Thursday, September 16, 2010

Anti-Masonry in Vermont

Neutralizing the Opposition

The Anti-Masonic period in Vermont lasted approximately ten years.
Historians describe this as an outburst of religious antipathy towards Freemasonry as well as a general distaste for the unearned favors awarded by fraternal organizations.

This intense period of debate and controversy is brushed off as the fevered minds of religious settlers confronting a rather benign bogey-man.

Once again, with the rise of the internet, there has been a groundswell of unfavorable information revealing the negative intentions of Masons and their affiliated secret societies.

Those who have sworn secret oaths always downplay accusations of favoritism, back-room deals, and nefarious activities. Rather, they redirect focus to the charitable work funded by these fraternal orders and say "Look at all the good works we do, is this evil or underhanded?"

To counter the negative flow of information, a plethora of books, films and television shows have flooded the public marketplace, not only to muddy the waters, but to make the secret societies seem mysterious, mystical and powerful.

The gullible will be attracted to the masons for personal power, while the majority of the population will respond to real (and unfavorable) information as something "from that movie".

This glutting the marketplace with filler is called neutralizing the opposition. The news media are experts at this and do this with every catastrophe, war or whatever, moving from one to the next with nothing ever being resolved.

In essence, this is exactly what was done from the outset of the death of William Morgan until 1836.
Slowly but surely, the movement was co-opted and taken over by Masons. Lodges stopped public meetings, removing the object of anger and depriving the enemy of ammunition.

Pages 144-146 of Ancient Craft Masonry in Vermont states:

"In 1836, Nathan B. Haswell was right when he said : 'From this period I date the overthrow of anti-masonry'

and:
"We have already seen how the Masonic organization was kept alive in this state. In June,1835, the Editor of the Middlebury Free Press said
'Very much has been said of late of the fallen state of Masonry...Has a single Grand Lodge or Chapter or Encampment formally dissolved its organization? Not one. Every Grand Lodge, we believe, still continues its meetings. Such is the case in this state.'
And as such..continued to be 'the case in this state' although for many years no publicity was given to the fact."


Puppet politicians, local and national, were floated at the very time the public was worn out by the constant debate, bickering and division.
These politicians, if they lasted, were eventually absorbed back into the regular political parties and forgotten.

An article from the Boston Courier (quoted in the Vermont Republican Journal of Oct.8,1831) contained an account of the National Anti-Masonic convention, in which a delegate who had opposed William Wirt in the convention is quoted as saying:

"Have you not placed us in the most awkward predicament that men were ever placed? The Anti-Masonic Party supporting an avowed Mason for the Presidency!"

Abolition came along and the Anti-Masonic Party faded away.

More

The book "Social Ferment In Vermont, 1792-1850" (Ludlum, 1939 Columbia University Press) relates how fraternal orders propped up the Temperance  movement in Vermont:

"At the very time that the movement seemed destined for another eclipse... there came a new driving force which carried it out of the depths to new achievements. This was the introduction of fraternal orders whose principal objective was to install habits of sobriety. Beginning in the summer of 1848, The Sons of Temperance undertook organization of local posts and in two years' time had established over seventy-five divisions. The Green Mountain Tribe of Rechabates and the United Brothers of Temperance, both local in extent but powerful, none the less, were also in the field. Representatives of these groups crowded annual meetings of the State Society at Burlington in 1849 and injected new life into that oft-failing body. In another year the fraternal brethren won control of it and completely dominated the temperance scene throughout the state. Largely by the instrumentality of secret societies, smashing victories were won for the no-license party in 1849 and 1850."

An intriguing (though unproven) possibility, is that a prominent Vermont Mason, David Palmer, who lived only a couple of towns away in Thetford, from Anti-Mason Governor William A. Palmer, of Chelsea, were related. Hard to pinpoint.


The power elite are certainly obsessed with numerology and symbolism and it is interesting that September 11, 1826 was the day of William Morgan's disappearance and September 11, 1830 was the date of the first nominating convention of the Anti-Masonic Party.

"The Masons were largely descendants of the ruling group in the state, which constituted the aristocrats in a sense. Chittenden and the Allens and their crowd were all Masons, and for all the democratic talk, Vermont was founded as a republic with a high concentration of power in the hands of a few."
-Cora Cheney, from her book Profiles From The Past.

"In 1828, when the first harbingers of organized Anti-Masonry reached Vermont, the Governor, a majority of the Supreme Court, and the Speaker of the General Assembly acknowledged themselves Royal Arch Masons. One only needed to peruse the signers of "An Appeal to the Inhabitants of Vermont" by the Grand Lodge to substantiate the frequently broached charge that Masonry composed an aristocratic body in a political democracy."
-Ludlum, Social Ferment in Vermont.

Keep all this in mind while watching this well made short film on the subject
by local filmmaker Rob Koier:



Not the History Channel:


And on a final note, here is what Nathanial Colver, a leading member of the Anti-Masonic Party in Vermont, had to say about Freemasonry:

"I believe it is a moral evil in that its specious ceremonies are a combination of Christianity, Judaism, and heathenism. Its oaths are licentious and profane; and so far as there is weight in them, they rob its votaries of the inalienable rights of man. In its titles and degrees it is highly profane and blasphemous.

I believe that it is a political evil, in that like the silent leech it sucks the very life and blood of civil justice, and palsies the executive arm of lawful authority, but in many instances carrying a secret though successful influence into the bar, upon the bench, and into the jury room. Or if it chooses to thunder vengeance from the bar, upon the bench, or the jury, it can yet stay execution, or facilitate the escape of the guilty; while it erects a tribunal of its own, unsanctified by the laws of God or man, from which it extends a secret, multifarious, and dreadful arm, before which thousands of consciences have fallen prey.

I believe that Masonry is an imposition on the world, She boasts of light, and conscience, and knowledge. But these she only possesses in name. When brought forth to the light, and to the scrutiny of untrammelled investigation, what is she? Even her most enthusiastic patrons and votaries are ashamed of her-traiterously denying her personage and their allegiance, til they can drag her back into the dark, where phosphorous-like alone she shines, and where alone they can stupidly bow at her shrine as a mighty goddess."

Tip of iceberg.

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