The Anti-Masonic Party was the earliest third party in the United States. Formally a single-issue party, it strongly opposed Freemasonry in the United States. It was active from the late 1820s, especially in the Northeastern United States, and later attempted to become a major party by expanding its platform to take positions on other issues. It declined quickly after 1832 as most members joined the new Whig Party; it dissolved after 1838.
The party was founded following the disappearance of William Morgan, a former Mason who had become a prominent critic of the Masonic organization. Many believed that Masons had murdered Morgan for speaking out against Masonry and subsequently many churches and other groups condemned Masonry. As many Masons were prominent businessmen and politicians, the backlash against the Masons was also a form of anti-elitism. The Anti-Masons purported that Masons posed a threat to American republicanism by secretly trying to control the government. Furthermore, there was a strong fear that Masonry was hostile to Christianity.
Mass opposition to Masonry eventually coalesced into a political party. Before and during the presidency of John Quincy Adams, there was a period of political realignment. The Anti-Masons emerged as a third-party alternative to Andrew Jackson's Democrats and Adams' National Republicans. In New York, the Anti-Masons supplanted the National Republicans as the primary opposition to the Democrats.
After experiencing unexpected success in the 1828 elections, the Anti-Masons adopted positions on other issues, including support for internal improvements and a protective tariff. Several Anti-Masons, including William A. Palmer and Joseph Ritner, won election to prominent positions. In states such as Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, the party controlled the balance of power in the state legislature and provided crucial support to candidates for the United States Senate. In 1831, the party held the first presidential nominating convention, a practice that was subsequently adopted by all major parties. Delegates chose former U.S. attorney general William Wirt as their standard bearer in the 1832 presidential election; Wirt won 7.8% of the popular vote and carried Vermont.
As the 1830s progressed, many of the Anti-Masonic Party's supporters joined the Whig Party, which sought to unite those opposed to the policies of President Jackson. The Anti-Masons brought with them an intense distrust of politicians and a rejection of unthinking party loyalty, together with new campaign techniques to whip up excitement among the voters. The Anti-Masonic Party held a national convention in 1835, nominating Whig candidate William Henry Harrison, but a second convention announced that the party would not officially support a candidate. Harrison campaigned as a Whig in the 1836 presidential election and his relative success in the election encouraged further migration of Anti-Masons to the Whig Party. By 1840, the party had ceased to function as a national organization. In subsequent decades, former Anti-Masonic candidates and supporters such as Millard Fillmore, William H. Seward, Thurlow Weed and Thaddeus Stevens became prominent members of the Whig Party.
History Background
The opponents of Freemasonry formed a political movement after the Morgan affair convinced them the Masons were murdering men who spoke out against them. This key episode was the mysterious 1826 disappearance of William Morgan, a Freemason in upstate New York who had turned against the Masons.
Morgan claimed to have been made a member of the Masons while living in Canada and he appears to have briefly attended a lodge in Rochester. In 1825, Morgan received the Royal Arch degree at Le Roy's Western Star Chapter #33, having declared under oath that he had previously received the six degrees which preceded it. Whether he actually received these degrees and if so from where has not been determined for certain.
Morgan then attempted unsuccessfully to help establish or visit lodges and chapters in Batavia, but was denied participation in Batavia's Masonic activities by members who were uncertain about Morgan's character and claims to Masonic membership. Angered by the rejection, Morgan announced that he was going to publish an exposé titled Illustrations of Masonry, critical of the Freemasons and describing their secret degree ceremonies in detail.
When his intentions became known to the Batavia lodge, an attempt was made to burn down the business of the printer who planned to publish Morgan's book.Jasper Ridley, The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society, 2013, unknown page number In September 1826, Morgan was arrested on flimsy allegations of failing to repay a loan and theft of a shirt and tie in an effort to prevent publication of his book by keeping him in jail. The individual who intended to publish Morgan's book paid his bail and he was released from custody. Shortly afterwards, Morgan disappeared.
Some skeptics argued that Morgan had left the Batavia area on his own, either because he had been paid not to publish his book, or to escape Masonic retaliation for attempting to publish the book, or to generate publicity that would boost the book's sales.The Skeptic's Dictionary: Freemasons, retrieved September 9, 2014 The generally believed version of events was that Masons killed Morgan by drowning him in the Niagara River. Whether he fled or was murdered, Morgan's disappearance led many to believe that Freemasonry was in conflict with good citizenship.Josephus Nelson Larned, The New Larned History for Ready Reference, Reading and Research, Volume 1, 1922, p. 374
Because judges, businessmen, bankers and politicians were often Masons, ordinary citizens began to think of it as an elitist group.Chip Berlet, Matthew Nemiroff Lyons, Right-wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, 2000, p. 38 Moreover, many claimed that the lodges' secret oaths bound Masons to favor each other against outsiders in the courts and elsewhere.Sydney Nathans, Daniel Webster and Jacksonian Democracy, 1973, p. 88
Out of dozens of indictments for Morgan's disappearance, only ten conspirators were ever convicted, and none were sentenced to greater than three years. Upon sentencing four of the conspirators in 1827, judge and future Governor of New York, Enos T. Throop, lamented their light punishment, stating they had "created, in the people of this section of the country, a strong feeling of virtuous indignation."
Because some trials of alleged Morgan conspirators were mishandled and the Masons resisted further inquiries, many New Yorkers concluded that Masons controlled key offices and used their official authority to promote the goals of the fraternity by ensuring that Morgan's supposed killers escaped punishment.Henry Dana Ward, The Anti-Masonic Review, Volume 1, 1828, p. 290 When a member sought to reveal its secrets, so ran the conclusion, the Freemasons had done away with him. Because they controlled the courts and other offices, they were considered capable of obstructing the investigation. True Americans, they said, had to organize and defeat this conspiracy. If good government was to be restored "all Masons must be purged from public office".Rayback 1959, pp. 18–19
Party foundation
The Anti-Masonic Party was formed in Upstate New York in September 1827. Anti-Masons were opponents of Freemasonry, believing that it was a corrupt and elitist secret society which was ruling much of the country in defiance of republican principles. Many people regarded the Masonic organization and its adherents involved in government as corrupt.Ronald P. Formisano, and Kathleen Smith Kutolowski, "Antimasonry and Masonry: The Genesis of Protest, 1826–1827." American Quarterly 29#2 (1977): 139–165
Opposition to Masonry was first taken up by some evangelical Protestant churches as a religious cause, particularly in the Burned-over district of upstate New York.David G. Hackett, That Religion in Which All Men Agree: Freemasonry in American Culture, 2014, p. 118 Many churches passed resolutions condemning ministers and lay leaders who were Masons and several denominations condemned Freemasonry, including the Presbyterian, Congregational, Methodist and Baptist churches.
Early religious anti-Masonic sentiment sought to avoid political involvement, mostly believing it to be a corruption of Christianity. However, after the death of Morgan, many began to believe the society was harmful to the integrity of American government and elections. Anti-Masonry officially became a political issue in Western New York in early 1827, when many local mass meetings resolved not to support Masons for public office.Michael Kazin, Rebecca Edwards, Adam Rothman, editors, The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History, Volume 1, 2010, p. 39 The Anti-Masonic Party opposed Jacksonian Democracy, exemplified in New York by the Bucktails of Senator Martin Van Buren and the rival Clintonian faction of Governor DeWitt Clinton.Anne-Marie Taylor, Young Charles Sumner and the Legacy of the American Enlightenment, 1811–1851, 2001, p. 40 The party also initially opposed the National Republican Party of President John Quincy Adams because it included Masons, but by 1830 the Anti-Masons had attracted many National Republicans to the fold, including Adams himself.
When the Anti-Masonic party began organizing candidates for the 1827 election of the 51st New York State Legislature, the anti-Jackson National Republicans gave up in regions where Anti-Masonic sentiment was highest, which led to Anti-Masons gaining 15 of 125 assembly seats. The alleged remark of Anti-Masonic organizer Thurlow Weed (which Weed denied), that an unidentified corpse found in the Niagara River was "a good enough Morgan" until after the 1828 elections, summarized the value of the Morgan disappearance for Jackson's opponents.
Political rise In the elections of 1828, the new party proved unexpectedly strong, securing three of eight available State Senate seats as well as five seats in the United States House of Representatives. The party's candidate for governor of New York, Solomon Southwick, was defeated, partially due to attacks on his character by Thurlow Weed. Despite this, the Anti-Masonic Party became the main opposition party to the Jacksonian Democrats in New York.Mark Stein, American Panic: A History of Who Scares Us and Why, 2014, p. 45 In this effort, they were aided by the fact that president-elect Andrew Jackson was a high-ranking Mason and frequently spoke in praise of the organization. Having established itself as a major political force, the party broadened its issues base in 1829, when it became a champion of internal improvements and the protective tariff.Edward S. Mihalkanin, editor, American Statesmen: Secretaries of State from John Jay to Colin Powell, 2004, p. 451
Anti-Masonic Party members expanded the use of party-affiliated newspapers for political organizing by publishing over 100, including Southwick's National Observer and Weed's Anti-Masonic Enquirer. By 1829, Weed's Albany Journal had become the preeminent Anti-Masonic paper and it later became the leading Whig newspaper.Jeffrey D. Schultz, John G. West, Iain S. MacLean, editors, Encyclopedia of Religion in American Politics, 1999, p. 18Charles Elliott Fitch Encyclopedia of Biography of New York, Volume 1, 1916, p. 318Benson John Lossing, The Empire State: A Compendious History of the Commonwealth of New York, 1888, p. 447 The newspapers of the time reveled in partisanship and one brief paragraph in an Albany Journal article opposing Martin Van Buren included the words "dangerous", "demagogue", "corrupt", "degrade", "pervert", "prostitute", "debauch" and "cursed".John G. Gasaway, Tippecanoe and the Party Press Too: Mass Communication, Politics, Culture, and the Fabled Presidential Election of 1840, 1999, p. 228
Conventions and elections