SECTION in.

EXCLUSION.
In the Grand Lodge of England, the word ex- clusion is technically used to express the act of re- moving a Mason from a private Lodge, by the act of the Lodge itself, or of a Provincial Grand Lodge, while expulsion is employed to signify the same act when performed by the Grand Lodge." But in this country, this use of the word is not known.
Exclusion, under the American law of Masonry, may be briefly defined to be a deprivation of the rights and benefits of Masonry, so far as they relate to any particular Lodge, but not to the whole fra- ternity. It is of two kinds, temporary and perma- nent, each of which must be separately considered.
1. Temporary Exclusion. — A violation of the rules of order and decorum, either in a member or visitor, subjects such offender to the penalty of ex-
* "The tenr expelled is used only when a brother is removed from the craft by the Grand Lodge. In a district Grand Lodge, or upon removal of a brother from a private Lodge, the term excluded only is applicable.'*— Const, a. L. of England, 1847, page 67, note.
520 EXCLUSION.
elusion for tliat communication from the Lodge. It may be inflicted either by a vote of a majority of the Lodge, or. as is more usually done, by the exercise, on the part of the Master, of his preroga- tive ; for the Master of every Lodge has the inhe- rent privilege to exclude any person from visiting the Lodge, or remaining during the communication, if his presence would be productive of injury to the Order, by impairing its harmony or affecting its peaceful pursuit of Masonic labor. If a Mason, whether he be a member or a visitor, apply for ad- mission, the Master, if he knows or believes that the admission of the applicant would result in the production of discord, may exclude him from en- trance ; and this prerogative he exercises in virtue of being the superintendent of the work. But this prerogative has already been discussed in preced- ing pages of this work, to which the reader is referred.*
If a member or visitor shall behave in an unbe- coming and disorderly manner, he may be excluded for that communication, either by the Master or the Lodge. The Master possesses the power of exclu- sion on such an occasion, under the prerogative to which reference has just been made ; and the Lodge possesses the same right, by the especial sanction of the ritual, which, at the very opening of the Lodge, forbids all " immoral or unmasonic conduct, whereby the peace and harmony of the Lodge may be impaired, under no less a penalty than the by
* See ante p. 203, and p. 348.
EXCLUSION. 521
laws may impose, or a majority of the brethren present see fit to inflict.77
The command of the Master, therefore, or the vote of a majority of the Lodge, is sufficient to in- flict the penalty of temporary exclusion. The forms of trial are unnecessary, because the infliction of the penalty does not affect the Masonic standing of the person upon whom it is inflicted. An appeal, how- ever, always lies in such cases to the Grand Lodge, which will, after due investigation, either approve or disapprove of the action of the Lodge or the Master, and the vote of censure or disapprobation will be, of course, from the temporary nature of the penalty, the only redress which a Mason, injured by its wrongful infliction, can obtain.
2. Permanent Exclusion. — This penalty is, in this country, only inflicted for non-payment of arrears, and is more usually known as the act of striking from the roll. There are a few Grand Lodges which still permit the punishment of suspension to be inflicted for non-payment of arrears ; but the good sense of the fraternity is rapidly leading to the conclusion, that the infliction of such a penalty in these cases — a penalty severing the connection of the delinquent with the whole Order, for an offence committed against a particular Lodge— an offence, too, involving- no violation of the moral law, and which is, in many instances, the result rather of misfortune than of a criminal disposition — is op- pressive, and altogether opposed to the equitable and benign principles of the Masonic institution.
522 EXCLUSION.
Hence erasure from the roll. or. in other words, pe** man en t exclusion, is now beginning to be considered as the only adequate punishment for an omission to pay the annual tax imposed by every Lodge on its members/"
I say that suspension is an oppressive and inade- quate penalty for the offence of non-payment of dues, and it is perhaps proper that this position, as it is contrary to the practical views of a few Grand Lodges, should be maturely examined.
This striking of names from a Lodge roll is alto- gether a modern practice, taking its rise since the modern organization of permanent Lodges. In ancient times, Lodges were temporary associations of Masons for special and limited purposes. Ori- ginally, as Preston informs us, " a sufficient number of Masons, met together within a certain district, with the consent of the sheriff or chief magistrate of the place, were empowered to make Masons, and practise the rights of Masonry without warrant of constitution. " Then, of course, there being no per- manency of organization, there were no permanent members, and consequently no payment of arrears, and no striking from the roll. It was only after
* Thus, the Grand Lodge of South Carolina, in 1845, adopted a regulation, declaring that " the penalty of expulsion for non-payment of arrears is abro- gated by this Grand Lodge, and the only punishment to be hereafter inflicted for such defalcation shall be a discharge from membership." And the Con- stitution of the Grand Lodge of New York (1854) prescribes, that " arrears for one year's dues shall subject a member to be stricken from the roll of his Lodge ;..... and the member shall thereupon become non-affiliated ; but no act of censure, suspension or expulsion, shall be pronounced thereon for non-payment of dues only."
EXCLUSION. 523
1717, that all these things were introduced ; and as Lodges pay some contribution to the Grand Lodge for each of their members, it is evident, as well as from other palpable reasons, that a member who refuses or neglects to support the general Lodge fund, will become pecuniarily onerous to the Lodge. Still, the non-payment of arrears is only a violation of a special voluntary obligation to a particular Lodge, and not of any general duty to the frater- nity at large. The punishment therefore inflicted (if it is to be considered at all as a punishment,) should be exclusion or erasure from the roll, which only affects the relations of the offender with his own Lodge, and not suspension, which would affect his relations with, the whole Order, whose moral code he has not violated.
Does striking from the roll, then, impair the general rights of a Mason ? Are its effects, even in a modified form, similar to those of suspension or expulsion, and is his standing in the Order affected by the erasure of his name? Bro. W. M. Perkins, the late able Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana, writing on this subject in his annual ad- dress in 1858, said, that " striking his name from the roll of the members of the Lodge, under a by- law, does not affect a brother's standing in the fra- ternity, nor debar him from any of the privileges of Masonry, except that of membership in the particu- lar Lodge.7'*
I cordially concur with Bro. Perkins in this view.
* Proc. G. L. of Louisiana. 1858. — G-rand Masters Address.
524 EXCLUSION.
I cannot for a moment suppose that a transgression of the by-laws of a particular Lodge, involving no moral turpitude, and violating no general law of the Order, can have any effect on the relations of the transgressor with the Order. He who is excluded from membership in his Lodge, for not complying with the rule which levies a tax upon him, loses, of course, his membership in that Lodge ; but his mem- bership in the great body of the craft, against whom he has committed no offence, still remains unimpaired.
But he loses something. He is, to a certain ex- tent, shorn of his Masonic privileges ; for he for- feits the right of membership in his own Lodge, and with it all the other rights which are consequent on such membership. And hence the question naturally arises, can he be deprived of this right of member- ship— can his name be stricken from the roll — by the mere operation of a by-law, without any form of trial, and without any opportunity for defence or explanation?
Now, to say nothing of the injustice which is in many instances perpetrated when a Mason is stricken from the roll of his Lodge for non-payment of dues — since the omission to pay may often arise from po- verty, misfortune, excusable neglect, or other causes beyond the control of the delinquent — to say no- thing of all this — because the question here is not as to the nature of the offence, but as to the mode in which punishment is to be inflicted — it follows, from all the recognized principles of justice, law
exclusion. 525
and coraraon sense, that the crime should be first proved, and the accused be heard in his defence, before judgment be pronounced against him.
The erasure of a member's name, by the mere operation of a by-law of his Lodge, without any opportunity being given to him to explain or defend his conduct — to offer reasons why the law should not be enforced in his case, or to prove that he has not violated its provisions, would, under any other circumstances, and in relation to any other offence, be at once admitted everywhere to be a most mani- fest violation of all Masonic law and equity. If the by-laws of a Lodge, for instance, prescribed erasure for habitual intemperance, and required the Secretary to keep a record of the number of times that each member exceeded the strict limits of so- briet}T, who will dare to say that at any time, on the mere report of the Secretary that a member had violated this by-law, and was habitually intemper- ate, he should at once, without further action, and by the mere operation of the b}T-law in question, be stricken from the roll of his Lodge 1 There is no one who docs not see the obvious necessity, in such a case, of a charge, a summons, and a trial. To ex- clude the worst member of a Lodge under such a by-law, without these preliminary measures, would be so fatal a violation of the principles of Masonry, as justly to subject the Lodge to the severest repre- hension of the Grand Lodge.
And yet the fact that the offence is not intempe- rance, but non-payment of arrears, does not in the
528 EXCLUSION.
slightest degree involve a difference of principle. Admit, for the sake of argument,* that the failure to pay Lodge dues is in itself a Masonic offence, and that a Lodge is right to declare exclusion an appro- priate punishment for its commission, still there exists here, as in the more undoubted crime of habitual drunkenness, as necessary elements to the justice of the punishment, that there should be a charge, a summons and a trial — that the defaulting brother should have an opportunity to defend him- self, and that the Secretary who accuses him should be made to prove the truth of his charge, by the correctness of his accounts. It is the M&gna Cliarta of Masonic liberty " that no Mason can be punished or deprived of any of the privileges of Masonry, except upon conviction after trial ;" and to this, in every other case, except non-payment of arrears, there will not, I suppose, be a single dissenting voice in the whole body of the craft. It is time that, guided by the dictates of sound justice and good common sense, this exception should no longer be made. It is time that the Mason should no longer be permitted to say, as a reproach to the
* I use this qualifying phrase, because it is evident, that in cases of po- verty, misfortune, or other unavoidable inability, non-payment of arrears is not a Masonic offence, nor an offence of any kind. And when it can be proved that the omission to pay arises from an intention to defraud ihe Lodge of its just dues, or from any similar cause, then a new offence is generated, of which the Lodge should take cognizance, under a distinct charge. In all that has been here said of non-payment of dues, it is viewed simply as a debt, the obligation to discharge which is admitted, but the criminality of not complying with which obligation is not always evident, nor necessarily to be assumed.
EXCLUSION. 527
consistency of our legal code, " I may lie, I may steal, nay, I may commit murder, and my Lodge -will not and dare not deprive me of my Masonic privileges, except after a conviction derived from an impartial trial ; but if I omit to pay the Secre- tary a few dollars, then, upon his mere report, with- out any opportunity given me to show that the omission was the result of ignorance, of poverty, of sickness, or of misfortune, I may, without trial and with no chance of defence, be visited with the se- vere penalty of Masonic exclusion.'7
If, then, it be admitted, as I presume it will, that expulsion or suspension cannot be inflicted without trial, and that, simply because it is a punishment, and because punishment should always follow, and not precede conviction, then to strike the name of a member from the roll of his Lodge, would be equally as illegal, unless he were called upon to show cause why it should not be clone. The one principle is strictly analogous with the other. If you cannot suspend without trial, neither can you strike from the roll without trial. It is unneces- sary, therefore, to extend the argument ; but I sup- pose that the postulate will be granted under the general axiom, that no punishment whatsoever can be inflicted without preliminary trial and oppor- tunity for defence.
And therefore it may be laid down as Masonic law, that no member should be stricken from the roll of his Lodge, except after due notice given to him, and opportunity afforded for defence • after
528 SUSPENSION.
which it is generally held, that a vote of the majority will be sufficient to put the by-law in force, and de- clare the penalty of exclusion.