Letters on the Masonic Institution

Contents

PAGE.

To a Reviewer of Sheppard’s Defense of the Masonic Institution. 49

To Edward Ingersoll, Esq., Philadelphia. 55

Appendix

Entered Apprentice’s Obligation.327

Fellowcraft’s Obligation.327

Master Mason’s Obligation.328

Royal Arch Oath.329

Knight Templar’s Oath.330

Fifth Libation.331

Extract from a Plan of a Penal Code for the State of Louisiana, by Hon. Edward Livingston. 331

Preface

This publication of Mr. Adams* Letters on Freemasonry was undertaken because it was believed that so able and valuable a work should again be put in print in a style suit¬ able for a place in libraries. Mr. Adams intensely hated all that he conceived to be wrong, and it will be seen that in these letters he, with all the fervor of his soul, labored to show the wrongs, corruptions, and blasphemies of the lodge. To the decadence of the order these letters greatly contrib¬ uted ; and when, after many years, it began to show signs of reviving Mr. Adams’ letters as they appear were published in a neat volume at Boston, with an eloquent introduction by Charles Francis Adams, two pages of which were omit¬ ted, as being deemed inappropriate to this publication.

As will be seen by the letter in review of Mr. Sheppard’s defense of Freemasonry, Mr Adams endured abuse and misrepresentation long for his Antimasonic views before he came out in public to declare and defend those views.

These letters are mainly a series addressed to Edward Ingersoll, to William L. Stone, and to Edward Livingston. Others not less able, nor scarcely less important, were writ¬ ten to men of national distinction, as William H. Seward, Richard Rush, and Levi Lincoln.

The letters to the committee of the Antimasonic state

PREFACE.

convention of Vermont and that of the secretary of the Antimasonic state convention of Pennsylvania partake somewhat of the nature of public addresses, to which is to be added his lengthy and masterly address to the people of Massachusetts.

It is proper to state that the letters to Colonel William L. Stone, of New York, were in reply to letters addressed to him by Mr. Stone in apology, though not in justification, of the Masonic institution. In these letters he shows most clearly the absurdity of those apologies by one who, though he had abandoned the lodge, still had not formally seceded from the order.

The letters addressed to Hon. Edward Livingston, of Louisiana, who had accepted the office of general grand high-priest of the order stands out as a terrible arraignment of the order, and as a most effective defense of Antimasons from the imputations made against them.

The institution of Masonry was introduced into the British colonies of North America more than a hundred years ago\ It went on slowly at first; but from the time of the Revolution it spread more rapidly, until in the first quarter of the present century it had succeeded in winding itself through all the departments of the body politic in the United States, and in claiming the sanction of many of the country’s most distinguished men. Up to the year 1826 nothing occurred to mar its progress, or to interpose the smallest obstacle to its triumphant success. So great had then become the confidence of the members in its power, as to prompt the loud tone of gratulation in which some of its orators then indulged at their public festivals; and among these none spoke more boldly than Mr. Brainard, in the passage which will be found quoted in the present volume. He announced that Masonry was exercising its influence in the sacred desk, in the legislative hall, and on the bench of justice; but so little had the public attention been directed to the truth he uttered, that the declaration passed off, and was set down by the uninitiated rather as a flower of rhetoric with which young speakers will someo