Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

THE TENDENCY Of SECRET ASSOCIATIONS. 351
the church made him hostile to the covert attacks of the
adversary: he was not a lover of his country, that he should
describe the influence and tendency of secret associations
in the terror of his soul, for its civil rights and political liberties.
This old fox, descanting upon them with the coolness
of an impartial philosopher, says: "They undermine
the foundation of states, though they had really no such
project in view. They throw them together, and make
them clash' one against the other."
Here I am reminded of a fact worthy of the reader's consideration.
What more unstable than New-York politics
? The nation know, and it is the reproach of the state,
that on any question of great public interest, the decision
of New-York cannot be calculated from her past expressions
at the polls, within any definable limits; a difference
of 20,000 votes sometimes occurring in a very short period.
Again, Connecticut, on the eastern border of New-York,
is not less celebrated for her steady habits. None can fail
to have observed this, who notice the events of past times.
Connecticut has a soil proverbial among the fraternity
for the stinted growth of Free Masonry; and in New-
York, this society has pushed deeply its roots, enlarged its
trunk, and spread abroad its branches, flourishing and towering
like a plane tree in the rich vale of the Ohio.
It is not only in mechanics that action and reaction are
equal. The habits of Connecticut and New-York have not
been inert under the action of Free Masonry, nor has Free
Masonry failed to exert a powerful influence on the morals
and politics of the chief state of the union.
The contests of Clinton and Tompkins for the chair of
the grand master were parallel in the fraternity to the political
struggle of the same candidates for the office of go*
vernor of New-York. And the later strife between Clinton
and Jackson for the influence of the office of some general
grand commander, or general grand high priest of the
union, had a direct reference to the presidential election
then next coming. Verbwn sat sapienti.