CHAPTER VIII.

OPINIONS. In multitude of counselors there is safety. — Solomon,
There is a considerable body of opinion which supports the positions taken in this discussion. Quotations may first be given from statesmen, or leading public men :
Washington is held up as belonging to a so- ciety, but with no great justice. Gov. Ritner quotes from Rev. Ezra Styles, D.D. :^
When Jonathan Trumbull was aid de camp to General Washington, he *' asked him if he would advise him to be- come a Mason. General Washington replied that Masonry was a benevolent institution, which might be employed for the best or worst of purposes ; but that for the most part it was merely child's play, and that he could not give him any advice on the subject."
In a letter to Rev. Mr. Snyder, Washington corrects " an error you have run into, of my presiding over the English lodges in this country. The fact is, I preside over none, nor have I been in one more than once or twice within the last thirty years." ^
Before his death he warned the country to beware of all secret societies.
John Hancock : •* I am opposed to all secret associations."
Samuel Adams :
** I am decidedly opposed to all secret societies what- ever."
1 Philadelphian, July 23, 1830.
^ Letter dated Sept. 25, 1798, in Finney's Freemasonry, p. 222.
88 THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM.
John Quincy Adams :
** I am prepared to complete the demonstration before God and man, that the Masonic oaths, obligations and pen- alties, cannot, by any possibility, be reconciled to the laws of morality, of Christianity, or of the land." ^ April lo, 1833: "I do conscientiously and sincerely believe that the order of Freemasonry, if not the greatest, is one of the greatest moral and political evils under which this Union is now laboring."
Edward Everett :
" All secret societies are dangerous, in proportion to the extent of their organization and the number of their mem- bers. All secret associations, particularly all such as resort to the aid of secret oaths, are peculiarly at war with the genius of a republican government."
Judge Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States :
" The institution of Masonry ought to be abandoned, as one capable of producing much evil, and incapable of pro- ducing any good, which might not be effected by safe and open means." ^
Horace Mann :
" It seems to me that all the higher and nobler instincts of mankind are adverse ro such associations."
William H. Seward :
*' I belong: to one voluntary association of men, which has to do with spiritual affairs. It is the Christian Church. * I belong to one temporal society of men and that is the po- litical party. * *
These two associations, the one spiritual and the other temporal, are the only voluntary associations to which I now belong, or ever have belonged since I became a man ; and unless I am bereft of reason, they are the only associa- tions of men to which I shall ever suffer myself to belong.
^ Quoted from letter to Edward Livingston. ^ Quoted from letter to Edward Everett.
THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM. 89
Secret societies, sir? Before I would place my hand be- tween the hands of other men, in a secret lodge, order, class or council, and bending on my knee before them, enter into combination with them for any object, personal or political, good or bad, I would pray to God that that hand and that knee might be paralyzed, and that I might become an object of pity and even the mocker3^ of my fellow men. •
Swear, sir ! I, a man, an American citizen, a Christian, swear to submit myself to the guidance and direction of other men, surrendering my own judgment to their judg- ments, and my own conscience to their keeping ! No no, sir. I know quite well the fallibility of my own judgment, and my liability to fall into error and temptation. But my life has been spent in breaking the bonds of the slavery of men. I, therefore, know too well the danger of confiding power to irresponsible hands, to make myself a willing slave."
Daniel Webster, of Freemasonry :
" I have no hesitation in saying that however unobjec- tionable may have been the original objects of the institu- tion, or however pure may be the motives and purposes of the individual members, and notwithstanding the many great and good men who have from time to time belonged to the order, yet, nevertheless, it is an institution which in my judgment is essentially wrong in the principle of its formation ; that from its very nature it is liable to great abuses ; that among the obligations which are found to be imposed on its members, there are such as are entirely in- compatible with the duty of good citizens. ^ * Under the influence of this conviction it is my opinion that the future administration of all such oaths, and the formation of all such obligations, should be prohibited by law." ^
Some more general testimonies are valuable. One hundred seceding Masons, at LeRoy, New York, during the Morgan excitement, said :
"We are opposed to Freemasonry because we believe :
It affords opportunities for the corrupt and designing to
^ Letter dated Boston, Nov. 20, 1835.
90 THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM.
form plans against the government, and the lives and characters of individuals.
It assumes titles and dignities incompatible with a re- publican government, and enjoins an obedience to them derogatory to republican principle.
It destroys all principles of equality by bestowing its favors on its own members, to the exclusion of all others^ equally meritorious and deserving.
It creates odious aristocracies, by its obligations to sup- port the interests of its members, in preference to others of equal qualifications."
A report to the United States anti-Masonic convention, in 1830, signed by Henry Dana Ward, of New. York, Thaddeus Stevens, of Penn- sylvania, Samuel C. Loveland, of Vermont, Joshua Longley, of Massachusetts, and G. P. McCulloch, of New Jersey, said :
" Russia, Spain, Portugal, Naples and Rome made Free- masonry a capital ofTense. There is no crime in the mum- mery to die for under the gallows ; the offense lies in the political use made of Freemasonry, dangerous to all govern- ments. The sovereigns of France, England, Prussia, Netherlands, Sweden and Brazil, take the fraternity under the royal guardianship. This is not because their majes- ties love the farce of the lodge-room, but they fear its polit- ical tendency."
"The only countries in which Freemasonry flourishes,^ neither forbidden nor restrained, are the republics of North America. Here the grovvth is without a parallel (except in France, during the last years of Louis XVI.), a growth honorable to the freedom, but dangerous to the stability of our public institutions."
Some allowance is to be made on most of the above testimonies, and on some following ones because given during the Morgan excitement. In 1826 William Morgan,^ of Batavia, New York^ suddenly disappeared. Shortly afterward there
^ Finney's Freemasonry, Ch. II.
THE SECRET SOCIETY SYSTEM. 9I
was published a book, claiming to be an expo- sure by Morgan of the first three degrees of Ma- sonry, which it undoubtedly was. It was pretty clearly proved that Morgan had been abducted by Masons, carried across the State, by an ex- tended conspiracy, and confined in Fort Niag- ara. Here he disappeared, but in 1848 Henry