A president takes on the "Gadianton robbers"

This is a fascinating collection of articles by John Quincy Adams, who was president of the United States 1825-29. He lost the elections of 1828 to Andrew Jackson. The articles in this book were written by Adams during his post-presidential period, when he supported the Anti-Masonic Party, a group opposed to Jackson's administration.

In 1826, an anti-Masonic agitator in New York State named William Morgan disappeared under mysterious circumstances after threatening to expose the secrets of the Masonic Order. Morgan was presumed to have been abducted and murdered by a group of fanaticized Masons, and many suspected that other members of the Craft sabotaged the investigation into Morgan's disappearance. The Morgan murder led to a national outcry against Freemasonry and the formation of the Anti-Masonic Party in 1827-28. (It also led Mormon prophet Joseph Smith to give the Book of Mormon an anti-Masonic slant. Think "Gadianton robbers".) The fact that Andrew Jackson was a Mason became an additional argument against him in the 1828 presidential election. Yet, it seems that John Quincy Adams didn't enter this particular fray until after his defeat in those elections. The letters in this collection are dated 1831 or 1833.

Adams expresses strong support for the Anti-Masonic Party (he was their candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in 1833) and equally strong censure of the National Republican Party around Henry Clay, whom he dubs “Clay Masons”. Apparently, Clay was a Freemason. Adams' attacks on the Republicans are intriguing, since he and Clay had similar political positions on most issues, including opposition to Jackson. I'm not a scholarly expert on Adams, but this could indicate that his opposition to Masonry was genuine, and not simply a political maneuver to get Jackson. Unless, of course, he wanted to get Clay at the same time!

The abduction of Morgan and its aftermath plays a prominent part in the letters. The ex-president argues that the Masonic Order is thoroughly corrupted as an institution, and that this “hydra” controls a large part of the New York judiciary. Masons are said to be more loyal to their order than to the laws of the United States, something Adams proves by quoting various secret Masonic oaths. The fact that both President Jackson and Secretary of State Edward Livingstone (to whom several of the letters are addressed) are Masons is said to be deeply problematic, since this makes them more loyal to a suspicious sub-segment of the population, than to the interests of the nation as a whole. An official investigation into Masonry in Rhode Island, which exonerated the Craft, is rejected since many of the officials directing it were Masons. Apart from objecting to its secrecy and blood-curling oaths, Adams accuses Freemasonry of being anti-Christian. The Masonic legend of Hiram Abiff is rejected since it's not mentioned in the Bible! Adams is also opposed to the public pageantry of Masonic lodges, perhaps because this is what makes the common man interested in their activities.

Adams believes that the Masons should be (in effect) prohibited by state legislatures making their secret oaths illegal. He calls upon the Masonic Order to disband, or at the very least to cease being a secret society, abolish the oaths, the “absurd honorific titles” (the degrees?) and the pageantry, something which would arguably deprive Masonry of its whole raison d'être. The book ends with an appendix containing some of the Masonic oaths under discussion, plus extracts from the Livingstone Code, a proposed new penal code for Louisiana written by Edward Livingstone. Adams' point in referencing the Code was to point out the discrepancy between its reform proposals and the brutal Masonic blood oaths. As already noted, Livingstone was a Mason.

Not being an expert on the issues covered, I can't really judge this book. Today, I think Masons would interpret the oaths and rituals symbolically, and I suspect many did already during Adams' lifetime. This is sometimes patently obvious, as when a “Knight Templar” is supposed to bind himself “under no less penalty than to have my head struck off and placed on the highest spire in Christendom, should I knowingly or willingly violate any part of this my solemn obligation”. In 1833, that would be the spire of the Strasbourg Cathedral in France – it would be difficult to execute this threat literally! More cogent is Adams critique of Masonic secrecy and dual loyalty, which is indeed problematic in a democratic republic, especially if “brothers” with a strong mutual obligation to each other enter politics or law. If Adams was right about Masonic infiltration in New York and elsewhere, I can't say. Nor do I know who killed William Morgan, although a group of crazies who took their oaths a bit too seriously would be the most obvious suspects.

Some might perhaps reject John Quincy Adams' attack on Masonry as just another paranoid conspiracy theory, and wonder how a great man like the sixth president could fall for such a notion (or stoop so low that he manipulated the irrational fears of the electorate for his own ends). But perhaps it's more constructive to see his “quarrel” with the Freemasons as a timely – and timeless – word of warning, regardless of whether he was right or wrong in this particular case. After all, the Gadianton robbers are still out there…or up there.