During the summer of 1824 the venerable La Fayette, now seventy years of age, visited America, by express invitation from congress, after the lapse of nearly half a century. He was received at New York with every demonstration of respect, and made a tour through all the states of the Union, upwards of 5,000 miles, which was in fact a triumphal progress, state vying with state as to which should show him most affection and honour. Finally he sailed from Washington, in September, in an American frigate prepared for his accommodation, and called the Brandywine, from the battle in which he was wounded.
In the year 1825, John Quincy Adams was inaugurated as president, and J. C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, vice-president. The administration of the ex-president had been marked by singular prosperity. Sixty millions of dollars of the national debt had been paid off, and party-feeling had so much abated that this period is signalised as “the era of good-feeling.” The new president, taking a review of the past in his inaugural speech, remarked: “The year of jubilee since the first formation of our Union is past, that of our Declaration of Independence is at hand. Since that period a population of 4,000,000 has multiplied to 12,000,000. A territory bounded by the Mississippi had been extended from sea to sea. New states have been admitted to the Union in numbers almost equal to those of the first confederation. Treaties of peace, amity, and commerce have been concluded with the principal dominions of the earth. The people of other nations, inhabitants of regions acquired not by conquest but by compact, have been united to us in the participation of our rights and duties, our burdens and our blessings.”
On the 4th of July, 1825—that jubilee of the Declaration of Independence of which the president had just spoken, and which was celebrated throughout the Union as a great national festival—died two venerable ex-presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both members of the early colonial congresses; the former of whom nominated Washington as commander-in-chief of the army, the latter drew up the celebrated Declaration of Independence.
CHAPTER XXI.
EVENTS OF TWENTY YEARS.
We must now rapidly pass over the remaining quarter of a century, and in so doing merely pause upon such events as give a marked character to the progress of the years.
The first which we shall notice is of a moral rather than a political character; one calculated to produce infinite results for the happiness of humanity. It was in the year 1826 when temperance societies took their first organised form. At that time one of the besetting sins of the Americans was the use of ardent spirits; and so widely-spread was this pernicious habit of dram-drinking, that the statistics of that period present a calculation that, out of a white population of 10,000,000, between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 were habitual spirit-drinkers, of whom 375,000 drank daily on an average three gills of ardent spirits, while an equal number consumed more than twice the quantity, and of course were drunkards—a disgrace to themselves and their country, and a perpetual source of discomfort to their relatives and friends. In this situation of things, continues Hinton, in his History, from which we have taken the above calculations, a few individuals in the state of Massachusetts undertook the gigantic and seemingly impracticable task of bringing about a reformation. The means which they proposed was the establishment of temperance societies, the members of which bound themselves to total abstinence from spirituous liquors. The scheme was considered as ridiculous; and even many who beheld drunkenness with disgust smiled at the inadequate weapon with which it seemed to them this monster vice was about to be attacked. But God crowned their grain-of-mustard-seed-effort with gigantic success. Societies on the plan of the parent-institution, and zealously co-operating with it, sprang up in all parts of the Union. In September, 1832, there were in the state of New York alone, about 4,000 temperance societies, of which one-thirtieth of the whole population were members. And since that time the cause has progressed immensely. In 1841 there were 2,000,000 pledged teetotallers, 15,000 whom were reformed drunkards; and in 1846 about 5,000,000. In Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Maryland, Wisconsin and Michigan, legislative enactments have first restrained, then prohibited, under pains and penalties, the traffic in intoxicating liquors.
One other event, which occurred during the presidentship of John Quincy Adams, and in which he took a very lively interest, must be mentioned—the formation of the anti-masonic societies. The cause was this: One William Morgan, a quiet, inoffensive man, a citizen of Batavia, in Genesee County, New York, was about to publish a book, disclosing, as was said, the secrets of Freemasonry. On the 11th of September, 1826, it being then Sunday, this man was taken from his home, his wife, and children, under colour of a criminal process, into Ontario County, examined and discharged. The very same day, however, instead of being allowed to return home, he was again arrested and thrown into jail by the persons who brought the first charge against him. Again these same people paid his debt, and immediately upon his issuing from prison, which was then in the darkness of night, he was again seized, gagged, and forced into a carriage, which was rapidly driven 150 miles, relays of horses and carriages being prepared along the whole line of road, and in this manner conveyed, as after inquiry showed, to the Canadian frontier, lodged in solitary confinement within the walls of an old fortress, and after five days was supposed to be transported, at the dead of night, “to the wide channel of the Niagara river, by four royal archcompanions and sunk to the bottom. Nine days were occupied in the execution of this masonic sentence; and at least 300 worthy brethren and companions of the order were engaged as principals or accessories in the guilt of this cluster of crimes.”[[79]]
It was in vain that the legislature of New York passed an act ordering a strict investigation of the subject. Although numerous persons were proved to be implicated in the abduction, it was impossible to procure any evidence of the manner in which the unfortunate man had been destroyed. All that could be learnt was, that a body, said to be that of Morgan, was found below Fort Niagara. It being impossible, therefore, to bring forward testimony which would warrant a charge of murder, it was resolved to prosecute on that of abduction. But here again insuperable difficulties were thrown in the way by the masonic fraternity. Many witnesses were removed out of reach, grand juries were packed, intimidation exercised, and every art put in practice to insure impunity to the criminals. And although in some instances convictions were obtained, and the conspirators punished, all the chief actors managed to set the law at defiance.
Morgan’s abduction, and the formidable influence which the masonic fraternity was found to possess, in the attempt to convict for that crime, excited extreme indignation and disgust against these secret and powerful societies in the minds of the citizens of New York, who argued that secret societies were not only dangerous, but incompatible with the institutions of a republican government, that their oaths and mysteries were illegal and immoral, and that the use of them must disqualify for offices of public trust. A political party, called Anti-Masonic, soon rose in the western part of the state, which acquired such great influence that its leaders became members of the legislative body. The example of New York was followed by the states of Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Ohio, and the territory of Michigan. But freemasonry existed through it all.
About the time that the anti-masonic party began to decline, the anti-slavery party arose. It still has its work to do; to battle with oppression and crime a thousand times greater than that of freemasonry. May God help the right!