Letters on the Masonic Institution, by President John Quincy Adams

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 19:03:00 GMT

The Institution of Masonry was introduced into the British Colonies of North America more than a hundred years ago. It went on slowly at first, but from the time of the Revolution it spread more rapidly, until in the first quarter of the present century it had succeeded in winding itself through all the departments of the body politic in the United States, and in claiming the sanction of many of the country's most distinguished men. Up to the year 1826 nothing occurred to mar its progress or to interpose the smallest obstacle to its triumphant success. So great had then become the confidence of the members in its power, as to prompt the loud tone of gratulation in which some of its orators then indulged at their pubic festivals, and among these none spoke more boldly than Mr. Brainard, in the passage which will be found * quoted in the present volume. He announced that Masonry was exercising its influence in the sacred desk, in the legislative hall and on the bench of justice, but so little had the public attention been directed to the truth he uttered, that the declaration passed off, and was set down by the uninitiated rather as a flower of rhetoric with which young speakers will sometimes magnify their topic, than as entitled to any particularly serious notice. Neither would these memorable words have been rescued from oblivion, if it had not happened that the very next year after they were uttered was destined to furnish a most extraordinary illustration of their significance.