The Enemy Within Read online

  Chapter XII, another close-up, treats matters so recent as to be within the memory of both author and a good many readers. Here, indeed, is as clear a viewpoint on witch-hunting as any of us personally will ever come to.

  CHAPTER X

  Anti-Masonry: A Politics of Panic

  June 1826; the town of Batavia, in the northwest corner of New York State. William Morgan, a local stone-worker, and David C. Miller, a newspaper editor, announce plans to publish an exposé of the “secret rites” of the fraternal Order of Freemasons. (Morgan is an order member, now apparently on the outs.) Nearby Masonic lodges respond with alarm; some, indeed, are said to be “in a kind of frenzy.” Their leaders move to head off the Morgan-Miller project by any means possible: pleading, social pressure, threats of force.

  In September they resort to vigilantism. On the 10th, a gang of Masons tries, unsuccessfully, to torch Miller’s printing office. On the 11th, a similar group comes to Morgan’s home at dawn and seizes him in what amounts to a citizens’ arrest. They take him 40 miles east to the town of Canandaigua and commit him to jail there, on thinly based charges of debt. The following night, yet another group of Masons arrives to reclaim—in effect, to abduct—the prisoner. Under cover of darkness they convey him in a closed carriage back to the west, via Rochester, to his last known destination—Fort Niagara, on the Canadian border near the southern tip of Lake Ontario. Beyond this, he simply vanishes.

  At year’s end Morgan’s pamphlet, Illustrations of Free Masonry, is printed and offered for sale. Its “revelations” are relatively tame—most concern initiation procedure—and fail to arouse widespread interest. Morgan’s disappearance, however, is another matter; by now this has become a sensation in its own right. Citizens’ committees form throughout the region to protest the “outrage” of abduction—and of an apparent cover-up. Local authorities, many of them longtime Masons, are suspected of shielding the perpetrators and suppressing evidence.

  Beginning in October and stretching through the next five years, courtrooms in several different New York counties will host a variety of Morgan-related proceedings, including some 20 grand-jury inquiries. These spawn motions to the state supreme court, vigorous debates in the Assembly, and the appointment of three separate special counsels with broad powers of investigation. A prolonged spate of publishing activity—books, newspaper articles, official reports—serves to inflame opinion throughout the state and beyond. (A visitor to Albany in the spring of 1827 comments that he “hears nothing talked of in the stages and barrooms but Morgan”; the affair is “alarming the whole country.”)

  The eventual results will include indictment of at least 26 Masons, on grounds of false imprisonment, perjury, and kidnapping. But only six of the accused are actually brought to trial, with just four convicted. And these four receive light sentences: from three months’ to one year’s imprisonment. This, in turn, fuels further public indignation and a deepening belief in the corruption of the courts. Masons have reportedly sent some potential witnesses into hiding and bribed others not to testify. Prosecutors, sheriffs, and judges are said to have betrayed their official responsibilities; thus, according to one of the special counsels, “Difficulties which never occurred in any other prosecution have been met at every step.” Although no definite trace of Morgan has come to light, his murder—most likely by drowning in the Niagara River—is widely assumed.

  The roots of organized Freemasonry lie deep in Europe’s medieval past. Clearly, there was some long-range tie to traditional guilds of stonemasons and cathedral builders. With the passage of centuries, as their work diminished, these evolved from an “operative” to a “speculative” (and social) mode. By the start of the 18th century, especially in Britain but also across many parts of the European continent, an elaborate web of “lodges” had formed around essentially fraternal aims. An early account of Masonry described it as “a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.”

  In about 1730, the movement jumped the ocean with the founding in Philadelphia of the first lodge on American soil and entered a period of remarkable growth. On the eve of the American Revolution, roughly 100 lodges lay dotted across the 13 colonies; their members included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and others among the founding generation. By 1800, the total of Masons nationwide had reached at least 16,000. To be sure, the order was not universally appreciated. Critics focused especially on its code of secrecy, its seemingly “aristocratic” spirit, and its somewhat ambiguous relation to religion. In the 1790s, amid rising alarm over the radical tendencies of the French Revolution, Masons were occasionally accused of nurturing a “Jacobin” conspiracy.

  But in the opening years of the 19th century, Masonry expanded faster than ever and achieved a new public prominence. Its recruitment drew heavily on local leadership groups: young professionals, businessmen, aspiring politicians, and others touched by the “go-ahead” spirit of the age. Its avowed goal was mental and moral “improvement”; in that respect it conformed to Enlightenment values. But its appeal was based, most of all, on “comradely feeling.” Moreover, it served to provide a place of retreat from “the cares of the world”—plus, one can be sure, the practical advantages of ready-made networking. Its membership standards, and its not inconsiderable dues, fostered a sense of social elevation, while its commitment to secrecy proved an effective means of bonding. Its allegiance to Christianity was broadly ecumenical; Masons came, to a disproportionate extent, from the more “liberal” churches—Unitarians, Universalists, Episcopalians—but all denominations were at least somewhat represented. (Indeed, even Jews and Muslims could be accepted; only atheists were officially barred.) Its elaborate ritual enactments, the focus of Morgan’s exposé, added a special touch of aesthetic and emotional reward.

  By the mid-1820s, Masonry had reached a pinnacle within the rapidly growing galaxy of American “associations.” Lodges were found in more than 1,000 cities and towns, while the sum total of members had climbed well past 100,000. In 1825 one particularly enthusiastic spokesman asked the rhetorical question, “What is Masonry now?”—and then gave his own answer: “It is POWERFUL. It comprises men of rank, wealth, office, and talent . . . in almost every place where power is of importance . . . so as to have the force of concert throughout the civilized world.”

  “Power,” “force,” and “concert”: these are, from the first, animating issues in the Morgan affair. The power to seize, and destroy, a self-proclaimed opponent. The force to turn back a criminal investigation. The concert of control over jurymen, judges, and the legal system in general. The means, even, to shape the flow of public information. (Newspapers owned and edited by men who are Masons seem suspiciously reluctant to report key events in the unfolding sequence.) Masonic power looms everywhere—or so large numbers of ordinary folk are ready to believe.

  How should they react? Presumably, with “power” and “concert” of their own. The period of the various judicial hearings and trials (1826-31) is also a time of mobilizing against Masons. Print constitutes one kind of power—as a torrent of fledgling anti-Masonic newspapers and tracts will soon attest. Public denunciation is a second; thus comes a burst of meetings, speech making, and other demonstrative actions. (Some of these feature dramatic “secessions” by previously loyal Masons.) Indeed, organized anti-Masonry begins as a moral crusade with strongly evangelical undertones; from early on advocates refer to it as “the Blessed Spirit.” Clergy are often in the lead, and churches serve as centers of protest. And much of the rhetoric heard on such occasions has the flavor of revival “enthusiasm.”

  In the long run, however, politics will prove the best and most efficacious line of response. Starting in New York, but spreading quickly to New England, governance is convulsed by anti-Masonic agitation. The goal is to purge public life of any and all influence by Masons. Masonic charters of incorporation must be voided, Masonic oaths outlawed, Masonic officeholders defeated at the polls. “We refuse to vote for a Maso
n because we believe their adherence to Masonic oaths disqualifies them from civic trusts”: thus the credo, a virtual counteroath, of the Antis. ◆◆◆

  Political anti-Masonry makes a unique chapter in American history. Though relatively short-lived (scarcely more than a decade from first breath to last gasp), it was at its height a force to be reckoned with. Its timing—birth and early growth in the midst of a transitional period between the first party system (Federalists versus anti-Federalists) and the second (Democrats versus Whigs)—opened special forms of opportunity.

  It was, at the outset, very much a grassroots movement, sprung from a host of local initiatives. These would soon coalesce, through the workings of Revolution-style “committees of correspondence,” to yield county- and state-wide gatherings, and, eventually, the first national party convention ever. Indeed, political conventions as we know them today—in contrast to the older “caucus” tradition—were largely a brainchild of the anti-Masons.

  The movement’s greatest impact was felt at the state level. In Vermont, anti-Masons became the dominant party, electing the governor four times running (1831-35) and controlling both legislative chambers. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and New York, they were a powerful minority, in the legislatures as well as many local communities. This enabled them to exert direct influence on the day-to-day political process; for example, in several states they engineered official “investigations” of Masonry, with witnesses summoned under power of subpoena and subjected to decidedly hostile questioning. They also managed to gain passage of laws outlawing extrajudicial oaths, denying (some) Masonic lodges a civil charter and tax-exempt status, and imposing regular patterns of public oversight. Even in more remote areas such as Ohio and the Michigan Territory they made their mark. In general, they were most successful wherever mainstream party organization was weak, in the Northeast rather than the South and West, and in rural or small-town communities more than in major urban centers.

  They attracted, too, some notable political personalities. Former president John Quincy Adams joined the anti-Masons and ran unsuccessfully as their gubernatorial candidate in the Massachusetts election of 1833. Their New York leaders included William Henry Seward, future secretary of state in the Lincoln administration, and Thurlow Weed, who, like Seward, would be among the founders of the modern Republican Party. In Pennsylvania they were headed by Thaddeus Stevens, later to become a mainstay of the radical Republicans in the post-Civil War Senate. Indeed, a corps of rising young politicians passed through anti-Masonry enroute to prominence among the Whigs in the 1840s and the Republicans in the 1850s and ’60s.

  On the national level, 25 congressmen would at one time or another call themselves anti-Masons. But the party’s single independent foray into presidential politics, in 1832, was a shattering disappointment. Its nominee, William Wirt, a leading Maryland lawyer and one-time attorney general of the United States, proved to be an utterly inept—in fact, unwilling—campaigner. The only state carried by the anti-Masonic ticket was Vermont (and that by only a bare plurality).

  The movement was hampered, from start to finish, by deep divisions within its own ranks. On one side stood a firm band of purists, refusing any compromise of principle; on the other, a more loosely affiliated group of pragmatists sought to form strategic coalitions for the sake of electoral success. The so-called National Republican Party, precursor to the Whigs, seemed an especially likely partner, but “union” slates of candidates invariably provoked conflict among anti-Masons themselves.

  For all that, they achieved striking success with their primary goal: to reduce Masonic presence and power. Lodges shrank, or disappeared entirely, all across the country, as individual members “seceded” by the thousands; by 1840, Freemasonry seemed but a shadow of its former self. And this, not surprisingly, was a chief cause for the concurrent decline of the anti-Masons.

  Always and everywhere, for anti-Masons, Morgan’s abduction is the starting point; words sufficient to describe it can hardly be found. As one leading spokesman writes: “I challenge the Spanish Inquisition to exceed it. I boldly invite a search into the archives of that engine of ferocious despotism . . . to produce a case that goes beyond it. . . . The iron clamps that were probably prepared for the feet and hands of Morgan aptly compare with the chains in which the victim of the Inquisition was habited . . . whilst the pictures of devouring dogs and serpents that were hung round his neck completely prefigure the horrid gang of murdering conspirators who plunged their hands in the blood of Morgan.” Yet, when seen in the widest perspective, “the Morgan affair . . . [is] but a comparatively small thing”—whereas the pattern it reveals, a spreading conspiracy against fundamental American virtues and values, is of “terrific character.”

  Masons are, according to their opponents, determined foes of “republican equality.” Indeed, their entire tendency goes the opposite way—toward “haughty aristocracy.” The titles they bestow on themselves—“Master,” “High Priest,” “Most Excellent General,” even “Grand King”—are obvious examples of that; so, too, is their elaborate internal hierarchy of “ranks” and “degrees.” In everyday political practice, Masons are sworn to promote “a brother’s advancement” in preference to the common good. As a result, they have gained power at a level “ten times” what their numbers alone would suggest; by one estimate, they control three-fourths of all public offices. The same pattern of cliquish loyalty also undermines the legal system; time after time, in courtrooms across the land, “Masonic influence has turned the scale in favor of the brethren of their craft.”

  All this stands in stark opposition to the principles upon which the nation was founded. Invariably, then, anti-Masons see themselves as guardians of a sacred tradition; it is their duty, in this hour of peril, to rescue “for posterity . . . the republic we inherited from our forefathers.” Consider, too, that Morgan’s abduction has followed by mere weeks the nearly simultaneous (and providentially timed?) deaths of two of the last surviving “forefathers”—John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. By putting Freemasonry to rout, the nation may reaffirm their legacy, and attain “a Second Independence.”

  Masonry subverts not only the polity but also revealed religion. “In its whole length and breadth,” declares an anti-Masonic convention, the order “is as anti-Christian as it is anti-Republican.” To be sure, Masonry frequently masquerades as “the handmaiden of religion,” but, in reality, it operates as a virtual counter-faith. At bottom, it amounts to “pure Deism,” even “blank Atheism.” Indeed, “you might as well expect religion in a brothel as in a Masonic lodge.” Churches no less than governments must be fully purged of its influence; otherwise it will “corrupt and destroy all our . . . religious institutions, and spread infidelity . . . throughout the earth.”

  Home life, too, is gravely threatened. Masonic lodges are, of course, an exclusively male preserve; as such, they withdraw men from the “tender influence” and “moral sense” of women and “the duties of the family circle.” The typical Masonic wife is left unprotected “in solitude . . . in the shadow of night, [and] ignorant of the employment in which her husband is engaged.” And what might such “employment” be? To anti-Masons, the lodges are “cages of uncleanness” and thus a probable setting for “unseemly orgies . . . and Bacchanalian revels.” Their meetings are said to include freely flowing drink, lavish gambling, lewd song, and nudity. Lodge members are explicitly pledged not “to violate the chastity of a Master Mason’s wife, mother, sister, or daughter,” which anti-Masons construe as a license to prey on women who lack Masonic connections.

  State, church, family: three separate, yet interconnected, fronts in a high-stakes “war.” The enemy’s methods—his strategy, his tactics—are especially devious and difficult. Oath taking, for example, is a weapon of great power. Other loyalties fall away: Masonry first, Masonry last, Masonry forever. But secrecy is worst of all. Whatever transpires behind th
e closed doors of the lodge must not be revealed—on pain of death—even to one’s “dearest relations.” (Thus, according to widespread belief, the fate that has befallen poor William Morgan.) Masonry flourishes in the dark, at “midnight assemblies.” It slithers like “a wily serpent which [has] crept insidiously into the Eden of this happy Republic.” Such serpent imagery is pervasive and telling. At least occasionally, anti-Masons will directly connect the dots—to witchcraft and Satan, in days of yore.

  Did such rhetorical heat reflect a genuine threat? Or was it a kind of social paranoia?

  In certain respects, Freemasonry was—as both sides contended—“powerful.” The reason anti-Masons could never penetrate the mainstream political parties was that most party leaders were Masons. (This was true from Washington right through to Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay.) Local politics, too, were frequently dominated by men who belonged to the order. But it would be hard to prove that Masons acted, in their political roles, as Masons, or sought to advance particular Masonic interests. And there is no good evidence whatsoever that they aimed to transform established patterns of governance, religious practice, or family life.

  However, the feeling expressed by the anti-Masons seems genuine enough. And feeling did lead, at least occasionally, to action. Quite apart from the political movement (including the laws passed and the investigations carried out), anti-Masons would sometimes resort to informal, even extralegal action. The surviving evidence is anecdotal and has never been carefully assembled. But Masonic buildings were vandalized, Masonic gravestones were defaced, and individual Masons were threatened with harm. In some communities (according to a contemporaneous account), “Neighbor was set against neighbor, friends separated, families made enemies, and . . . peace and harmony . . . almost wholly destroyed.” The sum of this fell far short of witch-hunting in the older, more lethal sense; but its emotional basis was recognizably similar. Fear, anger, envy, “outrage”: these were the central, propulsive elements, bridging the Salem trials of the late 17th century and the anti-Masonic fervor of the early 19th. Another link across time was the fantasy of secret conspiracy, including sexual libertinism and a complete inversion of traditional social arrangements. Paranoia does not, after all, seem too strong a word here.