statutory enactment against
Masonic oaths, obligations, and penalties.

It is, therefore, the duty of pure and disinterested
Antimasonry to operate, as well as it can, upon
public opinion; and one of the most effective
modes of thus operating is the ballot-box. It is

156 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

just and proper that every individual, honestly
believing that the Masonic institution is an enor-
mous nuisance in the community, which, if not
voluntarily relinquished, ought to be broken
down by the arm of the law, should resolve that
he will vote for individuals, as members of the
state legislatures, entertaining, upon this subject,
the same opinions as himself, and for none other.
If this resolution be just and proper for each indi-
vidual separately, it is equally so for as many
individuals collectively as can agree upon the
principle. Far from being obnoxious to the
charge of persecution, it is, perhaps, the mildest
of all possible forms of operating upon public
opinion — by public opinion itself. It is thus that
the Antimasons have acted ; first in the State of
IS'ew York, where the Morgan murder has fasten-
ed upon the hand of Masonry a spot of blood,
like that which the dream of Macbeth's wife
paints upon hers, and which all the perfumes of
Arabia can never sweeten ; and subsequently in
other states, including that of Rhode Island
Thus far the principle of political Antimasonry
has my hearty approbation ; and in the diversity
of opinion which still unhappily prevails on this
question, it is a satisfaction to me that the dictate
of my judgment coincides with that of a large
majority of the inhabitants of my native town,

ON FREEMASONRY. 157

my friends and neighbors, and of a liigbly
respectable portion, if not a majority, of the con-
stituents whom I have the honor of representing
in the congress of the United States.

With regard to the political course of the Anti-
masons in Rhode Island, I am not a competent
judge. To the cause of Antimasonry, I consider
the legislative investigation of the last winter as
having essentially contributed. It has substan-
tially settled the question what the oaths, obliga-
tions, and penalties of Freemasonry are; it has
cut short all quibbling equivocation and attempts
to blast the credit of Avery Allyn and David
Bernard ; it has given us these oaths, obligations,
and penalties in their naked deformity ; it has
dragged the struggling savage into day, and has
shown us the last writhings of his Protean form,
in the impudent pretension that the death of a
traitor, in Masonic language, means the death of
a martyr. To the conclusions of the majority of
the committee of investigation, namely, that it
is the indispensable duty of the Masons to dissolve
their fraternity, I respond, Amen and amen ;
though, when I read their report and observe the
process by which they reach them, I can not for-
bear an exclamation of astonishment at the novel
process of induction, by which their conclusion
slaps the face of all their premises.

158 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

I hope and trust that the Freemasons of Ehode
Island will ultimately follow the advice of the
committee of investigation, which so magnani-
mously waived the legislative right of exacting
testimony to their secrets, and thus suffered the
law of the land to cower before the law of Ma-
sonic secrecy. I thank the committee for having
peremptorily exacted the real oaths, obligations,
and penalties, as taken and administered in Rhode
Island, and consider the result as having settled,
in the miud of every reasonable and independent
man, their nature and their character.
Kespectfully, sir.

Your servant and fellow-citizen,
John Quincy Adams.

TO JAMES MOORHEAD, ESQ., MERCER, PEMF.
Washington, 23 December, 1832.

Sir : — Mr. Banks, the worthy representative of
your district, delivered to me your friendly letter
of the 26th of last month. I have, since the
commencement of the session of congress, regu-
larly received the numbers of the Mercer Lumi-
nary, and have observed with pleasure the zeal and
assiduity with which it disseminates the light of

ON FREEMASONRY. 159

Antimasomy. To that cause I am devoted, be-
cause I believe it to be the cause of pure morals
and of truth. Until the murder of Morgau I
had very little knowledge of the institution of
Freemasonry, except as an occasional witness of
its cliildish pageantry and the mock solemnity of
its processions. These I believed to be harmless,
and I gave willing credit to their boastful profes-
sions of benevolence and charity. Very soon
after the Morgan catastrophe, however, the Ma-
sonic obligations were disclosed to me in the escape
of Col. William King, from the pursuit of justice,
in the territory of Arkansas. I saw thoir opera-
tion without being able to punish the offender or
even judicially to authenticate the offense. King
escaped by the connivance of Masonic obligations
paramount to the laws of the land. He re-apj)ear-
ed afterward upon the theater of his guilt, and,
as you know, died suddenly on the disclosing of
facts which he had flattered himself were hidden
from every person under the canopy of heaven,
without the pale of Masonic oaths and penalties.
Other evidences of the practical effect of Masonic
obligations soon revealed themselves to me in the
forms of secret slander and perjury. But of the
multitude of atrocious crimes committed, first in
the conspiracy which terminated in the murder
of Morgan, and for five years afterward in baf-

160 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

fling and defeating the laws of the state in their
efforts to bring the murderers to justice, I had a
very imperfect idea till the publication, of Col.
Stone's book.

There remained yet not any reasonable doubt,
but some deficiency of evidence, with regard to
the essential, inherent, and indelible viciousness
of the Masonic obligations, in the solemn protes-
tations of the adhering Masons, that those obliga-
tions were falsely represented in the books of
Bernard and Avery Allyn ; in the bold assevera-
tions that no such oaths, obligations, and penalties
existed ; and in reiterated declarations, couched
in delusive generalities, that they had never taken
any oath or obligation inconsistent with their
duties to their country or their religion, but
ah\'ays without disclosing what were the terms of
those which they had taken. The investigation
by a committee of the legislature of Rhode Island
finally brought out the obligations of ten degrees,
as avowed to be practiced in the lodges, chapters,
and encampments of that state. It exposed them
in their hideous deformity, and took from the
defenders of Masonry their last refuge of prevar-
ication.

It was to show them in their naked nature,
divested of all sophisticated explanations, and all
mental equivocations, that I wrote the four letters

ON FREEMASONRY. 161

on the Entered Apprentice's oath, which you have
republished in the Luminary. I am happy that
they have met your approbation.
I am, with much respect.

Your friend and fellow-citizen,
John Quincy Adams.

TO EDWARD LIVINGSTON, ESQ.

Washington, io April, 1833.

Sir: — In the National Intelligencer of the 22d
of April, 1830, there appears an address, there
said to have been delivered by you, to the General
Royal Arch Chapter of the United States, upon
your installation to the high Masonic official dig-
nity of their general grand high-priest.

In that address, after a feeling and elegant ac-
knowledgment of the grateful emotions which
you experienced on being apprized of the unex-
pected and unsolicited distinction which had been
conferred upon you by your election to that office,
and a pathetic allusion to that period of life
when all worldly honors fade into the " sear and
yellow leaf," you assign as your reason for accept-
ing the dignity and the charge of presiding over
an association in whose labors you had " for many
U

162 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

years retired from any participation," that your
refusal might have been " ascribed to an unmanly
fear of encounterins: the clamor raised against
our institution [of Freemasonry], or to a conscious-
ness that the vile and absurd accusations against
it were well founded. Either of these suspicions
[you added] would have injured not my charac-
ter only, but that of the whole fraternity."

You further assigned an additional motive for
overcoming the reluctance suggested by the con-
sciousness that your long retirement had rendered
you less fit to fill than many others, equally well
qualified in other respects ; and this motive was
your confidence in the Masonic skill and excellent
character of the worthy companion who was, at
the same solemnity, installed with you as your
deputy general grand high-priest.

After these ceremonial preliminaries, you pro-
ceed as follows ;

^^ Companions and Brethren : For the first time
in the history of our country, persecution has
raised itself against our honorable fraternity. It
does not, indeed, as in other countries, incarcerate
our bodies, strain them on the wheel, or consume
them in the flames of the inquisition; but its at-
tacks are, to an honorable mind, as unjustifiable.
It assails our reputation with the blackest calum-'
nies; strives, by the most absurd inventions^ to

ON FREEMASONRY. 163

deprive us of tlie confidence of our fellow-citi-
zens ; belies the principles of our order, and
represents us as bound to each other by obliga-
tions subversive of civil order, and hostile to
religion."

Mr. Livingston: In molding this personified
image of persecution, did it never occur to you
that the foul and midnight hag, who justly bears
that name, is never to herself more deliciously
occupied than in charging persecution upon
others ? In those Holy Scriptures, which it is
your ofiicial duty to read and expound to your
companions and brethren of the Royal Arch, it is
related, that when your predecessor in the high-
priesthood, Ananias, commanded that Paul should
be smitten on the mouth, the apostle of the gen-
tiles turned upon him and said, " Q-od shall smite
thee, thou whited wall ; for sittest thou to judge
me after the law, and commandest me to be smit-
ten contrary to the law ?" I will not imitate this
exclamation of Paul, for which he himself apol-
ogized when informed that it was the high-priest
to whom he spoke; but I will ask you, sir, to
reconsider this charge of persecution, imputed
by you in the face of the world, not indeed to
any individual by name, but to a numerous and
respectable class of your fellow-citizens in
nine or ten states of the Union, — to all that class

164 LETTERS AND OPINIONW

of citizens known in the community by the de
nomination of Antimasons. I am one .of them
myself. As respects myself I know — as regards
the whole party I firmly believe — that in the above
passage of your address you did them great
injustice. In charging them with calumny you
calumniated them yourself. In accusing them of
persecution, you are yourself the persecutor.

I will not say that on your part this persecution
and calumny were willful. You had for many
years retired from any participation in the labors
of the craft. If this fact is not very pregnant of
evidence, that, in your estimation, the labors of
the craft were, when you participated in them, of
a high order of public usefulness or private
beneficence, it exculpates you at least from all par-
ticipation in labors of evil. You did not know
what new labors had, most especially in your own
native State of IlTew York, and extensively else-
where, been ingrafted upon the old stock. You
did not know the additions which had been, in
many lodges and chapters, made to the whole
graduation of your oaths. The tree had not
borne all its fruits. The Morgan tragedy had
been enacted, and more than three years of im-
punity had, in evasion or defiance of the laws of
nature, of justice, and of the land, sheltered the
guilt of its perpetrators ; but you did not know,

ON FREEMASONRY. 165

nor was there mortal out of the pale of your pen-
alties who did know, the catalogue of Masonic
crimes which had been committed in affiliated
connection with that Masonic murder; — you know
them not to this day. Multitudes of them are,
and will ever remain, secreted under the seal of
the fifth libation, and under the obligation to con-
ceal from every person under the canopy of
heaven, the secrets of a worthy brother, — mur-
der and treason not excepted, or excepted at the
option of the swearer. More than a year after
your address was delivered the grand lodge of
Rhode Island published a defense of Masonry
against those same charges which they, like you,
pronounced persecutions and calumnies. Yet,
even then, they said that whether Morgan had
been murdered or not, they could not tell, /or they
knew nothing about it. They knew nothing about
it! They knew nothing about the facts proved-
in the judicial tribunals of ISTew York, not only
by clouds of witnesses, but by the confessions and
pleas of guilty of several among the conspirators
themselves. The grand lodge of Rhode Island,
one and all, knew nothing about all this, and yet
they published a defense of Masonry, and pro-
nounced persecution and calumny, the denuncia-
tions of virtuous indignation against those very
judicially authenticated facts, about which they
declared that they knew nothing.

166 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

Sir, your address to your Royal Arch compan
ions had more of candor or more of discretion
You advised them that calumnies so absurd as
those uttered against you (the Masons) were best
met by dignified silence ! And yet you did not
meet them by dignified silence ; you pronounced
them from your exalted seat of general grand
high-priest of the order, black and absurd
calumnies, and you attributed them all to per-
secution.

But if I am bound to acknowledge the candor
and discretion of your advice to your brethren to
meet the charges against their institution with
dignified silence, I can not offer an equal tribute
of commendation to your consistency, when after
all your bitter complaints of calumny and perse-
cution, you urge them to "be just, and refleet
how much cause for excitement has been given
by the outrageous abduction of a citizen dragged
from his family and friends, in the midst of a
populous state, followed up, most probably, by the
perpetration of a most atrocious murder."

You then remind them that " it was natural,
from all the circumstances of this most extraordi-
nary and savage act, to believe that it was com-
mitted by Masons."

Sir, was it not committed by Masons ?

" It was in human nature, — unenlightened and

ON FKEEMASONRY. 167

iwejudiced human nature, — to impute the cause of
the offense to some secret tenet of the fraternity,
and to involve them in the criminality of their
guilty members."

Why the words unenlightened and prejudiced?
Was not some secret tenet of the fraternity the
cause of the offense ? That tenet of the frater-
nity, secret at the time of the murder of Morgan,
is secret now no longer. For the mere intention
to reveal it, Morgan paid the penalty of his En-
tered Apprentice's oath; his book revealed it
after his death. Its revelation was authenticated
on the 4th of July, 1828, by the testimony, not of
unenlightened and prejudiced human nature, but
of tlie Le R03' convention of seceding Masons, —
men who themselves had taken these oaths, and
declared themselves subject to the penalties
which had been inflicted by Masonic hands upon
Morgan.

"It was natural that ambitious men should
keep up the excitement, and direct it against
political adversaries for their own elevation."

Perhai)S it was. You, Mr. Livingston, are
versed in the ways of ambition and ambitious
men. You know their propensity to keep up ex-
citements, and to direct them against political
adversaries for their own elevation. You must
know, you can not but know, that Masonry has

168 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

been used by ambitious men for the same pur-
poses. You must know that in many of the !N'ew
York lodges the promise to promote a brother's
political advancement was one of the recent ad-
ditions to the Masonic obligations. You may
and ought to know that wherever the spirit of
Antimasonry has arisen, one of the first discov-
eries made by it has been that wherever a lodge
or chapter has existed, at least three fourths of
all the elective oflSces in the place were held by
worthy brethren and companions of the craft,
chosen by men, multitudes of whom knew not
themselves the influence under which their votes
were cast. You know, too, that the charge of
ambitious and selfish motives is one of the most
vulgar and most hacknied imputations of all am-
bitious rivals and competitors against one another.
In condescending to use it yourself against the
A-utimasons, you certainly gave no additional
dignity to it; and as a defense of the institution
against Antimasonry, you might with advantage
to yourself have remembered your advice to your
brethren, and preferred to such a shield, the
armor of dignified silence.

" And it was quite natural that men should be
found simple enough not to see through their
views, credulous enough to believe their absurd
tales, or sufficiently unprincipled to propagate
them, knowing them to be false."

ON FREEMASONRY. 169

This again may be true. Of simple, of cred-
ulous, and of unprincipled men, there are always
numbers in every community, and they are the
natural instruments of politicians of more ambi-
tion than principle. But, in this respect, as in
many others, Antimasonry is and has been more
sinned against than sinning. Simple and credu-
lous men have, for example, been told by the
general grand high-priest of the General Royal
Arch Chapter of the United States, that the
charges against the Masonic institution of hav-
ing had some secret tenet, which was the cause
of the murder of Morgan, were black and absurd
calumnies, invented by persecution, and which
none but fools and cullies could believe, and none
but knaves would propagate. Simple and credu-
lous men may believe these assertions of the gen-
eral grand high-priest, because they are made by
him, and because his character gives them the
weight of authority. To simple and credulous
men, the highest of all evidence is the authority
of great names, and accordingly your own most
plausible answer to the Antimasonic charges
against your institution, is an appeal to the great
and good men who have belonged and still belong
to it.

But, sir, this is not sound reasoning to influence
the minds of other than simple and credulous

170 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

men. The question, permit me to say, upon the
issue which I am about to take with you is not
who — but what — not who have bound themselves
by the Masonic oaths, obligations, and penalties,
but what these oaths, obligations, and penalties
are. What is their nature ? and lohat have been
their fruits ?

I^ow, sir, I do aver that " the cause oi the
offense " — that is the murder of William Morgan
and of a multitude of other crimes indissolubly
connected with it, — was a secret tenet of the
fraternity — secret then but no longer secret now.
It consisted in the obligation and penalty of the
Entered Apprentice's oath. It was the secret tenet
of initiation to the Masonic institution.

This, sir, is the issue which I, an Antimuson,
tender to you, the general grand high-priest of
the General Royal Arch Chapter of the United
States. I call upon you, sir, in that capacity, to
sustain the charge of persecution and calumny
made by you in your address to your brethren
and companions, upon your installation, against
the whole body of Anti masons in the United
States, and to sustain the institution over which
you preside, against the charges which you pro-
nounce persecuting and calumnious.

But this, sir, is not my whole or my ultimate
purpose. I do conscientiously and sincerely

ON FKEEMASONRY. 171

believe that the order of Freemasonry, if not the
greatest, is one of the greatest moral and political
evils under which this Union is now laboring. I
farther believe that the primary and efficient cause
of all this evil is that same rite of iyiitiation; for
as all the oaths, obligations, and penalties of the
subsequent degrees are but variations, expansions,
and aggravations of that primitive vice, let that
be once abolished and all the rest must fall with
it ; knock away the underpinning, and the whole
scaffolding must come to the ground.

With this address, I have the honor of submit-
ting to you a pamphlet containiug four letters on
the Entered Apprentine's oath. You will perceive,
sir, that they arraign that act of initiation upon
five distinct charges, as contrary to the laws of
religion, to the laws of morality, to the laws of
the land.

Those letters have been now more than six
months published. Their existence has not been
noticed by any of the newspapers of the country
under Masonic influence; but they have been
very extensively circulated in pamphlets, and
numerous editions of them have been issued in
several of the states of the Union. They have
of course attracted much of that benevolence and
charity, in the construction of motive, for which
the Masonic order is so conspicuous, upon the

172 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

head of their author, but no attempt has to my
knowledge been made to answer them. They
were first published in the Commercial Advertiser
of Kew York, and addressed to its editor. Col.
"William L. Stone, known to you as a distinguish-
ed companion of your order in the degree of
a Knight Templar.

I have expected that some show of defense
against the charges in those letters would have
been made. The charges are grave, — they are
specific, — they are made under the responsibility
of my name. And now, sir, as no individual
brother or companion of the craft has been will-
ing to undertake its defense, I call upon you, as
the general grand high-priest of the order in
these United States, to undertake it. I call upon
you the more freely, because, if the charges are
true, there is a debt of justice and of reparation
due from you to all the Antimasons of the United
States. The charges are in part the same with
those which you have pronounced absurd, calum-
nious, and persecuting. If, upon examination,
you find them true, I expect from your candor an
acknowledgment of your error ; from your mag-
nanimity, a retraction of your charges against the
Antimasons.

I expect more. If, upon a fair 'examination of
these charges against the Entered Apprentice's

ON FREEMASONRY. 173

oath, obligation, and penalty, you should find your-
self unable to defend them before the tribunal of
public opinion; if you should, by the natural
rectitude and intelligence of your enlightened and
unprejudiced mind, come to the conclusion that
the first initiatory rite of Freemasonry is in its
own nature vicious, immoral, and unlawful ; that
no mental reservation can excuse it; that no ex-
planation can change its nature ; that no plea of
nullity can purify the attainder of its bloody pur-
port; then, sir, I expect that, as the general
grand high-priest of the order, you will imme-
diately advise its abolition, or at least recommend
that it should never more be administered. I ask
not merely of the grand high-priest of Masonry,
but of the profound and eloquent and humane
legislator of the criminal code for Louisiana ; I
ask of him the abolition forever of that brutal
penalty of death by torture and mutilation, for
the disclosure of senseless secrets ; or rather, now,
of secrets proclaimed from every housetop of the
land. I say to you, in the language of the Roman
orator, in the sentiment of a heart congenial
with your own : "Hanc domesticam crudelitatem
tollite ex civitate ; hanc pati nolite diutius in hac
republica versari ; quse non modo id habet in se
raali, quod civem atrocissime sustulit, verum
etiam hominibus lenissimis ademit misericordiam.

174 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

Kam cum omnibus horis aliquid atrociter fieri
videmus, aut audimus ; etiam qui natura mitissimi
sumus, assiduitate molestiarura sensum omnem
humanitatis ex animis amittimus." *

I propose to address you upoa this subject
again. There is in the pamphlet herewith in-
closed a fifth letter addressed to Benjamin Cowell,
of Rhode Island, containing my opinion in favor,
to a certain extent, of what has been called polit-
ical Antimasonry, As this principle has had, and
must continue to have, a powerful influence upon
the policy and upon the history of this Union, it
will not be unworthy of your consideration in
your other capacity of secretary of state of these
United States. I shall endeavor to prove to
your conviction that your exhortation to the
brethren and companions of your order through-
out the Union, but under your jurisdiction, not to
he tempted to the slightest interference in political
parties, has been and must be unavailing and
nugatory, that so long as you adhere to the ad-
ministration of the Entered Apprentice's oath,

* Banish from our borders, suffer no longer to prey upon our vitals
this home-bred cruelty among a people hitherto renowned for the merci-
ful treatment of their foreign foes. Its greatest evil is not this most
atrocious murder of a free citizen, but that it extinguishes the very
sentiment of compassion in the mildest hearts. For when our eyes
and ears are hourly tortured with the -sight and recital of deeds of hor-
ror, they cease even in the tenderest natures to sympathize with huma>B
calamity, and the very sense of humanity is obliterated from our souls.

ON FREEMASONRY. 175

your lodges and chapters must and will be polit-
ical caucuses, and tha,t Masonry will be the signal
for- political proscription to one party, as Antima-
sonry has been and will be to the other.
I am, very respectfully, sir.

Your fellow-citizen,

John Quincy Adams.

TO EDWARD LIVINGSTON, ESQ.

Philadelphia, 15 April, 1833.
Sir: — In a former letter I stated to you the
motives and purposes by which I was induced to
address you, as the presiding officer of the Ma-
sonic order in the United States, through the
medium of the press. They were —

1. To defend the Antimasons of the United
States from severe and unjust imputations and
charges against them, preferred by you in your
address to the brethren and companions of the
society upon your installation in your high Ma-
sonic dignity.

2. To make, distinctly, specifically, and under
the responsibility of my name, the charge against
the institution of Freemasonry, which you in that
address had pronounced a vile and absurd calum-

176 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

ny, instigated by a spirit of persecution, unjustifi-
able as arbitrary imprisonment or the tortures of
the inquisition, namely, that " the cause of the
offense," that is, of the murder of William Mor-
gan, and of a multitude of other crimes connected
with it, was a secret tenet of the Masonic frater-
nity, consisting in the Entered Apprentice's oath,
obligation, and penalty — the first rite of initiation
in the Masonic order.

3. To transmit to you four letters upon that
Entered Apprentice's oath, obligation, and penal-
ty, published by me in E'ovember last, and in-
tended to prove that this first rite of initiation to
the order of Freemasonry is, in its naked nature,
divested of mental reservation, stripped of the
authority of great names, and disarmed of the
shield of fraudulent explanation, — vicious, con-
trary to the laws of God, to the laws of humanity,
to the laws of the land.

4. To call upon you, as the head and chief of
the whole Masonic brotherhood of the United
States, to sustain your charges against the Anti-
masons, — to vindicate the purity, the humanity,
the lawfulness of the Entered Apprentice's oath,
obligation, and penalty, — or to advise and recom-
mend to the companions and brethren under your
jurisdiction, its abolition.]

This last, sir, was my principal and ultimate

ON FREEMASONRY. 177

object in addressing you, — the abolition of that
disgraceful initiatory act which continues the vital
essence of Freemasonry.

I intended and intend no disrespect to you.
Admiring your talents, concurring in many of
your political opinions, and believing that in the
discharge of your official duties in the service of
the one, confederated North American people,
you have at a critical moment of their Union, con-
tributed much to its preservation, by dashing
from their lips the deadly but Circsean cup of
nullification and secession, my confidence in your
character has been strengthened. Giving you the
credit of bold resistance to dangerous political
errors, and of intrepidity in the honorable un-
dertaking of redeeming others from the same, I
have been encouraged to hope that you will dis-
cern the pure and well-deserved honor which will
assuredly await your name in after ages, if you
shall avail yourself of that summit of Masonic
dignity which you have attained, by prevailing
upon the whole association to discard forever the
use and administration of those horrible invoca-
tions of ^he name of a merciful God, as the wit-
ness to promises of secrecy to things no longer
secret to any one, under penalties of death in
every variety of form which a fury could devise,
or a demon could consummate.
12

178 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

One of those oatlis — tliat of the Koyal Arch
Companion — it is your* special province, as the
grand high-priest of the order, to administer to
every Most Excellent Master, who, not satisfied
with this superlative excellence, still pushes for-
ward in search of more light, — it is the seventh
of that series of blasphemies, or of calls upon the
name of God in vain, by which the Masonic
aspirant purchases the floods of light wdiich pour
npon him from every successive degree. It is in
this decree that you turn that scene of awful
solemnity, the calling of Moses by God himself
in the burning bush, into a theatrical representa-
tion, and actually make your candidate take off
his shoes, declaring the place on which he stands
to be holy ground. This representation I know
is emblematic, and is explained by you to your
candidate so to be. The solemnities of admission
to the Royal Arch are deeply impressive, and
therefore the more exceptionable by their mixture

* It appears from Allyn's Ritual that it is not the high-priest, but the
principal sojourner of a Royal Arch Chapter, who administers the oath
and oblisrntion to the tenm of candidates whom he leails by their halter
to the altar. But the high-priest gravely declares to them that an old
chest which he receives, icith oreat surprise, from the principlil sojourner,
is thenrk of the cm^ennnt of God. He takes out of this chest an old book,
which upon beginning to read he finds to be " the book of the law,"
long lost, but now found, and he solemnly declares to the candidates
that '''the world is indchtnl to Mnsonry for the preservation of this sncred
volume." How edifying must this solemnity be to the ministers of the
gospel who take part in it I

ON FREEMASONRY. 179

in the same ceremonies with childish fables and
gross impostures. You commence with a fervent
prayer to God ; you open the Royal Arch Chap-
ter, and read to the three candidates for admis-
sion (for so many you must have) a great part of
the 139th psalm. You interrogate them, and bid
them travel three successive times, and on their
return you read portions of the 141st, 142d, and
143d psalms. You then order them to be con-
ducted to the altar, and there you administer to
them the Royal Arch oath. This is the oath,
which, in many of the chapters of the State of
New York, pledges the candidate to conceal the
secrets of a Royal Arch companion, communica-
ted to him as such, — murder and treason not ex-
cepted. It pledges him also to assist a brother
companion to extricate him from his difficulties,
whether he be right or wrong. In other chapters
the engagements are less onerous. They vary in
almost every chapter. In an authentic copy of
the manuscripts mentioned by Col. Stone in his
letters on Masonry and Antimasonry, one of the
promises of this degree is to support, protect, and
defend a Royal Arch Mason, even with the sword
if necessity requires. But in whatever form the
oath is administered, its promises, whether more
or less comprehensive or exceptionable, are all
made with invocation of the name of God ; and

180 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

all under no less penalty than to have the swear-
er's skull smitten off, and his brains exposed to
the scorching heat of the sun. This, sir, is the
penalty under which you require of the candidate
for the Royal Arch degree to swear that he will
keep all the secrets of the order and of its com-
panions and brethren, and that he will perform
the other obligations appertaining to that degree.
You deliberately pronounce, word by word,
causing the candidate to repeat them after you,
the words of this oath, promise, and penalty,
closing with the adjuration, So help me God, and
keep me steadfast to this my oath of a Royal Arch
Mason. And before he can be qualified to take
upon himself this obligation he must have had
six similar oaths administered to him, and have
pledged himself to them, so help him God, under
no less penalties than — ■

1. To have his throat cut across from ear to ear,
his tongue torn out by the roots and buried (liis
tongue or his body) in the rough sands of the
sea, where the tide ebbs and flows twice in
twenty-four hours;

2. To have his left breast cut open, his heart
torn out and cast away to be devoured by vultures.
[^ 3. To have his body severed in two by the
midst, his bowels burned to ashes, and scatter-
ed to the winds.

ON FREEMASONRY. 181

The three succeeding penalties are of the same
character, equally cruel and inhuman.

All these penalties William Morgan had incur-
red by writing the secrets and mysteries of the
craft for publication. If it were possible to con-
centrate upon one human being the torture of
them all, the agonies of that mortal would not be
more prolonged or more excruciating than was
the punishment inflicted upon "William Morgan,
lie was seized by Masonic ruffians at noonday,
hurried away from a dependent wife and infant
children, by a warrant upon a false charge of
larceny, taken out at thirty miles distant from his
abode — taken out upon the day hallowed to the
worship of God, — he was carried into another
county, and discharged as innocent the moment
he was brought to trial. Then forthwith arrested
again for a debt of two dollars, imprisoned for
two days, though he offered his coat in payment
of the debt ; finally discharged again in the dark-
ness of night, by an impostor under the guise of
friendship, and, immediately upon issuing from
prison, seized again, under cover of the night, by
concerted signals, between the man-stealers of
the lodge and of the chapter — gagged to stifle his
cries for aid, forced into a coach and transported,
by changes of horses and carriages prepared at
every change beforehand for his reception, one

182 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

hundred and fifty miles, there lodged in solitary
confinement within the walls of an old abandon-
ed fortress, there detained five days and nights,
under perpetual threats of instant death, subject
to uninterrupted indignity and abuse — denied the
light of heaven in his cell, denied the use of a
Bible, for which he earnestly entreated, and
finally, at dead of night, transported by four
Royal Arch companions of the avenging craft to
the wide channel of the Niagara River, and there
sunk to the bottom of that river. Nine days
were occupied in the execution of this Masonic
sentence. At least three hundred worthy brethren
and companions of the order were engaged as
principals or accessories in the guilt of this clus-
ter of crimes, — and this, Mr. Livingston, is " the
offense," the "cause" of which I aver to be the
then secret tenet of the fraternity, the oath, the
obligation, and penalty of initiation to the myster-
ies of the craft.

I attribute them all to the Entered Apprentice's
oath, because I consider that as the cause and
parent of all the oaths, obligations, and penalties
of all the subsequent degrees. My ultimate ob-
ject in these addresses being to obtain, through
your influence and recommendation, the voluntary
relinquishment by the fraternity, in this Union,
of these oaths and penalties, I have been desirous

ON FREEMASONRY. 183

of narrowing down the controversy to its simplest
point. 1 ask of you, and through you I petition
of the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the
United States to abolish the Royal Arch oath and
penalty ; to require of all the chapters under your
jurisdiction to cease from administering that and
all other oaths tainted with the penalty of death,
forever ; and this I trust and believe will induce
the lodges to follow the example of the chapters,
and abolish their oaths and penalties too, forever.
And when I charge the Entered Apprentice's
oath as the cause of the offense, — that is of the
kidnapping and murder of William Morgan, — I
only meet and repel your charge against the Anti-
masons, as persecutors and calumniators of your
fraternity, because they impute that oft'ense to
that cause. But this is not all the offense of
which I impeach the Masonic penalties as the
cause. The abduction and murder of Morgan are
but two of a multitude of crimes connected with
that series of transactions of which they formed
a part, all of wliich I impute to the same cause.
There were crimes committed against Morgan
before his abduction and murder — crimes of equal
atrocity committed against his associate. Miller, —
crimes committed after the murder of Morgan, to
shield, and screen, and protect, and aid, and abet
its perpetrators, — crimes committed by Masonic

184 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

sheriffs in returning juries, — crimes committed
by Masonic witnesses, some in standing obstinate-
ly mute, and others in refusing to give the testi-
mony required of them by the laws of the land, —
crimes committed by Masonic jurors in returning
false, or in refusing to return true verdicts. All
these I charge to the same cause ; and not the
least among them is a false and calumnious im-
putation upon the character and good name of
your own immediate predecessor, in the office of
general grand high-priest of the Grand Royal
Arch Chapter of the United States, and then gov-
ernor of the State of New York — an imputation
which embittered the last days of his life. It
must bo known to you that one of the principal
conspirators against Morgan gave out among his
associates, to stinmlate their faltering courage to
the deed of horror, that he had a letter from the
general grand high-priest declaring the Morgan
manuscripts must be suppressed, even at the cost
of blood; that such a letter, purporting to be
from Governor Chnton, was exhibited, and that
he, the governor of the State of 'New York, emi-
nent and distinguished as he had long been, was
reduced to the humiliating necessity of directing
that an action of slander should be commenced to
vindicate his character before a judicial tribunal,
where Masonic witnesses have since been sen-

ON FREEMASONRY, 185

tenced to imprisonment for refusing to testify to
the truth. To refute this calumny upon Governor
Clinton was one of the honorable motives of
Colonel Stone for the publication of his letters
upon Masonry and Antimasonry. He has, in my
judgment, done it effectually; but he has admit-
ted and shown that it was a calumny strictly Ma-
sonic,— a natural and congenial deduction from
the same oaths, obligations, and penalties which
sunk Morgan in the waters of the Niagara.

In the address to your companions and brethren
at your installation, which has been the occasion
of these letters to you, it was said that it would
be not more unjust and absurd to impute to the
Christian religion all the crimes which have been
committed in its name, than it is to charge the
institution of Freemasonry with the outrages of a
few misguided and infatuated members of the
craft. This argument is familiar to all the
defenders of Freemasonry, and has an appearance
of plausibility; but it is fallacious. All the crimes
committed in the name and under color of the
Christian religion, have been perpetrated under
false or erroneous constructions of its precepts.
There is nothing in the Christian religion to war-
rant them. But whenever and wherever those
false and erroneous constructions have been de-
tected and exposed they have been exploded.

186 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

This is precisely the object of the Antimasons at
this time, with regard to the errors and vices of
the Masonic institution. They are to the order of
Freemasonry what the Protestant reformers were
to the Christian religion. Perhaps an analogy
^ still more accurate may present itself to your
mind between the letters of Blaise Pascal upon
the morals of the order of Jesuits and those
which I have now the honor of addressing to
you upon the morals of Masonry. The tenets
which in the name of the Christian religion have
drenched the world in blood, were spurious; they
formed no part of the religion itself. The tenets
of the order of Jesuits, detected and exposed by
Pascal, were not universally held by the mem-
bers of that institution; they formed no part of
the constitution of the society, and were disclaim-
ed by its brightest ornaments. The order of
Jesuits was a religious community. The whole
system of their establishment was founded upon
the precepts of Christ. They read the Bible as
assiduously, and with devotion as profound and
sincere, as animates the grand high-priest of the
Royal Arch, upon the admission of a triad of can-
didates to that Masonic degree. And yet the
order of Jesuits has been abolished by the head
of the Catholic Church himself for holding tenets
and adopting practices inconsistent with good
morals.

ON FREEMASONRY. 187

But the vices of the Masonic institution are not
false and erroneous constructions of precepts ill
understood and susceptible of difierent meanings.
They are vices inherent in the institution itself,
and not corruptions foisted upon it. Cruel and
barbarous as was the penalty inflicted upon Mor-
gan, it was no more than he had at least seven
times sworn to endure for violation of his Masonic
oaths. His murderers, those of them who sur-
vive, are still worthy brethren and companious of
the craft. Kot one of them has ever been ex-
pelled from lodge, chapter, or encampment. They
have been, on the contrary, cheered with the
sympathies and relieved from the funds of the
grand lodge and grand chapters of Xew York.
You perceive, then, that whatever analogy there
may be between the crimes committed by the cor-
ruptions of the Christian religion, and those re-
sulting from Masonry, the inferences to be drawn
from it all speak trumpet-tongued for the aboli-
tion of the Masonic oaths and penalties.

In concluding this letter I am bound to make
my acknowledgments for a poetical parody of its
predecessor, which I have seen in the newspaper
called the Globe, and by which I see that you are
disposed to treat the subject with pleasantry.
Well, sir, so be it. The Globe is generally con-
sidered as your political organ. In that country,

188 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

which it is said you are about to visit, you may,
perhaps, at your hours of leisure and recreation,
occasionally frequent the first dramatic theater in
the world, and there be entertained with exhibi-
tions, not of Moses in the burning bush, but of
some of the masterpieces of the human mind in
the form of comedies of Moliere. You may
chaEce to see, among the rest, a personage upon
the stage speaking to his servant and about to
give him an order, when the servant interrupts
him by the inquiry whether he is speaking to his
coachman or to his cook. A similar question oc-
curs to me with regard to your poet laureate. Is
it one of your charioteers of the department of
state, or a scullion of the kitchen ? In either
event, I commend this epistle to the inspiration
of his muse; — and as for you, sir, when the time
for seriousness shall return, and you shall incline
to justify yourself from the charge of unjust ac-
cusation against multitudes of your fellow-citi-
zens, or to vindicate from still more serious
charges he oaths, obligations, and penalties which
it is among your official Masonic functions to ad-
minister,— when you shall return to the grave
and solemn and religious character of the general
grand high-priest, I shall hope to hear from you,
in verse or prose, in the Globe or the Intelligencer ^

ON FREEMASONRY. 189

at your option, but in your own person, and with
the signature of your name.
I am, in the meantime,

Very respectfully, your fellow-citizen,
John Quincy Adams.

TO EDWARD LIVINGSTON, ESQ.

Quincy, i May, 1833.
Sir: — The Entered Apprentice's oath, obligation,
and penalty, upon which I took to animadvert,
in the four letters to Col. William L. Stone, a copy
of which was transmitted to you, with the first of
these letters to yourself, was in the terms of that
obligation as furnished by the ofiicers of the grand
lodge of Rhode Island themselves, to the commit-
tee of the legislature of that state, appointed to
investigate the charges against the institution
which had been made since the murder of Morgan,
and which they and you pronounce calumnious.
The obliarations themselves had never been authen-
ticated by the authority of adhering Masons, until
they were produced by the ofiicers of the grand
lodge and grand chapter, at the peremptory requi-
sition of the legislative committee. They were
generally considered by Masons as constituting
essential parts of the mysteries of the craft, and

190 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

included strictly within the promise never to write,
print, cut, carve, paint, stain or engrave them. In
the practice of the chapters and lodges, the oaths
are all administered by rote, and pass by tradition
alone. This is of course the cause ot the differen-
ces in the phraseology of the oaths as administered
by different persons. It is one of the great inher-
ent vices of the institution. It affords constant
opportunity and frequent temptation to every
chapter and lodge to make additions to the prom-
ises pledged by the recipient of each degree.

The manuscript obligations furnished by the
grand chapter and grand lodge of Rhode Island
were drawn up and reduced to writing for the oc-
casion. The grand lodge had previously pub-
lished a defense of Masonry, stoutly denying that
there was anything in the Masonic obligations
contrary to religion, morals, or the laws of the
land ; but carefully abstaining from any statement
of what they were. They had used that notable
device of explaining the penalty of death /or re-
vealing the secrets of the craft, or of any of its
members, as meaning only a promise to suffer
death rather than reveal them. They had ex-
pounded and explained and denied the several
parts and parcels of the Masonic obligations, till
they had made them all as innocent as their lamb-
skin aprons. They had especially denied, with

ON FREEMASONRY. 191

abundance of indignation, that they had ever ad-
ministered or taken the oath to conceal the secrets
of a brother Mason — "murder and treason not
excepted." These words, or others equivalent to
them, are stated, in Elder Bernard's Light on Ma-
sonry, and in Avery Allyn's Ritual, to form a part
of the Royal Arch obligation. They are certified
as such by the convention of seceding Masons,
held at Le Roy, on the fourth of July, 1828, twenty
three of whom had taken this oath; and they
have since been attested by adhering Masons, upon
trials before judicial tribunals in the State of ISTew
York. They are not in the Royal Arch obliga-
tion reported by the grand chapter of Rhode Is-
land; but in the Master Mason's obligation, re-
ported by the grand lodge. Among th-e promises
of admission to that degree are the following
words, — " That I will keep a brother's secrets as
my own, when committed to me in charge as such,
murder and treason excepted." This, of course,
is a pledge of immunity, for all other crimes, but
it does except murder and treason. So said
the grand lodge of Rhode Island. Yet even in
that state, Nathan Whiting, an attorney and
counsellor at law, who had taken the degree in
the lodge at East Greenwich, and had been master
of that lodge, testified that in the Master's de-
gree, after "murder and treason excepted," the

192 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

usual form was to add "<xnc? that at my option" —
and what the difference is between that, and
"murder and treason not excepted," I leave as a
problem in morals for Masonic casuists to solve.

In the seventh of Col. Stone's Letters upon Ma-
sonry, page QQ, referring to the disagreement in
the phraseology of the obligations, as given in
different places, he makes mention of a manuscript
then in his possession, containing copies of the
obligations of the several degrees, as they were
given twenty years before in the lodge and chapter
of an eastern city— copied from the manuscript of
a distinguished gentleman who had been master of
the lodge and high-priest of the chapter. The
forms, says Col. Stone, are the same that were
used in that city for a long series of years; and
when Royal Arch Masonry was introduced into
RochesteVj in the State of New York, these formSy
from these identical papers, were then and there intro-
duced and adopted.

There is at this passage a reference to a note in
the appendix, stating it to have been the original
intention of Col. Stone to insert all the obligations
contained in that manuscript, in his text; but that
he was compelled to suppress them from the un-
foreseen extent of his work. He observes that
neither of the obligations in the first three de-
grees, in those manuscripts, is more than half us

ON FREEMASONRY. 193

long as those disclosed by Morgan, and in common
use. He further adds that these manuscripts give
a more sensible and intelligible, and a less excep-
tionable account of the seven degrees of Masonry,
than any other work he had seen; and he con-
cludes by observing that when Morgan was at Roch-
ester ^ these pa'pers ivere there, and already written to
his hands.

It is to be regretted that Col. Stone did not
adhere to his first intention of publishing these
obligations, or rather that he did not insert the
whole manuscript in his appendix. I have ob-
tained it from him, and annex hereto the three
obligations as there recorded, of the Entered Ap-
prentice, [the Fellowcraffc, and the Master Mason.
It will be found upon examination, that although
truly represented by him as perhaps not more
than half so long as the same obligations in Mor-
gan's and Bernard's books, they lose nothing of
pith and moment by the retrenchment of words.
They were the forms used at Rochester, and no
other Masonic institution in the state was more
deeply implicated in the tragedy of Morgan's kid-
napping and murder, than that same chapter at
Rochester. Now, in the Entered Apprentice's
oath of this manuscript, the promise is expressly
and explicitly to keep and conceal the secrets of
Masons as well as Masonry. The penalty is the

13

194 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

same as that reported by the grand lodge of Khode
Island, but in the lecture to the candidate on his
admission there is in the manuscript an explana-
tion of the meaning of the penalty, which not
only utterly falsifies the explanation of the Rhode
Island Masons, so strangely accepted and coun-
tenanced by the majority report of the legislative
investigating committee, but proves that the mur-
derers of Morgan understood but too well the real
character of the obligation.

In this Entered Apprentice's lecture, the candi-
date, after going through the forms of admission,
is examined by the master, upon interrogatories
witli regard to the meaning of all the ceremonies
through which he has passed. Upon giving the
account of his admission at the door, the follow-
ing, word for word, are the questions put to him
by the Master, and his answers:

Q. "What did you next hear?"

A. "One from within, saying with an audible
voice, Let him enter."

Q. "How did you enter?"

A. " Upon the point of a sword, spear, or other
warlike instrument, presented to my naked left
breast, accompanied with this expression, Do you
feel?"

Q. " llTour answer?''

A. «Ido."

ON FREEMASONRY. 195

Q. "What was next said?"

A. "Let this be a prick to your conscience, a
shield to your faith, and instant death in case you
revolt.''

Yes, sir, this is the explanation given to the
Entered Apprentice, at the time of his admission
to the degrees, of the penalty under which he
binds himself by his oath-s-this was the formula
used in Connecticut more than twenty -five years
since, and thence introduced into Rochester, in
the State of lN"ew York. Who shall say that the
murderers of Morgan misunderstood the import
of the Entered Apprentice's obligation ?

And in this same manuscript of the forms of
admission used at Rochester, the following, word
for word, are clauses of the Master Mason's obli-
gation :

" I furthermore promise and swear, that I will
attend a brother barefoot, if necessity requires, to
warn him of approaching danger; that on my
knees I will remember him in my prayers; that I
will take him by the right hand and support him
with the left, in all his just and lawful undertak-
ings ; that I will keep his secrets as safely depos-
ited in my breast, as they are in his own, treason
and murder only excepted, and those at my option;
that I will obey all true signs, tokens, and sum-
monses, sent me by the hand of a Master Mason^

196 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

or from the door of a just and regular Master

Mason's lodge, if within the length of my cable-
tow."

This was the form of admission to the Master
Mason's degree, at Rochester, when the chapter at
Rochester decided that Morgan had incurred the
penalties of his obligations, and sent out their
signs, tokens, and summonses accordingly.

These were the oaths which every Master Mason
admitted at the lodge in Rochester, had taken.
All this he had "most solemnly and sincerely
promised and sworn with a full and hearty resolu-
tion to perform the same without any evasion,
equivocation or mental reservation — under no less
penalty than to have his body cut across, his bow-
els taken out and burnt to ashes, and those ashes
scattered to the four winds of heaven ; to have his
body dissected into four equal parts, and those
parts hung on the cardinal points of the compass,
there to hang and remain as a terror to all those
who shall presume to violate the sacred obligation
of a Master Mason."

Col. Stone, in his seventh letter, page 67, says,
that in his apprehension the words, ^^ and they left
to my own election,' are an innovation, and that he
has not been accustomed to hear the obligation so
conferred. The words in his own manuscript are
"and those at my option;" fewer words, but bear-

ON FREEMASONRY. 197

ing the same meaning. They were no innovation
at Eoehester.

The only words in this obligation which need
any explanation, are the words cable-tow, and they
are always so explained as to give them a definite
meaning. The rest are all as explicit as language
can make them, and they are taken with a broad
and total disclaimer of all evasion, equivocation or
mental reservation. So they were taken at Roch-
ester, and so they are recorded in the old manu-
script of Col. Stone.

You are a classical scholar, sir, and you doubt-
less remember the humorous remark of Cicero, in
his dialogue on the nature of the gods; that he
could not conceive how one Roman Haruspex
could look another in the face without laughing.
I find it difficult to conceive how you, performing
the functions of a master of a lodge, as among
the duties of a grand high-priest you may be re-
quired to do — how can you look in the face of a
man after administering to him such an oath as
this, without shuddering. But we have not yet
done with the old manuscript of Col. Stone.

After th^ ceremonies of admission to the de-
gree of Master Mason are completed, and the re-
cipient has been invested in his new dignity, he is
conducted to the master of the lodge in the east,
there to hear from him the history of the degree.

198 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

There, sir, with equal regard for historical truti
and reverence for the Holy Scriptures, you mingle
up the building of Solomon's Temple, as recorded
in the Bible, with the murder of Hiram Abiff by
three Tyrian Fellowcraft, Jubela, Jubplo, and Jub-
elum, as preserved in the chronicles of Masonic
mystery. You relate them all as solemn truth of
equal authenticity, and in the manuscript now be-
fore me, the story goes that after the murder of
Hiram Abiff was consummated, King Solomon
was informed of the conspiracy, and ord ered the
roll to be called, when the three ruffians were
missing. Search " was made after them, and they
were found by their dolorous moans, in a cave.
Oh, said Jubela, that my throat had been cut
across, &c. [repeating the whole penalty of the
Entered Apprentice's obligation] before I had
been accessory to the death of so good a master.
Oh, said Jubelo, that my heart had been torn out,
&c. [repeating the whole penalty of the Fellow-
craft's obligation] before I had been accessory to
the death of our master. Oh, said Jubelum, that
my body were cut across, my bowels taken out
and burnt to ashes, &c. [repeating the whole pen-
alty [of the Master Mason's obligation] before I
had been the death of our master Hiram Abiff.
They were then taken, and sent to Hiram, king
of Tyre, who executed on them the several sen-

ON FREEMASONRY. 199

tences they had invoked upon themselves," which
have ever since remained " the standing penalties in
the three first degrees in Masojiry."

This, sir, is the history of the Master Mason's
degree, which was delivered by the master of the
lodge at Rochester to every individual received as
a Master Mason. This was the explanation given
to him of the obligation assumed by him, imme-
diately after the administration of the oath. This
is in substance the explanation which you, the re-
porter of a criminal code to the legislature of
Louisiana must give to every Master Mason whom
you receive, of the penalty of the oath which you
administer to him in the name of the ever-living
God — without evasion — without equivocation —
without mental reservation.

And will you say, sir, as the grand lodge of
Rhode Island have said, that these penalties mean
no more than that the swearer, who invokes them
upon himself, will rather die like Hiram Abiff,
than reveal the secrets of Masonry? Is it Hiram
AbifF in this story who pays the penalty of violat-
ed vows? Is it Hiram Abiff who invokes these
penalties upon himself? The Entered Appren-
tice, the Fellowcraft, and the Master Mason, in-
voke upon themselves the penalties of their re-
spective degrees. The Entered Apprentice is told
that he enters the lodge on the point of a naked

200 • LETTERS AND OPINIONS

sword pricking his breast, to remind .bim of i7i-
stant death in case of revolt; and the Master Mason
is told that the penalties executed upon Jubela,
Jubelo, and Jubelum, have ever since remained
the standing penalties in the three first degrees of
Masonry.

And now, sir, what are we to think of high-
priests, and Royal Arch chapters, and grand mas-
ters, and grand lodges, who after taking and ad-
ministering in secret these oaths, with these penal-
ties, for a long series of years, when their real
character has been proclaimed by the voice of
midnight murder from the waters of Kiagara in
tones to which the thunders of her cataract are
but as a whisper — when their unequivocal import
has been divulged, to the amazement and disgust
and horror of all pure, unsophisticated minds;
what are we 'to think of high-priests, and grand
kings, and most iUustrious Knights of the Cross,
who face it out in defiance of the common sense
and common feeling of mankind, that there is
nothing in these oaths and penalties inconsistent
with the duties of those who take and administer
them, to their country or their God? The manu-
script from which I now give to the world the
three obligations of the Entered Apprentice, of
the Fellowcraft, and of the Master Mason, is
upon the testimony of Col. Stone, a Knight Tern-

ON FREEMASONRY. 201

plar and a man of unimpeaclied integrity, masonry
in its most mitigated and least exceptionable form, —
it was the masonry of Connecticut more than
twenty-five years since and for many years before
— it was the masonry of Rochester at the time of
the murder of Morgan.

I have yet more to say to you, sir, on this sub-
ject, nor shall I be discouraged from continuing
to address you upon it by your observance of a
" dignified silence." If my letters are not read by
you, there are those by whom they will be read, I
trust, not without effect. If the presses under
your jurisdiction. Masonic or political, refuse their
columns to the discussion of Masonic morals,
when the grand high-priest of Masonry is the
secretary of state of the Union, it may serve to
illustrate the subserviency of the periodical press
to Masonry — but your address to your companions
and brethren at your installation as the grand
high-priest of the Royal Arch of this Union, is
not the perishable effusion of a day. It is a state
paper for history, and for biography — for the
present age and for the next — it shall not be lost
to posterity — it shall stand as a beacon to future
time — the admiration, or at least the wonder of
other generations.

John Quincy Adams.

202 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

TO EDWARD LIVINGSTON, ESQ.

QuiNCY, 23 May, 1833.

Sir: — The position which I have undertaken to
prove, beyond all possibility of rational denial, is,
that the "cause of the offense," that is, of the
murder of William Morgan, and of a multitude
of other crimes associated with and subsequent to
that act, was the oath of initiation to the Masonic
institution, with its appended penalty.

Had Morgan ever taken any other oath than
that of the Entered Apprentice, he would, after
writing his Illustrations of Masonry, have been li-
able to the penalty which he suffered — even before
they should be published. Like Jubela, Jubelo,
and Jubelum, he had invoked the penalty upon
himself; he suffered nothing more than the pen-
alty which he had been assured had been executed
upon them; nothing more than what he had been
warned had been the standing penalties of Free-
masonry from the time of the building of Solo-
mon's Temple.

All the obligations are assumed, with invocation
of the penalty of death, upon him who takes the
oath of admission to each of the several degrees ;
pronounced with his own lips, and with a solemn

ON FREEMASONRY. 203

appeal to God, disclaimiag all evasion, all equivo-
cation, all mental reservation.

Such is the law of Masonry.

Shall I cite to you, sir, from your able and elo-
quent report to the legislature of Louisiana, the
prowerful argument against the iufliction of death
upon any criminal for the commission of any
crime whatsoever? The whole argument is well
worthy to be read aud studied, by every person
conversant with the administration or enactment
of criminal law, and of the deep consideration,
especially of the brethren aud companions of the
craft. But the introduction to it is so peculiarly
appropriate to the purpose of these addresses to
you, that I take the liberty of presenting it to you
in your own words.

"I approached the inquiry into the nature and
effect of this punishment (of death) with the awe
becoming a man who felt most deeply his liability
to err, and the necessity of forming a correct opin-
ion on a point so interesting to the justice oK the
country, the life of its citizens, and the character
of its laws. I strove to clear my understanding
from all prejudices which education or early im-
pressions might have created, and to produce a
frame of mind fitted for the investigation of truth
and the impartial examination of the arguments
on this great question. For this purpose I not

204 LETTERS 'and OPINIONS

only consulted such writers on the subject as were
within my reach, but endeavored to procure a
knowledge of the practical effect of this punish-
ment on different crimes in the several countries
where it is inflicted. In my situation, however,
I could draw but a limited advantage from either
of these sources ; very few books on penal law,
even those most commonly referred to, are to be
found in the scanty collections of this place, and
my failure in procuring information from the
other states, is more to be regretted on this than
any other topic on which it was requested. With
these inadequate means, but after the best use
that my faculties would enable me to make of
them ; after long reflection, and not until. I had
canvassed every argument that could suggest
itself to my mind, I came to the conclusion that

THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH SHOULD FIND NO PLACE
IN THE CODE WHICH YOU HAVE 'DIRECTED ME TO
PRESENT."

ifow, sir, I ask of you, as the grand high-priest
of the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the
United States, to make to the chapters and lodges,
to the companions and brethren under your juris-
diction, that some recommendation to abolish the
penalty of death, which with such deep and affect-
ing solemnity you did make, in reporting a code
of criminal law to the legislature of Louisiana,

ON FREEMASONRY. 205

The argumeut of which I have here given only
the introductory paragraph embraces a very large
portion, nearly one half, of your report on the
criminal code. In the system reported with it,
murder, and joining an insurrection of slaves, are
made punishable with hard labor for life. At the
close of this letter I annex several other extracts,*
as well from the report as from the preamble to
the penal code reported with it, indicative not
only of your deliberate and solemn opinions, ad-
verse to the punishment of death in all cases
whatsoever, but of the abhorrence which you
must feel at heart, for those brutal mutilations of
the body which constitute the penalties of f.vcry
Masonic obligation.

It is not, Mr. Livingston, for the poor purpose
of bringing against you a charge of inconsistency
before the tribunal of public opinion, that I ad-
dress these letters to you, and call earnestly upon
you to make this recommendation. I would, if
possible, speak to your heart. I would say, you
have recommended, you have urged by appeals to
the best feelings of our nature, to the supreme
legislative authority of your state, the total aboli-
tion of the penalty of death, — the reformation of
everything cruel, indecorous, or vindictive in her
code of criminal law. You are at the head in

* These extracts are here omitted.

206 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

these United States of a private association of
immense power, — co-extensive with the civilized
world,— knit together by ties of strong prevail-
ment even when secret, scarcely less efficacious
when divulged. When secret, they were riveted
by pledges to the penalty of death and mutilation
in a multitude of forms, given in the name of
God, and varnished with an imposture of sanctity
by being mingled up with the most solemn testi-
monials of Holy Writ. Even now, when your
secrets are divulged, when your obligations and
penalties have been exposed in their naked and
undeniable nature, when yoU; dare not attempt
to vindicate or defend them, when the attempts
of your brethren to explain them have been
proved fraudulent and delusive, when your only
resource of apology for using them is that they
are null and void^words utterly without mean-
ing, yet you still persevere in adhering to them as
the ancient landmarks of the order. Ask your-
self, sir, not whether this is consistent with your
report and criminal code of Louisiana, but wheth-
er it is worthy of your character — of your stand
in the face of your country and of mankind ; of
your reputation in after time ; and if it is not and
can not be, why should you not take the occasion
of the high dignity which in this association you
have attained, to propose and to promote its ref*

ON FREEMASONRY. 207

ormation ? to divest it of that which, so long as
it continues, can never cease to shed disgrace upon
the whole order; of that which can not even be
repeated without shame ?

You have taken no public notice of these letters
in your own name, nor have I been particularly
solicitous that you should. Bad you ventured to
assume the defense of the Masonic oaths, obliga-
tions, and penalties — had you presumed to commit
your name to the assertion that they can by any
possibility be reconciled to the laws of morality,
of Christianity, or of the land, I should have
deemed it my duty to reply, and to have complet-
ed the demonstration before God and man that
they can not. Of the multitude of defenses of Ma-
sonry, which have been obtruded upon the public
since this controversy arose, not one has dared to
look these obligations in the face, and assert their
innocence. Abuse upon the Antimasons for de-
nouncing them — impudent denials of their im-
port, so long as a remnant of the ragged veil of
secrecy rent by the seceders, could yet be drawn
over their nakedness — false and fraudulent expla-
nations of their meaning when disclosed beyond
all possibility of denial, and mystical and mysti-
fied declarations of inflexible adherence to them
under the name of the ancient landmarks of the
institution — these have been the last resources,
the forlorn hopes of the Masonic obligations.

208 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

And this inflexible adherence to these ancient
landmarks is again recommended to the chapters
and lodges under your jurisdiction by the General
Royal Arch Chapter of the United States, of
which you are the high-priest, at their triennial
meeting in Baltimore last i^ovember. At that
meeting you were re-elected to the dignity which
you had held from the time of your address to the
companions and brethren of the order at your in-
stallation in April, 1830. A letter from you was
read at that meeting, apologizing for your ab-
sence from it, and perhaps for the better accom-
modation of the grand high-priest, that meeting
was adjourned to be held again in ITovember,
1835, at the city of Washington.

There is a point of view in which I believe this
subject to be deeply interesting to the people of
this Union, upon which I have hitherto said noth-
ing, and upon which I do not wish to enlarge.
The president of the United States is a brother of
the craft, bound by its oaths, obligations, and pen-
alties, to the exclusive favors, be they more or
less, of which they give the mutual pledge. That
in the troubles and difliculties which within the
last seven years have befallen the craft, they have
availed themselves of his name, and authority,
and influence to sustain their drooping fortunes,
as far as has been in their power, has been a matter

ON FREEMASONRY. 209

of public notoriety. A sense of propriety has re-
strained him from joining in their processions, as he
has been importunately urged by invitations to do,
but he has not withheld from them his support.
It is not my intention to comment upon the ope-
ration of the Masonic obligations, upon the two
most recent elections to the presidency of the
United States, or upon the official conduct of the
president himself in relation to the institution or
its members. But whoever will impartially re-
flect upon the import of the Masonic obligations,
and upon the public history of the United States
for the last ten years, must come to the conclusion
that no president of the United States ought ever
to be shackled by such obligations, or under the
self-assumed burden of such penalties. They es-
tablish between him and all the members of the
institution, and between him and the institution
itself, relations not only different from but utterly
incompatible with those in which his station pla-
ces him with the whole community. That the
president of the United States is not at this mo-
ment an impartial person in the question between
Masonry and Antimasonry, nor between Masons
and Antimasons, has been fully authenticated, by
something more than the effusions of your scul-
lions in the Globe. He is not impartial. How
can he be impartial after trammeling himself with
u

210 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

promises, such as those which are now unequivo-
cally authenticated before the world ?

And you, Mr. Livingston, secretary of state of
the United States, are at the same time grand
high-priest of the General Grand Royal Arch
Chapter of the United States; and all the Royal
Arch chapters of all the states of this Union are
under the jurisdiction of that over which you pre-
side. Are you impartial in the question between
Masonry and Antimasonry ? Are you, or can you
be impartial in any question which can arise
between Masons and Antimasons? You com-
menced your official duties as grand high-priest,
by a sweeping denunciation of all the Antimasons
in the Union. The Antimasons were then a great
political party. They are so still. You brought
against them what I have proved to be a most
unjust accusation. Are you impartial between
them and their adversaries? Has human nature
changed its properties since one of them was by
a profound observer said to be, to hate those whom
jou have injured, "odisse quem Iseseris?" How
far distant from such a denunciation of Antima-
sonry as that with which you gratified your com-
panions and brethren at your installation, is the
dismission for Antimasonry of an officer of the
United States, dependent on you for his place?
Is it as far as the department of state from the

ON FREEMASONRY. 211

general post-ofl5.ce? In all the trials before the
judicial Qourts of the State of New York, to
which the abduction and niurder of Morgan has
given rise, the efficacy of the Masonic obligations
upon sheriffs, jurors, and witnesses to warp them
from their duty to their country has been lament-
ably proved — what security can the country pos-
sess that they will not operate in the same man-
ner upon a secretary of state, or a president of the
United States? Were the Masonic oblisrations
equivocal in their character, were they even sus-
ceptible of the explanations which have been at-
tempted to be given of them, the undeniable fact,
that they have been understood and acted upon
according to their literal import, by great multi-
tudes of Masons, to the total prostration of their
duties to the laws of their country, would be a
conclusive reason for abolishing them altogether.
For if the obligations are of a nature to be differ-
ently understood by different persons, their con-
sistency or inconsistency with the laws of the
land must depend upon the individual characters
of those who have assumed them. Bound by the
same oathsj some of the witnesses and jurors on
the Masonic trials in New York have given their
testimony and true verdicts, while others have
obstinately refused their testimony to facts within
their knowledge, and denied their assent to ver-

212 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

diets upon the clearest proof. It has been judi-
cially decided in the states of New York and of
Rhode Island that a person under Masonic obli-
gations must be set aside as disqualified to serve
upon a jury in cases where one of the parties is a
Mason, and the other is not. From the letter of
his obligations he can not be impartial, and al-
though some Masons may understand them other-
wise, neither the court, nor the party whose rights
and interests are staked upon the trial, can have
any assurance that the trial will be fair. The
same uncertainty must rest upon the administra-
tion of executive officers. If the president of the
United States and the secretary of state are
bound by solemn oaths and under horrible penal-
ties to befriend and favor one class of individuals
in the community more than another, the pur-
poses for which those offices are instituted must
be frustrated ; a privileged order is palmed upon
the community, more corrupting, more pernicious
than the titles of nobility which our constitutions
expressly prohibit, because its privileges are dis-
pensed and enjoined under an avowed pledge of
inviolable secrecy. In many of the 'New York
chapters, the promise to promote the political pre-
ferment of a brother of the craft, over others
equally qualified, was one of the Royal Arch obli-
gations to which the companion was sworn upon

ON FREEMASONRY. 213

the penalty of death. How far such an obliga-
tion would influence the official conduct of a
president of the United States, it is impossible to
say ; but not more impossible than for that officer
to fulfill the obligations of such a promise and to
perform his duties with impartiality.

At the time when you delivered the address
upon your installation as grand high-priest of the
general grand chapter, Antimasonry had already
existed upwards of three years. It was an exten-
sive political party, although then in a great meas-
ure confined within the limits of the State of Xew
Fork. You denounced it in no measured terms.
Had the charges which you openly brought against
it been true, every individual within the scope of
your denunciation must have been an unworthy
citizen and a dishonest man. Such has been the
tone of all the defenses and defenders of Masonry,
from that day to this. If the Masonic obliga-
tions were understood in all ordinary times not to
interfere with the religion or the politics of indi-
viduals, how can it be possible to preserve this
nominal exception when Masonry itself has be-
come the most prominent object of political dis-
sension? As a political party, the Antimasons of
the United States are, at this day, probably more
numerous than the Masons, In several of the
states, the most important elections turn upon

214 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

that point alone. The Antimasons openly avow
the principle of voting for no other than Anti-
masonic candidates. How is it possible for the
Masons to preserve themselves from the political
bias, prompting them to repel Antimasonry?
They have in fact no such equanimity. They
never fail to bring forward a candidate of their
own when possible; and when they find it
impracticable, they unite with any party,
whatever may be their aversion to it, and how-
ever obnoxious its politics, to exclude the Anti-
mason.

In your letter to the General Grand Royal Arch
Chapter of the United States, of the 26th of !N"o-
vember, 1 832, apologizing to them for not attend-
ing at their meeting, then about to be held at Bal-
timore, you said thus : " You know (notwith-
standing the allegations of our enemies) that the
duties we owe to our country are paramount to
the obligations of Masonry, or to the indulgence
of fraternal feelings." Now, sir, my appeal is to
the very principle here asserted by yourself. I
aver that your duty to your country is violated by
the administration of the Masonic oaths and obli-
gations under penalties of death, invoked in the
name of God — penalties multiplied beyond those
of the most sanguinary code that ever disgraced
human legislation, and for offenses which the su-

ON FREEMASONRY. 215

preme law of the state can not recognize as the
most trifling of misdemeanors.

At that triennial meeting of the General Grand
Royal Arch Chapter of the United States, a com-
mittee was appointed "to take into consideration
the present situation of our [the Masonic] institu-
tion, and recommend such things and measures as
they in their wisdom may consider expedient and
necessary."

The report of that committee, and the resolu-
tions proposed by them, and adopted by the
General Grand Chapter of the United States,
were the immediate occasion of these letters to
you. This circumstance may account, in part, for
what appears to have surprised some of your
friends — that I sliould now hold you accountable
for an address delivered so long since as April,
1830. That was }0ur declaration of war against
the Antimusons. In November, 1832, you still
proclaimed them to be your enemies, and the Gen-
eral Grand Royal Arch Chapter, in full triennial
meeting, repeated with renewed a'ld aggravated
denunciations, all your erroneous charges against
thcni. Upon that report, and upon the resolu-
tions with which it closed, I shall in my next let-
ter submit to the consideration of the public some
observations.

John Quincy Adams.

216 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

TO EDWARD LIVINGSTON, ESQ.

QuiNCY, 12 June, 1833.

Sir: — From the official published report of the
proceedings of the General Grand Royal Arch
Chapter of the United States, at their triennial
meeting at Baltimore, last November, it appears
that a communication was made to that meeting
from the M. E., ifathan K Haswell, G. H. P.
(meaning grand high-priest) of the grand chapter
of Vermont, together with accompanying docu-
ments, and that this communication and the
ac .ompanying documents were referred to a com-
mittee which is denominated one of the most
important committees then appointed, and they
were instructed to take into consideration the
present situation of the Masonic institution, and
to recommend such things and measures as they
in their wisdom might consider expedient and
necessary.

The first remark that invites attention here, is,
that this meeting was composed of individuals all
belonging to different states of this Union, some
of them occupying stations of power and dignity
in their several states. The chairman of the com-
mittee to whom this communication was referred,

ON FREEMASONRY. 217

and who made the report upon which I am to
comment, is a member of the executive council
of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, elected
from a county exceedingly divided upon the ques-
tions between Masonry and Antimasonry — elected
at the same time another was excluded from the
same office, who, though an ardent National Re-
publican and a sufferer by proscription from office
by the present national administration, was dis-
carded for a slight, real or suspected, taint of
Antimasonry.

Here, then, is a member of the council of the
State of Massachusetts, elected expressly in oppo-
sition to the Antimasonic party of the county of
Bristol in that state, representing the Grand
Royal Arch Chapter of Massachusetts, at a gen-
eral convention of all the Royal Arch chapters
of the United States, to which is referred a com-
munication and documents from the Grand Royal
Arch Chapter of Vermont.

That the report of a committee of which this
gentleman was the chairman should be marked
with strong resentment against the Antimasons
of Vermont was to be expected. Political Anti-
masonry has been more successful in Vermont
than in the county of Bristol in Massachusetts.

The report, therefore, states that it appears
from the appeal published by the Masons in Ver-

218 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

mont in 1829, that various presses have been
established in that state as vehicles of slander
and malignity against the adherents of Masoury.

This is precisely a repetition of the language
of your address at your installation in April, 1830.
It is certainly not a correct representation of
facts, and it contains itself a slanderous imputa-
tion upon a majority of the people of the State of
Vermont.

N'ow, sir, for a far more rational and accurate
history of Antimasonry as it existed in the State
of Vermont in the years 1829 and 1830, I refer
you to a pamphlet entitled "Masonic Penalties,"
published in August, 1830, by William Slade,
now a member elect of the House of Representa-
tives of the United States from that state.

In this pamphlet you will see that Mr. Slade
commenced the publication of his essays on the
Masonic penalties on the 7th of April, 1830, a
very few days before your installation and the
delivery of your address. You have probably
never seen those essays, for it appears to be one
of the maxims of Masonry, while denouncing as
slander, malignity, and persecution, every im-
peachment of the institution, to " know nothing
about " the real serious charges against it. It is
therefore highly probable that you know nothing
about Mr. Slade's essays on Masonic penalties.

ON FREEMASONKY. 219

And I take it for granted that the committee of
the General Grand Roval Arch Chapter of the
United States, who reported this bitter denuncia-
tion against the Antimasous of Vermont, knew
no more about it than you do. I will hazard a
conjecture that among the documents transmitted
by the grand high-priest of the Grand Koyal
Arch Chapter of Vermont, and upon which the
committee made their report, it would be a vain
search to look for Mr. Slade's essays upon the
Masonic penalties. " Dignified silence " was the
rule to be observed with regard to them ; and yet,
sir, attempts were made to answer them. It is so
far from being true that presses were set up in
Vermont as vehicles of slander and malignity
against the adherents of Masonry, that the editor
of the Vermont Americaiiy who begun the publi-
cation of Mr. Slade's essays, suspended them after
the third number, under the terror of Masonic
vengeance ; and Mr. Slade was compelled to pub-
lish the remaining numbers in an extra sheet.
Yet the columns of the Vermont American^ when
closed against Mr. Slade, were opened to the de-
fenders of Masonry, and two writers, under the
signatures of " Common Sense of the Old School,"
and of "Senex," vainly attempted to refute the
unanswerable arguments of his first three num-
bers. Mr. Slade replied, but was obliged to resort

220 LETTERS A^D OPINIONS

to the pages of a free press, one of tliose defamed
by the report of the committee of the General
Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United States.
Mr. Slade published in a pamphlet, under the re-
sponsibility of his name, his own essays, and
those of his adversaries ; and this procedure was
in the same spirit of fairness and candor which
marked his whole management of the contro-
versy. I recommend to 3'ou the serious and at-
tentive perusal of the pamphlet, for if it should
serve no other purpose than to preserve you and
the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the
United States from the reiteration of insult and
slander upon the people of a highly respectable
state of this Union, it will have a just claim to
your grateful acknowledgments — insult and slan-
der upon the people of Vermont, who by their
votes at the last presidential election, as well as
by their suffrages at two succeeding elections for
the executive officers and the state legislature,
have signally vindicated the cause of Antimason-
ry. To this result it is obvious that Mr. Slade's
essays upon the Masonic penalties did, in an emi-
nent degree, contribute. It was impossible that
they should fail to produce their effect upon the
minds of an intelligent and virtuous people.
These essays carry with them internal and irre-
sistible evidence in refutation of the charger

ON FREEMASONRY. 221

against the Antimasonic presses of Vermont,
proffered bj the committee of the General Grand
Royal Arch Chapter of the United States. The
essays on the Masonic penalties are not less re-
markable for their moderation, delicacy, and ten-
derness to the adherents of Masonry, than for the
close and pressing cogency of their arguments
against the institution. They charge not the ad-
herents of Masonry, but Masonry itself, with the
murder of Morgan, and all its execrable progeny
of crimes.

The report of the committee proceeds to state
that the members of the grand lodge of Vermont,
and other Masons in the state, to the number of
nearly two hundred, published, in 1829, an ap-
peal declaring that they as Masons had been
charged —

1. With being accessory to the abduction of
William Morgan.

2. With shielding Masons from just punish-
ment for crimes thev might have committed.

3. With exercising a Masonic influence over
legislative, executive, and judiciary branches of
the government.

4. With tampering with juries.

5. With exerting an improper influence for tne
political preferment of the brotherhood.

6. With various blasphemous practices.

222 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

7. With causing the death of a distinguished
Mason.

8. With sanctioning principles at variance with
religion and virtue.

9. With the assumption of a power to judge
individual Masons by laws known only to the
fraternity, and to inflict punishments corporally,
even unto the pains of death.

Of each and all of these charges they affirm in
the most solemn manner that they were entirely
guiltless.

Now the error which pervades the whole of
this declaration consists in this: that the individ-
ual Masons who volunteer this plea of not guilty,
apply gratuitously to themselves the charges
which the Antimasons bring against the institu-
tion to which they belong, and to its initiatory
obligations and solemnities. The charges are
against the plain, unequivocal import of the laws
of Masonry. The charges are that those laws do
in their own nature lead to and instigate the com-
mission of all those crimes, and that they have
led to and instigated the perpetration of them.
Two hundred Masons of Vermont declare them-
selves guiltless of all these charges. There are
perhaps two thousand Masons in the state, — sup-
pose the two hundred appellants to be not guilty;
that surely no more proves the innocence than it

ON FREEMASONRY. 223

does the guilt of the remaining eighteen hunilrecl.
Had the Masons of Vermont been desirous of
making up a real issue between themselves and
the Antimasons, they should have said, We have
been charfired with administering: and takiiiir
oaths and obligations, with multiplied penalties of
death, which lead into the temptation of all those
crimes, and which have led to the commission of
them, and we have been urged to abolish these
oaths, obligations, and penalties.

There is another error in this statement of the
charges against themselves, to which the appel-
lants pleaded not guilty, evidently suited to evade
the real question at issue. Their charges are
couched in general and indefinite terms, prepared
for the purpose of meeting them with positive
denial, by the mental reservation of their own
misconstructions. They say, for example, that
they have been charged with various blasphemous
practices, ^ow what do they mean by blasphe-
mous practices? Blasphemy, by the common
law, and by some of the statutes of the states, is
an indictable crime — and it is defined by Black-
stone to be the denial of the being or providence
of God ; or contumelious reproaches of our Savior,
Christ; or profane scoffing at the Holy Scriptures,
or exposing it to contempt and ridicule.

Now, sir, if before the disclosure of William

224 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

Morgan, at the ceremonies of initiation to the
several degrees of Masonry, the gr^nd high-
priests of the Royal Arch chapters, and the mas-
ters of lodges, instead of consciously hiding their
heads in secrecy ; if you, sir, as the sovereign
master or most excellent prelate of an encamp-
ment, as the grand high-priest or principal
sojourner of a chapter, or as the master of a
lodge, had exhibited in public theatrical repre-
sentations of the murder of Hiram Abiff, of Mo-
ses and the God of heaven in the burning bush,
and of drinking the fifth libation from a human
skull, with an invocation by the drinker of all the
sins of him whose skull formed that cup, upon
his own head; if in the presence of your fellow-
citizens, you had uttered, as equally grave and
solemn truth, a narrative compounded one half
of quotations from Holy Writ, and the other half
ot the senseless and brutal mummeries of Mason-
ry, would you have been surprised if the next
morning a grand-jury of your county had pre-
sented you for blasphemy ? Could you have
imagined anything more calculated to bring re-
proach and contempt and ridicule upon the name
of God and upon the Holy Scriptures ? If any
one of the ministers of God whom you allure
into the bosom of a charitable institution, by ad-
mitting them gratuitously to its promises and its

ON FREEMASONRY. 225

rewards, should tell his people from the pulpit
that Hiram Abiff, the widow's son, was master
of a lodge of Masons at the building of Solomon's
Temple ; that he was murdered by three Eellow-
crafts, named Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum ; that
those three FeJIowcrafts had suffered the penalties
which they had invoked upon themselves, and
that ever since that time those same penalties had
been the standing penalties in the three first
degrees of Masonry, would there be one hearer
of that minister of Christ beyond the reach
of the cable-tow but would pronounce him guilty
of provoking contempt and ridicule upon the
Scriptures ?

Why, sir, if the pastor of a Christian church
should bind up Gulliver's Travels between the
Old and New Testament of his Bible, and read
indiscriminately from the whole, the gospel,
epistle, or collect of the day, what opinion would
his auditory form of his piety or his morals? And
yet there is much of truth and much of moral
instruction in Gulliver's Travels. Far, far more
of wisdom in the philosophers of the flying island
of Lagado, than in the bungling metamorphosis
of Hiram, the Tyrian brass-founder at the build-
ing of* Solomon's Temple, into a Master Mason,
or in the '' butcheries which would disgust a sav-
age " executed upon the three Tyrian Fellow-
id

226 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

crafts, and which you require of the candidates
for admission to the three first degrees, to invoke
upon themselves.

These are the practices which some of the
ardent and zealous Antimasons of Vermont may
possibly have qualified as blasphemous. I am
not willing to consider them as such. That very
secrecy under which they are performed, and
which otherwise constitutes one of the most pow-
erful objections to the institution, may perhaps
relieve it from the charge of blasphemy. The
intention is not to provoke contempt and ridicule
upon the Scriptures, although the eflTect of them,
as dramatic fictions, must often be to produce it.
When John Milton published his Paradise Lost,
Andrew Marvell declared that he for some time
misdoubted his intent :

Thai he would ruin
The sacred truths to fable and old song —

And he adds —

Or if a work so infinite be spanned,
Jealous I was that sume less skillful hand,
Might hence presume the whole creation's day.
To change in scenes, and show it in a play.

That which the penetrating sagacity and sin-
cere piety of Andrew Marvell apprehended as an
evil which mio^ht result even from the sublime

ON FREEMASONRY. 227

strains of the Paradise Lost, is precisely what the
contrivers of the Masonic mysteries have effected.
They have travestied the awful and miraculous
supernatural communications of the ineffable Je-
hovah to his favored people, into stage plays.
That Word, which in the beginning was with
God, and was God; that abstract, incorporeal,
essential, and ever-living existence ; that eternal
presence without piast, without future time ; that
Being, without beginning of days or end of years,
declared to Moses under the name of I AM
THAT I AM, the mountebank juggleries of
Masonry turn into a farce. A companion of the
Royal Arch personates Almighty God, and de-
clares himself the Being of all eternity — I AM
THAT I AM. Your intention in the perform-
ance of this ceremony is to strike the imagination
of the candidate with terror and amazement. 1
acquit the fraternity, therefore, of blasphemy.
But I can not acquit them of extreme indiscre-
tion, and inexcusable abuse of the Holy Script-
ures. The sealed obligation, the drinking of
wine from a human skull, is a ceremony not less
objectionable. This, you know, sir, is the scene
in which the candidate takes the skull in his hand
and says, "As the sins of the whole world were
laid upon the head of our Savior, so may the sins
of the person whose skull this once was, be

228 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

heaped upon my head in addition to my own; and
may they appear in judgment against me, both
here and hereafter, should I violate any obliga-
tion in Masonry or the orders of knight-
hood which I have heretofore taken, take at
this time, or may be hereafter instructed in, so
help me Godj" and he drinks the wine from the
skull.

And is not this enough ? No. The Knight
Templar takes an oath containing many promises
— ^binding himself under no less penalty than to
have his head struck off and placed on the high-
est spire in Christendom, should he knowingly or
willingly violate any part of his solemn obliga-
tion of a Knight Templar.

Mr. Livingston, is this a fitting obligation for
a Christian man to take or to administer ? Can
you, can any man, be surprised if some of the
Antimasons of Vermont have mistaken it for
blasphemy ? "When the Masons of Vermont, or
when the Grand Encampment of the United
States shall feel sufficient confidence in their own
integrity to meet the real charges against the in-
stitution face to face, let theni not resort to the
refuge of secrecy, as a hunted ostrich hides his
head in the sand — let them frankly acknowledge
the dramatic exhibition of the burning bush, and
the mystical cup of the fifth libation, and give

ON FREEMASONRY. 229

their definition of blasphemy from which these
practices shall be pure.

And these remarks apply eqaally to the decla-
rations of the Masons in Connecticut, and of the
twelve hundred in Massachusetts. The report of
the committee of the General Grand Royal Arch
Chapter says that these declarations were made
with apparent sincerity of heart, that they denied
the charges against them [the Masons], "and uni-
versally cast themselves and their cause upon the
good sense of the country, for a calm, dispassion-
ate, and enlightened verdict."

And here the report of the committee rested
the statement respecting the condition of Mason-
ry in Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
The meeting of the General Grand Eoyal Arch
Chapter was held at the close of November, 1832.
The committee was raised to report upon the
present condition of Masonry — and they report a
declaration of two hundred Masons in Vermont
in 1829, and a declaration of twelve hundred Ma-
sons of Massachusetts in 1831.

Mr. Slade's essays upon the Masonic penalties
were published in Vermont in 1830, a year after
the appeal of the two hundred Masons. The
charters of incorporation of the Masonic lodges
in Vermont were revoked by the legislature of
that state in 1831. An Antimasonic governor

230 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

and council, and Antimasonic electors of presi-
dent and vice-president of the United States,
were elected in 1831 and 1832 — the last within
one month before the meeting of the General
Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United States.
These were all significant indications of the ver-
dict passed by the people of Vermont upon the
appeal of the two hundred Masons of 1829. But
upon all these, the committee of the Grand Royal
Arch Chapter of the United States observe a
"dignified silence." Like the Rhode Island
grand lodge, with regard to the kidnapping and
murder of Morgan by Royal Arch Masons, they
knew nothing about it.

The declaration of the twelve nundred Masons
of Massachusetts was published in December,
1831. In ^September, 1832, less than three
months before the meeting of the General Grand
Royal Arch Chapter of the United States, a state
Antimasonic convention was held at "Worcester,
at which an address was adopted containing a
counter declaration to that of the twelve hundred.
A committee of that convention tendered to the
grand lodge and grand chapter an issue upon
thirty-eight specific allegations against the Ma-
sonic institution, to be tried in any form best
adapted to establish truth and expose imposition.
And what was the answer of the twelve hundred

ON FREEMASONRY. 231

Masons who had made the declaration? "Di^ui-
lied silence." What was the answer of the grand
lodge and grand chapter of Massachusetts? "Dig-
^nified silence." And what the report of the com-
mittee of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the
United States, on the [then] present condition of
the Masonic institution? "Dignified silence."
The twelve hundred Masons of Massachusetts,
like the two hundred Masons of Vermont, make
a statement of charges which they can safely
deny, — assume them as the charges of the Anti-
masons against them, deny them, and then put
themselves upon the country. When the Auti-
masons tender them a direct issue, upon specific
charges, equally serious and explicit, the twelve
hundred— the grand lodge, the grand chapter —
all stand mute, and the report of the committee of
the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the
United States, upon the present condition of the
Masonic institution, goes back one, two, and
three years to tell of the declarations of Masons
in Massachusetts and in Vermont. But as to any
Antiniasonic refutation of those declarations, the
committee knew nothing about it.

The report of the committee of the General
Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United States
was therefore an incorrect representation of the
state of the Masonic institution, so far as con-

232 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

cerned the states of Massachusetts and Vermont,
nor was it more accurate in its reference to the
state of Masonry in Rhode Island.

John Quincy Adams.

TO EDWARD LIVINGSTON, ESQ.

Quincy, 23 July, 1833.
Sir: — You have seen in my last letter, the state-
ment made by the committee of the General
Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United States,
at their meeting in November last, of the then
present condition of the Masonic institution, in
the states of Vermont, Massachusetts and Con-
necticut. You have seen that to exhibit this j^res-
ent condition of the craft, the report of the com-
mittee traveled backward in the race of time, one,
two, and three years, to the declarations of their
own innocence, by certain Masons of those states,
the exclamation of Macbeth to Banquo — " Thou
canst not say I did it!" But that upon the more
recent events — the revocation of the Masonic
charters in Vermont, the successive issues of the
popular elections in that state and the thirty-eight
specific charges against Masonry tendered by the
committee of the Antimasonic convention at

ON FREEMASONRY. 233

"Worcester, to the presiding officers of the Grand
Royal Arch Chapter of Massachusetts and of the
grand lodge; upon all this, the committee of the
General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United
States observed a profound and "dignified si-
lence." And yet, sir, that issue of thirty-eight
charges had been tendered on the eleventh of
September, 1882 — nearly nine months after the
declaration of the twelve hundred Masons of Mas-
sachusetts, and less than three months before the
meeting of the General Grand Royal Arch Chap-
ter of the United States at Baltimore.

Now, sir, was not the presiding officer of the
Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of Massa-
chusetts, to whom this issue was tendered, the
identical chairman of the committee of the Gen-
eral Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United
States, which made this report on the then present
condition of Masonry in the United States? And
if he was, upon what principle admissible in a
narrative of realities, could a report upon the
^present condition of Masonry in the United
States, go back three years for declarations of Ma-
sonic innocence, and overlook or totally suppress
the recent and actually present charges of Masonic
guilt, which must have been yet sounding in the
ears of the chairman of the General Grand Royal
Arch Chapter who made the report ? Is not the

234 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

chroaology of Masonry as peculiar to itself as its
logic?

The committee upoa the present condition of
Masonry in the United States proceeded further to
report, that from certain documents which had
been, /or a long time before the public, it appeared
that very different measures in relation to the sub-
ject had been adopted in the State of Rhode
Island; and so the committee reporting upon the
'present condition of the institution, chose to resort
only to documents which had been a long time
before the public. They say,

That in Rhode Island, "a memorial emanating
from an Antimasonic convention, held in Decem-
ber, 1830, charging the grand lodge and other
Masonic bodies with violations of the constitution
and the laws of the land, was formally presented
to the legislature of the state, and the grand lodge,
in reviewing that memorial, challenged the strict-
est scrutiny, and offered the greatest facilities to
an investigation of all their concerns;" but tiiat
"it seems, however, that after the most laborious
and patient investigation of the subjects referred
to in the memorial by an able and impartial com-
mittee, the lodges were sustained by the legisla-
ture of the state, and were virtually and tri-
umphantly acquitted from all the charges which
had been brought against them."

ON FREEMASONRY. 235

And who would imagine tliat within two months
after this representation of the present condition
of Masonry in Rhode Island, the legislature of
that state did, by unanimous assent in both houses,
enact a law, prohibiting the administration of all
extrajudicial and of course of all Masonic oaths,
upon no less penalties than a fine of one hundred
dollars for the first offense, and political disfran-
chisement for the second? This was the first
result of that investigation, which the committee
of the General Grand Koyal Arch Chapter consider
as having issued so triumphantly for the lodges
and chapters of Rhode Island.

They pronounce the investigating committee of
the Rhode Island legislature "able and impartial."
Of their ability no question will be made; but
where did the reporter of the Grand Royal Arch
Chapter of the United States find the evidence of
their impartiality? Was it in the report of the
majority, or in that of the minority of the investi-
gating committee? Was it in tiie exclusion by
the majority of the committee, of the very me-
morialists who had brought the charges against
Masonry before the legislature, from all participa-
tion in the investigation? Was it in the bargain
made by the chairman of the committee with the
Masonic dignitaries of the state, that if they
would give their obligations, they should not b^

236 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

questioned about their secrets? — a bargain made
without the knowledge or consent of at least one
member of the committee — a bargain to which
the Masonic authorities held the committee of the
legislature so strictly, that they repeatedly refused
to answer questions most pertinent to the investi-
gation, appealing to the chairman himself for the
performance of his promise, that they should not
be required to disclose any of their secrets. Is
that the impartiality of a legislative investigation
of charges of crimination? — first to exclude those
who make the charges, from all participation in
the process of inquiry — and then to contract with
the parties accused, that they shall be privileged
to refuse answering upon everything which they
choose to keep secret. This was the course of
proceeding of this impartial committee.

You are too well acquainted with the prevail-
ing politics in the legislature of Rhode Island, at
the time when this committee was appointed, not
to know, that the main object of its appointment
was to put down Antimasonry in Ehode Island.
The resolution for appointing it was prepared by
the chairman, but was offered by another mem-
ber. In urging the passage of the resolution,
both these persons indulged themselves in bitter
invectives against the Antimasons, and the report
of the majority of the committee carries upon

ON FREEMASONRY. 237

every page tlie most conclusive internal evidence
that the purpose for which the committee was
raised, was to screen the Masonic institution and
brotherhood from the investigation which had
been demanded by the Antimasonic memorial, and
to substitute in its place a colorable examination,
upon Avhich the Masons should answer just so
much as should suit themselves, and fall back upon
their obligations of secrecy whenever they should
think a disclosure adverse to their interests.

The proceedings of the majority of the commit-
tee were conformable to the principles with which
they entered upon the performance of the service
assigned to them. The examination was so con-
ducted that the Masonic witnesses answered just
so far as they thought proper, and when a ques-
tion was put, which from very shame they loathed
to answer, they appealed to their agreement with
the chairman, and set the inquiry at defiance.

The committee stated in their report that,
aware of the scruples of the Masonic witnesses
about disclosing their Masonic secrets, which they
had promised not to disclose, they " resolved unan-
imously that they would require the Masons to
communicate to them fully, their Masonic oaths
or obligations, and to answer all questions which
should be asked respecting them — those obliga-
tions not being considered as part of their se-

238 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

crets" — but "as to their signs, and tokens, and
words, contrived to enable Masons, and none oth-
ers, to enter lodges and to distinguish one another
from those not Masons, a majority of the commit-
tee believed that the public loould have no curiosity
about thern, and that it would not be a profitable
or creditable employment for the committee to
endeavor to pry into them."

Admirable impartiality! Unlawful and immor-
al secret rites and ceremonies, was the first and
foremost of all the charges against Masonry, from
the sinking of their victim in the waters of the
Niagara River. The supreme legislative authority
of the state are called upon to investigate the
subject. They appoint a committee for that pur-
pose. The committee, possessed of the wliole
authority of the state to command testimony and
elicit the whole truth, begin by excluding the
accusers from all participation in the inquiry, and
then bargain with the accused to ask no questions
about their secrets, if they will but divulge what
they themselves consider as no secret at all.

I do not propose to follow the majority of the
committee through the mazes of their most ex-
traordinary report. The report of Mr. Sprague,
the member of the committee whose views diti'er-
ed from those of his colleagues, and the authentic
report of their proceedings by Benjamin F. Hal-

ON FREEM A80NRY. 239

lett and George Turner, have shown in full relief
the meaning of the word impartiality^ as exempli-
fied by the committee and their chairman who
drew up their report. And yet, so far was the
committee entitled to the praise of impartial-
ity, that they came unanimously to the conclusion
that the institution of Freemasonry oiKjht to he
abolished, and the report concludes with an earnest
and eloquent exhortation to the Masonic fraternity
to abandon it.

Is it not very remarkable that the report to the
General Grand Royal Arch Cijapter of the United
States, upon the ]?resent condition of Masonry,
which so highly approves this report of the Rhode
Island investigating committee, takes not the
slightest notice of this their opinion and exhorta-
tion? The Grand Royal Arch report affirms that
upon the report of the Rhode Island investigating
committee, "the lodges were sustained by the
legislature of the state." Sustained! this "able
and impartial" committee says:

"It can not be doubted that the lodges and
chapters in that part of the state [of New York]
had it fully in their power to have detected and
brought to justice many of the criminals con-
cerned in the abduction of Morgan, if not those
concerned in his murder. And yet we do not
find that they have expelled a single member, or

240 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

made any manner of inquiry about them. Can it
be denied that by such conduct those lodges and
chapters have implicated themselves in the guilt
of those transactions, and made themselves re-
sponsible for it? And not they alone are impli-
cated. The higher 3Iasonic authorities, to whom
they are subordinate and accountable, are equally
implicated and responsible.^^

The higher authorities, to whom the chapters
in that part of the State of ISqw York are subor-
dinate and accountable, are, the grand chapter of
the state, and the General Grand Royal Arch
Chapter of the United States., Yes, sir, in this
passage of the Rhode Island "able and impartial"
investigating committee's report, the very chapter
of which you are the high-priest, the General
Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United States,
is implicitly charged with being implicated and
responsible for the guilt of the murder of Mor-
gan. How comes it, sir, that the committee of
the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the
United States, reporting upon the present condi-
tion of Masonry, and expressly referring to this
report of the investigating legislative committee
f Rhode Island, should have overlooked entirely
this charge against the Grand Royal Arch Chap-
ter of the United States itself? How dared that
committee to affirm that, as the result of that in-

ON FREEMASONRY. 241

vestigation, the lodges were sustained by the
legislature of the state? The report of the
Rhode Island investigating committee expressly
charges the grand chapter of New York, and the
General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United
States, with being implicated in and responsible
for the murder of Morgan, and tbe atrocious
transactions connected with it ; and the report of
the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter, of the
United States calls this a triumphant acquittal of
the lodges of Rhode Island !

Permit me, sir,- to present to your consideration
two more extracts from the same report of the
majority of the Rhode Island investigating com-
mittee :

"The old forms of the oaths, which are still ad-
hered to, are extremely improper. It is true that
the construction which the Masons put upon them
in this state [Rhode Island] renders them harm-
less, but that is by no means the natural construc-
tion of the language itself. The oaths taken by
themselves, without being corrected and control-
led by the addresses and charges, are, according to
the terms, of them, clearly criminal. And can it
be proper to take obligations, the different parts
of which are in direct collision with and con-
tradiction to each other, and yet the whole to be
sworn to.

61

242 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

"But it is an insurmountable objection to those
oaths that they are liable to a construction which
renders them in the highest degree criminal and
dangerous ; and that such a construction has
actually been put upon them by Masons, and has
been productive of the most dreadful conse-
quences."

The following is the concluding sentence of
the report:

" This committee can not but come to the con-
clusion that the Masons owe it to the community,
to themselves, and to sound principles, now to
discontinue the Masonic institutions."

To what a desperate extremity must the com-
mittee of the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter
of the United States have been reduced for mat-
ter to report upon the present condition of Ma-
sonry, when they were willing to accept and
represent this as a triumphant acquittal of the
Rhode Island lodges and chapters I

Yet this was a report of a committee so partial
to the Masonic fraternity, that, invested with the
entire legislative power to investigate their insti-
tution, they did in fact abdicate their legitimate
rights and powers, by a bargain with the Masons,
to screen ihem from the exposure of their most
odious ceremonies. They accepted and counte-
nanced a fraudulent explanation, and pretended

ON FREEMASONRY. 243

construction of the penalties of the Masonic oaths.
Fraudulent, as every Master Mason must know
who at his reception is told that the penalties are,
and have been from the buildiog of Solomon's
Temple, the same penalties which were executed
upon the murderers of Hiram Abiff.

The allegation by the Rhode Island committee,
that they considered it an unprofitable employ-
ment to be prying into Masonic secrets would be
more plausible, if those secrets consisted only of
the "signs, and tokens, and words, contrived to
enable Masons, and none others, to enter lodges,
and to distinguish one another from those not
Masons;" but how is the fact? The tokens and
pass-words are, to be sure, of the character de-
scribed by Sir Tobey Belch in Shakspeare's
Twelfth Night, "most excellent, sense-?ess." But
the signs are explanatory of the true meaning of
the penalties, and when the committee compelled
the Masons to give the loords of their obligations,
was it not an incongruous scruple of delicacy, to
draw the veil over the coincident signs which
give to those words their most energetic signif-
icancy ?

Under the exceedingly accommodating indul-
gence of the investigating committee the Knights
Templars of Rhode Island were permitted to
skulk from all testimony relating to the fifth liba-

244 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

tion, denominated in Masonic language the sealed
obligation. How the committee, consistently with
their own rule, could release the witnesses from
testifying to that pious solemnity, it is not easy to
see. The oath of the Knight Templar has, like
the rest, a penalty which is, having the swearer's
skull smitten off and suspended to " rest high on
spires," as the Masonic minstrels deliciously sing;
and that oath and penalty the Rhode Island
Knights did give according to contract with the
committee. But the fifth libation is an obligation,
of higher order. The temporal penalties of cruel
death and barbarous mutilation are not sufficient
to bind the conscience of the Knight Templar.
In the fifth libation he invokes eternal punish-
ment upon his immortal soul. He calls upon
God, his creator, to visit upon him at the judg-
ment-day, not only his own sins, but all the sins
of his fellow-mortal man, from whose skull he
quaffs the cup of abomination and ot mystery.

The most remarkable scene in the investigation
of the Rhode Island committee was that in which
William Wilkinson, a Knight Templar, and a man
of most respectable character, was examined \>"ith
reference to this sealed obligation — the fifth liba-
tion. The words always uttered before drinking
the wine from the skull, were read to him from
Allyn'a Ritual, page 250, and he was asked

ON FREEMASONRY. 245

whether they were administered to him on taking
the Knight Templar's obligation. lie answered,
" These words made no part of the obligation
which was administered to me on taking the
Knight Templar's degree.

From this answer an unlearned and uninitiated
person would naturally conclude that these words
form no part of the ceremony of initiation to the
Knights Templars' degree, and it is from denials
of precisely the same character as this that the
great mass of adhering Masons, ministers of the
Holy gospel included, have labored to blast the
credit of Allyn's and Bernard's books ; but Mr.
"Wilkinson's denial hinged upon the word obliga-
tion only. There is, as I have remarked, another
obligation administered to the Knight Templar,
on taking his degree, and that obligation was
among those furnished to the committee. That
was the obligation which Mr. Wilkinson had in
his mental contemplation when he denied that the
words of the sealed obligation were part of the
obligation administered to him. Had the exam*
ination rested there, well might the committee of
the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United
States have boasted of the triumphant acquittal
of the Rhode Island Masons. But here the ex-
amination did not rest. Mr. Wilkinson was asked
whether these said words were used in any ceremo-

213 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

ny of initiation to the Knights Templars' degree?
His answer was, " In regard to the secrets or cer-
emonies of this or any other other degrees in
Masonry, I neither affirm nor deny anything."
Upon this there was some altercation between the
witness and the chairman of the committee, who
very justly considered this as an obligation which
the Masons were bound to give ; but instead of
exercising the authority vested in the committee
by the legislature, and exacting an answer, he
argued with the witness to persuade him to an-
swer, and finished by submitting to his refusal.
This was indeed the triumph of Masonry ; not the
triumph of acquitted innocence, but the triumph
of sturdy contumacy, setting at defiance the leg-
islative authority of the state.

That Mr. Wilkinson should be ashamed to ac-
knowledge that he had ever pronounced, with an
appeal to God, such words as those, and accom-
panied them with such an action, is creditable to
his sense of discrimination between right and
wrong. The sealed obligation is not one of those
signs, grips, tokens, or pass-words by which the
Masonic fraternity discern the genuine from the
spurious impostor. It is one of the obligations of
the craft which the committee had determined to
require, and which the Rhode Island Masons
were bound by the terms of their agreement with

ON FREEMASONRY. 247

the chairmau of the committee to give. The fifth
libation, therefore, — the potation from the skull
of "Old Simon," — and the invocation of all the
sins, heinous and deadly as they may be, of
another man upon the head of the self-devoted
Knight Templar, are yet, so far as adhering Ma-
sonic acknowledgment is concerned, "undivulged
crimes — unwhipped of justice." Mr. Wilkinson
did not venture to deny that the words of the
sealed obligation were precisely those recorded in
AUyn's Ritual — he neither affirmed nor denied.
The full adhering Masonic authentication of the
sealed obligation is reserved for the investigation
of a committee more resolute and less compro-
mising with the transcendent sovereignty of Free-
masonry than the Rhode Island Committee was
found to be. A more searching investigation of
the laws of the Masonic empire will be required
to discover, in all its loveliness, that feature of its
code. In the Rhode Island investigations another
witness, a minister of the gospel, upon being
asked if he had drank wine from a human skull,
answered, "I do not know that it can affect the
interest of any one whether I drank wine out of a
skull, a tin-cup, or a basin." A third witness
declined answering the question.

In the 251st page of Allyn's Ritual — the very
next page after that which discloses the formula

248 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

used in drinking the fifth libation — there is the
following note :

"The sealed obligation is referred to by Tem-
plars, in confidential communications relative to
matters of vast importance, when other Masonic
obligations seem insufiicient to secure secrecy,
silence, and safety. Such, for instance, was the
murder of William Morgan, which was communi-
cated from one Templar to another under the
pledge and upon this sealed obligation. The at-
tentive ear receives the sound from the instructive
tongue ; and the mysteries of Freemasonry were
safely lodged in the repository of faithful breasts
— until it was communicated in St. John's Hall,
l^ew York, in an encampment of Knights Tem-
plars, March 10, 1828."

To this fact Mr. Allyn made oath before a
magistrate in the city of New York, and that it
was so communicated to him at an encampment
of Knights Templars. Of the pains that have
been taken to discredit Allyn's testimony it is not
necessary for me to speak; but in the twenty-
second of Col. Stone's Letters, page 238, there is
a frank and full acknowledgment by him, himself
a Knight Templar, that after having long totally
disbelieved the statement, he did finally satisfy
himself that it was substantially true.

With the thoughts that crowd upon me in re-

ON FREEMASONRY. 249

curring to this proof of the power and practices
of Masonry I will not now trouble you or the
public. The legislature of Rhode Island, after
such an investigation even as this, prohibited the
administration of all extrajudicial oaths. How
their committee could submit to the suppression of
Masonic testimony to the sealed obligation is not
easily explained. But the agonies of the Knights
Templars at the very call upon them to testify to
the sealed obligation are eloquent commentaries
upon the note in the 251st page of Allyn's Ritual,
and upon the candid acknowledgment in Col.
Stone's twenty-second letter.

And so, sir, the murder of William Morgan
was, by one of its perpetrators, regularly commu-
nicated to an encampment of Knights Templars
in the city of Kew York, in March, 1828, and
those Knights Templars (Col. Stone, who certifies
to the fact, knows not who they are — he thinks
them unworthy, but in the vocabulary of the
handmaid they are worthy Masons,) assisted this
murderer, and furnished him with the means of
escaping from the retribution of public justice
and the laws of the land !

And yet this was entirely conformable to the
laws of Masonry. It interfered in no respect with
the religion or politics of any one Knight Tem-
plar of the encampment! It was a memorable

250 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

exemplification of the promise to assist a worthy
brother in extricating him from difficulty, wheth-
er he is right or wrong. It was most sincerely
explanatory of the obligation to conceal the se-
crets of a worthy brother, murder and treason not
excepted, or excepted at the option of the Sir
Knight himself — and it did not even exact of the
illustrious brotherhood that they should go bare-
foot to apprize this "western sufterer" of the
danger with which he was threatened; and these
transactions all occurred before the revelation of
the obligations of the higher degrees of Masonry
by the Le Roy convention of seceders, on the 4th
of July, 1828. Of these facts, thus notorious,
thus abominable, thus undeniable, why have the
legislature, why has the executive of the State of
Kew York, why have the grand -juries of the city
never been informed! Why have the General
Grand Encampment of the United States observed
upon these acts of men under their jurisdiction a
dignified silence? Why, but because they have
resolved to adhere, and have recommended to the
brotherhood under their jurisdiction to adhere, to
the ancient landmarks of the institution.

Mr. Livingston, I shall here close the series of
letters which I have addressed to you as the head
and most conspicuous member of the Masonic
fraternity in these United States — holding at the

ON FREEMASONRY. 251

same time offices of higla dignity, power, and in-
fluence in the government of the Union. The
General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United
States, of which you are the grand high-priest,
did, at their triennial meeting at Baltimore last
ISTovemher, highly commend certain chapters and
lodges which had changed, most essentially
changed, their own nature, hy substituting the
study of the useful arts and sciences for the mis-
erable fooleries of their pageantry, and did ear-
nestly recommend to all the chapters under their
jurisdiction the same excellent reformation and
transformation. It was that recommendation
which suggested to me the idea of calling upon
you to accomplish a revolution still more useful
and commendable — the abolition of all the execra-
ble oaths, obligations, and penalties, which, until
they shall be utterly abolished, are, and must be,
an indelible disgrace to the institution. If you
have power to convert your lodges into lyceums,
and your chapters and encampments into schools
of science, you can not lack the power of redeem-
ing the institution from the infamy of lawless
oaths, of barbarous obligations, of brutal penalties.
With that infamy your institution is now pol-
luted, as it is with the blood of William Morgan,
nor can the "labor" or "refreshment" of all the
Royal Arch chapters on the globe wash it out.

252 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

It is in your power, sir, to remove this stum-
bling-block and this foolishness from the institu-
tion over which you preside, forever. Look to
the seventh chapter of the First Book of Kings
and you will find that Hiram of Tyre, the wid-
ow's son, who worked at the building of the
temple of Solomon, was not a Mason, but "cun-
ning to work all works in brass." "Whether this
fitted him the better for the selection of the first
contrivers of your order, as the founder of the
craft, is a problem for your learned and especially
for your clerical antiquarians to solve; but the
fact that he was a workman in brass, and that the
two pillars in the porch of the temple, Jachin and
Boaz, were not works of Masonry, but of brass,
stamps with gross imposture the whole history of
the institution. In like manner every pretension
of the order to historical connection with any
portion of the Holy Scriptures is imposture, and
must be known so to be to every intelligent min-
ister of the gospel who takes upon himself your
obligations.

The existence of such an order is a foul blot
upon the morals of a community. The strength,
the glory, the happiness of a nation, are all cen-
tered in the purity of its morals ; and institutions
founded upon imposture are the worst of all cor-
ruptions, for they poison the public morals at

ON FREEMASONRY. 253

their fountains, and by multiplying the accom-
plices in guilt arm them with the confidence of
virtue.

Whether your dignity as the head of the Royal
Arch of this Union is to cease upon your depart-
ure from this country, or to continue during your
absence, has not yet been announced to the world;
but in either event be assured that neither 3'our
Masonic addresses, nor the proceedings of the
General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United
States, will henceforth pass without observation
into oblivion.

John Quincy Adams.

TO MESSRS. TIMOTHY MERRILL, HENRY F. JANES,
• MARTIN FLINT. CHARLES DAVIS, EDWARD D.
BARBER, SAMUEL N. SWEET, AND AMOS BLISS,
COMMITTEE OF THE ANTI-MASONIC STATE
CONVENTION, HELD AT MONTPELIER, IN THE
STATE OF VERMONT, ON THE 26th OF JUNE, 1833.

Quincy, 17 July, 1833.

Fellow - citizens : — I have received with great
satisfaction your letter of the 27th ult., and with
warm sensibility the resolutions which you have
communicated to me of the Antimasonic Conven-
tion, held at Montpelier the preceding day.

The entire character of the institution of Free-

254 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

masonry has not yet been displayed to the inspec-
tion of mankind. That it is essentially vicious
and grossly irrational has been demonstrated be-
yond all possibility of reply ; but the extent and
degree to which it vitiates the morals and pros-
trates the intellect of its votaries has not yet
been wholly disclosed. It is among the most or-
dinary symptoms of mental insanity that the fac-
ulty of reason is sound and vigorous upon every
subject on which it is exercised save one, and at
the same time irrecoverably distempered at that
one. There are similar aberrations of moral prin-
ciple in the conduct and character of individuals;
and it has often been remarked that corporate
bodies of men are capable of committing, with-
out a blush, acts from which every individual of
the association would shrink with instinctive
horror.

The institution of Freemasonry is founded upon
historical imposture, — and, can a Christian remark
it without disgust? — upon imposture foisted upon
sacred history; upon imposture falsifying the
most awful truths of the gospel; upon imposture
contaminating with unhallowed step the holy of
holies itself.

The fable upon which the first three degrees of
Masonry is founded carries absurdity and false-
hood upon its face. There are fraud and duplic-

; ON FREEMASONRY. 255

ity in the oaths and obligations into which the
candidates for initiation are unwarily drawn.
They are first made to invoke upon themselves
the penalties of death and brutal mutilation if
they should reveal the senseless secrets to be im-
parted to them; and then they are told a tale of
three Fellowcrafts, who, like them, had invoked
these penalties upon themselves, and upon whom
the 'penalties had been executed — not for revealing
the secrets which they had been sworn to keep,
but for murdering the first grand master in the
attempt to extort one of the secrets from him.
Ministers of the word of God have the oaths, in-
voking these penalties upon themselves, adminis-
tered to them gratuitously, and take them for
nothing, while other poor, blind candidates are
laid under tribute for the privilege of burdening
their consciences with the same loads. After
taking them they are told that these have been
the standmg penalties for violation of the oaths of
secrecy which they have taken, ever since they
were executed upon the murderers of the first
grand master. This first grand master of Ma-
sonry, they are told, was Hiram of Tyre, whom
the Holy Scriptures declare to have been a work-
man in brass; and they are assured that he was
murdered by three Tyrians, with Roman names,
three hundred years before Rome existed.

256 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

In this tortuous and fraudulent process of ad-
ministering the oaths, and then delivering a lect-
ure upon their pretended origin, some apology
may be found for the hundreds of Masons in your
state, and in others, who have so stoutly main-
tained in the face of their fellow-citizens that they
never had taken any oaths incompatible with
their duties to God and their country. To this
process may be traced the utterly groundless
explanation by which they have confounded
treachery with martyrdom, and construed the
penalty of death for revealing secrets into a suf-
ferance of murder rather than reveal the secrets.
The terms of the oaths are plain, explicit, and un-
equivocal. The promise is to suffer death as a
penalty if the swearer reveals the secrets of Ma-
sonry or of Masons. And he is to suffer the death
self-invoked, as the Tyrian Fellowcrafts, with
lloman names, did suffer death for violation of
Masonic law. The Tyro-Romans indeed had in-
voked these penalties upon themselves after com-
mitting murder as well as a breach of Masonic
law; and Hiram, the brazier, grand master of
Masons, had suffered death rather than reveal out
of time and place the Master's word. Here is a
confusion of ideas sufficiently indicative of fraud;
and as the administration of the oaths is always
oral, and the very writing]or printing of them was

ON FREEMASONRY. 257

among the promises of the candidates never to do,
it is not surprising that thousands of Masons
should have taken them, not only without under-
standing what they were swearing to, but actually
believing that their promise was to die like Hi-
ram, the victims of fidelity, and not, like his
murderers, to pay the penalties of treachery.

In the promises themselves, however, there is
rothing ambiguous or equivocal. They positively
contract the engagement to sutler the penalties of
death and bodily mutilation for any one violation
of the oaths which the candidate pronounces.
The death which a merciful man would not inflict
upon a dog, the Masonic candidate for light swears
he will suffer as a penalty if he should pronounce
the words Tubal-Cain, Shibboleth, or Mah-hah-
bone, out of time and place. Nay, if, like the
abbess of Andouillets and the nun in Tristram
Shandy, they presume to halve between them the
obnoxious words, to preserve the potency of the
spell, without infringing the laws of decorum —
not even the syllables Ja — and Chin, or Bo — and
Az, can be halved between two Masons, and pub-
licly pronounced out of the lodge, but upon the
penalty of having both their throats cut across
from ear to ear. And this, and the like of this,
are the ancient landmarks, which the Grrand Royal
Arch Chapter of the United States have earnestly

17

258 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

exhorted the chapters and lodges under their ju-
risdiction inflexibly to maintain.

Among the evidences of the true spirit and
character of Freemasonry, which are daily dis-
closing themselves to the world, is this fanatical
attachment and devotion to these ancient land-
marks, which might be more properly denomi-
nated these incurable vices of the institution. To
these vices how emphatically may be applied the
remark of the moral poet, upon the propensity of
human nature, to pass from detestation of vice first
seen to the endurance and thence to the embrace
of vice familiarized to the eye! If any one leg-
islature of this Union should enact a law subject-
ing a citizen of these states, for the most atrocious
crime that the heart of man could conceive or the
arm of man could perpetrate, to any one of the
Masonic penalties, one universal burst of indigna-
tion and abhorrence from the Atlantic to the
liocky Mountains would redeem the character of
the American people from the disgrace inflicted
upon it by such a legislative enactment. I hesi-
tate not to declare the belief that not a jury could
be assembled in this Union to convict, not a judge
could be found to pass sentence upon, a man sub-
jected to such a punishment by the sovereign leg-
islatures of the land. And yet one of these pen-
alties has been inflicted on a free citizen of this

ON FREEMASONRY. 259

Union — inflicted by the execution to the letter, of
the secret, irresponsible, disavowed, and transcen-
dental law of Freemasonry. It has been executed
by Royal Arch Masons — executed by the hand of
midnight and yet unpunished murder. The fact
of this murder has been communicated by one of
its perpetrators to an encampment of Knights
Templars in the city of New York, and those
Knights Templars, under the seal of the fifth liba-
tion, instead of delivering up the criminal to the
lawful justice of their country, did, in strict con-
formity to their Masonic obligations, screen him
from the punishment due to his crime, and furnish
him with the means of escaping from that punish-
ment forever.

It is, therefore, gentlemen, with unmingled sat-
isfaction that I receive the assurance from you
that the Antimasons of Vermont had determined
to persevere in the righteous cause in which they
have engaged, namely, that of breaking down
the ancient landmarks of Freemasonry — land-
marks which are the standing monuments of
usurpation and crime. And whatever may be for
years to come the fortunes of your cause, jjerse-
verance alone is the infallible pledge of your final
success. We must not flatter ourselves that a
moral evil so deeply rooted and of such gigantic
dimensions can or will be eradicated in a short

260 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

time, or by intermitted exertions. We see the
Masonic institution, covered with all its enormi-
ties, upheld by clinging to both the great political
parties which divide the nation. We see the
Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United States
taking into consideration the condition of Masonry
in the State of Vermont and pouring forth floods
of slander upon you and your associates, asserters
of the supremacy of the laws. But you and your
accusers are, in the presence of the American
people, alike amenable to the definitive tribunal
of public opinion. That opinion will ultimately
settle into a clear, simple, undeniable moral prin-
ciple. The code of " Moloch homicide," embod-
ied in the laws of Freemasonry, will pass to its
appropriate region in Pandemonium, and one of
the sources of error and guilt prevailiug in our
land will be exhausted and forever drained. For
my feeble contributions to effect this happy con-
summation, your approving voice is to me a pre-
cious reward. As a fellow-laborer with you for
the extinction of the brutal penalties of Freema-
sonry, my voice, so long as it has power to speak,
shall not be silent to an honest call ; and when si-
lenced, as it soon must be, by a summons to
another world, my testimony of abhorrence to
those penalties shall descend as an inheritance to
my children and to my country.

ON FREEMASONRY. 261

Accept, gentlemen, for yourselves, and for the
convention whose resolutions you have communi-
cated to me, the respect and the thanks of your
friend and fellow-citizen.

John Quincy Adams.

TO JAMES MOOREHEAD, ESQ., SECRETARY OF
THE MEADVILLE (PENN.) ANTLMASONIC CON-
VENTION.

Washington, 14 December, 1833.
Sir: — Your letter of the 30th of August last,
communicating to me a copy of the resolution of
thanks from the convention held at Meadville on
the 28th of that month to my respected friend
Mr. Rush and myself, for our services to the cause
of pure morals against the institution of Freema-
sonry, was received at my residence in Massachu-
setts at a time when I was absent from it. Cir-
cumstances occurred, immediately after my return,
inducing me to believe that there might be a pro-
priety in deferring for some time the acknowledg-
ment of the receipt of your letter, and the expres-
sion of my grateful sensibility to the approbation
of the convention declared by their resolution,
coupled as it was with a cheering exhortation to
perseverance in the cause.

£62 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

Believing that perseverance — unremitted, uu-
deviating perseverance, — is the only and the in-
dispensable requisite for securing the final, the
complete, and most desirable triumph of the cause
of Antimasonry, I trust that so long as the fac-
ulty of reason and the sense of justice shall be
extended to me by the indulgence of my Maker
I shall be found neither indifl'erent nor recreant
to the cause. That cause I understand to be the
abolition of the oaths, obligations, and penalties
administered and taken for admission to the gen-
eral degrees of Freemasonry, — obscurely indicated
by the mandate of the General Grand Koyal Arch
Chapter of the United States, held at Baltimore in
!N"ovember, 1832, to the chapters and lodges under
their jurisdiction, — indicated with an injunction
of adherence to them, under the denomination of
the Ancient Landmarks of the Institution.

The total demolition of these ancient landmarks
I take to embrace the whole cause of Antimason-
ry, and for the obvious reason that they are en-
croachments upon the common rights and inva-
sions of the common interests of the rest of man-
kind; that they are impious, if not blasphemous
invocations of the name of God; that they are
fraudulent palterings with a double sense, saying
one thing and intending another; that they are
brutalities of thought and language shameful to

ON FREEMASONRY. 263

be uttered by the lips of Christian men ; and other
objections to them of no trifling consideration to
those who believe that the first inroads of cor-
ruption consist in familiarizing the mind to
vicious thoughts, and the mouth to polluted
words. But it is the common rights and common
interests of mankind that are invaded by the an-
cient landmarks of Fremasonry ; and it is the
common interest of all that they should be, as
public nuisances, abated.

And that they will be abated, depends upon
perseverance alone. A.s sure as the daily revolu-
tion of the earth shall bring the source of light
to ascend from the East, so surely shall persever-
ance sweep from the face of the earth, as common
nuisances, the ancient landmarks of Freemasonry.
Nor is it necessary, to this result, that what is
commonly called political Autimasonry should be
always or is even generally successful. Political
Antimasonry is but one of the modes, though
hitherto undoubtedly the most eflicacious one, of
combatting the Masonic institution. It is one of
the exceptions to this mode of operation, that it
necessarily manifests itself in the form of opposi-
tion to persons, and in the shape of punishment.
It enlists, therefore, against itself not only the
whole body of Masonic influence, but all the
sympathies of friendship and all the weight of

264 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

individual character and meritorious service. Its
success then must and will be variable — fluctuat-
ing w^ith the vicissitudes of transient popular
opinion, and susceptible sometimes by its failure
of retarding, as at others by success it may ad-
vance, the consummation devoutly to be wished.
But I trust it may be considered by Antimasons
as only one of their weapons against the common
enemy — used with reluctance, and to be laid aside
whenever Masonry herself shall be banished from
the polls.

At the same time I fervently hope that the An-
timasons of the free states of this Union will not
be satisfied with the mere cessation of the meet-
ings of lodges, chapters, and encampments, nor
become indifferent to the cause, even when justice
shall require of them to discard the question from
the field of election. There is no question but
that the Masonic oaths are all unlawful. But as
in most of the states there is no specific penalty
annexed to the administration of extrajudicial
oaths, the law itself is outraged by it with im-
punity. In the states of Rhode Island and Ver-
mont, statutes have recently been enacted annex-
ing adequate penalties to the administration of
extrajudicial oaths ; so that in those states Mason-
ry will no longer have the subterfuge to plead
that her oaths are not unlawful, because they are

ON FREEMASONRY. 265

null and void. If I am to credit the newspapers
there has been a decision amounting to this, even
by magistrates upon the bench in your State of
Pennsylvania. Those magistrates, it is stated,
were, all but one, themselves Masons ; and if I
understand the written opinion, reported as hav-
ing been given by them, it was that without
deciding whether the Masonic oaths were not
lawful they held them to be voluntary promises,
which could have no operation contrary to law,
and therefore that a man who had taken those
oaths was quite competent to be an impartial juror
between Mason and Antimason. Now, although
there is much ingenuity in this argument, and in
the conclusion drawn from it, there is another
conclusion to which it may lead other minds unil-
luminated with the floods of light which pour
upon the pilgrim of the lodge-room. If there
were specific penalties annexed to the administra-
tion of all extrajudicial oaths. Masonic judges
would be relieved from all judicial non-committal,
whether the Masonic oaths are lawful or not, and
it would require one step further of Masonic co-
operation on the bench to decide that a man bound
by unlawful oaths, exclusively to favor one of the
parties to a suit of law, is a very impartial juror
between those parties, because the oaths he has
taken, exclusively to favor one of them, are un^
lawful.

266 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

Sir, I wish the members of the convention who
did me the honor to pass the resolution which you
have communicated to me, to accept my thanks,
and a hearty reciprocation with them of the Anti-
masonic pass-word, " Persevere.'' It is the uncon-
querable spirit of all energetic virtue — the im-
pregnable fortress founded upon the Rock of
Ages.

I am, with great respect,

Your friend and fellow-citizen,
John Quincy Adams.

TO R. W. MIDDLETON, GETTYSBURG, PA.

Quincy, 27 October, 1835
Dear Sir: — I have received your letter of the
19th instant, with the Star and Republican Banner
of the same date. Amid the vicissitudes of al-
ternate success and defeat, which in a very
remarkable manner have attended the cause of
political Antimasonry, I have witnessed with
warm feelings of sympathy and admiration the
perseverance with which it has been pursued in
Pennsylvania, through good and evil fortune, to
its signal triumph at this time, in the election of
Mr. E,itner as governor of the commonwealth,

ON FREEMASONRY. 267

aud if I am to credit the public journals, of a
decided majority of avowed Antimasous to the
legislature.

Hitherto the Antimasons of Pennsylvania;
though armed with a principle as pure as any
that ever animated the heart of man, — though
struggling against an institution foul with mid-
night murder, perpetrated in strict conformity to
soul-ensnaring oaths and obligations, have yet
been a feeble and persecuted minority, — perse-
cuted for uttering the cry of indignation at a
series of atrocious violations of the laws of God
and man — persecuted for summoning the energies
of virtue in the hearts of their fellow-citizens, to
extinguish a secret and lawless conspiracy in the
heart of the community against the equal rights
of their fellow-men.

I trust the days of this persecution are past in
Pennsylvania; that the government of that com-
monwealth, by the will of a decisive majority of
its people, will be in the hands of Antimasons,
and that by the wisdom and moderation of their
measures they will redeem the state from the
pollution of Masonic morals, and restore iu
triumph the supremacy of the laws.

I am, with great respect, dear sir.

Your obedient servant,

John Quincy Adams.

/C'

Address to the People of Massachusetts.

In the autumn of the year 1833 Mr. Adams was unan-
imously nominated at a large convention of members of the
Antimasonic party, a candidate for the office of governor of
Massachusetts. The call thus made upon him he did not
feel at liberty to decline. The result was a triangular con-
test at the election, between the three political parties into
which the people were divided, and the failure of a choice
of governor by the requisite majority. According to the pro-
visions of the constitution of Massachusetts the election then
devolved upon the legislature about to meet in January,
1834, But no sooner was Mr. Adams made aware of the
state of the popular vote, than he determined to decline to
be further considered a candidate for the post. The reasons
for his course, as well in accepting at first as in withdrawing
afterward, he decided to submit in an address to the people
of the commonwealth, which he caused to be published at
the same time that he notified his decision in a letter direct-
ed to the speaker of the House of Representatives, at the
opening of the session. The following is the address :

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF
MASSACHUSETTS.

Fellow-citizens: — For the first time within near-
ly half a century you have been so far unable to
agree upon the person to whom the office of serv-
269

270 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

ing you in the capacity of your chief-magistrate
should be committed for the ensuing year, that
no one of the candidates presented by previous
nominations to your favor has obtained a majority
of your suffrages, and the case has occurred, in
which, by the provisions of the constitution, your
House of Representatives will be called to present
to your Senate two of the four citizens, having
the highest number of your votes, and of these
two the Senate will be charged with selecting one
as the governor of the state.

Of the four candidates having the highest num-
ber of votes my name stands the second; and sup-
posing it from that circumstance probable that it
might be one of the two offered by the House of
Representatives for the choice of the Senate, I
deemed it my duty to withdraw from the canvass,
and to request the members of the House of
Representatives to withhold their votes from me,
with the assurance of my determination, founded
on the sense of my own duties, not to accept the
appointment should it be conferred upon me.

I have not thought it necessary or proper to
assign to the legislature the reasons which have
brought me to this determination. For the exer-
cise of their functions it was only necessary that
they should know the fact, and it would have
been an unwarrantable consumption of their time,

ON FREEMASONRY. 271

which is your property, to lay before them an ex-
position of motives, upon the correctness of which
it would not be their province to decide, and
which would neither require nor admit of any
deliberative action appropriate to them.

This exposition of motives is, however, pecul-
iarly due to that portion of my fellow-citizens
who honored me by their nomination, and whose
nomination I accepted. It is also due to you all —
all having an interest in the issue of the election,
and all being entitled to know ; wherefore I have
felt it justifiable to interpose between the provis-
ion of the constitution prescribed for the contin-
gency which has occurred, and its absolute exe-
cution.

In accepting the nomination of the Antimasonic
Convention at Boston, I was aware of the dissen-
sions which agitated the commonwealth, and
whicb I had witnessed with deep concern. I
knew that the Antimasons as a party constituted
a minority of the people of the commonwealth;
that they were for the most part a detachment
from that portion of the people who in recent
times had been denominated National Republi-
cans, and who under that denomination had em-
braced at least three fourths of the people of the
state ; that their views of general policy, both
with regard to the administration of the general

272 LETTERS AND OPINIUNS

government and to that of the commonwealth,
still coincided with those of that party ; and I be-
lieved it an object of the highest importance to
your welfare, and most especially with reference
to your interest and influence in the affairs of the
Union, that this breach should be repaired, and
this discord restored to harmony. The Masonic
controversy was the only point upon which the
two divisions of the party were separated ; but
that separation I feared was irreconcilable. The
party in opposition to the state government, and
friendly to the present federal administration, was
necessarily Masonic, by adherence to their chief,
himself illustrious with Masonic acquirements
and dignities. The ISTational Republicans were
Masonic, by the declared adherence of their chief
to the same institution of which he was a distin-
guished member, and indications were not want-
ing that all the differences of principle between
those two parties, ardent and bitter as they were,
would be swallowed up in the transcendent com-
mon interest of Freemasonry. So it had emphat-
ically proved in the State of Vermont, and such
was, in my apprehension, likely to be the issue in
Massachusetts. It was with extreme reluctance
that I consented to be placed within the wind of
this commotion, for I saw that it would bring me
in collision with the party then still wielding the

ON FREEMASONRY. 273

power of the state, and with whose general prin-
ciples and policy my own were in full accord.

I had recently been re-elected, by the co-opera-
tion of that party, in the congressional district
where I resided, to a seat in the House of Repre-
sentatives of the United States. 1 had previously
been nominated by a convention of the members
of that party, as well as by an Anti masonic, and
also a Republican convention, to represent the
district of Plymouth in the last congress. At
the expiration of that term of service I was again
nominated by an Antimasonic, and also by a
ISTatioual Republican convention, to represent the
district as newly constituted in the congress now
assembled. Those nominations were both accom-
panied with resolutions approving, in the strong-
est and most gratifying terms, the manner in
which I had executed the trust of representing
Plymouth District; and although the district, as
newly organized, was but partly the same with
that which I had before represented, I was re-
elected by a majority equally decisive with that
of my previous election.

I had freely avowed my opinions of Masonry
and Antimasonry, when the people of the district
selected me to represent them in Congress. They
were not the opinions of a majority of the people
whom I was to represent, and they were sustained

18

274 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

by a very small though highly respectable minor-
ity of the people of the commonwealth. They
were iinpopular opinions, and therefore not the
ground to be occupied by persons aspiring to
popularity, or to its rewards.

The legislator of the most illustrious democracy
of ancient times, Solon, made it a crime, punisha-
ble with death, for any citizen to shrink from tak-
ing his side upon any great political question
which agitated and divided the people. Without
approving the severity of this law, I consider the
principle of its obligation as the vital spirit of
republicanism. Republican government is essen-
tially the government of public opinion, and it is
good or bad government in proportion as public
opinion is right or wrong. Public opinion is the
aggregate of individual opinions, and the consti-
tution, which secures to the citizen the right of
voting, makes it his duty to form opinions by
which the exercise of that right shall be governed.
Every vote is an opinion manifested by free action,
and whoever votes contrary to his opinion, or
shrinks from the avowal of the opinion upon
which he votes, is actuated by no republican
spirit. In forming his political opinions every
citizen must be governed by his own honest judg-
ment, enlightened by consultation with others,
and by such measures of information as he can

ON FREEMASONRY. 275

obtain. But as this measure of information must
necessarily be possessed by different persons in
different degrees, the opinions of every individual
must, in great multitudes of cases, be influenced
by his confidence in others. To obtain the infor-
mation necessary for forming a correct opinion up-
on political questions is a duty specially incumbent
upon those who possess in any degree the jpuhlic
confidence ; and having been one of those honored
with the confidence of a large portion of my fel-
low-citizens, I have thought it my indispensable
duty to make mj'self acquainted with the facts
and the principles involved in the controversy re-
latinof to the Masonic institution.

The authentication of the facts, and the devel-
opment of principles resulting from them, was
necessarily slow and gradual. The struggle be-
tween the common rights of the people and the
exclusive privileges of an oath-bound association,
organized for extensive secretly concerted action,
has been long protracted, and there is no present
prospect of its termination. The kidnapping and
murder of William Morgan, for merely avowing
the intention to reveal the secrets of Freemasonry,
was the first act which roused the attention of the
people to the nature and character of this institu-
tion. In the transaction of that tragedy nine or
ten of the most atrocious crimes that can be com-

276 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

mitted by men were perpetrated by deeds to
wbicb several hundreds of men were accessory;
men not of the class of criminals instigated to
guilt by poverty, ignorance, or ferocious individ-
ual passions, but men in the educated and influen-
tial conditions of life, many of them men in all
their other relations to society of exemplary lives
and conversation.

At the time of the murder of Morgan I was
exercising the ofiice of president of the United
States. Keither the penalties of Freemasonry
nor' the practical execution of them, by the Ma-
sons who murdered him, were known to the pub-
lic in general, nor to me. Freemasonry exercised
an absolute control over all the public journals
edited by members of the institution, and over
many others by terror and intimidation. Months
and years elapsed before the murder itself was fully
proved — nor has it been judicially proved to this
day. The names indeed of the men who took
him from his dungeon on the 19th of September,
1826, and closed a torture of nine days' duration
by sinking him in the middle of JSTiagara River,
are perfectly well known. It is known that one
of them waSj according to Masonic law, upon
avowal of his crime under the seal of the fifth
libation, and under hot pursuit by the officers of
justice, furnished, by an encampment of Knights

ON FREEMASONRY. 277

Templars in the city of Xew York, with the
means of escaping from this countr3^ Bat the
witnesses to all these transactions are Freemasons,
and, as accessories to the crimes of which they
are cognizant, refuse or evade giving judicial tes-
timony on the express ground that they might
thereby criminate themselves. There are clouds
of witnesses, but they are participators in the
guilt; and thus it is that Masonry protects itself
from the judicial authentication of its crimes by
the very multitude of its accomplices, all bound
by the invisible chains of secrecy.

But the trials of the Masonic outrasres in the
State of New York have exhibited other exposi-
tions of Masonic law. Masonic juries have been
packed by Masonic sheriffs, for the express pur-
pose not only of screening the guilty from punish-
ment, but of falsifying the facts by presentments
and verdicts known to themselves to be untrue.
Masonic witnesses have refused to testify, and suf-
fered imprisonment rather than disclose the facts
known to them, even when they did not criminate
themselves. N"or is this all. "When conscience,
bursting the bands of Masonry, has constrained
Masonic witnesses to testify to crimes in which
they themselves shared, and to the secrets of the
craft, solitary Masonic jurors have refused their
assent to verdicts, upon which all their fellows

278 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

were agreed, on the avowed resolution that they
would not believe any testimony of a seceding
Mason.

The extent to which the public justice of the
country had been baffled, and the morals of the
people vitiated by Freemasonry, was therefore
disclosed to me gradually, and by a slow process
of time. Absorbed by other cares, and with time
engrossed by the discharge of other duties, I was
for years very imperfectly informed either of the
laws of Masonry, or of the ascendancy they were
maintaining over the laws of the land, or of the
deep depravity with which they were cankering
the morals of the people. Morgan's book was
not published till some months after his death ;
and when published, the Masonic presses long
labored in their double vocation of suppressing
truth and propagating falsehood, by representing
the disclosures of that book as false. Yet Mor-
gan had revealed the secrets only of the first de-
grees, and the deepest of Masonic abominations
were yet screened from the public eye. It was
not until the fourth of July, 1828, that the con-
vention of seceding Masons, held at Le Roy, made
public the secrets, oaths, obligations, and penalties
of the higher degrees. Nor were the proceedings
ot that convention made known to me till I found
them in David Bernard's Light on Masonry.

ON FREEMASONRY. 279

To that book and its author permit me, m\'
tellow-citizeus, while recommending it to your
perusal and meditation, to ofter the tribute of un-
feigned respect — a tribute the more richly deserved
for the slanders Avhich Masonic benevolence and
charity have showered upon them. Elder David
Bernard was a minister of the Genesee Baptist
Association in the State of New York. He was
a man of good repute, and of blameless life and
conversation. Like many others, he was ensnared
into the taking of fifteen degrees of Masonry, and
was the intimate secretar}' of the Lodge of Per-
fection. He was one of the first seceders from the
order, and from that time underwent every possi-
ble persecution from Masons, and the frequent
danger of his life. Among the most interesting
documents demonstrating the true spirit of Ma-
sonry, which have appeared in the course of this
controversy, is the plain and unaffected narrative
of the treatment which he received, and of the
scenes which he witnessed at the meetings of
lodges and chapters, before the murder of Morgan
as well as after, from the time when it was project-
ed in them. That it was so projected is establish-
ed by his testimony, confirmatory of numerous
other demonstrated facts.

To David Bernard, perhaps more than to any
other man, the world is indebted for the revela-

280 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

tion of the most execrable mysteries of Masonry ,
nor could he, as a minister of the word of God,
have performed a service to his country and his
fellow-christians more suitable to his sacred func-
tions. It was principally by his exertions that
the Le Roy convention of seceding Masons as-
sembled and published the oaths, obligations, and
penalties of the higher degrees of the order.

From the time of that publication the whole
system of the Masonic laws and their practical
operation, having relation to the disclosure of
their secrets, have been gradually unfolding them-
selves, and the law and its execution have been
continual commentaries upon each other. When
the murder of Morgan was first perpetrated the
instances were frequent of its being openly justi-
fied by members of the institution, as being but
the execution of a 'penalty to which he himself
had assented — as it certainly was. Another class
of Masons, somewhat less resolute, contented
themselves with maintaining that he was a per-
jured wretch for violating his oaths, and if he had
been put to death, had only suffered what he de-
served. A third class sturdily denied the facts
even after everything but the last act of murder
had been proved in regular judicial trials; and a
fourth, intrenching themselves in ignorance, which
they took care always to preserve by turning

ON FREEMASONRY. 281

away their eyes from all evidence of the facts,
rested their defense from the charge of Morgan's
murder by professing that they knew nothing
about it.

From the time when I first perused Elder Ber-
nard's book, I became convinced that it was im-
possible for me to discharge my duties as a citi-
zen to ray country by knowing nothing about it.
By a constant comparison of the laws of Masonry
with their practical execution, from the robbery
of Morgan's manuscripts and the abortive at-
tempt to burn Miller's house, to the escape of
Richard Howard from justice and from this
country, a great multitude of facts combined to
demonstrate the pervading efiicacy of all the Ma-
sonic obligations. Measures always enfeebled and
thwarted by Masonic influence were taken by the
legislature and executive of the State of New
York, to detect and bring the offenders to justice.
The trials of the criminals were in progress; I
endeavored to obtain information of their course
and termination. The letters of Col. Stone upon
Masonry and Antimasonry were addressed to me
in consequence of inquiries made by me, to an-
other person, and communicated to him. With
regard to the facts ascertained by those trials, the
reports made to the legislature of New York, and
the proceedings of the first Antimasonic conven-

282 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

tioa, held, at Philadelphia, with the essays ot
William Slade upon the Masonic penalties, and
the defense of Masonry hy the grand lodge of
Rhode Island, all concurred in furnishing a mass
of information from which my conclusions were
deduced.

I saw a code of Masonic legislation adapted to
prostrate every principle of equal justice, and to
corrupt every sentiment of virtuous feeling in tlie
soul of him who bound his allegiance to it. I saw
the practice of common honesty, the kindness of
Christian benevolence, even the abstinence from
atrocious crimes, limited exclusively by lawless
oaths and barbarous penalties to the social rela-
tions between the brotherhood of the craft. I saw
slander organized into a secret, wide-spread, and
affiliated agency, fixing its invisible fangs into the
hearts of its victims, sheltered by the darkness of
the lodge-room and armed with the never-ceasing
penalties of death. I saw self-invoked impreca-
tions of throats cut from ear to ear, of heart and
vitals torn out and cast forth to the wolves and
vultures, of skulls smitten off and hung on spires.
I saw wine drank from a human skull, with sol-
emn invocation of all the sins of its owner upon
the head of him who drinks from it; and I saw a
wretched mortal man dooming himself to external
punishment (when the last trump shall sound) as

ON FREEMASONRY. 283

a guaranty for idle and ridiculous promises.
Such are the laws of Masonry ; such their indeli-
ble character — and with that character perfectly
corresponded the history of the abduction and
murder of Morgan, and the history of Masonic
lodges, chapters, and encampments, from that day
to the present.

To this general assertion numerous exceptions
must be made, not only of individual Masons but
of whole lodges and chapters, — I wish I could say
of encampments, which have surrendered their
Masonic charters, or silently dissolved themselves.
Other lodges and chapters have ceased to hold
their meetings, and I have heard of yet others,
which, still holding their meetings, have ceased
to administer any of the oaths. Besides these
there are numbers of individual Masons who have
silently seceded and withdrawn from that institu-
tion without renouncing it. It is probable that
these exceptions include one third of all the Ma-
sons in the free states of this Union ; and to them
no observation of censure which I have made
upon Masonry or upon Masons can apply. Their
bearing is only upon adhering Masons and Ma-
sonry.

But of that censure the grand encampment, the
grand chapter, and grand lodge of i!^ew York
must take their full share. Their opinion of the

284 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

laws ot Masonry, and of their true exposition, is
the same as mine. They have proved it by their
deeds. They knew that the kidnappers and
assassins of Morgan, the robbers of his manu-
scripts, the slanderers who falsely charged him
with larceny to seize upon his person and accom-
plish his destruction, the incendiaries of the house
of Miller; that the sheriffs who packed Masonic
juries, the juries who falsified their verdicts, the
witnesses who refused to testify, or deliberately
testified to falsehood; they knew that all these
had but acted in strict conformity and faithful
obedience to the letter and the spirit of the Ma-
sonic laws. So well did they know it, that far
from expelling any one of these criminals from
the fraternity they have hailed and recognized
them as worthy brothers of the craft, have cheered
them with consolation in their sufferings, indem-
nified them with monej^ for their imprisonment,
and spirited away one at least of the ruffians,
whose hands were reeking with the blood of mur-
der, from the public justice of their country.

All this, fellow-citizens, have I seen, through a
succession of time, now extending to more than
seven years. To inform myself of the facts 1
deemed a duty of paramount obligation upon me,
as a man, a citizen, and a Christian ; especially
after my release from the arduous duties of public

ON FREEMASONRY. 285

office. Had I been actuated by no other motives
than sympathy with the feelings of my own imme-
diate neighborhood and friends, I trust they
would have needed no apology. It happened tha^
the attention of the inhabitants of my native
town of Quincy had been drawn to the facts of
the Morgan tragedy and of the laws of Masonry,
years before I came to reside among them. There
is a Masonic lodge in that town, and many of its
members are among the worthiest and most re-
spected citizens of the place. Several of them
are my personal friends and kinsmen. When the
Masonic controversy first made its way into this
commonwealth the people of that town were
among the first who became acquainted with the
Masonic laws as they were divulged, and with the
Masonic crimes in New York, their natural prog-
eny. A large majority of them became Antima-
sons, and so I found them upon my return among
them. The spirit of Antimasonry had already
pervaded the counties of Norfolk, Plymouth, and
Bristol; and the secession of the Rev. Moses
Thacher, and the controversies, ecclesiastical and
political, in which that step had involved him,
occasioned much agitation among this portion
of the people in the commonwealth.

In these dissensions I took no part ; but I
should have been insensible to all my duties had

286 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

I closed my eyes to facts or turned my ear from
argument, and smothered the sense of justice in
my soul, for the privilege of blinking the public
question which was convulsing the neighborhood
in which I lived, by professing to know nothing
about it.

Yet I did not intrude myself as a volunteer in
the controversy. It had been erroneously stated
in a newspaper, edited by a high Masonic digni-
tary in Boston, that I was a Mason. In answer
to an inquiry from a person in New York, whether
I was so, I had declared that I was not, and never
should he. This letter, without my knowledge or
consent, crept into the public prints; and from
that day the revenge of Masonic charity, from
Maine to Louisiana (I speak to the letter), marked
me for its own. At the critical moment of the
presidential election, in the counties of l^ew York
where Antimasonry was most prevailing, a hand-
bill was profusely circulated, with a deposition
upon oath, attested by a Masonic magistrate, of
an individual, real or fictitious, swearing that he
had been present at two difierent times (the dates
of which were specified) with me at meetings of
a masonic lodge at Pittsfield — a town in which I
had never entered a house in my life.

This was the first punishment inflicted upon me
by Masonic law, for declaring that I should never

ON FREEMASONRY. 287

Le a Mason. The influence of Masonry upon that
presidential election was otherwise exerted with
considerable effect; and of the raore recent elec-
tion it decided, perhaps, the fate. I never noticed
either the false annunciation in the Boston Senti-
nel that I was a Mason, or the oath of the worthy
brother of the square and compass that he had
twice met me at the lodge in Pittsfield. They
were both calumnies, as strictly conformable to
Masonic laws as to Masonic benevolence, and
have been followed, up by slanders coined at the
same mint and circulated through all the frater-
nizing presses of the land.

I have stated to you, fellow-citizens, the reasons
and motives which have actuated me in the part
I have taken in the Masonic and Antimasonic
controversy. To obtain an accurate knowledge of
the facts, and of the real laws of Freemasonry,
and to bring them to the test of pure moral prin-
ciples, I believed to be my indispensable duty; and
having done that, it was no less my duty to bear
my testimony on every suitable occasion both to
facts and principles.

Col. Stone's letters contained an exposition of
Masonic law, from a Knight Templar who had
withdrawn but not seceded from the order ; an
exposition as favorable as the hand of a friend
could make it, consistently with the candor of

288 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

truth. It was palliative, excusatory, apologetical,
for Masonry in its fairest colors; and it first put
forth the avowal that the Masonic obligations
were not among the secrets of Masonry. This
was a point upon which the most eminent digni-
taries of the craft diflered among themselves ; but
in the meantime the obligations were kept secret.
They never had been divulged till the publication
of Morgan's book since forgotten revelations of
Jachin and Boaz, the author of which is under-
stood to have suifered the same fate as Morgan.

Col. Stone gave the original oath, obligation,
and penalty, the only one taken at and long after
the primitive institution of the order. He also
referred in his book to a manuscript of the oaths,
obligations, and penalties of the first seven de-
grees, including the Royal Arch, as they have
generally been administered in the lodges and
chapters of New England ; and he afterward, at
my request, transmitted to me the manuscript,
which is now in my possession. It is a complete^
though abridged, summary of Masonic law to the
degree of Royal Arch; and the volume of Col.
Stone gives the fair and full history of the execu-
tion of that law, in its conflict of five years with
the sovereign authority of the State of New York.

In those letters Col. Stone had also referred, to
an opinion, previously expressed by me to him in

ON FREEMASONRY. 289

conversation, that the first step in Freemasourj,
the initiatory rite, the Entered Apprentice's oath,
was vicious, immoral, and unlawful. By this
publication of my opinion, which I had not au-
thorized, but to which I could have no objection,
I felt myself called upon to expose, by a strict
analysis of the Entered Apprentice's oath, the
reasons upon which I had passed that summary
sentence of condemnation upon it. I addressed
therefore to Col. Stone, for publication in the
paper of which he is a joint editor in New York,
the four letters on the Entered Apprentice's oath,
which have since been extensively circulated, but
which, such is the power of Masonry over the
periodical press, it required no small exertion of
fortitude and intrepidity in him to publish.

I shortly afterward received from Benjamin
Cowell, a citizen of Rhode Island, a letter, asking
my opinion in what manner this vicious and im-
moral institution could most effectively be put
down. In my answer to him I suggested two ob-
vious modes of ejQfecting that object. The one,
that the Masons themselves should abolish or
cease to administer the oaths, obligations, and
penalties; and the other, that the administration
of them should be prohibited under adequate pen-
alties by legislative enactment in the several states.

That they should be voluntarily abandoned by

19

290 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

the Masons themselves was my first wish, be-
cause that would have been a meritorious act —
an act now sanctioned by the example of the
lodge of my own constituents at Plymouth, to
the members of which I tender hereby my warm-
est thanks, and which, if followed by all the
lodges, will, I have no doubt, (as it should,) put
down all political Antimasonry within the com-
monwealth forever. But the General Grand Royal
Arch Chapter of the United States, at a meeting
held at Baltimore, had just issued an edict forbid-
ding this voluntary consummation; and there
were numerous other indications, that however
multitudes of individual Masons, lodges, and
chapters were disposed to yield to the voice of
reason, of religion, and of law, and to cease from
the further administration of their hideous vows,
this was not the temper or intention of the high
and leading members of the institution; and it
was apparent that the principle of subordination,
so essentially woven into the texture of the order,
would deter most of the inferior and affiliated as-
sociations of the fraternity from breaking their
fetters and dissolving their bands. I believed,
therefore, that the aid of legislative prohibition
with penalties would be indispensable for abating
this moral nuisance in the community ; and I
recommended that the administration of the Ma-

ON FREEMASONRY. 291

sonic oaths should be prohibited by law, upon
penalties of fine and imprisonment, adequate to
deter from the administration of them m future.

I take this occasion, fellow-citizens, to justify
myself before you from an aspersion which the
committee of the convention of National Repub-
licans at Worcester (who resolved that their party
must be a majority of the people, not only of the
commonwealth but of the Union,) did not dis-
dain, in their zeal, to make that majority cast
upon me in their address to you. The committee
assured you that Antimasonry was not a proper
ground for political controversy, and as it did not
suit their purposes fairly to state to you the real
question between Masonry and Antimasonry,
they presented you a fictitious one, invented in
the lodge-room, and adopted by them as their
own. They told you that Antimasonry was a
persecuting spirit, the object of which was to de-
prive Freemasons of their rights ; and by quoting
with inverted commas a passage of my letter to
Mr. Cowell, they perverted it into an assertion
that I had recommended a law to punish men
with "fine and imprisonment" for being Masons.
I recommended no such thing; but as I know
that some of the members of the committee
who signed that address have learned to read, and
as some of them may peradventure in times past

292 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

have professed to be my friends, I take the liberty
of a friend in recommending to them the next
time they shall be charged with addressing you,
in behalf of a party which must have a majority,
to respect you if they will not respect themselves ;
to respect you by abstaining from the slander of
a political adversary, not less by a palpable mis-
representation than by willful falsehood.

I have great satisfaction in observing that with-
in two months after the publication of the extracts
of my letter to Mr. Cowell, the legislature of
Rhode Island did, with great unanimity, enact a
law prohibiting the administration of extrajudi-
cial oaths, upon penalties of fine and political dis-
franchisement, which last is rather more severe ,
but more appropriate to the ofiense, than that
which I had proposed. It is to be presumed that
while that law remains in force the General
Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United States,
which is to meet again at the city ot Washington
in December, 1835, will not again enjoin upon the
chapters and lodges under their jurisdiction, at
least within the State of Rhode Island, a rigid ad-
herence to the ancient landmarks of the order, —
that is, to these very extrajudical oaths. They
will, I trust, abstain also from repeating the same
injunction to the chapters and lodges in the State
of Vermont, where a similar law, prohibitmg in

ON FREEMASONRY. 293

substance the administration of the Masonic oaths,
has lately been enacted. It happens that these
same two states of Rhode Island and Vermont
are the identical states in which the report of the
committee of the General Grand Royal Arch
Chapter of the United States affirmed that Ma-
sonry had triumphantly sustained itself, and with
regard to Rhode Island that it had been sustained
by the legislature.

Fellow-citizens, I indulge the hope that before
the next meeting of the General Grand Royal
Arch Chapter of the United States your statute-
book will present for their consideration the same
disposal of the "ancient landmarks" of Freema-
sonry ; for when you shall have set your seal of
reprobation upon those abominable appeals to the
name of God, these atrocious obligations, those
butchering and blasphemous penalties, and when
the Freemasons of your commonwealth shall sub-
mit to your will, in this enactment, Antimasonry
within your borders will be extinct — mine at least
will " die away." There is not a Freemason in
the state to whom I bear personally a particle of
ill-will. There are many for whom I entertain a
warm and cordial friendship, even of those who
have declared to you that Freemasonry knows no
penalty beyond admonition, suspension, and ex-
pulsion. I am wiUing to believe that they did not

294 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

understand, so well as the murderers of Morgan,
the oaths they had taken. Even of those who
have been slandering me without measure and
without stint, I am ready to allow that they are
only fulfilling their Masonic obligations, and fol-
lowing their vocation, and that they have the ex-
ample of my friends of the National Republi-
can Worcester convention committee, to sustain
them. Whatever of evil there is in Antimasonry
is but an aggravation of the sins of Masonry
herself.

I am aware of the objections to what is called
political Antimasonry, which have hitherto de-
terred a large majority of you from resorting to
it as an extinguisher to the baleful light of Free-
masonry. One of the most fascinating allure-
ments of the "handmaid" has been her influence
in promoting the political advancement of the
brethren of the craft. Silent and secret in her
operations, she raised them with invisible hand to
place and power, and one of the first discoveries
made by Antimasonry was that three fourths of
all the offices within range of the cable-tow were
occupied by Masons. This had become in fact
the great and absorbing employment of lodge,
chapter, encampment, and consistory; not while
the tyler with drawn sword was at the door; not
while the master, grand master, high-priest, or

ON FREEMASONRY. 295

illustrious sir kuiglit was reading lessons of
benevolence and charity, from the pages of Holy
Writ ; not while the slipshod, hoodwinked, halter-
ed, poor, blind pilgrim was perambulating the lodge
with pointed dagger at his breast, in search of
light; not even in the passage from labor to refresh-
ment, nor in the choruses of Masonic minstrelsy,
so congenial to that decent mimicry of the in-
eft'able Jehovah in the burning bush. All these
were but the types and shadows of what was to
come; all this was but the outward shell to the
kernel of Masonic brotherhood. The principle
of preference established by the Masonic code of
politics was that a brother of the craft was to
be preferred to any other of equal qualifications.
It was the odd trick of the game, and it shuf-
fled all the honors into the liands of the Masonic
partner.

This statute of Masonic law was in the year
1816 promulgated under the seal of the compass
and square, by a Master Mason in the Boston
Sentinel, the same paper which afterward so vo-
raciously declared me to be a member of the
order. Little attention was paid to this political
pass-word at the time. It was taken for a mere
common electioneering paragraph. Its operation
was neither seen nor suspected. The obligation
had not then been sharpened into a positive

296 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

promise upon oath, clinched as usual with the
penalty of death, but as a general portion of the
law of exclusive favor to the brethren of the
craft, operating unseen, and visible even in its
ctt'ects only to the initiated; it was, as it always
must be, a conspiracy of the few against the equal
rights of the many; anti-republican in its sap,
from the fruit blushing at the summit of the plant
to the deepest fiber of its root.

It was, perhaps, this monopoly of public office,
by the Masonic guide to the ballot-box, which first
suggested to the Antimasonic party the expedient
of counteracting its effects by adopting the same
principle and reversing its application. It need-
ed nothing more. If the Mason was bound, be-
tween candidates of equal qualifications, to prefer
the brother of the craft, the Antimason was but
turning upon him his own tables, in giving the
same preference to the brother Antimason. Yet
this is the principle openly avowed as a fundament-
al law of the Masonic fraternity, but which
turned upon themselves raises a universal outcry
ot proscription, disfranchisement, and persecution.

Fellow-citizens, there is in my mind an objec-
tion to the principle itself. It is but a moditicatiou
of the selfish, intolerant, and exclusive principle
of party spirit. In the Masonic code and practice
it has the additional vice of secret operation.

ON FREEMASONRY. 297

"WTien Antimasonry first raised its heaa in Kew
York it found tliree fourths of all the elective offi-
ces in the state in the hands of Masons. The
proportion of Masons to the whole population
was not one fiftieth part. How is it with you
now? Look to the delegation from your city in
your House of Representatives. Boston, to speak
in round numbers, has ten thousand citizens qual-
ified by your constitution and laws to serve as
representatives in the general council. Of these ten
thousand, one thousand may be Masons. Boston
had last year sixty-three members in the House.
Of these, by relative proportion of numbers, there
should have been six, or at most seven Masons.
How many were there? Nearly thirty. Of the
number this year elected, the Masonic proportion
is not less. Here are then nine thousand citizens
of Boston, qualified to serve as representatives in
the legislature, virtually disfranchised, that is, de-
prived of the enjoyment of their rights by the
preference of brother Masons over others of equal
qualifications, and the exclusive selection of Ma-
sons to fill the seats, the access to which ought,
^J your constitution and laws, to be enjoyed
equally by all.

Look to the delegation in your Senate from tlie
county of Worcester, the very throne of Masonry
in the commonwealth. There are in that county

298 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

say ten thousand citizens eligible to the Senate.
One tenth of that number may be Masons — one
member in the Senate would be more than their
fair proportion of the representation. They have
live out of six. Now if the Freemasons of Wor-
cester county were, like the patricians of ancient
Rome in her early days, an order of nobility, ex-
clusively eligible to seats in the Senate, what would
be the difference of the result from that which is
here effected by the Masonic preference of a
brother of the craft over others of equal qualifi-
cations?

I shall not now inquire what influence this com-
bined action of Masonic agency, by the united nu-
meric power of the city of Boston and the county
of Worcester in your legislative councils, has, and
must have over the administration and policy of
the whole commonwealth. Its power will be
pre-eminently conspicuous in the proceedings of
your legislature. I only invite your attentive ob-
servation of its effects. Watch the movements of
your general court, especially upon every subject
connected with the supremacy of Masonry, and
observe the issues, as they may affect your own
interests, of the Masonic sympathies between the
delegations from the city of Boston and the county
of Worcester.

The preference at elections^ of Antimasons for

ON FREEMASONRY. 299

candidates of their own opinions, is nothing more
than the application of the Masonic rule and prac-
tice of electioneering to themselves. It is only
justifiable as a defensive measure, and as a means
of counteracting the rapacious grasp of Masonry
at all the offices of the land.

In my letter to Mr. Cowell, I did not express
my approbation of political Antimasonry even to
the whole of this extent. I confined my appro-
bation to the election of members to the state
legislature, and to them' only until statutes pro-
hibiting with adequate penalties the administra-
tion of Masonic oaths should be enacted. The
legislatures of Rhode Island and Vermont have
enacted such statutes; and if the Masons in those
two states submit to them, Masonry within them
must ultimately die, as corporations are extin-
guished, by the death of all their members.

A far manlier and more honorable course would
be that proposed by Samuel Elliot, a Royal Arch
Mason of Vermont, a stranger to me, but a man
who deserves well of his country, who had the
intrepidity to call upon his brethren and compan-
ions of the order to yield to the unequivocal voice
and wishes of their fellow-citizens; to la}^ down
their childish pageants and preposterous digni-
ties ; to cast away their paper crowns and lackered
scepters; their globe and cross-crowned miters,

300 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

and their harlequin wooden swords of knight-
hood ; and to emerge from the tawdy honors of
grand kings, and high-priests, and pyinces of the
royal secret, and resume the plain, unembroidered,
laceless, but comfortable and decent garb of re-
publican citizens. This proposition was indeed
perilous to him who made it, and the flood-gates
of slander, according to the ancient usages of the
order, were immediately opened upon him. But
it was regularly considered and debated at a meet-
ing of the grand lodge of Vermont, at which
were present one hundred and twenty members
delegated from the several secular lodges in the
state. Of these, forty-one voted for accepting the
proposal of Mr. Elliot, one third of the whole
number ; and it was before the act of the legisla-
ture prohibiting the administration of extrajudi-
cial oaths. Let the moral Antimasons who con-
cur in the opinion that the Masonic oaths and
obligations are vicious and immoral, but who are
unwilling to manifest this opinion at the ballot-
box, reflect upon this fact. Immediately before it
occurred the two great political parties had com-
bined together, and burying all their distinctive
principles, and distributing prospectively between
them all the offices and honors of the state, had
united in one great and convulsive etibrt to put
down Antimasonry. It failed. The atmosphere

ON FREEMASONRY. 301

of the Green Mountains diffuses around them not
only a physical but moral and political air too
pure for the contamination of political prostitu-
tion. The people at the ballot-boxes bastardized
the fruits of this unnatural union, and prostrated
both the parties to it before the lofty spirit of
Antimasonry.

The immediate consequence of this event was
the convocation of the grand lodge of the state
to consider the proposition of the Royal Arch
companion Elliot; and although it did not then
succeed entirely, one important step to the disso-
lution of the order was taken. The grand lodge
did grant a permission to the secular lodges under
their jurisdiction to dissolve themselves — a proc-
ess which it is earnestly to be hoped they will
generally pursue; for let the institution but be
once formally extinguished by the voluntary act
of its members in one state of this Union, and I
harbor not a doubt that it will very shortly vanish
from the land.

It is to this voluntary relinquishment of the
whole system of Freemasonry by its own mem-
bers that I look for that great moral and political
reform which will be effected by the extinction of
the order. To this sacrifice of their prejudices
and their pride, of their vanities and their follies,
they must be brought by the power of permanent

802 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

and quickening public opinion. I have approved
of the ballot-box as one of the modes of manifest-
ing this opinion ; and this the more readily be-
cause it was at the ballot-box that the maleficent
power of the Masonic trowel was cementing the
edified of the polluted temple. But I have not
deemed the ballot-box the only, or even the favor-
ite, weapon of Antimasonry. I have sanctioned
the partial resort to it with reluctance, and would
rejoice to see the day when it should be no
longer necessary. I have indeed never resorted
to it myself, by interfering in any election against
a Masonic candidate, and have in the discharge
of my own duties preferred other modes of oper-
ating, to the extent of my poor ability, upon pub-
lic opinion.

It was this last motive that induced me to pub-
lish the four letters to Col. Stone, upon the En-
tered Apprentice's oath, in which, by a minute
analysis of it in all its parts, the appeal to God,
the promise and the penalty, it was my purpose to
prove it wrong, vicious, unlawful, and immoral —
contrary to the principles of Christianity, of hu-
manity, of law, of eternal truth and justice. To
those letters, now fifteen months published, not
one word of reply has ever appeared.

When the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter
of the United States, at their last triennial meet-

ON FREEMASONRY. 803

ing, issued their mandate and exliortation to the
chapters under their jurisdiction, and their sub-
ordinate lodges, to turn themselves into lyceums
and schools of useful knowledge, but adhere to
their ancient landmarks, — meaning their oaths, ob-
ligations, and penalties, — I saw in their proceed-
ings a new occasion for an appeal to the moral
sense of the community. Edward Livingston, then
secretary of state of the United States, was re-elect-
ed their grand high-priest, an office which he had
occupied for the three preceding years. The per-
sonal relations between this gentleman and myself
had uniformly been of a friendly character. As
the legislator of a criminal code for Louisiana,
and as on more than one occasion a sound expos-
itor of the principles of our national constitu-
tion, he had acquired my esteem, my admiration,
I had almost said my veneration. In his code for
Louisiana he had proposed the total abolition of
the punishment of death, and in his report to the
legislature had supported this proposition with a
power of reasoning and of eloquence which,
without entirely convincing my judgment, had
been viewed by me as at once the proof of a vig
orous mind and the pledge of a benevolent heart.
It appeared to me impossible that such a man
could read the letters on the Entered Apprentice's
oath without either assenting to their argument

804 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

or perceiving the indispensable necessity to the
institution of refuting it. I could not believe it
possible that he should deliberately consider the
oaths, obligations, and penalties, which it was yet
his official duty to administer, either innocent, or
harmless daceptions — speaking, in the name of
God, one thing and meaning another. As the
general grand high-priest of Masonry in the
United States, he was bound to be the official de-
fender of the institution against any serious
charge of unlawfulness or immorality, and he
had, perhaps inconsiderately, assumed not only
that character, but that of an accuser of Antima-
sonry at the bar of public opinion, in his inaugu-
ral address at his first installation. I sent him,
therefore, a copy of the letters on the Entered
Apprentice's oath, and addressed six letters to
himself, calling upon him to defend his institution
or to purge it of its impurities ; to maintain his
charges against a numerous and respectable class
of his fellow-citizens, or to retract them.

There are men upon whom the consciousness of
having done great wrong to others produces lit-
tle remorse, unless awakened to the sense of their
own injustice by feeling the ajDplication of the
scourge from another hand. I did not believe
Mr. Livingston to be a person of such a character.
I gave him credit for honest and generous feeling.

ON FREEMASONRY. 805

I believed that if remiuded of a gross injury com-
mitted inadvertently by himself in the form of
erroneous imputations upon others, he would has-
ten to repair it. The voluntary reparation of its
own injustice is one of the most glorious features
of true magnanimity. Mr. Livingston did not
notice my letters — not even by acknowledging the
receipt of them. Had they been upon any other
subject, I have reason to know that they would
have been received with friendly acknowledgment
and courtesy. But you will recollect that in his
inaugural address upon his installation as the
grand high-priest of the General Grand Royal
Arch Chapter of the United States, to his breth-
ren and companions, he advised them that if the
cause and the effect, — if the oaths, obligations, and
penalties of Masonry as the cause, and the literal
execution of them upon Morgan and Miller as the
effect, — followed by the baffling of the sovereign
authority of the State of Kew York in all its ex-
ertions to bring the murderers and incendiaries to
justice; if the throat-cutting, emboweling, heart
and vital tearing, skull-smiting, hanging, drown-
ing, quartering, double and treble eternal damna-
tion of the penalties on one side, and if on the
other the apathy of the Masonic executive gov-
ernment of New York, the packing of Masonic
juries by Masonic sheriffs, the perjuries and pre-

20

306 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

varications of Masonic witnesses, the grants of
Masonic funds by the grand lodge and grand
chapter of New York to the convicted and con-
fessing kidnappers of Morgan, under the denomi-
nation of western sufferers ; if the illustrious and
successful achievement of the encampment of
Knights Templars in New York, in rescuing from
the gibbet and conveying beyond the seas one
of the murderers of Morgan; — if all this should
be pressed home and hard upon the fraternity,
they should meet it all with dignified silence.

I could not be surprised, therefore, at finding
him] practice upon his own precept, or at discov-
ering the difference of moral principle between
Edward Livingston the legislator of Louisiana
and Edward Livingston the general grand high-
priest of the Royal Arch Masonry of the Union.

You will observe, fellow-citizens, that neither
in my letters to Col. Stone nor those to Edward
Livingston was there one word of political Anti-
masonry. The object of the letters to Col. Stone
was to prove by plain and unanswerable argu-
ment that the Masonic institution in its first rite
of initiation is radically and incurably vicious.
That of the letters to Mr. Livingston was to prevail
upon him to exercise his great and powerful in-
fluence to discard those oaths, obligations, and
penalties, which are the indelible disgrace of the

ON FREEMASONRY. 307

order. To these letters no answer has been made
or attempted.

When my letter to Mr. Co well was first pub-
lished it was in like manner left unnoticed. But
when the recent election came on, then came the
season for revenge ; then it was that a part of my
letter to Mr. Cowell was produced, published, and
trumpeted abroad, and by the same process which
in Masonic logic and language expounds a throat
cut across from ear to ear to mean expulsion from
a lodge, — a declaration that I would, if a member
of a state legislature, vote for the enactment of a
statute prohibiting upon pain of fine and impris-
onment the administration in future of the Ma-
sonic oaths, — was represented as a recommenda-
tion to cast iuto prison every Freemason to whom
the oaths have been administered heretofore.
And this Royal Arch mistake the committee of
the Worcester convention did not disdain, in ad-
dressing you, to adopt and make their own.

Before entering upon the field of the Masonic
controversy I had not only deemed it my indis-
pensable duty to possess myself of the facts and
principles material to it, but to contemplate the
consequences which would, and those which

might, result from being involved in it myself.
In the district which I was then to represent in

congress, about two fifths of the population were

308 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

Antimasons; but the political majorities in both
the counties of Plymouth and of Norfolk were
Masonic, or at least adverse to Antimasonry.
Throughout the commonwealth the Antimasons
were in numbers scarcely one fifth, and in Boston
not more than one tenth, of the voting citizens,
while the combined concentrated action of the
three Masonic strongholds of the state — Boston,
Worcester, and Salem, — had already succeeded,
in accordance with the mandate of the general
grand high-priest of the Koyal Arch Chapter of
the United States, in raising clouds of obloquy
and persecution against the cause of Antimasonry
itself, and against all who espoused it. I saw
very distinctly that Antimasonry was not the
path of ambition. It was certain to give umbrage
to a large majority of the people of the state
under their then existing impressions. It would
probably displease three fifths of my own con-
stituents, whose displeasure might soon be mani-
fested at the ballot-box. Their sufirages had not
been solicited by me, nor had I the most distant
imagination that I should ever appear as a candi-
date for the suftrages of the people of the state,
as their chief magistrate. I had at other periods
of my life enjoyed large portions of their favor,
and had received recent proof that that favor was
not abated. I had nothing more ever to ask ofj

ON FREEMASONRY. 309

them but their good opinion, and that was inex-
pressibly precious to me. Why should I expose
myself to the risk of forfeiting it altogether, with-
out any earthly object or prospect of benefit to
myself?

My only answer to this question is. It was the
cause of truth and pure morals; it was an abused
and calumniated cause ; it was a cause deeply in-
teresting to my constituents, to my fellow-citi-
zens, and to my country.

My re-election to congress by an undiminished
majority of my constituents had been very grat-
ifying to me, as a token that the portion of my
fellow-citizens in that district, opposed to Anti-
masonry, were so far disposed to tolerate my dis-
agreement in opinion with them upon this point
that they did not consider it as a reason for with-
drawing their confidence from me.

The Masonic denunciation and misrepresenta-
tion of my letter to Mr. Cowell had been tried
against me there, without efiect. ^"either Mason-
ry nor Antimasonry were subjects of controversy
in congress, and it was enough for me know that
the great mass of my constituents were satisfied
that my zeal for Antimasonry had in no wise in-
terfered with the faithful discharge of my duties
as their representative.

The Antimasonic convention held at Boston in

310 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

September were pleased to nominate me as their
candidate for your suffrages as chief magistrate
of the commonwealth for the ensuing year. I
knew that their chief object in tendering to me
the nomination was to make an effort to restore
the harmony between the two divisions of the
IN'ational Republican party, which had long con-
stituted the vast majority of the people of the
commonwealth. They were as yet separated only
by that line. I believe there was no neutral
ground. Aware of personal prejudices against
me, existing in a respectable portion of the Na-
tional Republican party, upon other and long-
standing collisions between them and me, — and
the public service in which I was engaged being
more adapted to the experience of my past life,
and better suited to considerations of interest to
me, thougb of none to the public, — I had very
sincerely hoped and expected that the views of
the Antimasonic party would unite upon some
other citizen as their candidate for the chief
magistracy of the state. Their nomination was
however placed upon grounds which it was im-
possible for me to withstand; and as I knew it
was on their part a tender of the olive-branch to
those of their fellow-citizens with whom they had
long walked in the strength of united councils,
and from whom they had parted only at the die-

ON FREEMASONRY. 311

tate of a pure, uncompromising, moral principle,
I accepted their nomination in the same spirit in
which it was tendered, and in my answer of ac-
ceptance expressed to them my determination,
if the sufi'rages of the people should confirm
their nomination, to carry into etfect, to the
utmost extent of my ability, their purpose of re-
storing harmony to the commonwealth, and of
promoting, as far as possible, that of the Union.
But in this acceptance, you will perceive, fel-
low-citizens, there was a condition express-
ed,— and there was also one implied. The ex-
pressed condition was, the contingency that the
suffrages of the people should confirm the nomin-
ation. I was resolved in no event to hold the
office of governor of the commonwealth from
any hands other than those of a majority of the
people themselves, for the obvious reason that it
was impossible for the representative of a minor-
ity of the people to be the suitable agent for pro-
moting harmony among them. If, therefore, a
majority of the people should reject the nomina-
tion accepted by me, it was clear that the restora-
tion of harmon}', if to be effected at all, must be
accomplished under happier auspices than my
elevation to your highest trust. A failure, there-
fore, of a single vote short of a majority, consti-
tuting me your governer by your own voice,

312 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

would have been a decisive indication to me that
harmony could only be promoted by me, not
by persevering in the contest of an election, but
(if in any possible manner) by retiring from it.

The implied condition was dependent upon the
same contingency. It was that my election should
involve no dereliction of other public duties with
which I was charged. I was a representative elect
of the twelfth district of the commonwealth in the
congress of the United States. Of the importance
to your interests and to the welfare of the Union
that you should have a full representation in the
popular branch of the national legislature, at all
times and without intermission, I had always had
a strong impression, and have now an impression
much deepened by the painful experience of the
last congress, in which, for the want of that fall
representation, you suffered in various ways gross
injustice, and particularly by the curtailment of
your constitutional right in that representation
itself. As the representative of the twelfth dis-
trict, I held it to be my duty to enter into no en-
gagement which should deprive my constituents
of their voice in the national legislature for a
single day. [If, therefore, even before your annual
election was held, I had seen reason to expect that
I should be chosen your governor by the majority
of the people, I should have resigned my seat in

ON FREEMASONRY. 313

congress in ample time to give my constituents
the opportunity before the meeting of congress
to elect another representative in my place. The
convention held at Worcester the first week
in October rendered this measure on my part
unnecessary, and in resolving to taJie my seat in
congress I assumed the fulfillment of duties in-
compatible with my acceptance of the ofiice of
governor of the commonwealth.

In saying this, fellow-citizens, I intend no re-
flection upon the candidate of the National Re-
publican party for your suffrages as governor;
nor do I mean to say or insinuate that he is or
should be bound by the principles of conduct
which my sense of duty prescribes to me for the
government of mine. He was nominated by a
convention, who, instead of tendering or accepting
an olive-branch, resolved that they must have a
majority, and set all other parties in the common-
wealth at defiance. He had no call from them to
promote harmony; and if in the event of his
election he should, as I hope and trust he will, do
80, it will be in the indulgence of his own fair and
honorable spirit, and not by following the impulse
of that convention, who, representing the remnant
of a party which once had a majority, seem to
have persuaded themselves that it must necessa-
rily last forever.

314 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

He has besides this a vote of the people by
several thousands larger than mine ; and although
by the provisions of your constitution this is not
sufficient for his election, nor even to control the
choice of your representatives in the legislature,
it is yet amply sufficient reason for me to with-
draw from a contest with him, but not calling up-
on him to withdraw from a contest with me, or
with either of the other candidates nominated by
the convention.

He is also the representative of one of your dis-
tricts in the congress of the United States, and
his acceptance of the office of governor will nec-
essarily vacate his seat, and leave his constituents
for a time (I hope a very short one) unrepresented.

Mr. Davis does not estimate the evil and dan-
ger of incomplete representation in the congress
of the United States as of so great magnitude as
I do; and I regret to say that your opinions upon
this subject appear to correspond more with his
sentiments than with mine. There is a ffreat
defect in your laws, relating to the election of
members of the House of Kepresentatives of the
United States. They require an absolute majority
of all the votes returned, and make no provision
for the contingency frequently occurring when
such majority can not be obtained. This is one of
the cases in which practicable good is sacrificed to

ON FREEMASONRY. 315

theoretic perfection ; a principle unsound in mor-
als and mischievous in politics. The consequence
of it is, that by adhering to it inflexibly you vol-
untarily deprive yourselves of the full represent-
ation to which you are entitled.

At the commencement of the last congress two
of your districts were thus unrepresented, and the
immediate consequence of that was the choice of
a speaker assuredly not favorable to your inter-
ests. Had those two vacancies been filled, another
person, less hostile to you, would have been
chosen. Committees would have been appointed
with more regard to impartiality, and you would
not have been deprived by political management
of one thirteenth part of your right in the repre-
sentation, as you have been, for the next ten years.
Kor is this the only or the greatest wrong you are
suftering and will suffer by your perseverance in
stripping yourselves of your own right. At the
time to which I allude your whole delegation
in the House, with the exception of Mr. Davis,
were so impressed with the importance of this de-
fect in your laws that they addressed a joint let-
ter to Governor Lincoln, requesting him to rec-
ommend a revision of them to the legislature.
He did so ; but no effectual remedy was provided.
You remained for nearly the whole congress un-
represented for one of your districts; for nearly

316 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

the whole of a long and most important session
unrepresented for both; and now, at this day,
shorn of your constitutional right to one member
by a grossly unjust apportionment law, you are
again self-divested of the right to another, by the
neglect of your past legislature to provide a remedy
for the evil. To provide such a remedy, I believe
to be one of their most imperious duties to you.
That an effectual remedy is perfectly in their
power, the example of nearly every other state in
the Union testifies ; and I can only express, as I
do, my earnest and anxious hope that not one
more session of your legislature shall be suffered
to pass without some provision of law which
shall secure to you at least the remnant of your
right to representation in the councils of the na-
tion which the injustice of the present apportion-
ment law has left you.

Let me not be understood as recommending the
principle, though sustained by the example of sev-
eral states of the Union, that a simple plurality of
votes should be sufficient for an election. There
is among the temporary laws of the common-
wealth a statute enacted in the year 1803, which
while it lasted did insure to you a full representa-
tion in congress; but it was suffered to expire,
rather by inadvertence than from any dissatisfac-
tion that was ever occasioned by it. To the prin-

ON FREEMASONRY. 317

ciple of requiring an absolute majority of votes I
would adhere so long as a reasonable hope of ef-
fecting it could be entertained ; but after two un-
successful attempts I believe it would be a safer
expedient to terminate the contest even by draw-
ing lots for the choice, than by the protracted col-
lisions and festering irritations of an interminable
struggle to turn the elective franchise into an
instrument of its own destruction.

Entertaining these opinions and holding these
principles, I consider the delegation to me of the
authority to represent in the national legislature,
the inhabitants of your twelfth congressional dis-
trict, as a trust, to be fulfilled with diligence as
well as fidelity. Kot one day — not one hour — of
voluntary absence from the discharge of the duties
incumbent on that trust have I permitted to my-
self during the twenty-second congress, nor shall
I permit to myself during the twenty-third. In
accepting the nomination of the convention at
Boston, it was therefore with the implied condi-
tion that it should in no wise interfere with the
fulfillment of my duties to my constituents of the
twelfth congressional district ; and from the mo-
ment it was ascertained that an absolute majority
of the people of the commonwealth had not con-
firmed the nomination of the Antimasonic con-
vention, my determination was taken. And this

318 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

determination was the more cheerfully made be-
cause the three other citizens between whom your
sujffrages are divided, and who will go as candi-
dates nominated by you to the legislature, are all
persons of ability and integrity, with whom I
have the pleasure of being acquainted both in
public and private life, and in whom I have great
confidence. To yield to either of them any pre-
tensions that I might have to your favor or that
of your legislature, costs me not the slightest sac-
rifice ; and after what I hare said of Mr. Davis, it
can not be improper for me to add that the pref-
erence which I should without hesitation assign to
him, had I a vote in the election, would be as
much in the indulgence of my own inclination as
in deference to yours — it being evident to me from
the comparative numbers of the returns that in
the failure of an absolute majority of your suffra-
ges for any one his share of them approaches the
nearest to it, and must therefore be considered by
me as most deserving of it.

In concluding this exposition of my own mo-
tives for assenting to the nomination of the Anti-
masonic convention, and now for withdrawing
from the contest, let me give the parting advice
of a friend to the remnant of the party styling
themselves National Republicans, with whom I
have generally concurred in opinion upon most of

ON FREEMASONRY. 319

the great interests of the nation and of the com-
monwealth — though I have never professed to be
one of them or of any other party. Let me exhort
them to revise the political class-book, the ele-
ments of which confound the distinction between
the meanino: of the words must and vnll. Let
them learn that it is not sufficient for a party to
resolve that they must have a majority of votes,
without using just and proper means to obtain
it. Let them especially learn that to put down
Aiitimasonry it is not enough for them dogmat-
ically to tell you that they " look upon the Masonic
fraternity as furnishing no cause for political
strife."

The opinions of their addressing committee are
no doubt of great weight upon subjects which they
understand; but in the utter ignorance of the
nature, character, and condition of the Masonic
institution which their address displays, it is not
from them that you will receive a dictation how
you shall look upon it. They speak of Freema-
sonry as " an inefficient and almost superannuated
institution." A.n institution which, at the moment
when thus characterized by them, was convulsing
all the free states of this Union ; an institution in
the support of which, under the transparent mask
of neutrality, they were addressing you with
pages of invective and slander upon its adversa-

320 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

ries; an institution, under the Rhadow of whose
wings they, and the convention whose voice they
assumed to speak, were as effectively assembled as
if every individual of them had drank the cup of
the fifth libation ! They tell you in the face of
day, that Freemasonry is an inefiicient and almost
superannuated institution !

And since when is it inefficient and almost su-
perannuated? Had the committee which penned
that address heard the eloquent orator of the craft
at Kew London, in July, 1825? He spoke of the
then -present time, and said, " It is powerful. It
comprises men of rank, wealth, office, and talent,
in power and out of power, and that in almost
every place where power is of any importance.
And it comprises among other classes of the com-
munity, to the lowest, in large numbers, active
men united together, and capable of being directed
by the efforts of others so as to have the force of
concert throughout the civilized world. They are
distributed too with the means of knowing one
another, and the means of co-operating, in the
desk, in the legislative hall, on the bench, in every
gathering of business, in every part of pleasure,
in every domestic circle, in peace and in war,
among enemies and friends, in one place as well
as in another."

Is this the inefficient and almost superannuated

ON FREEMASONRY. 321

institution of tlie committee? And upon this
faithful Masonic representation of Masonic power,
did you mark this concerted secret faculty of mu-
tual recognition for the purposes of co-operation,
in the legislative hall ? Did you mark its ascent
upon the very bench of justice? Is this the inef-
ficient and almost superannuated institution ?
What must be the result of a mutual secret recog-
nition for the purposes of co-operation between a
judge on the bench, and a suitor or a culprit at
the bar? Inquire of tiie records of the judicial
tribunals of Kew York, and they will furnish the
answer.

Has the institution, in the short space of time
since the exhibition of this glowiug picture of its
power, been suddenly struck with inefiiciency and
superannuation? If the committee had consulted
Masonic authority they would have found that
the interval of fifteen months between the deliv-
ery of this discourse and the murder of William
Morgan was one of unparalleled prosperity to the
order, and unexampled multiplication of its mem-
bers. Since the execution of the law of Masonry
upon Morgan, by the co-operation, among others,
of the bench, the institution has been, and contin-
ues to be, a church militant; and if in the pros-
ecution of that warfare it has lost some of its
efficiency, to whom and to what is this diminution

21

322 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

of its power attributable? To Antimasonrj — to
political Antimasonry aloue. All the measures
takeu to bring the murderers of Morgan and in-
cendiaries of Miller's house to justice, were taken
by political Antimasons. Almost all of them
were defeated by the power of mutual recog-
nition and co-operation upon the bench, and in the
jury-box, and on the witnesses' stand. The dis-
closure of the Masonic oaths, obligations, and
penalties was made by political Antimasons,
seceders from the order. Political Antimasonry,
and that alone, has prostrated the power of Ma-
sonry throughout the whole of that region of the
State of New York where the most atrocious of
her crimes had been committed. There, in the
very center of her unhallowed dominion, her
scepter is broken, her voice is silenced, her hand
is paralyzed; she is scotched, not killed. And
so entirely does the existence, and of course all
the evil, of political Antimasonry depend upon
the active and mischievous existence of Masonry
herself, that wherever she disappears, even but by
hiding her face, political Antimasonry disappears
with her. The people cease to consider either
Masonry or Antimasonry as a test of qualification
for office. Masons and Masonic adherents share
the favor of the people in common with others,
and then all the trumpets of Masonry where she

ON FREEMASONRY. 323

still reigns sound the note of triumph that Anti-
masonry is " dying away."

Political Antimasonry is founded upon a pure,
precise, unequivocal principle of morals. That
this is the Antimasonic cause the committee who
addressed you against it dare not deny. Moral
principle is the vital breath of Antimasonry.
That a party thus originated and thus constituted
should be traduced, slandered, and vilified by men
having any pretension to morality of any kind
themselves is not surprising, only because it cor-
responds with the general current of history and
the ordinary operation of human passions.

Political Antimasonry sprung from the bosom
of the people themselves; and it was the cry of
horror from the unlearned, unsophisticated voice
of the people at the murder of Morgan, at the
prostration of law and justice in the impunity of
his murderers, and at the disclosure of the Ma-
sonic obligations. That cry arose not from the
mansions of the wealthy, nor from the cabinets
of the learned or of the great, not even from the
sentinels on the watch-towers of Zion; it came
from the broad basis of the population — from the
less educated and most numerous class of the
community. So it is with all great moral reforms.
"When the gospel of peace itself was proclaimed,
who was its founder? To worldly eyes, the son

324 LETTERS AND OPINIONS

of a carpenter. "Who were its apostles ? Fisher-
men and toll-gatherers, publicans and sinners.
Then the priest and the Levite, the Pharisee and
the Sadducee, the Epicurean and the Stoic, the
lioman governor and Jewish king, stood aloof,
or co-operated in the crucifixion of the Savior.
Not many wise men, not many mighty, not many
noble, felt the efficacy of the call ; and they who
did immediately became the subject of every per-
secution and every indignity.

Let me draw no irreverent parallel, but the his-
tory of Christianity, in its secondary causes, is
the history of all reformations of morals. It was
by means of the political Antimasonic excitement
that the spirit of reformation penetrated from the
mass of the people into the bosom of the lodge,
chapter, and encampment themselves.

The Le Roy conventions were composed of se-
ceding Masons. The Dagan of the temple fell in
the presence and by the hands of his own wor-
shipers. If, then, Masonry has lost some portion
of her efficiency since the boasting celebration of
her power by her orator at I^ew London, it is to
political Antimasonry alone that this purification
of the public morals must be ascribed. At this
moment, between the convulsive struggles of Ma-
sonry to maintain in this commonwealth her em-
pire; paramount to the laws, and the persevering

ON FREEMASONEY. 325

efforts of Antimasonry to redeem their su-
premacy, all the great parties in the state ap-
pear to be dissolving into their elements. Your
political divisions are becoming petty altercations
for men ; all community of feeling and interest
in public concerns is shivering into rags. You
have been unable to concentrate your votes with
united energy sufficient to elect the ordinary
officers of your government. You. have of your
own choice no governor, no lieutenant-governor,
scarcely a quorum of your Senate, and multi-
tudes of the representatives of your towns have
failed to be elected by yourselves.

A long continuance of this state of things will
yield you and your interests to the mercy of those
associated with you in the national compact, — yet
feeling no sympathy with you, but much rather a
disposition to trample you under their feet. Of all
this Freemasonry is the cause. Let but the mem-
bers of that fraternity within your borders con-
vert their lodges into lyceums, and cease the ad-
ministration of their oaths, and you may again be
a happy and united people. May it so please the
Supreme Disposer of events, prays, with every
sentiment of respect and gratitude to you.
Your friend and fellow-citizen.

John Quingy Adams.

A.PP»ENr)IX.

The- following are exact copies of the oaths, obligations, and penal-
ties of the first three degrees in Masonry,— the Entered Apprentice,
Fellowcraft, and the Master Mason, — extracted from the old manuscript
mejationed in Colonel William L. Stone's Letters on Masonry and Anti-
masonry, Letter 7, page 67; and in the Appendix, p. 3, where it is said
that while Morgan was at Rochester, these papers were there, and
already written to his hands. For the more recent forms of oaths, sea
Bernard's work.

ENTERED APPRENTICE'S OBLIGATION,

I, A. B., do-, of my own free will and accord, in the presence of God,
and iif this right worshipful Lodge, erected to God, and dedicated to
holy St. John, hereby and hereon most solemnly and-sincerely promise
and swear.

That I will always hail, forever conceal, and never reveal, any of tho
secret or secrets of Masons or Masonry, which at this time, or at any
time hereafter, shall be communicated to me as such, except it be to a
true and lawful brother, or within the body of a just and regular Lodge,
him or them whom I shall thus find to be, after strict trial and due ex-
amination,

I furthermore promise and swear that I will not write them, print
them, stamp them, stain them, cut them, carve them, mark them,
work or engrave them, nor cause them so to be done, upon anything
movable or immovable under the canopy of heaven, capable of bearing
the least visible sign, mark, character, or letter, whereby the mysteries
of Masonry may be illegally obtained.

All this I solemnly and sincerely swear, with a full and hearty reso-
lution to perform the same, without any .evasion, equivocation, or
mental reservation, under no less penalty than to have ray throat cut
acn ss from ear to ear, my tongue plucked out by the roots, and buried
in the rough sands of the sea, a cable's length irom shore, where the
tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four hours. So help me God. and
keep me steadfast in this my obligation of an Entered Apprentice. K.
ance— (kiss the Bible once).

fellowckaft's obligation,

I, A. B., do, of my own free will and accord, in the presence of God.
and this right worshipful Lod^e, erected to God, and dedicated to holy
St. John, hereby and hereon most solemnly and sincerely promise and
»wear that I will always hail, forever conceal, and never reveal, any of
the secret part or parts, mystery or mysteries, of a Fellowcraft to an
Entered Apprentice: nor the part of an Entered Apprentice, or either
of them, to any other person in the world, except'it be to those to whom
the same shall justly and legally belong.

327

328 APPENDIX.

I furthermore promise and swear that I will relieve all poor and indi-
gent brethren, as far .as their necessities require, and my ability will
permit.

I furthermore promise and swear that I will obey all true signs,
tokens, and summonses, sent me by the hand of a Felloworaft. or from
the door of a just and regular Felloworaft s Lodge, if within the length
of my cable-tow.

_ AH this I solemnly and sincerely swear, with a full and hearty resolu-
tion to perform the same, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental
reservation, under no less penalty than to have my heart taken from
under my naked left breast, and carried to the valley of Jehosaphat,
there to bo thrown into the fields to become a prey to the wolves of the
desert, and the vultures of the air. So help me God, >fcc. Kiss (the
Bible) twice.

MASTER mason's OBLIGATION.

I. A. B., do, of my own free will and accord, in the presence of God,
and of this right worshipful Lodge, erected to (iod, and dedicated to holy
St. John, hereby and hereon most solemnly and sincerely promise and
swear, that I will always hail, forever conceal, and never reveal, the
secret part or parts, mystery or mysteries, of a Master Mason to a Fel-
loworaft, or those of a Fellowcraft to an Entered Apprentice, or thoni
or either of them to any other person in the world, except it be to those
to whom the same shall justly and legally belong.

I furthermore promise and swear that I will not be present at the
maki]ig of a Mason of a woman, of a niadtnan, or of n fool; that I will
:.ot defraud a brother knowingly or* willingly; that 1 will not give the
Master's words above breath, nor then except within the five points of
fellowship;— that I will not violate the chastity of a Mason's wife or
daughter, knowing them to be such.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will attend a brother bare-
foot, if necessity requires, to warn him of approaching danger; that on
my knees I will remember him in my prayers; that I will take him by
the right hand and support him with the left in all his just and lawful
undertakings; that I will keep his secrets as safely deposited in my
breast as they are in his own, treason and murder only excepted, and
those at my option; that I will obey all true signs, tokens, and sum-
monses, sent me by the hand of a Master Mason, or from the door of a
just and regular Master Mason's Lodge, if within the length of my
cable-tow.

All this I most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear with a full
and hearly resolution to perform the same, without any evasion, equiv-
ocation, or mental reservation, under no less penalty than to have my
body cut across, my bowels taken out and burnt to ashes, and those
ashes scattered to the four winds of heaven; to have my body dissected
into four equal parts, and those parts hung on 'he cardinal points of the
compass, tnere to hang and remain as a terror to all those who shall
presume to violate the sacred obligation of a Master Mason. Kiss (the
Bible) thrice.

These three penalties, the Master of the Lodge, immediately after
administering this oath to the recipient Master Mason, declares to him,
were executed upon th« three Tyrian fellowcrafts, at the building of
Solomon's temple, and have ever nince remained the standing penalties in
the first three degrees of Masonry.

The following form of the Royal Arch Oath, and that of the Knights
Templar, are taken from the Boston edition of Avery Allyn's Kitual of
Freemasonry, printed in 1831, pp. 143, 236.

APPENDIX. 329

EOYAL ARCH OATH,

T, A. B., of my own free will and accord, in presence of Almighty
God, and this Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, erected to God and dedi-
cated toZerubbabel, do hereby and hereon, mostsolemnly and sincerely
promise and swear, in addition to my former obligations, that 1 will
not reveal the secrets of this degree to any of an inferior degree, nor to
any being in the known world, except it be to a true and lawful com-
panion Koyal Arch Mason, or within the body of a just and legally con-
stituted Chapter of such; and aev r unto him, or them, whom 1 shall
hear so to be, but unto him and them only whom I shall find so to be,
after s.trict trial and due examination, or lawful information given.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will not wrong this Chapter
of Royal Arch Masons, or a companion of this degree, out of the value
of anything, myself, or suffer it to bo done by others, if in my power to
prevent it.

I furthermore promise and swear that I will not reveal the key to the
ineffable characters of this degree, nor retain it in my possession, but
will destroy it whenever it comes to my sight.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will not speak the grand
omnitic Royal Arch word, which I shall hereafter receive, in any man-
ner, except in that in which I shall receive it, which will be in tne
presence of three companion Royal Arch Masons, myself making one of
the number; and then by three times three, under a living arch, and at
low breath. •

I furthermore promise and swear that I will not be at ta© exaltation
of candidates in a clandestine Chapter, nor conver«e upon the secrets
of this degree with a clandestine made Mason, or with one who has
been expelled or suspended, while under that sentence.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will not assist, or be present
at the exaltation of a candidate to this degree, who has not received
the degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, Master Mason, Mark
Master, Past Master, and Most Excellent Master.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will not be at the exaltation
of more or less than three candidates, at one and the same time.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will not be at the forming or
opening of a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, unless there be present
nine regular Royal Arch Masons, myself m^iking one of that number.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will not speak evil of .a
companion Royal Arch Mason, behind his back, nor before his face,
but will apprise him of all approaching danger, if in my power,

X furthermore promise and swear, that I will support the constitution
of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the United States of America; to-
gether with that of the General Grand Chapter of this State, under
which this Chapter is holden; that I will stand to, and abide by all
the by laws, rules, and regulations of this Chapter, or of any other
Chapter of which I may hereafter become a member.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will answer and obey all due
signs and summons, handed, sent, or thrown to me from a Chapter of
Royal Arch Masons, or from a companion Royal Arch Mason, if within
the length of my cable-tow.

I furthermore promise and swear, thaw I will not strike a companion
iloyal Arch Mason, so as to draw his blood in anger.

I furthermore promise and swear, that 1 will employ a companion
Royal Arch Mason, in preference to any other pccsort of etjual qualifica-
tions.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will assist a companion
Royal Arch Mason, when I see him engaged in any difficulty, and will
esvoitse his cause so far aa to extricate him from the same whether he be
RIGHT or WRONG.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will keep all the secrets of a
companion Royal Arch Mason (when communicated to me as such, or I
knowing them to be such,) withozU exayitions.

330

APPENDIX.

I furthermore promise and swear, that I will bo aiding and assisting
&ll poor a,nd indiffent companion Royal Arch Masons, their widows and
orphans, leheresoever dispersed around the globe; they making application
to me as such, and I finding them tcorfftj/, and can do it without anj/
♦na«ert«nnjury to myself or family. To all which I do most solemnly
and sincerely promise and swear, with a firm and steadfast resolution
to keep and perform the same without any equivocation, mental reser-
vation, or self-evasion of mind in me whatever; binding myself under
no less penalty, than to have my KkuU amote off, and my brains exj^osed to
the scorching rays of the meridian sun, should I knowingly or willfully
violate, or transgress anv part of this my solemn oath or obligation of a
Royal Arch Mason. So help me God, and keep me steadfast in the due
performance of the same. (Kissing the book seven times.)

KNIGHT templar's OATH.

I, A. B., of my own free will and accord, in the presence of Almighty
God, and this Encampment of Knights Templars, do hereby and hereon
most solemnly promise and swear that I will always hail, forever con-
ceal, and never reveal, any of the secret arts, parts or points apper-
taining to the mysteries of this Order of Knights Templars, unless it be to
a true and lawful companion Sir Knight, or within the body of a just
and lawful Encampment of such; and not unto him, or them, until by
due trial, strict examination, or lawful information, I find him or them
lawfully entitled to receive the same.

Furthermore do I promise and swear, that I will answer and obey all
due signs and regular summons which shall be given or sent to me from
a regular encampment of Knights Templars, if within the distance of
forty miles, natural infirmities and| unavoidable accidents only ex-
cusing me.

Furthermore do I promise and swear, that I will help, aid, and assist
with my counsel, my purse, and my sword, all poor and indigent
Knights Templars, their widows and orphans, they making application
to me as such, and I finding them worthy, so far as I can do it without
material injury to myself, and so far as truth, honor, and justice may
warrant.

Furthermore do I promise and swear, that I will not assist, or be pre-
sent, at the forming and opening of an Encampment of Knights Tem-
plars, unless there be present seven Knights of the Order, or the
representatives of three different Encampments, acting under the
sanction of a legal warrant.

Furthermore do I promise and swear, that I will go to the distance of
forty miles, even barefoot and on frosty ground, to save the life, and
relieve the necessities of a worthy Knight, should I know that his ne-
cessities require it, and my abilities permit.

Furthermare do I promise and swear, that Twill toield my aicord in the
defense of innocent maidens, destitute loidoics, helpless orphans, and the
christian religion.

Furthermore do I promise and swear, that I will support and main-
tain the by-laws of the Encampment of which I may hereafter become
a member, the edicts and regulations of the Grand Encampment of the
United States of America, so far as the same shall eome to my knowl-
edge; to all this I most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear, with
a firm and steady resolution to perform and keep the same, without
any hesitation, equivocation, mental reservation, or self-evasion of
mind in me whatever; binding myself under no less penalty than to
have my head struck oflF and placed on the highest spire in Christen-
dom, should I knowingljf or willingly violate any part of this my
solemn obligation of a Knight Templar. So help me God, and keep
me steadfast to perform and keep the same, (He kisses the book.)

APPENDIX. 3S1

FnTH LrBATION

This part of the ceremony attending the creation of the Knight Tem-
plar, ia deemed interesting in connection w\th the obligation.

Address of the Master.

Pilgrim, the fifth libation is taken In a very solemn way. It is em-
blematical of the bitter cup of death, of which we must all, sooner or
later, taste; and even the Savior of the world was not exempted, not-
withstanding his repeated prayers and solicitations. It is taken of pure
wine, and from this cup. Exhibiting a human skull, he pours wine
into it, and says : To show you that we here practice no imposition, I
give you this pledge. (Drinks from the skull.) He then pours more
wine into the skull, and presents it to the candidate, telling him that
the fifth libation is called the sealed obligation, as it is to seal all his
former engagements in Masonry,

If the candidate consents to proceed, he takes the skull in his hand,
-and repeats after the Most Eminent, as follows :

This pure wine I take from this cup, in testimony of my belief of the
mortality of the body, and the immortality of the soul; and as the sins
of the whole world were laid upon the head of our Savior, so may the
sins of the person whose skull this once was, be heaped upon my head,
in addition to'my own; and may they appear in judgment against me,
both here and hereafter, should I viplate or trani^gress any obligation
in Masonry, or the Orders of Knighthood which I have heretofore taken,
take at this time, or may hereafter be instructed in. So help me God.
(Drinks of the wine.)

The following extracts are referred to in Mr. Adams's fourth letter to
Mr. Livingston, page 202.

Extracts from the Report made to the General Asuembly of the State of Louis-
iana on the Plan of a Penal Code for the said State. By Edward Livings-
ton,

"Legislators, in all ages and in every country, have at times
endangered the lives, the liberties, and fortunes of the people by in-
consistent provisions, cruel or dispropobtionatk punishments, and a
legislation weak and wavering."

" Executions (in England) for gome crimes were attended with butch-
ery THAT WOULD DISGUST A SAVAGE."

"Acknowledged truths in politics and jurisprudence can never be too
often repeated."

" Publicity is an object of such importance in free government", that
it not only ought to be permitted, but must be secured by a species of
compulsion."

" If he (the culprit) be guilty, the state has an interest in his convic-
tion; and whether guilty or innocent, it has a higher interest that the
fact should be fairly canvassed before judges inaccessible to influ-
ence AND UNBIASED BY ANY FALSE VIEWS OF OFFICIAL DUTY.

** It is not true, therefore, to say that the laws do enough, when they
give the choice (even suppose it could be made with deliberation) be-
tween a fair and impartial trial and one that is liable to the strongest
objections. They must do more; they must restrict that choice, so as
not to suffer an ill-advised individual to dear .de them into instru-
ments of ruin, though it should be voluntarily inflicted, or of death,
though that death should be suicide."

"The English mangle the remains of the dead (by suicide). The in-
animate ■ body feels neither the ignopiv nor pains. The mind of the
innocent survivor alone is lacerated by this useless and savage
butchery, and the disgrace of the execution is felt exclusively by him,
although it ought to fall on the laws which inflict it."

332 APPENDIX.

** The law punishes, not to avenge, but to prevent crimes. No pun-
ishments, greater than are necessary to effect this work of prevention,
let us remember, ought to Ije inflicted."

''Although the dislocation of joints is no longer considered as the
best mode of ascertaining innocence or discovering guilt; although
offenses against the Deity are no longer expiated by the burning fagot:
or those against the majesty of kings, avenged by the hot pincers and
the rack and the wheel; still many other modes of punishment have
their advocates, which, if not equally cruel, are quite as inconsistent
with the true maxims of penal law."

"As to tho authority of great names, it loses much of its force; since
the mass of the people have begun to think for themselves."

"Whore laws are so directly at war with the feelings of tho people
whom they govern, as this, and many other instances prove them to be,
these laws can never be wise or operative, and they ought to bk

ABOLISHED." i

Extracts from detached parts of the projected Code.

" No act of legislation can be, or ought to be, immutable.

" Vengeance is unknown to the laws. The only object of punishment
is to prevent the commission of offenses."

"Penal laws should be written in plain language, clearly and un-
equivocally expressed, that they inay neither be misunderstood nor
perverted."

" The law never should command more than it can enforce. There-
fore, whenever, from public opinion or any other cause, a penal law
can not be carried into execution, it should be repealed.

"The legislature alone has a right to declare what shall constitute
an offense."

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