Anti-Masonic Party - History

(1830–6) A US group dedicated to driving Freemasons out of public life, arising from the highly publicized disappearance (1826) of the author of a book revealing Masonic secrets. It was the first ‘third party’ in the USA, nominating a presidential candidate in 1832 at the first national party convention. It declined after 1836.

The Anti-Masonic Party (also known as the Anti-Masonic Movement) was a 19th century minor political party in the United States. As its name suggests, it strongly opposed Freemasonry, and was a rather obvious single-issue party, aspiring to become a major party. It was a part of the Second Party System and introduced important new techniques, such as the state convention to select candidates.

History

It was formed in upstate New York in 1828, and was the first third party in American national politics.

Many people feared the Masons, alleging that it was a powerful, secret society that was trying to rule the country in defiance of republican principles. They came together to form a political party after the Morgan incident convinced them the Masons were murdering their opponents. 1826), a Freemason of Batavia, New York, who had become dissatisfied with his Order and claimed he was going to publish secrets about the local lodge.

Opposition to Masonry was taken up by the churches as a sort of religious crusade, and it also became a local political issue in western New York, where early in 1827 the citizens in many mass meetings resolved to support no Mason for public office.

In New York at this time the National Republicans, or "Adams men," were a very feeble organization, and shrewd political leaders at once determined to utilize the strong anti-Masonic feeling in creating a new and vigorous party to oppose the rising Jacksonian Democracy. The alleged remark of political organizer Thurlow Weed, that a corpse found floating in the Niagara River was "a good enough Morgan" till after the election, summarized the value of the crime for the opponents of Jackson. In the elections of 1828 the new party proved unexpectedly strong, and after this year it practically superseded the National Republican party in New York. The party published 35 weekly newspapers in New York.

The party invented the convention, a system whereby locally elected delegates would choose state candidates and pledge their loyalty. Soon the Democrats and Whigs recognized the convention's value in building a party, and held their own conventions.

By 1832 the movement had lost its focus on Masonry, and had spread to neighboring states, becoming especially strong in Pennsylvania and Vermont. A national organization was planned as early as 1827, when the New York leaders attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade Henry Clay who was a Mason, to renounce the Order and head the movement.

The party conducted the first U.S. presidential nominating convention in the U.S. at Baltimore, in the 1832 elections, nominating William Wirt (a former Mason) for President and Amos Ellmaker for Vice President. The highest elected office ever held by a member of the party was that of a governor. in New York in 1833 the organization was moribund, and its members gradually united with the National Republican Party and other opponents of Jacksonian Democracy in forming the Whig Party. The Whigs' great New York boss, Thurlow Weed, began his political career as an Anti-Mason. In other states, the party survived somewhat longer, but by 1836 most of its members had united with the Whigs.

The growth of the anti-Masonic movement was due more to the political and social conditions of the time than to the Morgan episode, which was merely the catalyst. Under the name of "Anti-Masons" able leaders united those who were discontented with existing political conditions, and the fact that William Wirt, their choice for the presidency in 1832, was not only a Mason but even defended the Order in a speech before the convention that nominated him, indicates that simple opposition to Masonry soon became a minor factor in holding together the various elements of which the party was composed.