Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

ANTI-MASONIC
ANTIQUITY 65
series of letters, abusive of the Masonic Institution,
which he directed to leading politicians
of the country, and which were published
in the public journals from 1831 to 1833 .
These letters, which are utterly unworthy of
the genius, learning, and eloquence of the
author, display a most egregious ignorance of
the whole design and character of the Masonic
Institution . The " oath " and " the murder of
Morgan " are the two bugbears which seem
continually to float before the excited vision
of the writer, and on these alone he dwells
from the first to the last page .
Except the letters of Stone and Adams,
there is hardly another anti-Masonic book
published in America that can go beyond the
literary dignity of a respectably sized pamphlet
. A compilation of anti-Masonic documents
was published at Boston, in 1830, by
James C . Odiorne, who has thus in part preserved
for future reference the best of a bad
class of writings. In 1831, Henry Gassett, of
Boston, a most virulent anti-Mason, distributed,
at his own expense, a great number of
anti-Masonic books, which had been published
during the Morgan excitement, to the
principal libraries of the United States, on
whose shelves they are probably now lying
covered with dust ; and, that the memory of
his good deed might not altogether be lost, he
published a catalogue of these donations in
1852, to which he has prefixed an attack on
Masonry .
Anti-Masonic Party . A party organized
in the United States of America soon after the
commencement of the Morgan excitement,
professedly, to put down the Masonic Institution
as subversive of good government, but
really for the political aggrandizement of its
leaders, who used the opposition to Freemasonry
merely as a stepping-stone to their
own advancement to office . The party held
several conventions ; endeavored, sometimes
successfully, but oftener unsuccessfully, to enlist
'prominent statesmen in its ranks, and
finally, in 1831, nominated William Wirt and
Amos Ellmaker as its candidates for the Presidency
and the Vice-Presidency of the United
States . Each of these gentlemen received but
seven votes, being the whole electoral vote of
Vermont, which was the only State that voted
for them . So signal a defeat was the deathblow
of the party, that in the year 1833 it
quietly withdrew from public notice, and now
is happily no longer in existence . William L .
Stone, the historian of anti-Masonry, has with
commendable impartiality expressed his opinion
of the character of this party, when he says
that " the fact is not to be disguised-contradicted
it cannot be-that anti-Masonry had
become thoroughly political, and its spirit was
vindictive towards the Freemasons without
distinction as to guilt or innocence ." (Letters,
xxxviii ., p . 418 .) Notwithstanding the opposition
that from time to time has been exhibited
to Freemasonry in every country, America
is the only one where it assumed the form
of a political party . This, however, may very
justly be attributed to the peculiar nature of
its popular institutions . There, the ballotbox
is considered the most potent engine for
the government of rulers as well as people, and
is, therefore, resorted to in cases in which, in
more despotic governments, the powers of the
Church and State would be exercised . Hence,
the anti-Masonic convention held at Philadelphia,
in 1830, did not hesitate to make the
following declaration as the cardinal principle
of the party. " The object of anti-Masonry,
in nominating and electing candidates for the
Presidency and Vice-Presidency, is to deprive
Masonry of the support which it derives from
the power and patronage of the executive
branch of the United States Government . To
effect this object, will require that candidates
besides possessing the talents and virtues
requisite for such exalted stations, be known
as men decidedly opposed to secret societies ."
This issue having been thus boldly made was
accepted by the people ; and as principles like
these were fundamentally opposed to all the
ideas of liberty, personal and political, into
which the citizens of the country had been indoctrinated,
the battle was made, and the
anti-Masonic party was not only defeated for
the time, but forever annihilated .
Anti-Masonry. Opposition to Freemasonry.
There is no country in which Masonry
has ever existed in which this opposition has
not from time to time exhibited itself ; although,
in general, it has been overcome by
the purity and innocence of the Institution .
The earliest opposition by a government, of
which we have any record, is that of 1425,
in the third year of the reign of Henry VI ., of
England, when the Masons were forbidden to
confederate in Chapters and Congregations .
This law was, however, never executed . Since
that period, Freemasonry has met with no
permanent opposition in England . The
Roman Catholic religion has always been anti-
Masonic, and hence edicts have always existed
in the Roman Catholic countries against
the Order . But the anti-Masonry which has
had a practical effect in inducing the Church
or the State to interfere with the Institution,
and endeavor to suppress it, will come more
properly under the head of Persecutions, to
which the reader is referred .
Antin, Duke d'. Elected perpetual Grand
Master of the Masons of France, on the 24th
of June, 1.738. He held the office until 1743,
when he died, and was succeeded by the Count
of Clermont . Clavel (Hist . Pittoresq ., p .
141)' relates an instance of the fidelity and
intrepidity with which, on one occasion, he
guarded the avenues of the Lodge from the
official intrusion of a commissary of police
accompanied by a band of soldiers .
Antipodeans . (Les Antipodiens.) The
name of the Sixtieth Degree of the seventh
series of the collection of the Metropolitan
Chapter of France . (Acta Latomorum, i .,
294 .)
Antiquity, Lodge of. The oldest Lodge
in England, and one of the four which concurred
in February, 1717, in the meeting at
the Apple-Tree Tavern, London, in the forma-