Political
Masonic Postcards
There
have been fourteen Presidents who have been Masons. Fifteen if you count
Lyndon B. Johnson as an Entered Apprentice. During the early 19th
century many Americans became increasingly suspicious of the various secret
orders that were mushrooming throughout the young republic. The Masons,
in particular, were under a cloud despite the fact that George Washington and
a number of other patriots had been members of the organization. This
smoldering distrust burst into fierce flame in 1826 with the mysterious
disappearance of William Morgan of Batavia, N.Y., who was believed to be
writing an expose' of Freemasonry. The Anti-Masonic Party, the first
third-party movement in the United States, was founded that same year.
By 1831 the party had a considerable following throughout the country, and a
national convention was held in Baltimore, Md. Former Attorney General
William Wirt was nominated to run for the Presidency against Democrat Andrew
Jackson and Whig Henry Clay. In the 1832 election the Anti-Masonic Party
carried only one state, Vermont; Jackson, a Mason, won by a
landslide. The party soon disappeared from the American political
scene, but its method of nominating candidates for President and Vice
President by convention was later adopted by the major political parties.
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