The Anti-Masonic party-considered America’s first “third party’-had officially gone national. Even the sitting president, John Quincy Adams, declared that he had never been, and would never be, a Mason. As early as the next elections in 1828, anti-Masonic candidates were winning offices all over the country. The fervor in New York slowly made its way around the nation. That sentiment extended to the media as well, as Mason-owned newspapers were boycotted. If New Yorkers didn’t want to be ruled by the Masons, their most immediate course of action was to vote them out. Citizens from all over New York state met and declared their intent to stop voting for candidates with Masonic ties. It didn’t take long before a movement was borne.” The outrage led to calls for political action.
“And that was the initial spark-headlines, outrage, crimes, a murder. “Everybody loves a good conspiracy story,” says Burt. Chesebro-received prison terms ranging from one month to two years in jail, convicted, as Burt put it, of “forcibly moving Morgan from one place to another against his will.” The all-powerful Masons had, in the eyes of those who opposed them, gotten away with murder Although they had been involved in a potential murder, the four defendants-Loton Lawson, Eli Bruce, Col. The men accused of Morgan’s disappearance were put on trial, but in January of 1827, they were handed relatively lenient sentences. In August of 1826, Miller hinted at the incendiary nature of the upcoming exposé, saying he had discovered the “strongest evidence of rottenness” in the centuries-old institution. Once Morgan had these veiled details down on paper, Miller began teasing their very public release. Under the false pretenses of being a Mason himself, Morgan gained access to the local lodge and documented several of the organization’s cryptic ceremonies and induction rituals. Bentley wrote in his 1874 book History of the Abduction of William Morgan and the Anti-Masonic Excitement of 1826-30, The two men “entered into partnership to print a book which the public was to be told disclosed the secrets of masonry, in hopes to make a fortune out of the gaping curiosity of the vulgar.” Miller, a local newspaper publisher struggling to keep his publication afloat, the successful Freemasons presented a daily reminder of wealth that seemed, for them, simply unattainable.
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