William Morgan and the Anti-Mason Party

Over the years, there have been several murders that affected the course of our political history. Most of these are well known, such as the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy.

Rarely, however, has the disappearance and presumed murder of a relatively unknown man had such an impact on American politics as that of William Morgan, whose disappearance happened exactly 200 years ago this month.

Morgan was a former soldier who lived in Batavia, New York. Importantly for this story, he was also a Freemason. In 1826, Morgan became involved in plans to publish a book revealing the secret rituals and ceremonies of Freemasonry. Local Masons attempted to prevent the publication by arresting Morgan on relatively minor and questionable charges. Once released, he was captured and disappeared.

The circumstances surrounding his disappearance quickly produced a sensation. According to the most common account, Morgan was taken to Fort Niagara, New York, where he was held for a time before being placed on a boat and taken away. He was never seen again. Although his body was never found, most Americans believed that Masons had kidnapped and murdered him to prevent him from revealing their secrets.

Just as today, a true crime story like this did not remain a regional scandal for long. Instead, it became a huge national political controversy. There had already been growing resentment toward Freemasonry. To its critics, the organization seemed fundamentally undemocratic. It was a secret society with its own rituals, passwords, oaths, and networks of members. In an increasingly democratic America, where political power was supposed to rest with ordinary citizens, the idea that a secret organization could place its members in positions of influence was disturbing. Morgan’s disappearance transformed those suspicions into a political movement. This was particularly powerful in the political climate of the 1820s.

The First Party System, dominated by Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans, had collapsed, leaving Americans divided among supporters of Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and others. The election of 1828 helped establish the Second Party System, with President Jackson’s Democratic Party on one side and his opponents gradually organizing themselves into the Whig Party under the leadership of Henry Clay. Both Jackson and Clay were Freemasons, making Masonry an especially useful target for those who wanted to challenge the political establishment.

The Anti-Masonic Movement, spurred by Morgan’s disappearance and presumed murder, became part of this larger political realignment. The Anti-Masonic Party emerged as the first significant third party in American history. Its appeal, however, was broader than simply opposing Freemasonry. Anti-Masons presented themselves as defenders of ordinary citizens against secretive and privileged elites. They demanded greater openness and accountability in government and argued that no private organization should be powerful enough to interfere with the law. The controversy surrounding Morgan had become evidence of what could happen when a private organization became more powerful than the institutions of government.

Needing to set themselves apart from the two major parties, the Anti-Masons decided to do something radical. Before this, presidential candidates were selected through congressional caucuses or other arrangements controlled by political elites. Instead, the Anti-Masons called a national convention. In September 1831, delegates from several states gathered in Baltimore, Maryland, and nominated former U.S. Attorney General William Wirt for president.

The Anti-Masons also helped introduce another feature of modern political parties, the formal party platform. Their 1831 convention issued a statement of principles explaining what the party believed and what it intended to accomplish. The convention and platform helped establish a new way for political parties to present themselves directly to voters rather than relying primarily on decisions made by congressional leaders. During the campaign, the Anti-Masons attacked the major parties as elitist, essentially stealing a page from Jackson’s populist playbook. In fact, they were able to out Jackson by pointing to his own Masonic membership and nominating system. Their argument was simple: if Jackson claimed to represent the common man, how could he simultaneously belong to a secret organization that wielded so much power?

Wirt ultimately received only about 8% of the popular vote, winning the seven electoral votes of Vermont, while Andrew Jackson easily won reelection. On the surface, the Anti-Masonic Party looked like a political failure. Within a few years, most of its members moved into the growing Whig Party. Yet the Anti-Masonic Party’s influence went far beyond the 1832 election. It forced the other parties, by the next election, to adopt many of the Anti-Masons’ practices if they wanted to appear equally democratic. In many ways, the Anti-Masons helped create the modern American political campaign.

The Anti-Masonic Party also served as a political nursery, a place where a generation of politicians learned how to organize a modern political movement. Among the men associated with the movement were future political leaders such as Thurlow Weed, William H. Seward, and Thaddeus Stevens. These men would later become important figures in the Whig Party and, eventually, the Republican Party.

The legacy of William Morgan’s disappearance therefore reached far beyond the question of whether he had actually been murdered by Masons. The controversy helped convince many Americans that political power should not be controlled by corruption, privilege, and secrecy.

William Morgan was not a president. Yet his disappearance helped give birth to a political movement that changed the way political parties nominated candidates and presented their ideas to voters.