Anti-Masonic Party

The first "third party" on the American national political scene. It was a reaction to the supposed Masonic threat to public institutions. Although secret societies in general were frowned upon by early 19th century Americans, the Freemasons long continued exempt from criticism perhaps because George Washington and other statesmen and soldiers of the Revolutionary period had been Masons. Indeed, in the first quarter of the 19th century membership is a Masonic lodge was almost a necessity for political preferment.

In 1826, general approval of Masonry suffered a sudden, dramatic reversal as a result of the mysterious disappearance in western New York of William Morgan, a Mason known to be on the point of publishing an exposé of his order's secrets. It was popularly believed, although never proved, that fellow Masons had murdered Morgan. Masonry in New York received a nearly mortal blow, membership dwindling in the decade 1826[en_dash]1836 from 20,000 to 3,000.

The Anti-Masonic Party, formed in New York in 1828, reflected the widespread hostility toward Masons holding public office. Thurlow Weed in 1828 established in Rochester, N.Y., his Anti-Masonic Enquirer and two years later obtained financial backing for his Albany Evening Journal, which became the chief party organ. There was a rapid proliferation of anti-Masonic papers, especially in the Eastern states. By 1832 there were 46 in New York and 55 in Pennsylvania.

The Anti-Masonic Party was the first party to hold a nominating convention and the first to announce a platform. On Sept. 26, 1831, convening in Baltimore, it nominated William Wirt of Maryland for the presidency and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania for the vice presidency. The political effect of the entrane, for the first time, of a third party into a United States presidential election was to draw support from Henry Clay and to help President Andrew Jackson (who was a Mason) win reelection by a wide margin. Vermont gave the party seven electoral votes and elected an Anti-Masonic governor, William A. Palmer. The party also gained members in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Ohio.

After the elections of 1836, however, the Anti-Masonic party declined. Together with the National Republican Party, it eventually was absorbed into the new Whig Party.