not wholly unknown, and aroused a degree of enmity it had never before felt. This characteristic feature, unknown in other organizations, was the utter intolerance of open enemies, and the abhorrence of this spirit greatly augmented the Anti - Masonic excitement throughout the country. This excitement soon took

a political turn, and for several years, especially in New York, political Anti-Masonry absorbed public interest, to a great extent.

The Anti-Masonic party, properly speaking, was formally organized in a building called the Kremlin, in Buffalo, and from this it spread through New England and most of the Northern States. The growth and success of this short-lived party, for a time, appeared to overshadow the prospects of General Jackson, and the hopes of his friends were almost crushed.

The Anti-Masons had elected a number of Congressmen, and in the Eastern States, at least, they hoped eventually to gain the ascendency. In the western part of New York, and in some other portions of the North, Masonry was virtually extinguished. Still the Presidential contest of 1828 did not present a very well-defined Masonic issue. General Jackson was nominally a member of the order, and Mr. Adams had yet said little on the subject, although it was, perhaps, generally believed that he was opposed to Masonry.

Considering themselves sufficiently strong to enter upon a distinct national campaign, on the 25th of September, 1831, the Anti-Masons met in convention in Baltimore, and on the 28th nominated William Wirt as their candidate for the Presidency. In his remarkable and unstatesman-like, but plain and frank, answer

of the same day accepting the nomination, Mr. Wirt says of the mysterious order whose deed had suddenly cast an extraordinary ferment into society:

"The conspiracy against Morgan was not, as has been commonly supposed, the act of a few ignorant men alone; but engendered in lodges themselves, enforced under their direction, and supported at their expense; the conspiracy embracing within its sweep, men of all degrees-men of the learned professions, farmers and mechanics; with too much reason to believe that the secret energy of the Masonic spirit had entered and polluted even the temples of justice; and with the most demonstrative proof that the persons who had entertained these unhallowed oaths, considered their allegiance to the lodges as of higher obligation than their allegiance to their country. If this be Masonry, as according to this uncontradicted evidence it seems to be, I have no hesitation in saying that I consider it at war with the fundamental principles of the social compact, as treason against society, and a wicked conspiracy against the laws of God and man, which ought to be put down."

But Mr. Wirt thought this was not Masonry as understood by Washington, and although his letter was not a hearty indorsement of the great excitement over a necessarily mysterious subject, the convention accepted the candidate, and associated with him Amos. Ellmaker, of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Wirt had been initiated as a Mason, but his curiosity had not led him far into its mysteries, and he had not attended a "lodge" meeting for over thirty years.

But the race was trifling, even with this bright man at the head of the ticket, and with this effort Anti-Masonry made no further figure in national politics. The electoral vote of Vermont was cast for Wirt and Ellmaker, a fact which will serve to illustrate, to some extent, what may now be written.

It has, thousands of times, been set forward as a cause of wonder, as well as a foundation for argument and defense, that intelligent men could have engaged in this fruitless crusade against a popular "organization." But this is merely trifling with the case. The provocations were extraordinary. The circumstances connected with the abduction of Morgan, in themselves sufficiently exciting, were aggravated to a remarkable degree by the revelation of a set of oaths and obligations for which the mass of men, who were not Masons, were unprepared, and which amazed and disgusted the thinking and intelligent, who then had no reason for not placing a literal interpretation upon them. The murder clinched the oaths, and the welfare of the people and the safety of the Government seemed to be involved. There appeared to be but two sides, and the wisest men could not avoid taking one or the other. If passion was ignored, there was still enough left in the excitement to appeal to reason. The contagion spread by the withdrawal of influential members, or the disbanding of "lodges." Contagions, like avalanches, do not stop for distinguished men. The frivolous and pompous, meaningless pageants on which men had looked with indifference now irritated and disgusted them. It was a unique and remarkable state of affairs, and that men took sides in it, of whom more might have been expected in different times, is not a wonder. Neither their motives nor their wisdom appeared at fault.

Mr. Adams had never been a Mason, and although always looking unfavorably on the "order," he had not met with the incentive to bring him out. After the end of his Presidential term he was forced to give

some attention to this general theme of interest. In Congress he was associated with men who had been driven from Masonry by the recent exciting events, and from them he gained much information on which he based, to some entent, his future action. From this point his strong opposition to Freemasonry really dates. He now said that it was a matter of singular speculation to him how such degrading forms, such execrable oaths, and such cannibal penalties should have been submitted to by wise, spirited, and virtuous It was humiliating to human character. He

men.

wrote:

"This institution of Freemasonry is one of the phenomena in the history of mankind. That it is a most pernicious institution I am profoundly convinced; and how it has arisen and grown and spread over the world, and drawn into its vortex so many wise and good and great men, is scarcely credible. There is, however, a charm in secret and exclusive association. In principle it is unjust, but in power it is great."

Mr. Adams was now in earnest, and that he entered the contest as the most consequential opponent of Freemasonry, under the conviction that it was his duty, as he did in everything else, there can be no doubt. The enemies of his course on this point must console themselves with this fact. What other motive could possibly have actuated Mr. Adams at this time? How often, in any case, during his whole life, did he appear to be actuated by any other motive? His zest for controversy never could have controlled his sense of duty and right.

One of Mr. Adams's first published letters concerning Masonry was drawn out from a desire to defend the name of his father. This was written to a correspondent of the "Boston Press," under date of August

22, 1831, and contains some of his most severe strictures on the "order." In it he says:

"The letter from my 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 expressly states that he had never been initiated in the order. He, therefore, knew nothing of their secrets, their oaths, nor their penalties. Far less had their practical operation been revealed, by the 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 Masonic oaths upon the verdict of his eleven fellows.

"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."

On the 21st of September, 1831, he wrote to Edward Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, and in this letter makes his first formal indictment against Masonry.. Of his former course and belief he here says:

"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 commission of the crimes committed at the kidnaping 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 administration of oaths and penalties and all injunctions of secrecy, of any kind, to its members. I believe it also their duty, though of less imperious obligation, to abolish all their illassorted, honorific titles, and childish or ridiculous pageants.

"I believe it also a duty sacredly incumbent upon every individual Freemason in the United States, to use all the influence in his power to prevail upon his brethren of the order to the same