The anti-Masonic movement during the 1820s and 1830s is sometimes related by scholars to the development of the American party system. Certainly individuals migrated to the Know Nothing and Whig movements and eventually to the incipient Republican party, but more research is needed. No state was more influenced by anti-Masonry than Vermont, where many of the lodges closed their doors because of the hysteria about Masonic influence. So this scarce volume is welcome background to a puzzling period in political history.

The author was a minister of the Genesee (N.Y.) Baptist association, who had taken fifteen degrees of masonry and was intimate secretary of the Lodge of perfection. He was among the first in that section of the country to recede from the order.

Here, for the first time in more than eighty years, is a detailed study of political Antimasonry on the national, state, and local levels, based on a survey of existing sources. The Antimasonic party, whose avowed goal was the destruction of the Masonic Lodge and other secret societies, was the first influential third party in the United States and introduced the device of the national presidential nominating convention in 1831. Vaughn focuses on the celebrated "Morgan Affair" of 1826, the alleged murder of a former Mason who exposed the fraternity's secrets. Thurlow Weed quickly transformed the crusading spirit aroused by this incident into an anti-Jackson party in New York. From New York, the party soon spread through the Northeast. To achieve success, the Antimasons in most states had to form alliances with the major parties, thus becoming the "flexible minority." After William Wirt's defeat by Andrew Jackson in the election of 1832, the party waned. Where it had been strong, Antimasonry became a reform-minded, anti-Clay faction of the new Whig party and helped to secure the presidential nominations of William Henry Harrison in 1836 and 1840. Vaughn concludes that although in many ways the Antimasonic Crusade was finally beneficial to the Masons, it was not until the 1850s that the fraternity regained its strength and influence.

An analysis of how Freemasonry has shaped American religious history.

Containing all the degrees of the Order conferred in a Master’s Lodge, as written by Captain William Morgan. All the degrees conferred in the Royal Arch, Chapter, and Grand Encampment of Knights Tcmplars, Knights of the Red Cross, of the Christian Mark, and of the Holy Sepulchre. Also, the eleven ineffable degrees conferred in the Lodge of Perfection; and the still higher degrees of Prince of Jerusalem, Knights of the East and West, Venerable Grand Masters of Symbolic Lodges, Knights and Adepts of the Eagle or Sun, Princes of the Royal Secret, Sovereign Inspector-General, etc. Revised and corrected to correspond with the most approved forms and ceremonies in the various Lodges of Freemasons throughout the United States.

For more than a century, Freemasons have held fast to the belief that Masons did not murder William Morgan; rather they deported him to Canada. In "Morgan: The Scandal That Shook Freemasonry," author, journalist and Freemason Stephen Dafoe disassembles that myth while reassembling the trail of evidence that remains to uncover the facts behind this 183-year-old Masonic cold case.