Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/411

 1826-s] Presidential election. The Anti-Masons. 379 the Anti -Masons. In 1826 William Morgan, a poor bricklayer in the village of Batavia, New York, announced his intention to publish a book revealing the secrets of Freemasonry. Batavia was then a frontier village inhabited by men of scanty education, little accustomed to think before they acted. To the local Masonic lodge Morgan's purpose seemed abominable ; and attempts were at once made to get possession of the manuscript. When these failed, Morgan was imprisoned for a small debt. He was however released, but as he came out of the gaol about midnight he was seized, forced into a carriage, and carried across the State to a ruined fort on the Niagara river. There all trace of him disappeared; and to this day his fate is unknown. The man had been kidnapped; and his captors were punishable by law. But the people, in their excitement, instead of demanding the arrest and punishment of the individual offenders, turned their wrath against the whole Masonic body ; and for this the Masons were largely to blame. Attempts to investigate the affair were obstructed by Masons in public office. When indictments were procured against four Masons, they pleaded guilty and so defeated all attempts to discover the fate of Morgan. Then the anger of the people rose high. Public meetings were held in all the western counties of New York; and resolutions were passed declaring Masons unfit for public office and charging them with putting allegiance to their society above allegiance to the State. At the spring elections of 1827 anti- Masonic candidates were nominated in many places ; and the people divided, politically, into Masons and Anti-Masons. To break off con- nexion with the Masonic fraternity now became the most popular act that a politician, a physician, a clergyman, or a small tradesman could perform. Anti-Masonic newspapers appeared in great numbers ; and in the summer of 1828 a convention of Anti-Masons nominated candidates for the posts of governor and lieutenant-governor of New York. In the congressional districts Anti-Masons had already been named for Congress and the State legislature. In short, a new political party had arisen and seriously complicated political affairs in New York, which cast the largest electoral vote of any State in the Union. The choice of presidential electors in the States did not then, as now, take place everywhere on the same day. Each State fixed for itself the date of election ; and December came before the returns were all received. But before that time it was well known that Adams was defeated and Jackson elected. As was truly said, the election marked a great uprising of the people. It was not the mere expulsion from office of a man and a party, but a triumph of democracy, another political revolution, the like of which the country had not seen since 1800. Hundreds of thousands of voters sincerely believed that the country had been rescued from a real peril ; that a corrupt and aristocratic administration, which encroached on the rights of the States, had been overthrown ; and that the liberties of the people had been saved almost at the last gasp. In all the States