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LIGHT ON
A DARK SUBJECT
BEING
A Critical Examination
OF OBJECTIONS TO THE LEGITIMACY OF
THE MASONRY EXISTING AMONG
THE NEGROES OF AMERICA.
BY WILLIAM H. UPTON, A. M., LL. M.,
Grand Master of Masons in the State of Washington.
PRICE, $1.00.
THE PACIFIC SEATTLE MASON, PUBLISHER.
1899.
PREFACE.
The following paper was originally prepared for the use of the members of the Grand Lodge of Washington, Free and Accepted Masons. The opinion having been expressed that the interest felt by members of the Fraternity throughout the country in the subject, to which the paper relates will occasion a demand for the "Proceedings" of that Grand Lodge which would cast an undue burden on the Grand Lodge; and THE PACIFIC MASON, with its usual public spirit, having offered to come to the relief of the Grand Lodge by publishing a separate edition of the essay, a few copies are now issued in the present form.
The writer can add nothing to the idea expressed in the introductory part of the paper: That it was written solely with a view of supplying, in a convenient form, more correct information upon the subject of "Negro Masonry" than is generally accessible. If the paper assists the candid seeker after truth to form a more correct conception of the history and rightful status of the Negro Mason, its purpose will have been accomplished.
The writer will be glad to be informed of any errors or inaccuracies that may have crept into the paper.
W. H. U.
Walla Walla, June, 1899.
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
Of objections to the Legitimacy of the Masonry Existing Among the Negroes of America.
lNTRODUCTORY......................................................................................
LIST OF OBJECTIONS ..............................................................................
Objections to the initiation Of PRINCE HALL ................................................
Objections to the inchoate Lodge, 17 7 51 8 7 ...........................................
Objections to African Lodge, No. 459 ..........................................................
BRITISH MASONRY, 17751787a Digression ...............................................
MASONRY IN MASSACHUSETTS, 17751787a Digression ............................
Objections to the career of African Lodge, 1808-1847, ..................................
Objections to Lodges founded by PRINCE HALL ............................................
Objections to the first negro Grand Lodge .....................................................
Objections to later Negro Grand Lodges ........................................................
MASONRY IN THE PIIILIPPIITEI,AN ALLEGORY ............................................
Objections to recognition ............................................................................
how to solve the problem ............................................................................
Appendices ...............................................................................................
SECTIONS.
INTRODUCTORY.
1. At the Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge of Washington in 1891, a respectful petition was received from two colored men who claimed to be Masons, praying the Grand Lodge to "devise some way" whereby they might be "brought into communication with" members of the Craft in this state.
( 1. At the Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge of Washington in 1897 a respectful petition was received from two colored men who claimed to be Masons, praying the Grand Lodge to "devise some way" whereby they might be "brought into communication with" members of the Craft in this state. The petition was referred to a committee composed of Past Grand 'Masters THOMAS MILBURNE REED and JAMES EWEN EDMISTON and the present writer, then a Grand Warden. The committee reported the following year, and its report was adopted by an almost unanimous vote. In their report the committee plainly expressed the personal belief of the members thereof, that the negro Masons of the United States who can trace their descent from the Grand Lodge of England are as fully entitled to the name of Masons as any other brethren. But, as they knew that a different view was entertained in many quarters; and were satisfied that the ends of justice could be served without any change in our law; out of comity, and in the interest of harmony, they recommended only the adoption of certain resolutions, which left the status of the petitioners as it was under the Landmarks and ancient usages of the Craft, except that the Grand Lodge declared that the colored Masons might cultivate the royal art and regulate their own affairs within this state without molestation from it. *
Because the committee took the view that the matter before it concerned this Grand Lodge alone, and was prepared to answer orally on the floor of the Grand Lodge any questions that might be asked; and because it intended to propose no change in our law, unless the declaration just mentioned amounts to a change, it did not deem it necessary to discuss with three exceptions, and these but brielly the objections that
*The following were the resolutions adopted:
" Resolved, That, in the opinion pf this Grand Lodge, Masonry is universal; and, without doubt, neither race nor color are among the tests proper to be applied to determine the fitness of a candidate for the degrees of Masonry.
" Resolved, That in view of recognized laws of the Masonic Institution, and of facts of history apparently well authenticated and worthy of full credence, this Grand Lodge does not see its way clear to deny or question the right of its constituent Lodges, or of the members thereof, to recognize as brother Masons, negroes who have been initiated in Lodges which can trace their origin to African Lodge, No. 459, organized under the warrant of our R. W. Brother THOMAS HOWARD, Earl of EFFINGIIAM, Acting Grand Master, under the authority of H. R. H. HENRY FREDERICK, Duke Of CUILBERLAND, etc., Grand Master of the Most Ancient and Honourable Society of F. & A. Masons in England, bearing date September 29, A. L. 5784, or to our R. W. Brother PRINCE HALL, Master of said Lodge; and, in the opinion of this Grand Lodge, for the purpose of tracing such origin, the African Grand Lodge, of Boston, organized in 1808 subsequently known as the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, the first African Grand Lodge of North America in and for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, organized in 1815, and the Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania may justly be regarded as legitimate Masonic Grand Lodges.
"Resolved, That while this Grand Lodge recognizes no difference between brethren based upon race or color, yet it is not unmindful of the fact that the white and colored races in the United States have in many ways shown a preference to remain, in purely social matters, separate and apart. In view of this inclination of the two races Masonry being preeminently a social Institution this Grand Lodge deems it to the best interest of Masonry to declare that if regular Masons of African descent desire to establish, within the State of Washington, Lodges confined wholly or chiefly to brethren of their race, and shall establish such Lodges strictly in accordance with the Landmarks of Masonry, and in accordance with Masonic Law as heretofore interpreted by Masonic tribunals of their own race, and if such Lodges shall in due time see fit in like manner to erect a Grand Lodge for the better administration of their affairs, this Grand Lodge, having more regard for the good of Masonry than for any mere technicality, will not regard the establishment of such Lodges or Grand Lodge as an invasion of its jurisdiction, but as evincing a disposition to conform to its own ideas as to the best interests of the Craft under peculiar circumstances; and will ever extend to our colored brethren its sincere sympathy in every effort to promote the welfare of the Craft or inculcate the pure principles of our Art.
"Resolved, That the Grand Secretary be instructed to acknowledge receipt of the communication from GIDEON S. BAILEY and CON A. RIDEOUT , and forward to them a copy of the printed Proceedings of this annual communication of the Grand Lodge, as a response to said communication."Proceediiigs, G. L. of Washington, 1898, p. 60.
Masonry; but contented itself with remarking that they had been "fully met and completely answered, over and over again." Subsequent events seem to me to demonstrate that this course was a mistake; and I feel free to say so, as I prepared the report of the committee. For, during the year, those same old, threadbare and untenable objections have been brought forward in numerous Grand Lodges; with the result, not only that this Grand Lodge has been condemned without a hearing, but that the question itself has been prejudiced in many Grand Lodges for another generation, by the mistaken notion that its merits were fully examined in the year 18989 by committees of those jurisdictions. As a matter of fact, no single committeeso far as indicated by its reporthas given it more than a superficial examination, or shown any acquaintance with the later literature of the subject, referred to by the Washington committee last year.
( 2. The comity and consideration for the opinions of others shown by the Washington committee and Grand Lodge were neither appreciated nor reciprocated. During the year, in a number of Grand Lodges, the position of this Grand Lodge has been savagely attacked, often in language disgraceful to Masonry. Men whose utterances fail to disclose even a superficial acquaintance with either the history or the law of the subject, have presumed to sit as judges in condemnation of this Grand Lodge; and Grand Lodges have usurped a supervisory power over our actions which, if acquiesced in, means not only the destruction of the sovereignty of this Grand Lodge, but the end of that principle of self‑government among Masons which has been claimed as a cornerstone of our Institution since the dawn of its history.
( 3. Under these circumstances, it seemed tome to be due to the brethren of this Grand Lodge who, last year, confided in the judgment, knowledge and integrity of their committee, and who, this year, may be called upon to again pass upon similar questions; as well as to friends of this Grand Lodge elsewhere who may lack time or opportunity to investigate the subject for themselves, that a plain statement should be made of the reasons which exist for considering the negro Masons of America within the pale of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons. I had hoped that some other of the many hands in this jurisdiction more capable than mine might prepare this statement; and especially that it might be undertaken by that beloved brother who has ruled over two generations of Masons and now dwells in lionor among the third, and who has had no superior among Masons in the state of his nativity*, or
* Grand Secretary Reed first saw both the light of nature and the light of Masonry in Kentuckythe jurisdiction which was the first to denounce us, and the one which employed the most indecent language. Brother Edmiston, another member of our committee on Negro Masonry, and a Mason who, as chairman of the Committee on Jurisprudence, has made a reputation as a Masonic jurist such as no other son of Arkansas enjoys, is a native of that State; and in the Confederate army did what he could to rivet the shackles of slavery on the negro. The Grand Lodge of his native State sought to rival Kentucky in malignant abuse of this Grand Lodge.
in the State whose foundations he assisted to lay. But one circumstance after another seemed to lay the task upon me. It is a task which I would gladly have escaped. I have no taste for controversy; I feel no special interest in negro Masonry, and originally discussed the subject only because detailed to that duty by my Grand Master. Other deterrent circumstances, also, exist, too personal in their nature to be of interest to the reader, but which constantly remind me of the vanity of all things earthly; and, most of all, of the frivolity of such petty prejudices and technicalities as have prompted the recent attacks on this Grand Lodge, and of those attacks themselves: "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision."
( 4. I am not particularly intimidated by the knowledge, which has come to me during the year, not merely by what has appeared in print but by abusive letters, that the undertaking will subject me to scurrilous abuse and cowardly vituperation; for since I have learned how thin the veneer of Masonry and of civilization is upon some men who have held high places in Masonic councils; and that, as one eminent brother has expressed it, men whom I had been wont to look up to as leaders are "tifty years behind the times and a thousand years behind the principles they profess," I have become indifferent to their abuse: as LAURENCE DERMOTT expressed it, 'I do not find that the calumny of a few Modern Masons has done me any real injury."
I shall write for four classes of readers: First, the little band of Masonic scholars who, in diverse climes, pursue their studies for the sake of truth alone the most of these already know and declare that the Grand Lodge of Washington is right; second, that large class of brethren who have neither time nor opportunities for personal investigation, and are compelled to take their information at second hand; third, a determined and implacable and well organized band of men who have determined that, right or wrong, Mason or no Mason, come what may, the negro shall not be recognized by American Grand Lodges; and, lastly, the members of my own Grand Lodge, who may be called upon to act upon the matters which I shall discuss, and who have a right to feel sure of their ground before acting. I feel that the first and last of these classes know me well enough to rely implicitly on the frankness and candor with which I shall address them. I feel quite as certain that the discordant and malignant cries of the third class will so drown my voice that for the present it will not reach the ears of the second; and possessed of this conviction I am content to address the few of today, the many of tomorrowto appeal to posterity and a future age.
( 5. In casting about for a plan on which to present my view of the subject, no better one has occurred to me than to take up, one by one, every objection that has ever been urged against the regularity of the Masonry found among the negroes, and set forth, under each, the reasons why it failed to impress me as sound. This, therefore, is the course I shall adopt in the following pages; and when I have done this I shall have placed my reader, so far as my ability to express my meaning clearly, and the unfavorable circumstances under which I write permit, in a position to see why I reach the conclusion that no single one of the objections is valid; and to judge for himself whether he agrees with me or not. When I have done this, my task will have been completed;. unless I invite such readers only as reach the same conclusions as I do, to consider briefly what course ought to be adopted by the white Masons of America to restore the ancient universality of Masonry. "The curious subject of Freemasonry," said HALLA31,* eighty years ago, "has been treated of only by panegyrists or caltimniators, both equally mendaciotis." What was true of Freemasonry even fifty years after HALLAM spoke, is nearly as true today of "the curious subject" of Negro Masonry. While I shall write of it avowedly as a partisan, I shall endeavor not to deserve the reproach which the historian applied to our ancient brethren. I shall avoid as much as possible the tone of controversy, and shall cite authorities for statements of fact not found in the commoner Masonic histories. I hope I may be pardoned for adding that I have sufficient confidence in my own intellectual honesty to believe that Time, if she shall point out any trifling errors of statement, and whether she confirms or refutes my conclusions, will vindicate the candor with which I present the subject and the correctness of my statements of historical facts.
Origin of* Negro Masonry. The origin of Masonry among the negroes of the United States was as follows:
On March 6,1775, an army Lodge attached to one of the regiments stationed under General Gage, in or Dear Boston, Mass., initiated PRINCE HALL and fourteen other colored men of Boston into the mysteries of Freemasonry. From that beginning, with small additions from foreign countries, sprang the Masonry among the negroes of America. These fifteen brethren were probably authorized by the Lodge which made them according to the custom of the day to assemble as a Lodge. At least they did so, but it does not appear that they did any "work" until after they were regularly warranted. They applied to the Grand Lodge of England for a warrant, March 2, 1784. It was issued to them, as "African Lodge No. 459," with PRINCE HALL as Master, September
*Middle Ages, iii, 359.
t This sketch of the origin of negro Masonry is substantially that compiled by the present writer in 1895 (Proceedings, G. L. of Washington, 1895, Cor. Rep., p. 206) and adopted by the Washington committee on Negro Masonry (Proceedings, 1898, p. 52). It was originally compiled from data drawn from a great variety of sources. Its general correctness has not been questioned by any Grand Lodge committee during the heated controversy of the past year; but, nevertheless, it is not here presented as authoritative, t,ut merely as a thread to string our inquiry upon. The few points in it concerning which any question has ever been raised will be discussed in subsequent sections. CLARKA trustworthy authority states that PRINCE HALL wits initiated a short time before March 6, but the others on that day. Negro Masonry in Equity, 13.
Were we ignorant of the manner in which Lodge numbers were assigned, in view of subsequent events we might suspect that grim humor had led a prophetic Grand Secretary to assign to African Lodge the number which was borne by that "Spectator," in which ADDISON bad said, "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another."
29, 1884, but not received until May 2, 1787. The Lodge was organized under the warrant four days later. It remained upon the English registry occasionally contributing to the Grand Charity Fund until, upon the amalgamation of the rival Grand Lodges of the "Moderns " and the "Ancients " into the present United G. L. of England, in 1813, it and the other English Lodges in the United States were erased.
Brother PRINCE HALL, a man of exceptional ability, worked zealously in the cause of Masonry; and, from 1792 until his death in 1807, exercised all the functions of a Provincial Grand Master. ln 1707 he issued a license to thirteen black men who bad been made Masons in England to "assemble and work" as a Lodge in Philadelphia. Another Lodge was organized, by his authority, in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1808 these three Lodges joined in forming the "African Grand Lodge" of Boston subsequently styled the "Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts" and Masonry gradually spread over the land.
The second colored Grand Lodge, called the "First Independent African Grand Lodge of North America in and for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," was organized in 1815 and the third was the "Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania." These three Grand Bodies fully recognized each other in 1847, by joining in forming a National Grand Lodge, and practically all the negro Lodges in the United States are descended from one or the other of these.
It is known to a certainty that they have our secrets and practice our rites. * Many foreign Grand Lodges recognize their organizations; and where this is not done, their individual members are commonly received as visitors.
( 7. btatus coneetled them. In the earliest days their Lodge was freely visited by white Masons; f and down to the present time many white Masons, when influenced by curiosity or higher motives, have not hesitated to thus recognize them. But gradually, especially after some white Grand Lodges, t acting upon the slight information that was then accessible ll had questioned their standing, and the advantages of exclusive territorial jurisdiction had become apparent, their origin was lost sight of; and the 'view that they were for what reason was generally but vaguely understoodmore or less irregular, became prevalent, and tinally crystallized among the rank and file of the Fraternity into almost an axiom. The subject has, however, been examined occasionally; and,
* Proceedings, G. L. of Washington, 1895, Cor. Rep., pp. ~08, 209. Letter of P. G Master L. V. BiEncE; New Day New Duty, 16.
t PRINCE: HALL incidentally mentions this; (see Appendix 11, post); and JAcoB NORTON, speaking of the same period, says, in a letter dated Sept. 26, 1872, printed in the London Freemason: "I have indubitable proof that African Lodge was then repeatedly visited by white brethren."
The terms "white Grand Lodge" and "white Lodge," where employed in this paper, are used merely as convenient terms to distinguish our own organizations in the majoritg of which no "color line " is noininally drawn from the negro bodies.
11 New York as early as 1818 and 1829.
2. As persons whose claim to Masonic consideration has been passed upon adversely, legislatively, and upon an ex parte showing by the local Grand Lodge, and is therefore to be considered no further.
3. As Masons, more or less irregular, whose claims to legitimacy it would be inconvenient to acknowledge; and who, therefore, had better be quietly ignored, under the best excuse that may be at hand.
4. As persons whose claims have never been passed upon by our Grand Lodge, and of whom, therefore, every Mason of our jurisdiction must be his own judge.
5. As Masons, found to have been made consistently with the Landmarks and general laws of the institution at large; and, therefore, with certain claims upon us which we are not at liberty to wholly ignore; but to whose organizations it is not expedient (out of comity for certain other Bodies, and under certain "American doctrines") for us to accord formal or, perhaps, any official recognition.
6. As Masons, whose organizations ought to be accorded by us the same recognition as that accorded to other American Grand Lodges and Lodges,
The literature of the subject during the last year would indicate that the official Grand Lodge classification of them which, in the North, has usually been somewhat more rigorous than the personal views of leading members of the Grand Lodges in a majority of jurisdictions of the United States places them in class 2; though sometimes the language points to classes 1 or 3. The Washington committee last year* found them in this State, in class 4; and although the committee plainly stated that the personal opinion of its members placed them in class 5not in class 6, as has been inferred, it recommended leaving them in class 4. And that is where they stand in Washington today. Masonic sentiment outside of the United States and possibly parts of Canada is practically unanimous in placing them in classes 5 or 6.
Since the subject was under consideration in 1869 and 1876, there has been a slight but perceptible drift of opinion in favor of the correctness of some of the claims put forward by the negro Masons.t Thus, even in Delaware the Grand Master now admitst that
"This is not a question of the regularity and legitimacy of PRINCE HALL'S making, but of the right which he exercised to erect Lodges of Negro Masons. * * * "
One of the most virulent of the anti-negro writers, who in 1816 reported to his Grand Lodge that the negro Lodges were "irregular and must be held to be clandestine," has Dow reached the conclusion that ii
*Proceedings, G. L. of Washington, 1898, p. 50.
fsee also the views of Dr. JosEpu RoBBiNs, in Appendix 28, post.
"If one of these colored Lodges were in existence in Washington today and should ask to give in its adhesion to the Grand Lodge of Washington, and that Body should accept, and issue a charter to it, that Lodge would thereby become, as to all the world, a regular lodge. * * * "
Of course, such would not be the case had the Lodge and its members been "clandestine."
( 8. Definitions. This last remark illustrates the wisdom of having definite meanings for the words we employ. The words "regular," "non-regular," "irregular" and "clandestine," in particular, will frequently occur throughout this paper. It is unfortunate that they are sometimes employed by Masons indifferent senses. "Irregularities" may, of course, be either trifling or enormous. The phrase "a regular Lodge," however, has a definite and certain meaning, given it by one of the "Old Regulations" of 1721; wherein the only Grand Lodge in the world declared that when members of its Lodges desired to form a new Lodge "they must obtain the GRAND MASTER'S warrant to join in forming a NEw LODGE," until which time the "REGULAR LODGES" were not to countenance them.* This subject will be fully discussed in subsequent parts of this paper;f and hence we need observe here, only that while there was but one Grand Lodge, a "regular" Lodge was one that, having been formed by authority of the Grand Master or his representative, was enrolled or entitled to be enrolled upon its Register. As other Grand Lodges were formed, the definition was naturally extended to include all Lodges which had been formed under the authority of any Grand Lodge or Grand Master; or, having been formed otherwise, had been "regularized" by being placed on the roll of a Grand Lodge. All other Lodges were nonregular. On this point a brother who has made this subject his peculiar field, and who, for accuracy of knowledge and of expression stands second to no other Mason, of this or any other age, says:t
"What was meant by the regularity" of Lodges in early days was that such Lodges as were under the jurisdiction (sub regula) of the Grand Master were styled Regular. This did not imply that all other Lodges were irregular; far from it. They were non Regular, but not necessarily clandestine or unlawful. A similar distinction holds in the Roman Catholic church between the secular (or parochial) clergy, and the regular (or monastic) clergy. This does not stigmatize the former as irregular. Some of our historians have failed to grasp the distinction, and have thought Regular Lodges alone could be lawful at any period of our history."
In later times inexact writers, in and out of Grand Lodges, have used the term "regular" as though it applied only to Lodges upon the roll of recognized Grand Lodges. But this indicates a total misconception of the meaning of the term. The word "regular" has no relation to the legitimacy of a Lodge, but relates solely to the question of its right to enrollment. The Grand Lodge of Washington has never formally "recognized" any of the German Grand Lodges; but unquestionably it regards
*General Regulations, A. D. 1721, viii.
tsee
22,23,51 et seq., post.
*W. J. CHETWODE CRAWLEY, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, ix, 125. See also Appendix 16, post.
12
all their Lodges as "regular," if they be Masonic Lodges at all. By a similar latitude, Grand Lodges have been wont to vote that such and such a Lodge is "irregular" or "clandestine." This only means that they will so regard it, and is similar to the action of Grand Lodges which vote a Master Mason the "rank" of Past Grand Master. All the world knows that he is not u past Grand Master. There is nothing in the world to prevent the Grand Lodge of Kentucky from voting that our Lodge, Olympia, No. 1, is an "irregular" or a "clandestine Lodge." But such a vote does not affect the actual standing of the Lodge, but only its subjective standing with relation to that particular Grand Lodge and such other bodies as elect to adopt that vote to govern their own concerns. From the practice last mentioned, it results that a Lodge may be "regular" in one jurisdiction and with reference to the general law of the Institution, and yet be under a judgment of irregularity in another. The word "clandestine" is also used somewhat recklessly at times by reckless writers, when looking around for some word that is strong enough to express their detestation; but nearly all writers admit that, properly, it is a much stronger word than "irregular." Perhaps the clearest idea of the correct use of the word may be obtained by applying this test: Anything that can or could be "healed" or cured, in any way o r by any body, is not "clandestine, " but is, at most, "irregular." A great lawyer* speaking of what acts might be held to amount to "fraud," said:
"The court very wisely hath never laid down any general rule, beyond which it will not go; lest other means for avoiding the equity of the court should be found out."
Perhaps a similar respect for the ingenuity of depravity ought to deter us from making any definite list of acts that may be clandestine.
( 9. List of objections. It may be a convenience to the reader if I now give a list of the objections which will be considered in this paper. To make the list serve the purpose of a table of contents, I add, after each objection, the numbers of the sections in which it is answered. This will enable the reader to skip those parts of the paper which relate to objections which he already knows to be puerile. (I claim that this is one of the most unselfish suggestions ever made by any writer; for it will justify many well-informed Masons in closing the book as soon as they have run their eye over the list.
Objection to the initiation OF PRINCE HALL and his companions.
1. That there is Do evidence that they were ever made Masons..~, 10.
2. But if made, they were made in an army Lodge.~ 11.
3. That in 1773 a Provincial Grand Lodge at Boston had forbidden army Lodges to initiate eivilians.~,~ 12, 13.
4. That negroes are ineligible to be made Masons.~,~ J476.
Objection to the inchoate Lodge.
5. That until 1787 the first negro Lodge had no warrant or charter. a ch ill a vs to I]te 7e ,r m in a, .d
Objections to African Lodge, No. 459.
6. That it never had a warrant; but the pretended warrant was a forgery.(( 78, 19.
7. That England ipso facto lost the right to warrant Lodges in the United States when the independence of this Nation was recognized( 20.
8. That the warranting of African Lodge was an invasion of the jurisdiction of a Massachusetts Grand Lodge.(( 2,7, 3336.
9. That it is not known that African Lodge was ever formally "constituted."( 37.
10. That the *organization of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 179'~) invalidated the further existence of African Lodge.( 3843.
Objections to the career of African Lodge, 18081847.
11. That the Lodge became dormant, some time after 1807.~ 44.
12. That it was dropped from the English register at the end of 1813. 45.
13. That it surrendered its warrant to England in 1824.,~ 46.
14. That it declared itself independent, in 1827.( 47.
15. That it surrendered its warrant to the National Grand Lodge in 1847.~ 48.
Objections to Lodges founded by PRINCE HALL.
16. That African Lodge was not a Grand Lodge, and PRINCE HALL not a Grand Master; and consequently they could not establish other Lodges.~( 49,58.
17. That the Lodges established by them were in invasion of the jurisdictions of existing Grand Lodges.~( 6871.
Objections to thefirst negro Grand Lodge.
18. That its erection was an infringement of the "American Doctrine" of the exclusive territorial jurisdiction of Grand Lodges.~ 6Z64.
19. That it became dormant .zl, 65.
20. That in 1847 it surrendered its independence sovereignty by becoming a constituent of the National Grand Lodge.~ 66.
21. That the negro Masons abandoned the requirement that candidates be "free born."( 67.
Objection to later negro Lodges and Grand Lodges.
22. That their existence is an invasion of jurisdiction.~ 6,~7Z.
Objections to recognizing.
23. That however legitimate negro Masonry may be, the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts has, it is said, decided against it, and all the world is bound by that decision.~( 7783.
24. That the language of our installation charges precludes recognition.( 84.
25. That there are rival Grand Lodges among the negro Masons, and they are "not ready" for recognition until they have settled their internal differences.( 85.
26. That recognition would injuriously affect the "high degree" bodies.~, 86.
27. That recognition would involve a recognition of the "social equality" of the negro.~,'~7.
28. That recognition by one Grand Lodge m ' ight occasion inconvenieiiee to others which did not recognize.( 8,1~.
29. That for other Grand Lodges to recognize a particular negro Grand Lodge, before it had been recognized by the white Grand Lodge of the State in which it is situated, would be an infringement of that spirit of comity which pervades the relations between the white Grand Lodges.~~ "~9.
Objections to the initiation 0/'PRINCE HALL and his companions~.
10. Doubts as ' to their making. The first objection to the regularity of PRINCE HALL and his associates which I shall consider is one of the conclusions" of the Massachusetts committee of 1876,* that there is "'No evidence that they were made Masons in any Masonic Lodge." Wi suggestion of such a doubt, never heard of until a century after thto which it alludes, is an illustration of the methods of those who, having predetermined that right or wrong the claims of the negro Masons shall be rejected; it is to the credit of American Masons that few of them have laid any stress upon it. Like most of the "conclusions" of that committee, there is nothing at all in the body of the report to base it upon. Of course, the sufficient answer to this objection is that the Grand Master of England was satisfied on that point before he granted his warrant for African Lodge. That answer is not only a conclusive one when the matter is approached as a question of Masonic jurisprudence, but it was en
*Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., Sept. 1876, p. 59. This report, which appears to be about all of the literature of the subject which most of the southern committees have ever read, will bespoken of again in ~~, 82, post. As these so-called "conclusions" Many of which are not conclusions at all, and do not follow from anything stated in the report proper, but are mere assertions and opinion sha;e been copied into nearly every committee report during the year and accepted as gospel, I give them here; and have inserted in brackets after each the sections of this paper wherein its subject is incidentally disposed of.
"1. No evidence that they were made Masons in any Masonic Lodge, [,' 10.] "2. If made, they were irregularly made. [~ 1116.] "3. They never had any American authority for constituting a Lodge. [P,, 19.1 "4. Their charter from England was granted at a time when all American Masonic authority agrees that the Grand Lodge of England had no power to make Lodges in the United States after the acknowledgment of our independence, November 30, 1782, and the treaty of peace made November 3, 1783. [~ ~?0.] "5. The Grand Lodge of England dropped African Lodge from their list in 1813. [~ 45.] Said Lodge does not appear to have worked since PRINCE HALL'S death, in 1807, except this: that in 1827 parties calling themselves African Lodge, No. 459, repudiated the Grand Lodge of England. [~44.1 "6. The Grand Lodge of England did not delegate to African Lodge any power to constitute other Lodges, or to work elsewhere than in Boston.
No Masonic authority exists for any of the organizations since 1807, whether pseudo Lodges or Grand Lodges JR 4960]; and no evidence of the Masonry of any of their members has come to our knowledge. [~ 6 last note.] "S. Neither English nor any other Masonic authority exists, nor has at anytime existed, for these colored Lodges located out of Boston to make Masons or practice Freemasonry, [~?, 50, 64, 6871.] Each of them began its existence in defiance of the Masonic community
of the, st.f 15
tirely convincing to my mind when I approached the subject as a private inquirer. Yet for the benefit of the more sceptical, I add the following; Brother CLARK informs us* that
"The records of the initiation of these fifteen colored men is in possession of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts." . Grand Master WILLIAM SEWALL GARDNER, in his address to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, said (italics mine):
"I have no doubt that, on the 6th of March, 1775, the day after WARREN delivered his celebrated oration in the Old South Church, where he was menaced by British troops, PRINCE HALL and thirteen others received the three degrees in a travelling Lodge attached to one of the British regiments in the army of General GAGE, by whom Boston was then garrisoned; that PRINCE HALL and his associates met as a Lodge thereafter in Boston, without any warrant or authority until May, 1787." A committee reported to the Grand Lodge of Ohio in 1876 as follows:
"Your committee deem it sufficient to say that they are satisfied beyond all question that Colored Freemasonry had a legitimate beginning in this country, as much so as any other Freemasonry; in fact, it came from the same source."
The absurdity is apparent of supposing that no denial of their Masonry would have been made at the time; no attempt to prevent their obtaining a warrant, when the fact of their initiation was common talk in Boston, and when the public press had stated that they had sent to England for' a warrant, and were disappointed at its nonarrival. 11 How many Lodges, formed in 1784, can now show where their members were initiated? But, after all, the true answer to this objection is that sufficient evidence must have existed in 1784 to satisfy the Grand Master of England; and it is immaterial whether that evidence still exists or not.
~ll. Objection that they tvere tnade in a military Lodge. It is objected that the making of PRINCE HALL and his associates was irregular because they were made in a military Lodge, and military Lodges it is alleged were forbidden by the law of the Grand Lodge of England to initiate civilians. If this last allegation were true instead of being absolutely without any foundation whatever it would be completely answered by the fact that these brethren were "regularized," in 1784, in the only way then known to Masonry by receiving the warrant of the Grand Master of England and being enrolled as Lodge No. 459 on the register of the premier Grand Lodge of the world.
*The Negro Mason in Equity by M.'.W.*.SAMUEL W. CLARK (n. p. [Cincinnati]: 1886),14. This admirable work so completely demolishes the principal arguments against the negro Masons that the present report would be superfluous were Bro. CLARK's book in the hands of the brethren generally. JACOB iNORToN and others examined these records. See ~~ 44, note; 80, note, post.
tproceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1870, p. 34. Grand Master GARDNER Was the arellenemy of the negro Masons, and this address is incomparably the ablest document of all that have appeared against them.
'.Composed, as has been said, "of the leading Masons of Ohio": Lucius V. BIERCE, ENOCH T. CARS014, FERDINAND WILMER, Louis H. PIKE and CHARLEs A. WOODWARD.Proceedings G. L. of Ohio, 1876, p. 17.
,I See ~ 15, post; and Appendix 7.
But let us probe this objection a little deeper. Who could make a law prohibiting the military Lodge from making PRINCE HALL a Mason? Obviously, the Grand Lodge to which it belonged. Recognizing this, some of our critics * have cited OLIVIMR'S "Dictionary of Symbolic Masonry " for the statement that a law of the ("Modern") Grand Lodge of England forbade the initiation of civilians by military Lodges. It is almost cruel to give the answer to this rare instance in which those who have assumed that the Masons of Washington were ignoramuses, have deigned to cite any authority for their assertions, In the first place, OLIVER'S inexactness is so well known that he is never cited, by scholars, as authority on a disputed point; in the second place, at this point OLIVER was speaking of a period long subsequent to 1775; and, finally, it's absolutely certain that neither of the English Grand Lodges had any law on that subject at that time. I have before me the 1764 and 1807 editions of the "Ahiman Rezon " of the " Ancient" f Grand Lodge, the former of which was in force when PRINCE HALL was initiated the next edition having appeared in 1778 and in neither of these is there the slightest trace of any law on that subject. And I am authorized by the highest authority in England on such a point, Bro. WILLIAM JAmiEs HUGHAN, to quote him as saying that no such law appears "in any edition of the Constitutions" of the "Modern" Grand Lodge "until the year 1815."f Should it be shown that PRINCE HALL'S initiation occurred in a Scotch or Irish Lodge, an even more stunning response to this objection would exist.
( 12. Same. The Vote of 1773. 11 But so eager has been the desire to oniit nothing that might becloud the mind of too inquiring brethren, that we have been gravely reminded that in 1773 the St. Andrew's Provincial Grand Lodge at Boston "passed a vote" that I I no traveling Lodge had the right in this jurisdiction to make Masons of any citizens." ** It was I will not say uncandid, but unfortunate and misleading that Grand Master GARDNER attributed this to " the Massachusetts Grand Lodge "; ff and Bro. WOODBURY to "the" Provincial Grand Lodge "of Massachusetts. " tt Many have been misled thereby into supposing that this vote
* Special report of Committee on For. Cor.; Proceedings, G. L. of Arkansas, 1898; et seq. (By the last two words I mean, See also the reports of numerous other committees who have lazily followed the Arkansas assertion, and copied it into their reports, without investigation.)
t The reader unfamiliar with the terms " Ancient " G. L. and " Modern " G. L. will find them explained in ?24, post.
I Bro. HUGHAN wrote the same thing to Bro. W. R. SINGLETON of the D. C., but Bro. SINGLETON could not read his letter! See Proceedings, G. L. of D. C., 1898, Cor. Rep., s. v. "Kentucky." 11 See p 13, post.
** The language of this " vote " is not quite identical in all our authorities. My quotation is from the Woodbury Report. Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., Sept. 1876, p. 67.
11,
was passed by the Grand Lodge oj' Massachusetts, and there lies before the writer at this moment a letter from a most respected New England Grand Master, in which it is suggested that he and the Grand Master of Washington are precluded by "this action by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, with which the Grand Lodges of Washington and are in affiliation "!
It may be advisable for the younger reader who desires to more cleitily understand the condition of Masonry in Massachusetts at the time this vote was passed, to turn, at this point, and read what is said of the "Ancients" and "Moderns" in sections 22 to 26, and of Masonry in Massachusetts in sections 27 to 32. To appreciate the absurdity of citing this vote of 1773, the well read Mason needs to be reminded of but few points: First, that the body that passed it was not a Grand Lodge at all, but was a Provincial Grand Lodge* existing by the will and pleasure of the Proviricial Grand Master appointed by the Grand Master Mason of Scotland; and had no jurisdiction whatever except over the four Scotch Lodges in Massachusetts, St. Andrew's and Massachusetts Lodges in Boston, Tyrian
with the independent body organized in 1777, it did not assume the name of "The Massachusetts Grand Lodge of Ancient Masons' until 1782. The present "Grand Lodge of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," created by the union of the last nained body of "Ancient" Masons with the rival St. John's (Provincial) Grand Lodge of "Modern" Masons. was not formed until 1792. The matter is more fully discussed in ~,~ 2732, post.
*The Address of Gr.iiid Master GARDNER, which contains the ablest attack on the negro idasons we have seen, also contains an able and scholarly discussion of the Provincial Grand Lodge system, from which the following correct statement of the subject is condensed:
"The Provincial Grand Alaster was appointed by commission of the Grand Master, wherein the extent of his powers were set forth, and by virtue of which he convened his Grand Body. In the language of early days, this commission was styled a Deputation, and this word conveys the true idea of the Provincial's position. It was aDeputy Grand Lodge, with its various Deputy Grand Officers, convened by the power and authority of the Provincial Grand Master as the Deputy of the Grand Master. It possessed no sovereign powers. * * * * "The allegiance of the Lodges and of the Craft was to the Grand Lodge of England for Scotland, etc., as the case might be], and to the Provincial Grand Lodge and Grand Alitster, through the parent Body, There was no direct allegiance to the Provincial from the Craft. * W. * "Thus it will be seen that the Provincial Grand Master was appointed for the coiiven ience of the administration of the affairs of the Grand Lodge of England in distant parts in the same manner that our District Deputies are appointed at the present time. * * ~ "The Provincial Grand Lodge was the creation of the Provincial Grand Master, and was wholly under his direction and control. * ~ * In this Grand Lodge there was no inherent power, save what it derived from the Provincial Grand IVIaster, by virtue of his delegated authority, thus making it the very reverse of a Sovereign Grand Lodge. * * "Such a Grand Lodge never possessed any vitality which would survive the life of the commission appointing the Provincial Grand Master.
"The death of the Provincial would also lead to tire same result. The commission to him from the Grand Master would lose all its force upon his decease.
Later quoting authorities]: "If these authorities support the position taken, and if the conclusions arrived at are correct, it follows beyond all controversy that when Provincial Grand Master Joseph WARREN expired on Bunker Hill, June 17,1775, the Provincial Grand Lodge, of which lie was the essence and life, expired also, and with it all the offices of which it was composed. "Proceedings (,. L. of Massachusetts, 1870, pp. 1823.
2 is
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
at Gloucester, and St. Peter's at Newburyport;* that it was an "Ancient" body and had or claimed no jurisdiction over "Modern" Masons or their Lodges; and that a Provincial Grand Master, or the Grand Lodge of his province, had no jurisdiction over military Lodges temporarily in the province. The latter, whether "Ancient" or "Modern," English, Scotch or Irish, owed Do allegiance save to the Grand Lodge, whose warrant they held; and could laugh to scorn any assertion on the part of a petty Provincial body to legislate concerning them. If the authors of the vote of 1773 had any idea of usurping jurisdiction over the English and Irish army Lodges, they forgot their own history, and disregarded the words of their own Grand Master; for when, in 1762, the English Lodges in, Boston objected to the establishment of the first Scotch Lodge in that city, St. Andrew's Lodge, as an infringement on the jurisdiction of JERF,Nty GRIDLEY, the English Provincial Grand Master, the Grand Master Mason of Scotland wrote t (italics mine):
,I do not doubt nor dispute his [GRIDLEY's] authority as Grand Master qf all the Lodges in North America, who acknowlege the authority and hold of the Grand Lodge of England, as he certainly has a warrant and commission from the Grand Master of England to that effect. The Grand Master and Grand Lodge of Scotland have also granted a warrant and commission to our Rt. Worshipful Brother, Col. JOHN YOUNG, Es q., constituting and appointing him Provincial Grand Master of all the Lodges in North America who acknowledge the authority and hold of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. These commissions when rightly understood can never clash or interfere with each other."
The Grand Master Mason of Scotland was right: He himself had no jurisdiction over the English and Irish army Lodges in America, and the petty Provincial Grand Lodge, whose very existence was dependent upon the pleasure of his Provincial Deputy, had none.
( 13. Same.I had written section 12 before it occurred to me that it could possibly be necessary to verify the correctness of the statements of the Massachusetts writers, that there was such a vote as they speak of..
* For the last three Lodges, see Proceedings G. L. of Massachusetts, 1869,2).172; and Drumiiioiid, in Gould's History, iv, 343. For St. Andrew's Lodge, see ~,28, post.
f This was undoubtedly the general rule. The idea that a Grand Lodge ruled over territory instead of over the Lodges upon its own roU o)dy and their members could legislate for other Lodges or Masons, and even for profaiies flrst found adherents in any numbers, at a much later day. Indeed, if the "vote of 1773" was intended to suggest such a dogma, it probably is entitled to the distinction of being the first assertion of it, and may become as famous in history as the "crime of 1813." Some reasons for thinking that it remember we are now speaking of the legislative power of Grand Lodges, not of the judicial functions of a Lodge is a false doctrine, and contrary to a fundamental principle of Masonry will be found in the introduction to the Masonic Code of Washington (Ed. 1897.)
"The letter is or purports to bequoted by DRUMMOND, Gould's History, iv, 300. Throughout this paper, in citing GOULD'S "History of Freemasonry," the reference is to the American (pirated) edition for the unavoidable reason that very few American readers have access to the English edition. In justice to GOULD, it should be remembered that he is not responsible for anything in the American edition after page 294 of volume
19
Having now examined the official proceedings,* I find therei never was any vote which purported to forbid the initiation ot' civilians by army Lodges. But I will let section 12 stand, as a monument to the trouble to which a man can be put by writers who will not or do not quote correctly.
Past Grand Master GARDNER'S language was:
"October 1, 1773, the Massachusetts Grand Lodge, after mature deliberation, decided that neither the Lodge at Castle William, nor any other traveling Lodge, 'has any right to make Masons of any citizen.,
Brother WOODBURY'S committee said:
"It is somewhat singular that the Provincial Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, October 1, 1773, passed a vote that 'no travelling Lodge had the right in this jurisdiction to make Masons of any citizens.' * * *'7
But the original record, under the date above mentioned, reads as follows (the brackets are mine): 11
'The Petition of RICHARD CARPENTER & Others, under the 2d of June was this Evening Read, and The Substance therein debated, [The Grand l,odge being fully of Opinion that the Lodge at Castle William nor no other Travelling Lodges, has any Right to Make Masons of any Citizen,] The same was put whether the Prayer of the said CARPENTER (V Others should be Granted, Passed in the Negative." What the nature of the petition was does not appear.
A child can see that Brothers GARDNER and WOODBURY unintentionally, I do doubt quoted what was not in the record; that the matter which I have placed in brackets was not voted on; that that part of the record is but the opinion of the Grand Secretary, Brother HOSKINS, as to what influenced the minds of the members of the Grand Lodge. Had Brothers GARDNER and WOODBURY been writing up the Proceedings of their Grand Lodge in 1870 and 1876, respectively, they might have inserted the opinion that the Grand Lodge was "fully of Opinion" corresponding to theirs; but the Grand Lodge did not say so in their cases.**
Similarly, Brother HOSKINS may have made a fine speech, taking the view expressed within the brackets, and may not have made a single convert to his view and yet believed he had convinced all present. However this may be, if the Prov. G. L. was of this "Opinion," it did not say so. If it thought travelling Lodges did not have "any Right" to initiate civilians, either because it knew that it had no jurisdiction over them, or for some other reason, it did n ' ot venture to "decide" or "pass a vote" that they should not do so; and that is the end of this objection.
(14. Negroes i?zeligible. We have now disposed of every objection that has been made to the mere initiation Of PRINCE HALL and his associates, unless it be the objection that negroes are ineligible to be made Masons. During the last year there has been great anxiety manifested to waive this objection, and to insist that no question of race or color is
*Proceedings in Masonry, St. John's Grand Lodge 17331792, Massachusetts Grand Lodge 17691792. Boston. Published by the Grand I,odge of Massachusetts, 1895.
t Address; Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1870, p. 34. l proceedings, G. L. of Mass., Sept. 1876, p. 67. 11 Proceedings in Masonry, iit sitpra, p. 250. **See ?,~ 81, 82, post.
20
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
involved, and Southern committees have pointed triumphantly to the fact that they borrowed their arguments from Northern Masons thereby claiming to clear their skirts of the charge of "race prejudice." The writer has no earthly interest in showing that race prejudice is, and always has been, the real foizs et origo of the opposition to our negro brethren; but such, beyond all question, is the fact. But for that, African Lodge No. 459 would have been as eagerly urged to come into the Grand Lodge formed in Massachusetts in 1792 as was St. Andrew's Lodge. But for that, no Grand Lodge would have declared non intercourse with WASHINGTON during the last year not even those whose laws declare that a candidate for Masonry must be a "WHITE man;" or the one which recognized the Gran Dieta of Mexico at a time when, with no Bible on its altar, it was initiating women into Masonry, and which itself authorizes the three degrees to be conferred for a fee of ten dollars. It is insulting to our intelligence to appeal to the North as the friend of the negro. It was the North that mobbed GARRISON and murdered Lov.Ejoy. He spoke truth who so coarsely said, "'I'he South said to the negro, 'Be a slave and God bless you:' the North said, 'Be free, and God damn you.' " Even in California, less than forty years ago, to call a man an "Abolitionist" was the deadliest of insults. No, we are all "tarred with the same brush;" tainted with prejudice, not so much against the negro race as against the race that has been one of slaves; and the Grand Master of Washington could produce scores of letters, written by Masons of national reputation, which, starting out with the clailu that "this is not a question of color, but of jurisdiction," wind up with a wail that "the presence of vast hordes of negroes makes this a practical (luestioil in the South;" and that "if negroes be recognized, Masonry in the South will be destroyed." The answer to this is very simple: It is not true that Masonry compels me to recognize every Mason as my social equal; or to tale him into my family or my Lodge. "For though all MASONS are as BRETHREN upon the same level, yet MASONRY takes no Honour from a Man that he had before; nay rather it adds to his Honour, especially if he has deserv'd well of the Brotherhood, who must give Honour to whom it is due, and avoid ILL MANNERS."* If the law of Freemasonry excludes negroes, you do well to object to their presence. If it does not, and you are unwilling to submit to its laws, Freemasonry can do without you is better off without you though you represent a dozen Grand Lodges and carry half a million so-called "Masons" with you. Masonry does not exist "to vindicate the social supremacy of the Caucasian race,." and the man who is particularly fearful of losing his social standing is usually the man whose social standing rests on a very unsubstantial foundation.
( 15. Same. But this objection, though now largely abandoned from sheer shame at its unmasonic character, has been earnestly urged. Thus,
4
21
Masonry, that theory carries us back to the Caucasion race. * * * Masonry was originally what it is niainly today, a Social Institution; *
* * into which it is not credible that anyone of the negro, or of any other of the inferior races, could have been admitted. * * * Under no circumstances whatever ought the legality of i3egro Masons to be acknowledged."*
In view of the protests to which reference has been made, it may be 'well to give a few out of the many illustrations, that are at hand, of the fact that race prejudice has been and is a potent factor in the matter.
LEwis HAYDFN in a letter in The ]'act .fie A_ppealt says:
article appeared in the Colun?bi(t Seiitinel, published in Boston, in 1787 (before our charter was received), wherein sport was made by the White Masons over the supposed loss of our charter. As further evidence of the spirit of caste, contemporaneous with our existence, the historian Belknap, in 1795, gleaned the following statement from a White Masonic brother: 'The truth is, they are as/tamed of being on an equality with blacks. Even the fraternal kiss of France, given to merit without distinction of color, doth not influence Massachusetts Masons to give an eiiibrace less emphatical to their black brethren. * * *' "
In 1847, the Grand Lodge of Ohio adopted the following,t repealed in 1869, 1 believe:
"]?esolved, That, in the opinion of this Grand Lodge, it would be inexpedient and tend to mar the harmony of the fraternity to admit any of the persons of color, socalled, into the fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons within the jurisdiction of this Grand Lodge." In 1851, the Grand Lodge of Illinois,
"Ilesolved, That all subordinate lodges under this jurisdiction be instructed to admit no negro or mulatto as a visitor or otherwise, under any circumstances whatever." i~ Iowa and New York also bear witness:
"Eighteen years ago [i. e., in 1852] the Grand Lodge of Iowa adopted a report on foreign correspondence, which embodied and endorsed the action of the Grand Lodge of New York, declaiInW that the 'exclusion of persons of the negro race is in accordance with Masonic law and the ancient charges and regulations,' and also declaring it 'not proper to initiate them in our lodges;' also, at the same time, it was declared 'inexpedient, as a general rule, to initiate persons of the Indian race, or constitute lodges among them.' "**
']'he Grand Lodge of Delaware pa ssed in 1867, and expunged in 1869, the following:tt
"Resolved, That lodges under, this jurisdiction are positively prohibited from initiating, passing, raising or admitting to membership, or the right of visitation, any negro, mulatto, or colored person of the United States. This prohibition shall be an obligation, and so taught in the third degree." ( 16. Same.The Grand Master of Florida, speaking of the proposal of
*R. W. DANIEL SAYRE, Gr. See.; Proceedings, G. L, of Alabama, 1876. tquoted in the Voice of Masonry, May, 1876, p. 392.
t New DayNew Duty (Cincinnati: 1875), pp. 11, 18, l~ Voice of Masonry, May, 1876, p. 393. 1 believe Illinois reverted to the ancient landmarks in 1871.
~ Address of JOHN LONG, G. M.; l'i~oceedi)igs, G. L. of Iowa, 1870. Iowa rescinded this law in 1870.New DayNetv Diity, 25.
tt New DayNew Duty, 14.
22
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE,
Grand Master ASA H. BATTIN Of Ohio to recognize the colored Grand Lodge of Ohio, said, in part:
"Does our brother for a moment stop to consider the vast horde of utterly ignorant negroes, liberated in the South, who aspire to reach after and Jay hold of every privilege the white man enjoys? * * * I am fully of opinion that if our good brother, as many of the brethren of his jurisdiction have done, would sojourn a while with us, he would certainly be of the opinion that the fullness of time had not yet come; and that while this measure might possibly work good with him, it would work destruction to others of the Great Fraternity of Masons. * * * 1 will say in conclusion * * * that, with our distinguished brother, ALBERT PIKE. * * * 'When I have to recognize the negro, as he now is, as a Mason, I shall letve Masonry.' * * *11 *
The constitution of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, still in force, provides that
"A candidate for initiation must be of the age of twentyone years and a freeborn white man."t
The Committee on Foreign Correspondence of South Carolina, in a special report on Negro Masonry, says:
,,,rhe Ahl man Rezon of South Carolina, compiled by that eminent author, erudite scholar and unsurpassed Masonic jurist, ALBERT G. MACKEY, t and adopted by the Grand Lodge, specifically declares that a candidate must be of free while parents."Il Let Texas be our last witness:
"As the result of that [a committee report in 1876] and of cognate reports, the following standing resolution was adopted, and which (sic] is now prominent in our laws:
" 'This Grand Lodge does not recognize as legal or Masonic any body of negroes working under their charters in the United States, without respeel to the body granting such charters, and they [sic] regard all such negro Lodges as clandestine, illegal and unmasonic; and, moreover, they rsic] regard as highly censurable the course of any Grand Lodge in the United States which shall recognize such bodies of negroes as Masonic Lodges.' Art. 36, Masonic Laws of Texas."**
No, brethren, "Let us be honest." If there is any man in Americablack or whitewho is wholly free from race prejudice, he may thank God that he is exceptionally favored. The writer cannot claim to be free from race feeling; but, it seems to him that if there are two places where it ought to be held in check they are in the Church and in the Masonic
*Proceedings, G. L. of Florida, 1876.
farticle viii, Section 5.
!,"All that that I have said is, that the Masonry of this country, like that of every other country, recognizes no distinction of race or color in the qualifications of a candidate."ALI~ERT G. MACICF.Y, in Voice of Masonry, June, 1876, p. 424.
11 Proceedings, G. L. of S. C., 1898, p. 50.
**Pt,oeeedings, G. L. of Texas, 1898, p. 69, 1 may add that since the foregoing was in type I have been informed by two TexoLsmade Nlasons that in that Stateand, they think, in other Southern Stateswhite Masons are required to enter into an obligation Dot to recognize negro Masons. My informants are unable to remember whether this applies to alt Degro Masons or only to those made in the "iiegro Lodges." That such an extraordinary and extreme departure from the basic principles of Masonry can have been made seems incrediblealtbougb, as we have seen in the text, it once occurred in Delaware; and further comment will be reserved for a later page. Sce?,87,post.
23
Lodge. Not that men need worship or lodge together that is a different thing. Masonry gives every Mason in the universe an absolute veto on any other man's entering his Lodge as a visitor or as a candidate; but it does seem that when we are called upon to pass upon the question whether a certain man is a Mason we ought to be able to put race prejudice beneath our feet. Whether we can do so or not, the fact remains that the color of PRINCE HALL'S skin did not vitiate his initiation; for by the practice of the tenets of Masonry, as PRESTON taught as far back as 1772,
"We are taught to regard the whole human species as one family,. the high and low, the rich and poor; who, as children of the same Parent, and inhabitants of the saiue planet, are to aid, support and protect each other." f
Objection to the inchoate Lodge, 177.57787.
((17. The Lodge before the wa?,?ant."I would inform you," wrote PRINCE HALL, apparently to the Grand Secretary of England, in March, 1784, "thitt this l,odge hath been founded almost eight years. We have had no opportunity to apply for a warrant before now. * * * "t Brethren who have taken it for granted that Masonic usages in the eighteenth century were the same as those at the end of the nineteenth may be surprised, both at the idea of a l,odge without a warrant (or char ter) and at the openness with which PRINCE HALL mentions his connec tion with such a Lodge. The latter fact was doubtless due in part to the fact, of which we shall produce ample evidence in another part of this paper, 11 that such Lodges were so common at that time as to cause no
remark, and to reflect no discredit but sometimes quite the opposite on those who established or belonged to them. The reader familiar with the usages of that time will have little doubt that PRINCE HALL and his associates assembled, as so many other Lodges then did, by authority of the Lodge which initiated them.** But whether they had such authority or not, and whether it was sufficient or not, is of no moment at this point; for these brethren conferred no degrees until they received their warrant in 1787, and that war ' rant made thorn as regular as any Lodge in the world. This last point I do not ask the reader to take for granted, but we will proceed to consider it.
Objections to African Lodge, No. 4.5.9.
18. That the warrant was forged. No one believes in this objection today. We now know that, like most of the objections that have been made to the genuineness of the Masonry of the colored men, it was origi
* Illustrations of Masonry (14 Ed., London: 1829), 42.
tsee the ringing words of the Grand Master oflreland, upon this point, in Appendix 18, post.
'Negro Mason in Equity, >7; Proceedings G. L. of Mass., Sept. 1876, pp. 67, 68. HALL had been one ofthe firstto volunteer in the defense of his country in 1775, slid during the war had had little opportunity to think much about warrants.
11 See R 5157, post.
**See the references last cited, and Appendix 1, post.
nally put forward not as a reason but as an excuse for denying them their rights. But as it makes an affirmative assertion of something which there was never the slightest foundation for believing to be true, it must have been put forth, originally, with a deliberate intent to deceive; and therefore it illustrates the methods of some who have written on this subject, as well as the credulity and ignorance of those who have been content to accept and repeat their assertions, without investigation. And this last mentioned habit, and the willingness of men to write about subjects of which they have not studied even the rudiments, explains why scholars and men who have any real knowledge of negro Masonry, or of the facts, principles and usages upon which the question of its legitimacy really depends, have nothing but contemptuous pity for the utterances of certain committees, Grand Officers and editors, during the past year. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread;" but men who in all the other affairs of life demand the use of modern critical and scientific methods in investigating historical questions, cannot, simply because they are Freemasons, disregard the knowledge which they have labored to obtain, at the instance of nied too inert to ascertain the facts, or too deticient in the apparatus of criticism to appreciate the effect of the facts when they are presented by another. Nor can the man who views Masonry from the standpoint of the student, ever admit that questions of history, of la~v or of inoials are to be determined by counting noses. GALILEO Will Still whisper, "It moves, nevertheless." But "let us return to our sheep," lest some one be offended.
The objection that the warrant of African Lodge was a forgery was at one time urged as confidently as any of those which have been so passionately presented and implicitly relied upon during the past year. It is now in no greater contempt than they will be in a few years. Therefore, let us treat every objection, great or small, with equal seriousness.
,~ 19. Same.It is now indisputable that a warrant in the usual form, attested by the Grand Secretary, and bearing date 29th September, 1784, was issued by authority of the Grand Master of Englandof the premier Grand Lodgeto PRINCE HALL, BOSTON SMITH, THOMAS SANDERSON and others, constituting them "into a regular Lodge" under the title of "African Lodge."*
The Grand Secretary receipted for the fees for the warrant, '~)8th Febru,,try, 1787. Its arrival in Boston was mentioned in the "Massachusetts Centinal" of May 2, 178s. The Lodge was placed on the roll of the Grantl l,odge as No. 459, ranking from the year 1784, and appeared on every list of its Lodges until the Grand Lodge itself was absorbed in the United Grand Lodge at the Pnd of 1813.f At the re‑numbering of the Lodges in 1792 it became No. 370. f
* GOULD'S HiSt. of Freemasonry, iv, 268.; Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1810, p. 34; Id., September, 1876, p. 65. The warrant has been often printed, e. g, in each of the Massachusetts pamphlets here cited; and in New DayNew Duty, 17; and CLARK's Negro T~lason in Equity, 28. See Appendices 4 to 9, post.
f R. P. GOULD'S, "The FourOld Lodges and Their Descendants (London: 1879),72,78; W. J. HUGHAN, Voice of Masonry, Nov., 1876.
~Ibid.
25
The warrant was seen by a committee of six members of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts who reported, in 1869,
',Your committee have examined the charter and believe it is authentic."*
( 20. The independence of* the United States had been recognized.The objection that the Grand Lodge of England ceased to have jurisdiction to warrant Lodges in America when the treaty of peace was signed in 1783, will have greater weight in my mind when I learn that national independence operates to erect a Chinese Wall wivich Masonry cannot cross. I shall not waste time over this puerile objection. The Mason seeks the Master's Word that he may travel in foreign countries and work there; and no Mason, in ancient or modern times, ever did a Mason's work ex cept in a Lodge. There is no Lodge on the continents of Europe, Asia or Africa that is not a monument of the right of a British Grand Lodge to erect Lodges in foreign, independent, Nations. The declaration of July 4, 1776,not th * e treaty of 1783made Massachusetts what China is today, an independent State; and it.left England, in Massachusetts, the same right that Massachusetts today exercises in China, to erect Lodges tijere;unless some totally different reason than the fact that the politi
cal independence of Massachusetts had been recognized, existed. I am not ignoring the fact that it is claimed that another reason did exist, but will next consider that.
( 21. Invasion of Massachusetts juris(lictio?z. This brings its to a cruei:tl point; for one of the two objections that has been chiefly relied upon by those who have written adversely during the last year has been that the warrant to African l,odge No. 459 was invalid because, in granting it, the Grand Master of England "innaded the territorial jurisdiction" of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and consequently, it is asserted, African Lodge was clandestine or irregular ab initio. Recognizing the fact that this objection is a stumbling block to many honest minds, I shall waive the fact that, to my mind, to call a Lodge warranted by the Grand Master of England "irregular" is to employ a contradiction of terins;i and to call such a Lodge "clandestine," is the height of absurdity; and shall undertake to show: 1. That in 17,1~4 and 1787 the (loctiine of exclqtsive territorial jurisdiction did not ez7ist; 2. That, had the doctrine existed, there was, at that time, no Grand Lodge which had or claimed ex(lusive jurisdiction over Massa(it?,tsetts or even over Boston; 3. 7'hat the Body referred to by our critics u~as not one that the (T'rand Master ii7ho warranted 4frican Lodge, or African Lodge itself, was I)ound to, or lawf~tlly could recognize as a Grand Lodge ot' Masons, and, 4, that no invasion of,j?trisdiction, real or pretended, occurred.
But to make these matters entirely clear to any but the quite well informed of my readers, I must ask leave to indulge in two long digres
*Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1869, p. 135.
t The original definition of an irregular Lodge was "one foriiied without the (~rand Master's warrant." See ~, 8, ante, and references there cited.
26
sions:* one for the purpose of showing the condition of British Freemasonry at the time referred to; the other for the purpose of showing the state of Masonic government in Massachusetts at the same period.
Britisli Masonry, 17 7,,5178 7, a Digression.
,~22. "Modern7' Grand Lodge.Origin of' warrants and charters.
The Reformation of religion, by putting an end to the erection of great ecclesiastical buildings in England, seems to have dealt a heavy blow to the Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons. The lael, of employment seriously affected both the importance and the number of the operative members; and for a tinie the fortunes of the Fraternity were at so low an ebb that it was almost lost sight of, so that until very recently our histor ians were wont to confound our Fraternity with the guild masons men who, as the researches of Brother SPETij and others have rendered fairly certain, were the very a * ntipodes of our brethren. t The building neces sitated by the great fire of London in 1666, said to have been inflicted upon the English on account of their cruelties to "the poor and innocent
people of the Island of Schellingh,"t afforded relief to two generations; but early in the eighteenth century destruction seemed to stare the Fra ternity in the face. At this juncture, a few brethren determined upon a radical step, viz.: to cut looseso I am inclined to interpret our only Iiistorian of this periodllfrom the intimate relations they had main tained, from 1620 at least,** with the guild masonsthe Masons'Company of London,and "cement under a Grand Master as the center of Union and Harmony."tf They formed, in 1717, the first Grand Lodge of Masons, and elected the first Grand Master, in the sense in which that title is now used. Until that time, indeed until 172inay, quite generally until many years laterftthe right to form a Lodge depended on no superior author ity, but was regarded as inherent in the Masonic character. I am aware that at some unknown date in or before the preceding century, some now forgotten body, at some place equally unknown Jill attempted to place
* Covering 0,0 22 to 32 inclusive.
t G. W. SPETH, What is Freemasonry? (London, n. d., [ 1893 ]); Ars Quatuor Coronatorurn, x, 10; CONDI[CR, The Hole Crafte and Fellowship of Masons, p"sim; Proceedings, G. L. of Washington, 1895, p. 184.
t Londens PuynHoop oft Godts Bechvaerdige Strqft, etc. (Rotterdam: 1666.) ANDERSON, New Book of Constitutions, 1738.
**CONDEr,t, Hole Crafte, pp. 7, 145.
tt ANDERSON, at supra.
It+ See 0 5158, post.
11111 will anticipate a criticism by writers of a class which has been very much in evidence during the past year in discussing Negro Masonry and volunteering to instruct the benighted brethren of Washington by the recital of oft exploded old wives' tales,brethren who have read nothing written concerning Masonry within thirty years except Grand Lodge Proceedings, and to whom the writings of that brilliant school of writers, founded by Wool)PORD and HUGHAN and adorned by a score of names hardly less honored than these, who have revolutionized our ideas of Masonry, are a terra incognita;by stating that the New' Articles were 7&ot "made and agreed upon by a General Assembly" held in 1663 by the Earl Of$T. ALBANS. See HUGHAN, Old Charges, (1895 edition,) 122,121. Local readers will find these New Articles in The Masonic (,ode of Washingtoyi, p. 190.
27
a slight restriction on this right by adopting the "New Articles" or "Additional Orders;" but these Orders either fell stillborn or soon became obsolete, and the fact that there was Masonic "work," either operative or speculative to be done was sufficient warrant for the proper number of Masons to form themselves into a Lodge.* But, in 179,1, the young Grand Lodge approved a set of General Regulations, No. viii of which, while it did not venture to deny this ancient right, sought to discourage it by declaring that the regular Lodges that is the Lodges on the roll of the Grand Lodges were not to "countenance" or own as "fair brethren and duly formed, nor approve of their Acts and Deeds," any "set or number of Masons" already members, as the context shows, of Lodges on the Grand Lodge rollwho should "take upon themselves to form a Lodge without the Grand Master's Warrant," that is, authority.t This new rule was intended by the Grand Lodge to apply to the members of its own Lodges ouly,for the idea that a Grand Lodge can legislate for anyone but its own constituents is an innovation of comparatively recent date and, if I mistake not, of American origin. There were other Lodges in England, and we shall presently see that the acceptance of this new dogma was very slow, and may be led to doubt whether it has even yet become quite universal. 11
( 23. Rise of the "Ancient Mason,,~."When the first Grand Lodge was formed in 1717, there were Masons in London who took no part in the new movement, some of whom began to observe its course with disfavor. But the revival and "great run" which the Institution experienced, especially about the year 1722, due partly to the bedetits of the Grand Lodge system, but perhaps more to the fact that a peer had accepted the Grandmastership, redounded to the benefit of these independent Masons as well as to that of the "regular" Lodges. "Old Brethren who had neglected the Craft" not only "visited the Lodges," as ANDERSON tells US, but began to form Lodges of their own, "without the Grand Master's Warrant" but in accordance with immemorial usage. It used to be assumed that they were rebels** from the Grand Lodge, and even in so recent a work as his great History,ff Brother GOULD commonly styles the
* W. J. CHETWORDE CRAWLEY, Caemet)taria Hibernica, 1, Iiitroduction, 15; Lost Archives, 5; The Grand Lodge of Munster, 6. See also ~? 5158, post, and Appendix 16; but this fact is now universally admitted.
t See ~ 8, ante.
IThat the word "warrant" here means "authority," see A)s Q. C., viii, 193 et seq.; and CaermntariaI:Iibeiitica,1,7. Local brethren will find an account of how the authority was given, in Masonic Code of Washington, ~ 111, note.
11 See ?~ 23, 24, 51 et seq. Towards the end of 1722 the Grand Lodge appears to have had 20 Lodges on its register. ANDERSON, Constitutions, 1723. Dr. CRAWLEY, than whom no higher authority on this subject exists, estimates that prior to the organization of the Grand Lodge of the "Ancients" in 17512, the number of English brethren who were without "the Grand Master's warrant" for their Lodges, exceeded the number in the "regular Lodges."SPETH's An English View of Freemasonry in America (Tacoma: 1898), 14.
**GOULD, The Athol Lodges (London: 1879), v.
ttthe last volume of Which first appeared in 1887.
28
Antients, "schismatics." But the later researches of SADLER* and CRAWLEYT have demonstrated that, for the most part, the brethren of these Lodges had never been connected with the "regular"t Lodges; and, also, that from a very early date their relations with the Masons of Dublin were very intimate; and Irish names were very numerous on their rolls. 11 These independent Lodges, most of them new, but a few dating from preGrand Lodge times, existed in other parts of England, also, and were commonly called "St. John's Lodges."** In Ireland they were sometimes styled "hedge" or "bush" Lodges. They are alluded to in the records of the Grand Lodge in 1723, 1724, 1735, 1739, 1740, 1749, 1752 and later.fi To detect the members of these Lodges when they presented themselves as visitors, the Grand Lodge, at a date which may not be quite certain, and which is unimportant to our purpose, but which is commonly said to have been 1731),tt " adopted some new measures," which were immediately denounced as and, although adhered to until 1813, at the union of the latter year were admitted to have been a departure from the Landmarks; namely, it reversed the Names of two columns with all that that implies, This circumstance led many to renounce their allegiance to the Grand Master Jill and increased the number of nonregular Lodges.
( 24. Same. "A 9~(ient" Grand Lodge."On July 17, 1751, a "('~eneral Assembly" of members of five or six of these nonregular Lodges existing, as PRINCE HALL',, Lodge did from 1776 to 1784 or 1787, "without the Grand Master's warrant"formed an organization to which the des(,ent of' more tltait three
fourths of' the "recogni,~ed" Grand Lodges in the ITnited States can be traced. From the first, their recordstyled this body a Grand Lodge,*** although they had no Grand
* Masonic Facts and Fictions (London: 1887),an epoelimarking book.
t CaementEtria Hibernica.
'Let it be understood that a "regular" Lodge. meant one tliatliad been "regularized""' by liavingtlie warrant oftlie Grand Master forits existence;thatis, one that was sub regitl.a, subject tothe laws of, the Grand Lodge.GOULI), History, iii, 136, note 2. ~ee~.Sa?Lte.
It is perhtps safe to say that an Irish Mason, especially one who belonged, socially, to the lower or lowermiddle class, on going to England, ~. D. 17301800, was almost certain to join an independent or "Ancient" l,odge and not a L'regular" or "Modern" one. Of cotirse there were exceptions.
**While the Grand Lodge always discouraged fraternizing with them, the less intolerant particular Lodges were often content if a visitor liailed "from a l,odge of the holy Saint Jol)n of Jerusalem," instead of from "a regularly constituted Lodge." Evidence of this can be found in the minutessometimes in the byla,%~sof numerous eighteenth century l,odges. Seepost,~57adfin.
ttANDF,RSON, New Book of Constitutions, 1738, New Regulations passim. GOULI), His tory, iii, 127,128,138, 142,145,147,148.
~,., GOULD, History, iii, 149.
111 PRESTON, quoted by Gou i,D, Ibid.
***JouN LANE, Ars Q. C., v, 166 et seq. For this fact, and cei'tttiitly as to the exact date of the organization, we are indebted to "Morgan's Register," the "Large folio bound in White Vellum" mentioned by DFRMOTT (C~OULD, History iii, 187), long lost, which was discovered by SADLER and identified by LANE in 18&iapparently after GOULD'S account of the Ancients was written. GOI'LD (History, iii, 147, 191), on evidence whict) the researches of ]3rotliers SADLER and CRAWLEY have rendered less conclusive, thought that even the ol~le~t of the Lodges which composed this Grand Body did not antedate 1747.
w of: el 8,
s
t
a GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
29
Master. Afterwards, "to supplv the deficiency of a Grand Master," they organized a "GRAND COMMITTEE," presided over by a President. Its minutes are extant and full from Feb. 5th., 1752, when its "Grand Secretary," JOHN MORGAN, resigned, and the talented LAURENCE DERMOTT was elected his successora meeting at which were "present the Officers of Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, f) and 10, being the representatives of all the Ancient* Masons in and adjacent to London."i On Dec. 5, 17,,)3, by electing a Grand Master, this Committee transmuted itself into an undoubted Grand Lodgefthe faiiious Grand Lodge of the Antient, or Atholl Masons, or' Free and Accepted Masons according to the Old Institutions. Space would fail us to properly eulogize the extraordinary genius of its Grand Secretary LAURENCE DERMOTT, the journeyman painter, to whom the marvelous influence of this body was due. "As a polemic," says MACKEY, 11 "he was sarcastic, bitter, uncompromising, and not altogether sincere or veracious.** But in intellectual attainments he was inferior to none of his adversaries, and in philosophical appreciation of the character of the Masonic Institution, lie.was in advance of the spirit of his age." Of him "it may be said, without erring on the side of panegyric," says GoULD,ff "that he was the most remarkable Mason that every lived. * * * Yet although a very unscrupulous writer, he was a matchless administrator. In the * * * latter [capacity] he displayecl qtitlit,ies which we find united in no other member of the Craft, who came either before or after him.,, His Ahiiiian Rezon, first published in 17i)6,tt became the gospel froiu which there was no appeal, among "Ancient" Masons throughout the world, on all questions of Masonic law; and I know of no book, in which the original matter was so small, that has exerted so vast an influence. 1111 Its author made open war upon the senior Grand Lodge;
*This is, I believe, the earliest use of this word to distinguish these brethren from the adherents of the premier Grand Lodge of the world, founded in 1717, to N~hom DERMOTT succeo~ded in attaching the name of "Moderns." f Transactions [i. e., minutes] of the Grand Committee; printed by GOULD, Ilistory, iii, 186.
1 And presents, it seems to me, tl)e inost correct illustration of wh t a Gr nd Lo( g
a
a
I e properly is, N,iz., a grand committee of all the Lodges, with a Grand Master at its head strangely in contrast with the deflnitions ofan autocratic, irresponsible and almost oniiii potent body, which brethren have been led to frame by dreaming over the word "sover eignty" and drawing analogies from the powers of civil States.
11 Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, sub voce.
**Saditis, biittrue, that controversies over the two most importatitsubjects in the worldbarring the sex,Masonry and religion, seem to annihilate both candor and courtes~. Sufficient illustrations of this as to Masonry have appeared in the discussions of negro Masorir~ during the past year. In religion, we remember the response of an eminent divine to the pamphlet which JA,QFS I wrote against his doctrines: "When God wants to create a fool, He turns a king into a theologian." # History, iii, 187.
'ISubsequent editions in 1764,1778,1787 and, after Iiisdeatl), 1800,1801,1807aiid 1SI3. The 18Y7 edition contains the first list of its Lodges published by the "Anciel)t" Grand Lodge.
1111 The bulk of the book was copied from SPRATT'S (Irish) Book of Constitutions (Dublin: 1761) which was mainly copied from ANDE:RSON'S Constitutions, 1738 edition; but DERmoTT's departures from his originals were the features which have left the deepest impressions upon Masonry, especially in some parts of America.
I I 30
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
and with ridicule, vituperation, sarcasm; bombast, fiction, invention truths, halftruths and notruths, attacked its pretentions; disputed it authority; and, finally, fastened upon it the stigma of "Modern," and won for his own Grand Lodge the title of "Antient" andnot without a modicum of justicethe credit of being a bulwark set up in the providence of God to defend and maintain the "old institutions" of the Craft which the "Modern" Grand Lodge had attacked or neglected. More than this: so savage was his attack, so bold his assumption, so bitter his arraignment, so infamous the stigma which he succeeded in attaching to the word "Modern," that all Englishspeaking Masons, except those belonging to his one rival, hastened to declare that they were "Antient Masons" and practiced the "Antient system."* Scotland recognized the "Ancient" Grand Lodge of England in 1772; and in the same year the Grand l,odge of Ireland "Ordered * * * that hereafter no English Mason shall be considered worthy of our Charity, without producing a Certificate from the Grand Lodge of England, "meaning DERMOTT'.S Body.i
( 25. The "tu;o Societies. "One ettect of this wasand this is the point to which this long digression has been leading up, and one which the reader must comprehend if he would appreciate the true standing of African Lodge No. 459 with relation to the other Masonic bodies in Massachusettsthat Masonry, which from time immemorial had been one universal Fraternity, became divided into two distinct, independent and hostile Societies, the governing bodies of which each denied the legitimacy of the other, and, so far as they could control their constituents,t held that its members were not to be considered Masons, but were spurious and clantiestine. GOULD well says:
"Mutatis mutandis, the description given by Burton of the split in the Associate Synod, will exactly describe the breach between, and reunion of, the Masons of England:
'After long separation, these bodies, which had been pursuing their course in different lines, reunited their forces. But, in the meantime, according to a common ecclesiastical habit, each body Counted itself the
* n aynusing illustration of this occurred in 1765 when, on the same day that it was inaugurated by the "Modern" Grand Lodge, a l,odge at Joppa, Md., adopted a bylaw:"That Done who hath been Admitted in any Modern Lodge shall be Admitted as a Mern ber of this Lodge, without taking the respective Obligations Peculiar to Ancient Masoiis," SCIIULTZ, Freemasonry in Maryland, 39; quoted by GOULD, History, iv, 217.
t The letters are printed in the Ahiman Rezon (Ed. 1807), xlvi.
~ Innumerable instances might be cited where individual brethren and eveii Lodges let their appreciation of the obligations of the Masonic Institution lead them to ignore the stern edicts of their Grand Lodge, andmore or less openlyto extend the hand of fellowship to brethren from the opposite camp; just as, during our war, Union and Confederate soldiers laid aside their arms at the entrance to Mt. Vernon and stood side by side at the grave of WASHINGTON. In the same way, for more than a century there have always been white Masons whose interpretation of their Masonic obligations has led them to recognize and fraternize With PRINCF HALL orhis Masonic descendants, upon occasion, notwithstanding official disapproval of their acts. See ante, ~ 6, references in the last note; and Appendix 14, post.
I a GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
31
Synod, and denied the existence of the other, save as a mob of iaipeni tent Schism aties. ' "*
4
Said DERMOTT t in 1778, speaking of what he styles the two " fraternities of Ancient and Modern Freemasons " (italics mine):
"And though a similarity Of Dames, yet they differ exceedingly in makings, ceremonies, knowledge, Masonic language and installations; so much that they always have been, and still continue to be, two di.'?tinet societies, totally inde_pendent of each other."
A writer who has made the " AncieDtS " his especial study concludes that t
" Between the two Societies implicated, there was very little in common, except the wearing of aprons an t e cult vation an practice of charity." As late as 1813, the Grand Lodge of Ireland resolved
" That they do not feel it possible to make any order for the admission of Modern Masons into Antient Lodges."
( 26. Same.The relatiodor lack of relationbetween the "Antients?' and " Modern , s " was quite as distinct as that between the two bodies which, respectively, claim jurisdiction over the white Masons and the black Masons of Kentucky. It was almost identical with that, in Scottish Rite circles, between the socalled " Northern Jurisdiction " and the socalled " Cerneau Jurisdiction " of the United States. Or, to draw an illustration from recent political history, the relation between the Antient and Modern Masons of circa 17601813 resembled that between the " Gold Democrats " and the " Free Silver Democrats," 18968 : Each claimed to be the " only original, Simonpure," the genuine continuation of the party of the fathers; each denounced the other as totally spurious, and with no right to the name it claimed; each denounced deserters from its own camp in unsparing terms, but welcomed with open arms acces sions from that of the other,coming either individually or in bodies, with very little inquiry into their antecedents; killed the fatted calf in their honor, and assigned them front seats in their tabernacle. But either of these Grand Lodges would Do more have sought to make laws for the govp,rnment of Lodges of the other, and would no more have thought of regarding an American State as "completely occupied" by the existence in it of a Grand l,odge of the rival faction, than a convention of "Gold" Democrats " would have soughtto make rules for a "Free Silver" primary, or than "Gold Democrats" would have hesitated to organize a State Central Committee in a State which the " Free Silver Democrats " had already " occupied" by a similar organization. When we reinember that we must judge the validity of the warrant granted to African Lodge in 1784 by Masonic law and usage as it was in 1784, and when we reinember
* History of Scotland, ii, p. 344; GOULD, History, iii, 190. The reunion of English Masons occurred at the end ofIS13. See~45,post.
t Ahimaii Rezon (Ed. 1807), xxx.
t HENRY SADLER; Masonic Facts and Fictions, 193.
11 W. J. CRETWODE CRAWLEY, Caementarin Hibernica, Masonic Manuals, 21. To the effect that the Grand Lodge of Ireland never recognized the " Modern " Grand Lodge, after the rise of the " Antients ", see CRAWLEY, in Ars Q. C., viii, 81.
7
32
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
that that warrant was Zranted by the Grand Master of the " Modern " Masons, and that the Grand Lodge whose jurisdiction he is charged with having " invaded " was an " Ancient " body, the relevancy of this long digression will be apparent.
Masonry in Massachitselts, 77751787,a digression.
( 27. The " Modern " Maso?is.The tirst Lodge in Boston was opened by HENRY PRICF in 1733. Whether or not he was a Provincial Grand Master will probably be debated as long as there are Masons in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and is a question immaterial to our present purpose. His Lodge appears on the engraved list of 1734 as No. 126 on the roll of the then only Grand Lodge in London, afterwards known as that of the " Moderns "; and the Provincial Grand Lodge which he is said to have opened was certainly regular from 1736, when ROBERT TOMLINSON was appointed Provincial Grand Master for New England. To.NiLINSON was succeeded byVHomAs OXNARD, in 1743, whose appointment was for " North America." PRicE a(,ted as Prov. G. M. on the death of OXNARD in 1754 ; and JEREmy GRIDLEY Was appointed the following year. OD GRIDLEY's death in 1767, PRicp again assumed the office. being installed by the former Deputy of GRIDLEY. These two assumptions of office by PpicE were unwarranted by law, as was the election of JoiiN ROWE, as GRIDLEY'S successor, by the Provincial Grand Lodge ; for that body died with the Provincial, * and the office was not an elective one. The election was, however, only intended as a nomination ; a committee was appointed to write to England for a patent for RowE, and his appointment was received in 1768. Ile remained in office through the Revolutionary war and until his death, early in 1787. t No successor was ever appointed. His Provincial Grand Lodgewhich had long been known as "St. John's Grand Lodge," to distinguish it from the " St. Andrew's (Provincial) Grand Lodge," and the "Massachusetts Grand Lo(ige," which we shall consider in the next section,never declared itself an independent or " sovereign " Grand Lodge; and, on the other hand, seems never to have doubted its right to continue to meet. Meetings were held in Feb. and Aug., 1787, RicHARD GRIDLEY presiding as 1). G. M.; and in July, 1790; Nov., 1791; and March, 1',92, with JonN CUTLER, a Past (Prov.) S. G. W., presiding. At the last meeting he was styled D. G. M. At the date of this meeting a union was effected between this body and the " Massachusetts " Grand Lodge of " Ancient Masons, and the present Grand Lodge of Massachusetts was formed ;a body which embraced in its jurisdiction all the Lodges in the State, except African Lodge, " Modern," which never joined it, and St. Andrew's Lodge, the oldest of the " Ancient " Lodges, which remained out until 1809. The Provincial Grand Masters named in this section had warranted a large number of Lodges. " No less than forty Lodges," wrote
1: See note under?, 12, ante. t It is inexact to speak of his Prov. G. L. as " dorrnant " from 1775 to 1787: The only essential feature in a Prov. G. L. is a Prov. G. M. He inay be inftctive, but so long as Ile is in esse there is no technical " dortnancy."
33
PRICE, in 1755, " sprung from my first Lodge in Boston." Some of these inay have been grand children rather than children of the " First Lodge "; but GOULD * prints a list of fortytwo Lodges, dating from 1734 to li72, erected by PRICE or his successors and scattered from Nova Scotia to Dutch Guiana. Nine of these were in Massachusetts; and three of them, besides the original " First Lodge," found their way on to the roll of the mother Grand Lodge in England,and, with African Lodge, were dropped from it in 181314.f
( 28. The "Ancients" in Massachusetts.We now come to the history of the "Grand Lodge" whose alleged "exclusive jurisdiction" the creation of African Lodge is said to have violated.
"Prior to 1756, the schism which originated in England had spread to this Province. Some persons who had applied to the regular Lodges in Boston, and had been rejected, obtained their degrees in the Lodges of Ancient Masons attached to the Royal Regiments stationed here, or were made Masons after the ancient system in some irregular way, and attempted afterwards to visit the Boston ["Modern"] Lod es, but were denied admission. They, as well as others who ha,l not been rejected, but who were Ancient Mason*s, t and had also been driven away from the doors of the Lodges, feeling themselves aggrieved at the course pursued by the [St. John's Provincial] Grand Lodge towards them, petitioned the Grand Lodge of Scotland for a charter to hold a Lodge under its auspices in Boston." 11
But before sending for a charter in 1754or receiving it in 1760they had formed a Lodge. Says DRUMMOND:**
"It seerias that some brethren in 1752 commenced meeting at the 'Green Dragon' tavern and opened a Lodge 'under ancient usage' [that is, without a warrant or charter or any other authority.] The next year they commenced doing work. * * * Some of the petitioners [for the charter] were made in the voluntary Lodge selforganized in 1752. * *
* During the interval [of about six years] between the time of sending the petition and its [the charter's] receipt by the Lodge, it had continued to meet; except that from September, 1759, to the fourth of April, 1760, it either did not meet or else the record has been lost. It did work up to April, 1758." A writer of equal reputation expresses the matter thus:ft
"St. Andrew's Lodge was originated in 1762 [1752] by nine clandestine made Masons. In 1756 when it was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Scotland, it numbered twentyone members, exclusive of one of the original nine, who left Boston in the interval. Its charter did not arrive until 1760, at which time the Lodge had been increased by eighteen additional members; so that in all, thirtyone candidates were initiated tt be
*History, iv, 252.
tGoULD, Four Old l~odges, 75; History, iv, 258. See ~ 45, post.
I As to this term, see ~ 24, ante.
li Grand Master W. S. GARDNER; Proceedings, G. L. of Massachusetts, 1869, p. 159. (The italics are mine.)
**Addenda to GOULD'S History, iv, 334.
tt Dr. JOSEPH ROBBINS, Cor. Rep., Proceedings, G. L. of Illinois, 1871, p. lxxx. See also Appendix 28, post.
tj The force of Dr. ROBBINS' argument is not weakened by admitting, as claimed by Bro. DRUMMOND, that a few of these were received by affiliation, not by initiation.
3 34
fore the Lodge received its charter, and thirteen before the charter was edmakidg a fair quantum of irregular work to be legalized in one b~i.gtnIh. No one, we presume, doubts the authority of the Grand Lodge of Scotland to legalize it, nor can similar authority be denied to the Grand Lodge of England in the case of African Lodge. These facts sufficiently indicate the usage in the early days of the history of Masonry in Massachusetts, and show that African Lodge had a title to legitimacy as colorable as that of Lodges whose status is never questioned." But we must not anticipate.
( 29. Same.St. Andrew's Grand Lodge.This nonregular, oras we should in this day style itirregular * Lodge was regularized in 1760, as we have seen, by receiving a charter from the Grand Lodge of Scotland; but the "Modern" Lodges of Boston still refused to recognize it.t Resenting this, these brethren took advantage of the presence of three Military Lodges, "one Scottish, one English, and one Irish, but all working under the 'Ancient.' system," t to get them to join, in 1768, in petitioning the Grand Lodge of Scotland for a Provincial Grand Master Dr.afterwards GeneralJOSEPH WARREN, Master of St. Andrew's, Lodge, was appointed, and was installed in December, 1769. His Grand Lodge was commonly called the "St. Andrew's Grand Lodge." Thearnly Lodges moved away, 17691772. "They were never in fact more than a merely nominal part of it; St. Andrew's Lodge was really the (;rand Lodge."Ii Grand Master WARREN was killed in the battle of Bunker Hill in 1775no successor was ever appointed,and with him expired his Provincial Grand Lodge, and the authority of all its officers. **
( 30. T7te "Massachusetts" Grand Lodge of "Ancient Masons."The brethren who had been associated with General WARREN'S Provincial Grand Lodge celebrated the feast of St. John, in December, 1776, withoutso far as 1 am awarerealizing that their f uiietions had expired. But when JOSEIIH WEBB, who had been WARREN's deputy, received a petition for a Lodge at Stockbridge, he realized the situation; and, call
*Brethren who are fond of strong language would say "clandestine, "forgetting that nothing that can be healed is clandestine.
t St. Andrew's Lodge admitted "Moderns"evidently for the purpose of strengthening its position, according to the policy pointed out in ~, 26; and the "Modern" Lodges occa~ sionally admitted to their dinners on St. John's day members of that Lodge made in "Modern" Lodgesand once, probably by an accident or in an "era of good feeling," one solitary "Ancient Mason." But the only occasions when they consented to associate with them generally were in permitting them to attend the funeral of Prov. C~. M. GRIDLEY in 1767, and for a period in and following 1773.
t DRUMMOND; Gould's History, iv, 341.
Td., iv, 342.
** So held his associates, in 1785, declaring "the grant to have beeti made to the Grand Master by said Charter appointed, and to him alone, without any provision for a successor," (GOULD'S History, iv, 304;) and, "Now the principal being dead, the commission was of consequence vacated." (Id.,iv.302. See also ~31, post.) See Grand Master GARDNER'S opinion, to the same effect, in the note under?, 12 ante.
GOULD expresses the same opinion (History, iv, 221); and, in fact, I know of no writer of any note who reaches a different conclusion, except Past Grand Master DRUMMOND. He does so (GOULD'S HiS(O)'Y, iv, 343) b~, confusing the law applicable to Grand Masters with the law governing Proviticials,who were themselves only deputies.
35
ing a special meeting of his associates, in February, 177j', laid the petition before them. "This proposition arouged the brethren to a realizing sense of their status and condition as a Grand Lodge. They were doubtful of its power, as then organized, to grant the Charter prayed for."* They ordered "all the Masters and Wardens" of the Ancient Lodges to be summonded to meet the following month. At that time there were four.Ancient Lodges in Massachusetts but one of them, Mtssachusetts Lodge, could not be congregated on account of the war.. There were, as we have seen, a number of "Modern" Lodges; but these were of course not invited. On the evening appointed, the situation was probably carefully discussed; and the meeting adjourned till the next evening, when eleven brethren were presentbut eight of the eleven were from one Lodge. We quotef
"March 8, 1777, the following brethren assembled, representing St. Andrew's Lodge of Boston, Tyrian Lodge of Gloucester, and St. Peter's Lodge of Newburyport; R. .W. '.JOSEPH WEBB D. G. M. of St. Andrew's Lodge, Boston. PAUL REVERE: S. G. W.: *of St. Andrew's Lodge, Boston. THOMAS CRAFTS, J. G. W., of St. Andrew's Lodge, Boston. JOHN LOWELL, G. Treas., of St. Andrew's Lodge, Boston.
NAT. PIERCE, G. See. pro tem, of St. Andrew's Lodge, Boston. THOMAS URANN, S. G. D., of St. Andrew's Lodge. Boston.
EDWARD PROCTOR, J. G. D., of St. Andrew's Lodge, Boston. MosFs DESHON, P. M., of Tyrian l,odge, Gloucester.
PHILIP MARETT,
i of Tyrian Lodge, Gloucester.
WINTHROP GREY,
G. St'ds, S. W. of St. Andrew's Lodge, Boston.
Wm. GREENOUGH, M., of St. Peter's Lodge, Newburyport.
The brethren then proceeded to unanimously elect a Grand Master, Grand Wardens, and other Grand Officers. JOSEPH WEBB was chosen Grand Master."
Tested by modern ideaswhich brethren are very quick to apply to the negro organ i zatiod s, this was sufficiently irregular. Says Dr. ROBBINST:
"We think we speak advisedly when we say that there is no evidence in existence to show that a single one of the eleven brethren named by him as being present, March 8, 1777, was the representative of a Lodge or authorized by any Lodge to participate in the business in which they then engaged, that of organizing a Grand Lodge. It cannot be shown even that the two iiiembers of Tyrian Lodge, Gloucester, nor he of St. Peter's Lodge, Newburyport, were authorized representatives of the bodies to which they belonged. Eight of the eleven persons present were iiiemhers of St. Andrew's Lodge, Boston."
Another brother, as well known in England as in America for his caustic criticisms of anything that appeared to him to be sham or insincere, thus expressed it; 11
*W. S. GARDNER; Address, Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1870, p. 25. See the views of the same writer, quoted in a note under ?, 12 ante.
t From GARDNER, Address; Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1870, p. 26.
t Proceedings, G. L. of Illinois, 1871, Cor. Rep., 70.
11 JACOB NORTON, Revolution and Assumption; reprinted as an appendix to Address to the Colored Masonic Fraternity of the U. S., (Cleveland: 1871.)
36
"Now, remember, the Masters and Wardens were called; but how many Masters and Wardens can we find in the above list of names, who formed the said Grand Lodge? * * * The S. W. of St. Andrew's Lodge attended by virtue of his defunct commission of Grand Steward. St. Andrew's Lodge did not authorize him to represent her, because she did not join the said Grand Lodge until 1809.* Moses Deshon was neither Master nor Warden; hence the only legal representative then present was a Master of St. Peter's Lodge, Newburyport. He represented a Lodge, the rest represented only their individual selves. And this solitary Master of a l,odge, associated with ten unauthorized brethren, assembled in an upper chamber of a tavern, and there and then elected each other into various kinds of Worshipfuls, and declared themselves the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts;f while hundreds of Masons, and a number of Lodges then existing in the State, were neither represented nor consulted. * * * The rest of the brotherhood in the State retained their inherent right, either to remain tributary to their parent Grand Lodge, to organize a new one, or to join the one just organized."
But, as a Grand Lodge of "Ancient" Masons, which it professed to be, its organization was still more irregular; for DERMOTT himself informs us that the law of the "Ancients" required five Lodges, to organize a, Grand Lodge. t
~ 31. Safne.These criticisms were presented originally, and are reproduced now, not for the purpose of questioning the legitimacy of this body, which flourished from 1777 to 1792, but to refute the pretension that its origin was more regular than that of other bodiesfor example, the (white) Grand Lodge of New Hampshire and the first African Grand Lodge; and to show the absurdity of the idea that its existence in Massachusetts made the continuation of the jurisdiction which the Grand Lodge of England had exercised there ever since 1737 "an invasion of jurisdiction'land that, too, when the Massachusetts and the English Grand Lodges belonged to "distinct societies, totally independent of each other." 11
It was a legitimate body; but its legitimacy was not due to the regularity of its origin,for of that it could boast little enough; but, like that
'~ Other writers, including Dr. ROBBiNs, agree with Bro. NORTON; but I have the impression that St. Andrew's Lodge or a faction of that Lodge did affiliate with this new body from 1777 to 1782although still retaining her allegiance to the Grand Lodge of Scotland. The fact is, there were two factions in St. Andrew's Lodge, plainly traceable back to a point many months prior to the declaration of independence of 1782presently to be mentioned,one of which contended for no connection except with the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and the other sympathizing with this new movement. Many judicious thinkers have believed this breach dates from at least this period, and that the eight members of St. Andrew's who assisted in foriiiing this new body were unauthorized members of thisthe minorityfaction.
t Here ]3ro. NORTON is unjust: This body never assumed that name; it never asserted jurisdiction over African Lodge or any other "Modern" Lodge; and, in 1782, it expressly disclaimed jurisdiction over any Lodges except those constituted by itsell See~3l,post.
t "To form what Masons mean by a Grand Lodge, there should have been the Masters and Wardens of five regular Lodges; that is to say, five Masters and ten Wardens, making the number of installed Officers fifteen. This is so well known to every man conversant with the ancient laws, usages, customs and ceremonies of Master Masons, that it is needless to say more."Ahiman Rezon (Ed. 1807).
11 See quotations from DERMOTT, in ~ 25, ante; also ~ 26.
GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
37
of many other Grand Bodies which I I originated in assumption,"* was achieved by the Masonic character of its work; and, being established, retroacted to heal all questions of origin. These questions, however, still continued to disturb the brethren, especially the members of St. Andrew's Lodge; t and in 1782 a committee was appointed "to draught resolutions explanatory of the powers and authority of this Grand l,odge, respecting the extent and meaning of its jurisdiction, and of the exercise of any other Masonic authorities within its jurisdiction." This committee, in a report which was "accepted" Dec. 6, 1782, and some parts of which I beg leave to italicize, first reviewing their history, pointing out t
"That the Commission from the Grand Lodge of Scotland granted to our Late Grand Master Joseph Warren Esq'r. having died with him and of Course his Deputy whose Appointment was derived from his Nomination being no longer in existence, they saw themselves without a Read, & without a Single Grand Officer.
,,That the Political Head of this Country having destroyed All coi3neetion & Correspondence between the Subjects of these States & the Country from whichthe Grand Lodge originally derived its Commissioned Authority, * * * the Brethren did 4ssume an Elective Supremacy, * * *
,,That in the History of our Craft we find, that i??. England there are T,wo Grand Lodges independent of each other, In Scotland the Satnell and in Ireland their Grand Lodge and Grand Master are Independent of either England or Scotland. 'Tis clear that the Authority of some of these Grand Lodges originated in Assumption, or otherwise they would Acknowledge the Head from wlience they Derived."
The committee recommended the adoption of five resolutions, of which the following are relevant to our inquiry (italics mine):
"2d. Resolved, That this Grand Lodge be forever hereaj'ter known & Called by the Name of the MASSACIIUSETTs GRAND LODGE OF Ancient MAsoxs, and, that it is free and Independent in its Government & Official Authority of any other Grand l,odge, or Grand Master in the Universe.
3d ' Resolved, That the Sovereign Power & Authority of the said Grand Lodge, be Continuedt to Extend throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. and to Any of the United States, where none shall be erected over such Lodges only as this Grand Lodge shall there Constitute.
5th. Re6olved, That no Person or Persons ought or can (Consistently with the Rules of Ancient Masonry and the Good Order of the Craft) use or Exercise the Powers or Perogatives of An Ancient Grand Master, or Grand Lodge, towit, to give Power to Erect Lodges of Ancient Masonry [etc.] * * * within any part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Right full and Appropriated Limits to which the Authority of this Grand Lodge forever hereafter Extends."
* See quotations later on in this section.
t DRUMMOND, GOULD's History, iv, 303. See also a note under the preceding section.
I I quote from Proceedings in Masonry, 302,the versions given by DRUMMOND and GARDNBR being entirely unreliable.
11 That is, the Grand Lodge and Kilwinniiig Mother Lodge. And yet this very report is quoted by Brothers GARDNER and DRIUMMONDTO say nothing of the committees, of what the historian GOULD, with a painful irreverence, calls "the slieepwalking school" of writers, who have written on negro Masonry during the past year and have blindly followed Bro, WOODBURY as a bellwetheras the very source and origin of the doctrine that two Grand Lodges "cannot" exist in the same State! I DRUMMOND makes this read "construed."
38
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
( 32. Sa?nc.Upon these resolutions, one of the most scholarly American * writers has justlv observed,
"Read by the light of contemporaneous history, the words section 3 show that it claimed authority, even in Massachusetts, " over such Lodges only as this Grand l,odge has consti. tuted or shall constitute." t There were at that time Lodges, Grand and subordinate, in Massachusetts, which it never undertook to rule and which it never constituted. It did not throughout that declaration do more than claim that it had the prerogative to charter Lodges anywhere and everywhere within the limits of the commonwealth. It did not in that declaration deny the right of the St. John's Grand Lodge to act with equal independence within the same limits. It claimed simply its independence of any and every Grand l,odge in the world, including the other Grand Lodge already established in Massachusetts. It even recognized the principle that two sovereign and independent Grand Lodges might exist within the same territory. * * * 11
Another point to be observed, is the clear absence of any claim of jurisdiction over " Modern " Masons or their Lodges.
The declaration of independence in resolution 2d was unsatisfactory to St. Andrew's Lodge. It withdrew from the Grand Lodge, and never returned to it, but continued its allegiance to the Grand Lodge of Scotland, until seventeen years after the dissolution of " the Massachusetts Grand Lodge," in 1792. In the latter year, five years after African Lodge No. 459 received its warrant, and eight years after that warrant had been granted, a new Grand Lodgethe present Grand Lodge of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was formed, by the union of the St. John's Grand Lodge of Modern Masons and the Massachusetts Grand Lodge of Ancient Masons; and the last named body "VOTED THAT THis GRAND LODGE BE DISSOLVED." The only two Lodges in Massachusetts which possessed charters emanating directly from the mother country took no part in organizing this new body St. Andrew's, the oldest of the "Ancient" Lodges, and African No. 459, the only Lodge that ever existed in Massachusetts which possessed the warrant of the Grand Master of the " Moderns," the mother Grand Lodge of the world. The former resisted the jurisdiction of the new Grand Lodge until 1809; the latter never came under it. From the former you and I are descended; from the latter, our negro brother. Let me bring these long digressions to an end by a thought well expressed by another. When the chief aim of New England brethren was to show their Masonry more ancient than that of Pennsylvania, they wrote of naught but the St. John's Grand Lodge, originating with HENRY PRICE in 1733. But when it became necessary to exclude African Lodge by showing " a single Grand Lodge " with " exclusive territorial jurisdiction, " it became convenient to put HENRY PRICE and his "forty Lodges" out of sight; and claim for the present Grand Lodge, formed when PRINCE HALL had been a Mason seventeen years, identity with a body of
* DR. JOSEPH ROBBINS, Proceedings, G. L. of Illinois, 1871; Cor. Rep., 77. DR. ROBBINS copied GAltDNRR'S version of the resolution.
+ This is unquestionably the correct interpretation of resolution 3d. Others, by a differetit punctuation, and by obscuring" the light of conto~mporaneous history" have sought to read into it another meaning.
40
chusetts by his St. John's Provincial Grand Lodge and a large number of Lodges.*
3. The "Ancients" were represented by the St. Andrew'sthen called "Massach u setts "Grand Lodge, which had "originated in revolution and assumption" in 1777, but existed as an "independent Grand Lodge of 'Ancient' Masons." f
4. St. Andrew's Lodge of Ancient Masons was maintaining a separate existence, a constituent of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.t
5. The "Massachusetts" Grand Lodgewhich must not be confounded with the Grand Lodge oj' Massachtisetts, which was not organized until 1792 11claimed jurisdiction over "Ancient" Masonry only,** and expressly disclaimed jurisdiction over any Lodges except those of her own constitution.ft
This must lead to the acceptance of some of the propositions which were laid down in ~ 21, viz.:
"That there was at that time no Grand Lodge that had or claimed exclusive jurisdiction over all Masonry 'Modern' and 'Ancient'in Massa; chusetts."
,,That the Body whose 'exclusive jurisdiction' is charged to have been invadedthe 'Massachusetts' Grand Lod e of 17771792, being an 'Ancient' body, was not one that the Grand ;Iaster of the 'Moderns,' or African Lodge No. 459a 'Modern' Lodgewere bound to or could recognize as a Grand Lodge of Masons; or as anything but 'a mob of impenitent schismaties;'" tt and, consequently: "That no invasion of jurisdiction occurred."
Of course the formation of African Lodge was no invasion of the jurisdiction of St. John's Grand Lodge,l have not yet found a writer so stu
* See ~ 27, ante. RowE was Prov. G. M. when the warrant was granted in 1784 and his death occurred but a few months before it was received in Boston. His Prov. Grand Lodge we have seen, continued a de facto existence until 1792. But had it not done so, the total extinction of the Prov. Grand Lodge would not have affected the validity of th "Modern" Lodges in Massachusetts, for they were all entitled to enrollment on the register of the Grand Lodge of England, and four of thembesides African Lodgewere there enrolled.
t I am not sure whether I have made it sufficiently clear that the "Massachusetts" and "St. Andrew's" Bodies belonged distinctly to the "Ancient" faction. Such, however, was tl)e unquestioned fact, and so they themselves always claimed. See i~ 2832, ante; GOULD'History, iv, 215, 305, 306, 312; and Proceedings in Masonry, 454. At the latter reference will be found the original petition of 1768, praying for the appointment of their first Prov. G. M. The petitioners, "taking into consideration the present state of Ancient Masonry," give reasons for wanting a G. L. "of Ancient Masons,~' the first of which is that it "would render Ancient Masonry more respectable in this place, where there is a Provincial Grand Lodge of Modern Masons." St. Andrew's Lodge was F3barply rebuked by Lodges 169 and 58, in 1772, for admitting "Modern" Masons as visitors, "directly in Opposition to tile express rules and articles of antient Masonry.Proceedings iit Masonry, 457.
1 See 32, ante.
11 See 32, ante.
** See Resolutions 2d and 5th, in ~ 31, ante.
tt This disclaimer will be disputed; but see Resolution 3d at the last reference, and Dr. ROBBINS comments thereon, in ~32. But the matter does not affect our present argument, and will be considered further in ~~ 3436, post.
11 See ~, 25, ante.
pid or so bold as to claim that it was. To the brethren of that body, it was the act of their own honored Grand Master erecting a new Lodge, just asthrough his deputieshe had erected all of theirs.
( 34. Same.What was said in the last section, to my mind, entirely disposes of the idea that the warranting of African Lodge was an "invasion" of anything. "But," the reader asks, "is it not true, as we have been so often and so emphatically told, that the mere fact that a Grand Lodge is erected in a State, ipso facto gives it the exclusive right to erect Lodges in that State?" Stay, gentle reader; let me ask a question or two: Do you propose to ignore the difference between the "Ancients" and "Moderns," and claim that the existence of a Grand lodge of the one faith excluded the propogation of the other creed? And, if so, is not almost the only purpose of this paper to answer the very question you have now asked? And are you going to beg the question, at this point? Remember, our purpose in starting out was to calmly survey the whole field, and from that survey determine for ourselves, first, whether African Lodge had a right to exist, and, if. so, whether other negr2 Lodges hav; the same right. If the reader has answered the question by accepting as axiomatic the stupid saw quoted above, it will not profit him to read further. He will find the subject treated in his method by writers of the grade of those who wrote the Kentucky report and the reports copied from that;writers who assume premises that have no foundation in fact and draw conclusions that are insequent to the premises.
And now, having dropped all readers but the sincere seeker after truth, let us resume. Although, as has been said, the objection of invasion has been fully answered, let us, for the sake of argument, ignore the difference between "Ancients" and "Moderns," and assume that, instead of disclaiming, the "Massachusetts" Grand Lodge had claimed exclusive territorial jurisdiction, in 1782;and face the objection in that form.
This last claim is the one that has actually been made. Writers who, for some unknown reason,* have felt an interest in showing that this notyettiniversallyestablished doctrine is of considerable antiquity, have thought they found a rudimentary assertion of it, if not in the vote of 1773,t in the resolutions adopted by St. Andrew's Grand Lodge in 1782.t Assuming that to be so, does that establish the right? Surely, none but the most prejudiced will deny that to merely claim a new and hitherto unheardof right is not to establish that right. The important point is to have that claim acknowledged, willingly or unwillingly, by those against whom it is asserted,who in this case were not only the negro Masons, but the Grand Lodges of England and Scotland. We shall presently see the real origin of exclusive territorial jurisdiction. l~ It will suffice for
* Was it for the purpose of showing that PRiNcE HALL was an invader in 1787, or JosEPH CERNICAU in 1807? t See?, 13, ante.
t Quoted in 0, 31, ante. GOULD thought we could "possibly discern the first germ" of exclusive jurisdiction in the restrictions put upon Americaiimade army Lodges during the Revolutionary war.History, iv, 224.
11 See ~ 39, post,
42
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
the present to say that England has never ceased to claim the right to erect Lodges in any country at least until there was a Grand Lodge there which she recognized or, to maintain her existing Lodges, even then; and that no Grand Lodge in Europe recognized any Grand l,odge in Massachusetts until long after African Lodge was organized.
~, 35. Same.‑Exclusive territorial jurisdiction.‑The surest way to learn what the Masonic law of that period on that subject was is to learn what the practice of Masons then was. I shall cite no continental usages, as those of the British Isles will have more weight; and I shall mention only Lodges which were placed on the rolls of the English Grand Lodges, omitting the numerous Lodges formed by Provincial Grand Masters, but never enrolled.
In FRANCE a Grand Master was elected in 1738,* and the Grand Lodge was recognized by the Grand Lodge of England, "Moderns," in 1768.t Yet the latter warranted Lodges in France in 1767 (three Lodges), 1772 and 1785;t the "Ancient" Grand Lodge of England in 1763 and 1773;11 and the Grand Lodge of Ireland in the latter year." **
In Swtl)EN, the Grand Lodge was formed in 1759; but the senior English Grand l,odge appointed a Provincial Grand Master there in 1765, warranted three Lodges in 1769, and carried them on her roll until the Union, when‑with African Lodge No. 459‑they were dropped.ff The "Ancients" of London warranted a Lodge in Sweden in 1773. tt
In GERMANY 1111 the National Grand Lodge of Saxony at Dresden had been regularly formed by three Lodges in 1741; and in the same year the Lodge which afterwards developed into the Grand Lodge "Sun" at Bay reuth began acting as a Mother Lodge. The Grand National Mother Lodge of Three Globes had erected its first dependent Lodge a year ear lier,‑an act which, according to our theorists, ought to have given her "ex clusive territoria ' I jurisdiction" over all Germany, for all time to come.
In 174,,‑) the Mother Lodge of the Eclectic Union, at Frankfort ‑ on‑t he Main exercised the power of erecting Lodges, whence she derived her name. In 1765 the Royal York of Friendship, at Berlin, began acting as a Mother Lodge, and was formally erected into a Grand Lodge in 1798.
In 1770 ZINNENDORFF, at Berlin, had erected the National Grand Lodge of all German Freemasons, and three years later the "Modern" Grand Lodge of England recognized it as being all that its name implied. Be sides this, between 1740 and 1780 scores, if not hundreds, of Lodges ex isted in Germany erected by other authorities. Yet, instead of assuming
*GOULD, History, iii, 395.
t Id, 401.
Ilbid.; and Four Old Lodges, passim.
11 GOULD, The Athol Lodges, passim.
** Ars Q. C., viii, 82.
tt GOULD, History, iv, 2 et seq.
11 GOULD, Athol Lodges, 35.
il,'~l All that will here be said of the German Grand Lodges will be found in GOULD, History, iv, 33‑74.
GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
43
that any or all of these things "excluded" her from German territory, the elder of the English Grand Lodges appointed a Provincial Grand Master at Frankfort‑on‑the‑Main in 1766; and, although the German Mother Lodge asserted its position as an independent Grand Lodge in 1782, reappointed a Provincial in 178i)‑his commission being signed by the same Lord EFFINGHAM who granted the warrant of African Lodge; in the latter year he had ten Lodges under him‑KLOSS says twent~y‑nine,‑aud England maintained his authority until the union of 1813, and, indeed, until 1823. In 1786 England appointed a Provincial Grand Master for Haniburg and Lower Saxony; and in 1799 continued his Provincial Grand Lodge, which ultimately developed into the present Grand Lodge of Hamburg;‑a body which finds in its own history a precedent for those "invasions of jurisdiction" which have been so much deprecated. After governidg bodies existed in Germany, the Grand Lodge of England constituted Lodges there in the years 11'42, 1743, 1755, 1762, 1767, 1770, 1786, 1787 (two Lodges), 1789, 1790 (9 Lodges, if I count correctly), 171)1, 180t (2), 1802 (3), 1804 and 180,~,. ‑ In HOLLAND there was a Loge du Grand Maitre in 1734. It changed its name to the Union Mother Lodge in 1741), and was constituted a Grand Lodge in 1756.1 Yet the Grand Lodge of Scotland chartered a Lodge at Amsterdam in 1755,t and the "Ancient" Grand Lodge of England in 1762; 11 while the "ModerD" Grand Lodge of England erected Lodges in Holland in 1735, 1749, 1753 (2), 175,), 1756, 1757, 1762 (3), 1765, 1767 (2) and 1768.** Why she ceased doing so we shall see while learning a later lesson.tt The Grand Master of Ireland warranted a Lodge, No. 148, at Norwich, England, in 1747; and another, No. 247, in the Middle Temple, London, in 1754. Both were still on the Irish register in 1809.tt Kilwinning Mother Lodge, in 1779, chartered a Lodge in Dublin which was in existence in 1806. 1111 In fact, so different has been the law and practice of Masons from what our doetrinaires would have us believe‑and so far is it from a fact that the circumstance that a Lodge is created in invasion of another jurisdiction make it a clandestine Lodge‑that the dean of the guild of Masonic scholars has said, (italics mine): ***
*GOULD, Four Old Lodges, passim.
t GOULD, Uistory, iv, S. Id, iv, 9.
GOULD, Athol Lodges, 21.
**So it would appearby the original rolls of the English Grand Lodge, printed by GOULD; Four Old Lodges. But a very careful writer in Ars Q. C., it, 96, says, in 1757, 1762 (3), 1765, 1767 (2),1768 and 1769.
tt See ~ 39, post.
I W. J. CUFTWODE CRAWLEY, Ars Q. C., viii, 80.
1111 D. MURRAY LyoN, Mother Kilwinning; quoted in the New England Freemason, Sept., 1875.
*~*W M. JAMES HUGHAN, Ars Q. C., viii, 84. See GOULD to a somewhat similar effect, in Ars Q. C., v, 102; and see Appendix 14, post. The lst. Battalion, 9th. Foot, in which was
I 44
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
"A curious paper might some day be written on Friendly Invasions by Masonic Lodges, for what with those of a military character belonging to Ireland and Scotland, and others started by French Prisoners of War in England from about 1760 to far on in this century, we have had brethr n at work, hailing from other jurisdictions, which possibly, in soi‑ne measure, had affected the raode of conferring the ceremonies, as at Bristol and elsewhere."
1 36. Same.‑A voice from South Carolina.‑The foregoing examples of the practice of the five leading Grand Bodies in the British Islands ought to forever silence the silly claim that, at the time African Lodge was established, there was any law that forbade a Grand Lodge to plant a Lodge in a State where another Grand Lodge existed. Butbeforeleav ing the subject, I wish to cite an illustration which no one seems to have mentioned, and which I fancy it will take our critics some time to explain away. I do not refer to the fact that the Grand Orient of Fra4ce granted authority for a Lodge at Portsmouth or Sagesse, Virginia, in 178,5;* although that act further illustrates the usage of the day; and, as France was at that time America's closest ally, it tends to show that the granting of a charter to foreign petitioners was regarded as a fraternal' act; Dot a hostile one, as has been gratuitously intimated of the grant to PRINCE HALL. But in answer to the objection that the warrant of African Lodge was invalid because it invaded "ex(tlusive jurisdiction," where the "Ancients" and "Moderns" had rival Grand Lodges, I shall now point out the fact that, two years later, the "Ancient" Grand Lodge of England chartered a Lodge, which has always been recognized as entirely regular, in a State where a single Grand Lodge and that an igide_pendent Grand Lodge, had existed for many years. DRumMONDf names 1783 as the true date of the origin of the first independent Grand Lodge of South Carolina, "Modern," though MACKEY claimed it was sovereign from 1777; and DE SAUSSURE, from a year earlier. Well, on May 26, 1786‑twenty months after the date Of PRINCE HALL'S warrant‑tlte "Ancient" Grand Lodge oj* England issued a charter for Lo(Ige No. 236 at Charleston, S. C.t This Lodge was organized within the jurisdiction of the then existing Grand Lodge of South Carolina, and in 1787 assisted in forming a rival Grand Lodge in that State. It may be incidentally remarked that the Provincial Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania chartered three Lodges in South Carolina after there was a sovereign Grand Lodge there, in 1783, 1785, and 1786; and the present Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania re‑chartered one of these in 178,. l~
But I will not multiply evidences. In addition to the conclusions reached in ~ 33, it seems to me the truth of the other proposition laid
Lodge No. 183, "Ancients," being wrecked off the coast of France in 1805, remained in that country, as prisoners of war, until 1814. During all this period the Lodge worked in France, initiating both soldiers and civilians.
*GOULD, History, iv, 259. The Lodge was, apparantly, never organized.
t GOULD'S History iv, 398.
GOULD, Athol Lodges, 44; DRUMMOND, Gould's History, iv, 399.
DRummoND, Ibid.
de~w viz: and TTh
h Joe Sid ‑fo GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
45
own in ~ 21 has been established beyond the peradventure of a doubt, viz: that at the time the warrant of African Lodge No. 459 was granted and received, the doctrine of exclusive territorial jurisdiction did not exist. Thus, in several different ways, each one of which is conclusive, the objection which has been so much relied upon, and which we began considering so far back as ~ 21, has been shown to have not the slightest foundation either in fact or in law.
1 37. Was African Lodge "constituted." ‑ It is desired to keep this paper as free from any display of feeling as possible, as those who have written against the colored Masons have exhibited feeling enough for both sides. But it is difficult to avoid saying that when the distinguished Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia,* having seen the fallacy of nearly all the other arguments against them, proposes io.brand thirty thousand Masons as spurious because, one hundred and twelve years after the event, he knows of no evidence that African Lodge was formally "constituted," he affords a typical illustration of the extremes to which a partisan determination not to be convinced, and not to let the raasses of the brethren see the truth, leads men to go to seek for excuses for refusing the hand of fellowship. Stronger language than this
* M. W. Bro. WILLIAM R. SINGLETON; Proceedings, G. L. of D. C., 1898, Cor. Report, s. v. Kentucky. Few Masonic writers in America are able to reason more correctly or express themselves more clearly, when they wish to, than Bro. SINGLETON; and therefore he may justly be held responsible for the misleading character of his report, which may be analyzed as follows: He says that, hearing of the action of tl)e G. L. of Washington, he "corresponded with our distinguished brother, William James Hughan * * * * requesting, if possible, that he send us a copy of one of the army lodge charters, our object being to show that such charters could not authorize any army lodge * * to make Masons of citizens of any country where regular lodges under any constitutions already existed." (It is needless.to say that Bro. SINGLETON did not find any charter that would help him towards showing that.) He does not give HUGHAN'S answer to that letter; but proceeds to copy, from a modern edition of what he calls the "Constitution of the Grand Lodge of England," provisions relative to army Lodges; leaving the reader to infer that they existed in 1775,which was not the case. He then tells us that he sent Bro. RUGHAN the Arkansas report containing the assertions as to army Lodges and Dr. OLIVER which we refuted in P 11, ante. He quotes a part of Bro. HUGITAN'S answer; in which I give, within brackets, after the word "Courts," the words for which Bro. SINGLETON substituted asterisks and the words "of Courts;" viz (asterisks, Bro. SINGLETON'S): "No such regulation, as referred to by Dr. Oliver in his Dictionary of Symbolic Masons re Military Lodges, appears in any * * * * * of Courts [edition of Book of Consts.3 of Grand Lodge of England until the year 1815. Dr. Oliver gives no date, and he was simply quoting laws in operation when his work was published. Yours fraternally,
"WM. J. HUGHAN."
Thus balked in his attempts to prove two things that never existed, Bro. SINGLETON remarks: "It seems that sentiment controls our distinguished brother, and he evidently inclines to be in favor of the regularity of the Prince Hall organization, which we greatly regret."
He then quotes from GOULD (History, Eng. ed., vi, 419; Am. ed., iv, 224) something that GOULD says of a restriction placed by American Masonic authorities upon the ten American army Lodges in the American army during the Revolutionary war; ‑ but gives it in a way to indicate that GOULD had mentioned it as a restriction placed by English authority on English Lodges before the war; and then, referring to the initiation of PRINCE HALL, triumphantly asks, "Did the army lodge, in 1775, comply with the above * * * ?" He then proceeds to make the point about "constituting," which I discuss above, in the text.
i I 46
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
would be justified by this, the newest of objections, and one that can only be classed as sham and frivolous. For, mark you, it is not claimed that there is the slightest reason for doubting that the Lodge was constituted; unless, indeed, a reason is suggested by the question, "Who was there to install" the officers? The answer is: Any one of the white Masoi3s of Boston who visited this Lodge as late as 1792* may have been deputed for that purpose, if any deputation was necessary.
After this question, Bro. SINGLETON adds,
"We must bear in mind that this was the invariable custom from the earliest date of our modern Masonry, since 1717,"
It will no doubt shock the brother to learn that all well‑informed Masons, except himself, agree that among the "Moderns" the installation ceremony either never existed or else fell into complete desuetude before 1750,f and remained so until 1810. But the brother quotes from the Book of Constitutions, 1723, that‑
"A NEW LODGE, for avoiding many irregularities, should be solemnly constituted," etc.
And adds,‑
"This has always been considered as mandatory and never omitted, and no Lodge has ever been permitted to do any Masonic work until the constitution of the same by authority of a Grand Master."
I am always lost in admiration for the learning of a man whose knowledge is so wide and so minute that he can say, "No Lodge has ever;" or, as another of these marvels of erudition t has said with ' in the year, in all the effulgence of italics, in every case that has ever existed in the York Rite;" and perhaps Bro. SINGLETON and I will not be so far apart if we agree as to what "constitution" "by authority of a Grand Master" means.
But what will he say to the suggestion that, among the "Moderns," no ceremony of constitution was requisite between 1757 and, at least, 1810? The propositions I lay down are as follows:
1. That among the "Modern" Masons into which division African Lodge belodged, ‑ from about 1722 to a date not later than 1757 a Lodge was "constituted" by a ceremony, performed either by the Grand Master in person, his Deputy or some person to whom a warrant to constitute the Lodge bad been issued by authority of the Grand Master. This was very similar to our practice of "constituting" a Lodge under charter, except that the Lodge was given no charter or written warrant. It sometimes, however, obtained possession of and retained the warrant which had been issued to constitute it.
2. That at a date not earlier than 1753 or later than 17,,‑)7 the "Mod‑
* See Appendix 11, post.
f W. J. CHFTWODIE: CRAWLEY, Caementaria Ribernica, 1, Ceremony of Installation, 22; HENRY SADDLER, Notes on the Ceremony of Installation (London: 1889), 3, 49; Masonic Facts and Fictions, sub anno 1810. The former seems to be GOULD'S opinion. SceAr$Q.C. v, 104 et seq., and Appendix 27, post. "The chair of a lodge, at that time [1744], certainly in England and Scotland, was filled and vacated without a cereraony of any kind."‑GOULD, Royal Arch Degree, reprinted from the Freemason, quoted Caementaria Hibernica, 1.
IJ. H. DRITMMOND; Proceedings, G. L. ofmaine, 1899, Cor. Rep., p. 308.
~~ The practice in Ireland and among the "Ancients" was very difrerent.
L GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
47
erns" adopted a new form of warrant, upon the face of which the Grand Master professed to "hereby constitute" the brethren named "into a regular Lodge;" and this was theform of warrant granted to PRINCE HALL.*
3. That after 1757, the "Modern" Grand Lodge of England, upon issuing a warrant for, say, a Lodge at a distance, never deputized or appointed anyone to perform any ceremony of "constituting" the new Lodge.
4. That the mere delivery of such a warrant constituted the Lodge, without any ceremony whatever. In other words, that from 1757 till 1810 or 1814, the Grand Master of England created a permanent Lodge by mere force of his written warrant, just as an American Grand Master now creates a temporary Lodge by his written "dispensation"; and no ceremony of "constituting" was necessary.
I admit that‑because a form of "constituting" continued to be printed in the Book of Constitutions, and because old brethren had been accustomed to see a ceremony ‑ it was common, nay, usual, to have a ceremony. I merely say it was not universal or obligatory.
I shall make no quotations in support of the first three propositions; as their correctness is, I believe, conceded by well‑informed Masons.t As to the fourth proposition I am not able at this time to produce conclusive evidence. It seems to follow from the third. I find Lodges, the minutes of whose first meetings are preserved, in which there is no mention of either constituting or consecrating;t and othersll in which the Lodge was consecrated some years after beginning an authorized existence, but appears never to have been constituted by any ceremony.** A brotherff who has few rivals in his chosen field ‑ the study of old Lodges and their records ‑ speaking of a period that ended some time between Dec. 20, 1753, and Jan. 14, 1757 ‑ tells us:tt
"After this period we find another change in the form and contents of the Warrants issued by the premier (or 'Moderns') Grand Lodge. * * * At any rate, each Warrant, from that period, when signed was an actual Constitution of a Lodge, including the appointment of its first Master and Wardens.
4'The ceremonial used at the initial opening of the Lodge (now termed its 'Consecration'‑not a very appropriate word) may be supposed to have given the finishing touch to its 'Constitution,' but the phraseology used since 1757 clearly shows that the Lodge was virtually constituted when the Warrant was signed." (Italics mine.)
* See Appendix 5, post.
t W. J. CHETWODE CRAWLEY, Caementaria Hibernica, I, Lost.Archives, 7,9; JOHN LANE, Ars Q. C., viii, 193.
~Philanthropic Lodge, No. 804, and Lodge of Fidelity, No. 289, both at Leeds, in the last decade of the last century.
11 Constitutional Lodge, No. 294, at Beverley, consecrated 1793; Rural Lodge of Philaiithrophy, now No. 291, at Highbridge, consecrated 1795.
**PRESTON makes Installation, Constitution and Consecration three distinct ceremonies, and says that the latter is often omitted;‑as it is in America.‑Illustrations of Masonry (14th. Ed.), 73 et seq.
ft JOHN LANE, author of "Masonic Records, 1717‑1894," etc.
It Ara q. C. viii, 206.
,:~ it
I 48
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
Discussing the same subject, and referring to an Irish warrant granted in 1732, W. H. RYLANDS said,*‑
"Thus by this Charter the Grand Lodge of Ireland constituted the Lodge and elected the first officers, no ceremony of consecration being apparently required."
As I am sending this sheet to the printer, I receive letters from Brothers HUGHAW and GOULD which appear to confirm, in a measure at least, the view I have expressed.f
My response to this objection, then, is: First, that no ceremony of constitution was necessary; second, that it is very probable that a ceremony did occur; and third, that there is not the slightest reason for doubting that, if it was necessary, it did occur; or for drawing on one's imagination for a doubt, one hundred and twelve years after the event.
1 38. Effect of organization of Grand Lodge of Mass., 1792.‑l'But," it is asked, "assuming that African Lodge was regular down to 1792, did not the union of the rival Grand Lodges of the 'Moderns' and 'Antients' into a single Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, in that year,t render it irregular?" Is it not true, as so dogmatically asserted by Grand Master GARDNER, 11 and so often echoed since, that whenever three Lodges have formed a Grand in any State it "has sole, absolute and exclusive jurisdiction in that State," so that "No other Grand Lodge whatever can lawfully interfere with this jurisdiction, and can neither establish Lodges in such State, nor continue any authority over Bodies which it might properly have exercised prior to the organization of such Grand Lodge therein?" Did it not render African Lodge irregular when, in 1797, the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts put in its constitution that:‑
"The Grand Lodge will not hold communication with, or admit as visitors, any Masons, residing in this State, who hold authority under, and acknowledge the supremacy of, any foreign Grand Lodge"?
"Are not these things so?" On the contrary, most assuredly, not one of them is so. As for the declaration of 1797, which was an attempt to coerce St. Andrew's Lodge into joining the Grand Lodge,** it simply announced what the Grand Lodge would not do; and did not profess to deny the Masonry of St. Andrew's or African Lodges. Grand Master GARDNER admits that his doctrine is merely an "American doctrine"; but I shall show in a subsequent section ft that it has been condemned by the ablest Masonic authorities; and the reader has seen in preceding sections that the very opposite was the usage of Masons all through the century which we are considering. tt But it may be of service if I now show
* Ars Q. C. viii, 212.
t See Appendices 26 and 27, post.
~ See ? 32, ante.
Illn an address whicli was simply an argument against the negro Masons; Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1870, p. 24.
** See ~&~ 31, 32, an te.
tt See ~?,40‑42, post.
IlSee ~? 35, 36, ante.
GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
49
the real origin of 4'exclusive territorial jurisdiction;" and return to this subject later on * ~,39. Origin of exclusive territorial jurisdiction. ‑ The doctrine by virtue of which a Grand Lodge may possess exclusive jurisdiction within a certain territory owes its origin, not to any assertion of a right ‑ still less to the mere existence of a Grand Lodge, ‑ but to the waiver of a right, and the granting of a privilege. The first instance in Masonic history where a Grand Lodge ceased to have the right to erect Lodges "within the jurisdiction" of another Grand Lodge was in 1770, and then the right was lost by but two Grand Lodges, and in but two countries. We have seen that up to that year the English Grand Lodges erected Lodges in Holland, in spite of the existence of a Grand Lodge there.f In 1770 the Grand Master of the Netherlands wrote to England "promising that on condition the Grand Lodge of England did not in future constitute any new Lodges within his jurisdiction, the Grand Lodge of Holland should observe the same restriction with respect to all parts of the world where Lodges were established under the patronage of England." This was agreed to, and is the first instance in history of any limitation of the absolute right of every Grand Lodge to erect Lodges in any part of the world. Note the language: there was no claim that England had transcended its right; no doubt in the mind of the Dutch Grand Master of his right to erect Lodges in English territory; no resentment, by England, of his claiming that right; no claim was based on any assertion of right or attribute of sovereignty; but each body waived a prior existing right "on condition," and acquired, by purchase for a valuable consideration, through a treaty, a new and theretofore unheard of privilege, namely "exclusive territorial jurisdiction" ‑ as against that one Grand Lodge only.
The next illustration, that I recall, of the growth of the doctrine, is also a case, not of assertion but of voluntary relinquishment. It is found in No. 3 of the resolutions adopted by the St. Andrew's Grand Lodge in Massachusetts, already printed,t in which that Body intimated its intention not to exercise its "power and authority" in any part of the United States where there was another Grand Lodge. 11 Next, we find the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, in 1796, "suggesting" to the Grand Lodge of New York, "the propriety" of similarly curtailing its prerogative; and in response to this request the latter body resolved not that it could not, but that it would not thereafter grant charters to persons residing "within the jurisdiction of any other Grand Lodge."**
In 40, post.
t See ~, 35, ante.
In 31, ante. Resolution 5th. has been thought to assert exclusive territorial jurisdiction; but when properly understood it is seen to be, not a denial of the right of erecting Lodges within the State, but a protest against the appointment of another Provincial Grand .I[aster there‑of "Ancient" Masons,‑with "power to erect Lodges. 'I Iii Consistently with this "long‑establislied policy," the present Grand Lodge of Massachusetts has, up to the present time, refrained from following the impertinent examples of some younger Bodies who have attempted to dictate whatthe Grand Lodge of Washington may say or think about negro Masons.
GOULD'S History, iv, 423; Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1870, p. 25.
‑4 50
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
Before this date there had been declarations by certain Grand Lodges and Provincial Grand Lodges that all Lodges in their States must acknowledge the authority of the local Grand Lodge; but these, apparently without exception, were made either in connection with some assertion that the Grand Lodge had achieved independence, and so were aimed only against its mother; or, in a war with a rival Grand Lodge in the same State; or, in an attempt to coerce some old Lodge which refused to submit to the new Grand Body. But it was in the way that I have pointed out that the idea gradually gained ascendancy ‑ very rapidly in America, slowly abroad ‑ that Grand Lodges ought not to create Lodges in States or countries where other Grand Lodges exist. Soon the fact that the rule originated in a waiver of rights was lost sight of; and, at the revival of American Masonry after its light had been well nigh quenched by the Morgan excitement, a school of writers arose who found it easier to evolve theories from their imaginations than to laboriously learn the his tory of Masonry, ‑especially as that history was then well‑nigh inaccessible. Of their writings, FREDERIC SPEED, P. G. M. of Mississippi, has well said:
"For the most part, they were purely the efforts of the imagination of' those who wrote, and the more is the pity; for the most of us who belong to the generation of Masons who read as Gospel truth the teachings of the venerable array of frauds who catered to the Masonic thirst for knowledge thirty years ago, have had to painfully unlearn much that we learned with painstaking care."
But many would not take the trouble to "unlearn"; and it is they who have presumed to lecture the Grand Lodge of Washington during the past year; and it is their abuse which the writer of this line has experienced in the past, and anticipates without dread in the future. As old FRO]ISSART observed:
"The locks of the Temple of Truth are neither to be picked by cuuning, nor forced by clamorous violence. The noise of furious arguers is the shutting rather than opening of the Temple doors."
~ 40. Effect of organizing G. L. of Mass., continued.‑In pointing out, in the last section, the true origin of "exclusive territorial jurisdiction," we digressed somewhat from the question whether the formation of a sole Grand Lodge in Massachusetts in 1792 affected the regularity of African Lodge, holding under the Grand Lodge of England. Yet I hope that digression has helped the reader to see the absurdity of the claim that the organization of a new Grand Body can possibly attest the regularity of a previously existing Lodge which does not consent to come under its jurisdiction;‑‑a claim, be it said to the credit of American Masonry, that has been put forward only by a few theorists of the extremist type, and has been generally rejected by conservative Americans, as it has been b3, all foreign writers. Let us now read a few opinions, out of many: Says ROBIERT FRFKE GOIJLD,* the historian of Masonry:‑ "Under the Grand Lodge of England, and the same will probably hold
‑The Family of Grand l,odges; reprinted from "The Freemason," 1896. The italics are mine.
I
9 1; b4 ‑4
i 4 i i GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
51
good with respect to the sister jurisdictions of Ireland and Scotland, there are no hard and fast rules for the recognition of new Masonic powers, but the stream of precedent tends to show, that sooner or later, the 'regularity, of every newly‑erected governing body of Symbolical Masonry which controls a majority of the tributary Lodges within the jurisdiction, is destined to be acknowledged by the three earliest of Grand Lodges.
"Not, however, that this step would carry with it the stamp of 'irregularity' as relating to the continued existence of any minority of Lodges, large or small, which might decline to affiliate with the new organization. The status of these would remain unimpaired by the act of the majority, and no pressure would be applied I)y either of the aforesaid Grand Lodges. (I speak with certainty in the case of England, and from reasonable conviction with regard to the other two) to induce a subordinate to detach itself from the minority.
"The usage in America is as follows:
directly a local
Grand Lodge is regularly inaugurated (though the question of lawful constitution remains a very open one) all the Lodges which stand out and decline to join in the movement become 'irregular.' * * * *
"Some authorities go so far as to maintain that if three out of ninety‑nine Lodges assemble and erect a Grand Lodge, the remaining ninety‑six become irregular. This, of course is a monstrous doctrine * * *"
In 1883, the Grand Master of Quebec, in discussing the action of England in refusing to abandon the Lodges which she had established in that province before the Grand Lodge of Quebec was formed, correctly stated the English law‑the law which determined the standing of African Lodge after the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts was formed:‑
"The Grand Lodge of England claims that a private Lodge chartered by her in unoccupied territory has the right, during its pleasure, and forever if it will, to continue its allegiance to the Grand Lodge of England, and to be supported by her in this pretension, after the said territory has been constitutionally occupied by a regularly formed Grand Lodge."*
The Quebec Lodges referred to still exist, *under the Grand l,odge of England, and their regularity is not (I?testione(I by any (fr(zn(I I.odge in the world.
Concerning them, the (loyen of Masonic scholars, WILLIAM JAMES HUGHAN said, in a letter read before the Masonic Congress at Chicago in 1893:j
"No Grand Lodge should be considered absolutely sovereign, with exclusive jurisdiction in its own domain. until it has induced all the Lodges existing prior to its formation to join its ranks, without resorting to coercion. Much as I deplore, for example, the difficulties which have arisen through the three Lodges refusing to join the Grand Lodge of Quebec, but preferring to remain under England, I consider as a matter of law, usage and justice, based upon the experience of over a century and a half, they have the right so to do."
Wherein does the case of these Lodges differ from that of African Lodge in 1792,‑except in that they were int‑ite(l to join the local Grand Lodge, while she was not?
~ 41, Same.‑The distinguished authority last quoted, after speaking of the fact that there were in New Zealand, besides a number of Scotch and Irish Lodges, some sixty English Lodges which insisted on retaining
* Quoted in Proceedings G. L. of Washington, 1886, p. 473.
t Proceedings of the Masonic Congress, p. 22.
52
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
their connection with the Grand Lodge from which they received their charters, at another time said:*
"Now is it fair or just to declare all these irregula?,, simplv because they 'of their own free will and accord' decline to join the nev~ly‑formed Grand Lodge of New Zealand, on the latter being recognized? I support your 'emphatic protest' against such an un‑Masonic action." * * *
‑rn the same year that the Washington committee reported that African Lodge, No. 459, was not rendered irregular by the formation of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, the Grand Lodge of New Zealand was recognized by England and admitted that these Lodges might lawfully continue to exist within her territory;f and every Grand Lodge in the world admits their regularity. Yet their case and that of African Lodge in 1792 differs in no respect whatever, ‑except chat in that year the doctrine of "exclusive territorial jurisdiction" was only beginning to be dreamed of.
American writers, above the grade of mere theorists, have joined in the same statement of the law. Thus Past Grand Master THOMAS MILBURN, REED, one of the ablest and best informed of these, said, many years ago:t
,,It is not within the power of any Grand Lodge to force allegiance to its authority from a subordinate not of its creation, nor to sever the relations of such subordinate from its parent Grand Body. This can only be done by voluntary consent. The sooner Grand Lodges understand this question the better. It is a fallacious idea to suppose that a newly organized Grand Lodge can do what older established bodies would not attempt to do ‑ extend the mantle of its authority over Lodges of another jurisdiction and compel their obedience."
,~' 42. Same.‑In 1887 a committee of which JonN W. SimoNs was chairman reported to the Grand Lodge of New York in part as follows:ll
*HUGHAN to TJI'TON, Sept. 2,1897; Proceedings, G. 1,. ofwashiiigtoii, 1898, p. 301.
ftlie astounding extremes to which reckless and unscrupulous writers will go in attempts to deceive an(I mislead their readers, when they hope to escape detection, is illustrated by the fact that Past Grand Master J. R. DRU.111VIOND States THE VERY OPPOSITE 01" THIS to have been the case ‑ that England abandoned the position she had always held. His statement will be found on an early page of his correspondence report in the Proceeding of the G. L. of Maine for IM. To show its falsity, I quote the following from the "Articles of Recognition" signed by the principal officers of the Grand Lodges of England and New Zealand as printed in the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of England for September, 1898, p. 116: "1. That the Grand Lodge of New Zealand shall in future be the recognized Grand Lodge oftl)e Colony.
"9. The Most Worshipful the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England will consider any District in which fewer than three Lodges may continue under their allegiance to the Grand Lodge of England to be ipsoy(teto dissolved, but (subject tliereto) the Lodges under the English Constitution, both private and the District Grand Lodges, will continue as at present, and remain unaffected by this recognition.
"10. All Brethren who shall continue Members of Lodges under the English Constitution shall be fully recognized by the Grand Lodge of New Zealand. * * *" After this, I trust readers will understand why I place no reliance upon anything that that "Masotiie Worthy" says; and am indifferent to his abuse.
Proceedings, G. 1,. of Washington, 1880, p. 601.
Proceedings, G. L. of N. Y., 1887, Special Cor. Rep., p. 79.
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GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
53
"Up to this point we are all agreed, and the argument is reduced to the question, whether there is any known Masonic law, under the operation of which just and regular Lodges hailing from a recognized and unquestionable authority, and at the time of their formation in possession of vacant territory, can be forced to give up their existence or change their allegiance except by the exercise of their own free will‑ and accord. To say that they ought to do so in the interests of peace and good Masonic government is a non sequitur, which no one is disposed to question; but when it is asserted they must do so we come to the very marrow of the disagreement.
"After long, patient examination of the various journals and acts of Grand Lodges, this committee is free to say that it has found nothing of greater weight than opinions which, however plausible, are not law."
Upon recommendation of this committee, it was‑*
Resolved, That the Grand Lodge of the State of New York, while earnestly upholding the rights of the Grand Lodge of Quebec as a sovereign and independent Masonic government, refuses to accept the doctrine that Lodges legally constituted by competent and acknowledged authority can be compelled by any known law to transfer their allegiance against their will." * * *
Substitute "Massachusetts" for "Quebec" in this resolution, and we have what ought to be the answer of every Grand Lodge to the objection we are considering. It may startle some of our theorists to learn that it is the answer of Massachusetts, as late, at least, as 1870, the Constitutionsf of that Grand Lodge declared that‑
"As every warranted Lodge is a constituent part of the Grand Lodge, in which assembly all the powers of the Fraternity reside, it is clear that no other authority can destroy the power granted by a Warrant."
The brilliant and judicious editor of Ars Quatuor Coronator?t7nt thus reviews the subject:
"To treat it as a landmark constitutes the height of absurdity, because Freemasonry predates Grand Lodges by centuries, and any rule of Grand Lodge sovereignty must have had its origin in some regulation of a Grand Lodge , and have been absolutely unknown before 1717.
The doetride in its simplest form took birth between 1717 and 1720, as it is laid down by Grand Master Payne in the "Old Regulations" that no new Lodge was to be accepted is regular unless formed with the Grand Master's consent. But in this form it is not very far reaching. Note in the first place, that although not distinctly so stated, the regulation only contemplates new Lodges within the Bills of Mortality, i. e,, within the confines of the cities of London and Westminster. Lodges, tlterefbre, formed elsewhere, ?,(~ere con.~idered i‑egitl(.tr enough. Next, such irregular Lodges are not termed clandestine, but simply irreg?tlar, 1! which practically meant that they could not be recognized by Grand Lodge or their members admitted to the Quarterly Communications. F~zrtlier, that no (lis qualification is imposed upon Lodges already existing, of which there were ])roi)abi ' y many,** nor is there any indication of in effort to force them to come into the family. The whole proceeding is therefore simply the es‑
Proceedings, G. L. of N. Y., 1887, p. 14,‑.
Part iv, Art. i, see. 7; printed as an Appendix to Proceedings, G. L. ofmass., 1870.
,GEORGE W. SPETir, An English Nriew of Freemasonry in America, S. (The italics are mine.) See 1, 51, post.
** See 22‑24, a)ite.
54
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
tablishinent of a sovereign jurisdiction for London and Westminster, but not of a sole jurisdiction.
"To this doctrine we gave a final touch, so far as we are concerned, in 1770, when, in recognizing the newly formed Grand Lodge of the Netherlands, we agreed to cease granting English warrants for Lodges in the Low Countries;* but, just as in 1720 we made no attempt to coerce previously existing Lodges in London, so in 1770 we took care that previously existing Lodges in Holland should not be coerced into joining the Dutch Grand Lodge, but provided by treaty for their unmolested existence, so long as they should desire.
"Your American doctrine, f if I understand it rightly, not only places it in the power of an insignificant minority of the Lodges in a given district to form themselves into a Grand Lodge and claim recognition, but enables them to compel a possibly large majority of dissentient Lodges to fall into line, or to be banned as irregular and clandestine. In this case it is not even the tyranny of a majority, but may be that of a minority, sheltering itself behind a so‑called landmark, which is only a regulation, and not a universally acknowledged one at that.
Consider how badly it m~ydpoesnsibly work. * * * *
"The doctrine is utte rv n ef sible. To merely state it in all itshorrid nakedness is to cond~iun it. The erection of a new Grand Lodge, no matter where or when or how, canizot possibly invalidate the right of a Lodge or Lodges, predating it, perhaps by a generation, to continue to be received, acknowledged and recognized as regular in every way."
We have thus seen that by Masonic usage, practically if not absolutely without an exception from 1717 to 1899,‑in opposition to which, absolutely nothing exists except the dogmatic assertion of mere theorists who have held that America o2,tght to assert a rule which has no basis in Masonic practice, in America or elsewhere‑the status of African Lodge and St. Andrew's Lodge was absolutely unaffected by the creation of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1792; and that these Lodges had an indefeasable right to continue their allegiance to their mother Grand Lodges until they voluntarily formed other connections, ‑ which the former did in 1808, and the later in 1809.
~ 43. Summary of conclusions. ‑ It may be well to pause here to note that our review of the first ten objections to the Masonry of the American negroes has established beyond question the following points:
1. That PRINCE HALL and his associates were regularly initiated in strict accordance with every provision of law, in a regular Lodge of Masons lawfully at work.
2. That, whether or not they possessed sufficient authority for assembling as of Lodge from 1775 to 1784 ‑ during which period there is no evidence that they made any Mason,‑iu the latter year their inchoate Lodge was "regularized" by being placed on the roll of the premier Grand Lodge of the world; and in 1787 a warrant was delivered to them which, under the universally recognized law of the day, would have cured all irregularities in their original making ‑ If there been any.
*See ~, 39, ante. t That is, the bastard doctrine which has been as vigorously denounced by well‑informed American Masons as by Masons in other lands, and which disgraces America when it assumes its name.‑W. H. U.
I GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
55
3. That the issuance of that warrant was strictly in accordance with law, and was not an "invasion" of any "jurisdiction" or the infringement of any right whatsoever.
4. That the warrant was received in 1787; and African Lodge, No. 459, was regularly constituted by its authority, in strict conformity to every law known to Masonry.
That the status of African Lodge was Dot affected by the organization ‑ in which it was not permitted to participate ‑ of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, in 1792; but its continued existence, as a constituent of the Grand Lodge of England, was strictly in accordance with Masonic law.
Objectio7i,~; to the career of'African Lo(ige, ‑1.80,'?‑1847.
44. ‑Irrelevant objections. ‑ Alleged dormancy. ‑ I shall review the next five objections briefly‑although, I trust, effectively, ‑ because, in my opinion, they are wholly irrelevant to our inquiry. They relate wholly to a period subsequent to 1808, in which year a Negro Grand Lodge had been formed which at once chartered Lodges in various parts of America. It is undisputed that African Lodge survived to assist in forming that Grand Lodge; and, hence, the matter would not be of the slightest interest to me were it shown that African Lodge expired which, however, was not the case ‑ immediately thereafter. But, as these objections have been offered, let us examine them. The first is, that at some, very indefinite, time after the death of PRINCE HALL, in Dec., 1807, the Lodge became dormant. Those who have asserted this for the purpose of befogging the subject have been willing to have it understood that this dormancy occurred immediately after the death of PRINCE HALL especially after ample evidence had been produced that the Lodge was not dormant about the year 1820, the time to which the objection originally related. As a fact, the only foundation for this claim of dormancy is found in a misinterpretation of a sentence written by the officers of the Lodge to the United Grand Lodge of England, in 1824, asking for authority to confer the Royal Arch and other "High degrees."* That sentence read s, ‑ ',It is with regret we communicate to you that, from the Decease of our Well Beloved Brethren who obtained the Warrant, we have not been able for several years to transmit Monies and hold a regular communication;" etc.
Of course, "from the Decease," means, "on account of the decease;" but it has been distorted to mean, "from the date of the decease."f And "hold a regular Communication" has been distorted to mean, "hold a
*The letter Is printed in Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1870, p. 49.
t That this was their meaning, plainly appears from their language, when speaking of the same subject, in their declaration of 1827. After referring, evidently, to their duty to contribute to the Grand Charity fund, and expressing a doubt whether they had performed it, they say, (italics mine): " But we can add that, in consequence of the decease of the above named Brother, the institution was for years unable to proceed ‑ for want of one to conduct its affairs ‑ agreeably to what is required in every regular and well‑educated Lodge of Masons. "‑Proceedings G. L. Of Mass., 1870, p. 42.
56
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
meeting," '],the context clearly shows that it means, "keep up a regular communication with the Grand Lodge," by remitting money, etc. It is well enough known that the temporary dormancy of a Lodge would not kill the Lodge; for, under the English law, "three hold the warrant;" and three members, with the warrant, could at any time revive a (formant English Lodge. The "old Lodge at York" was dormant from about 1740 to 1761, but was revived in the latter year by six members. The famous American Union Lodge ‑ now on the roll of the Grand Lodge of Ohio ‑ was revived by two members in 1790, after being dormant from 1783. But CHARLES GnisWOLD, P. G. M. of Minnesota, effectively disposed of this objection ‑ as, indeed, he did of all others, ‑ and we may quote his language: *
'‑The Massacliuselts Register, an almanac, published in Boston for several years, gave, for some time, the names of the various Masonic bodies, together with their place of meeting, African Lodge among the rest. In 1806 we find the following notice: 'The African Lodge in Boston meets regularly at the house of Prince Hall, in Congress street, on the evening of the first Tuesday, in each month.' From this time on up to and including 1813, the notice of the time of meeting appears regularly, proving conclusively that up to that date, at least, it had an active existence. A few years after, the said almanac ceased to notice the meetings of any of the Masonic bodies. Again, that they were in existence in 1824, appears from the letter which, as a Lodge, they addressed to the Grand Lodge of England, in which they give an account of their prosperity, and ask for authority to confer higher degrees. A copy of said letter may be found in the proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts foi‑ 18,'0, page 49. There is a Mason now li l, ill who testities that he was initiated in that Lodge in 1822. Another it died recently, was initiated there in 1820. When, in 1869, Prince Hall Grand Lodge petitioned the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts for Masonic recognition,.t they placed before the committee to whom their petition was referred, written records to prove a continuity of regular meetings during all the years of their existence.
I am informed that the committee refused to examine these records.t Had they taken the opposite course, brethren might have been saved from making assertions which they may find it somewhat difficult to prove. What, however, was not done by them, has been done by others.
An old record book of African Lodge, now in the possession of Thomas Dalton, a former member of that Lodge, reveals, beyond question, the fact that the Lodge continued to hold its meetings during each year of the disputed period, to‑wit: 1808‑1827. This record book has been care fully and critically examined by Jacob Norton and other eminent Masons, and pronounced reiliable.,, ii
* Proceedings, G. L. of Minnesota, 1877, p. 60. Substantially the same matter will be found in Voice of Masonry, for April, 1896. I have verified all Brother GRls"I‑OLD's statements of fact.
t See ~ 80, post.
t, Bro. SAMUEL EVANS, P. M., (white) of East Malden, Mass., intimates as much in ]]is "Colored Masons' Petition," printed as an appendix to the Address to the Colored Masonic Fraternity of the 1'. S. (Cleveland: 1871) by WILLIAM T. BOYD, Committee on Correspondence oftlie (colored) G. L. of0hio.‑ff7~ TF. U.
il NORTON's description of the record book will be found in his "The Early History of Masonry in Massachusetts," printed as an appendix to LFwis HAYDEN's letter "To the R. W. J. G. FINDEL, [the well known Masonic historian of Germany] Honorary Grand Master of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge, and General Representative thereof to the Lodges upon the Continent of Europe" (Boston: 1871); also, in Proceedings, G. L. of Ohio, 1876, p. 118.‑W. H. U.
GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
57
~, 45. Erasure from the Grand Lodge roll in 1813.‑African Lodge, No. 459, continued on the roll of the Grand Lodge of England ‑ the peer of any of her daughters, ‑ for many years. The records of the Grand Lodge show her contributions to its charity fund in 1789, 1792, 1793 and 1797.* In April, 1792, if when it renumbered its Lodges, it advanced African Lodge to No. 370. In 1791 or 1792 we find the Grand Secretary of England Writing to PRINCE HALL asking what had become of certain of the white Lodges.f But, among the objections which, for reasons stated in the preceding section, are really immaterial, it has been urged that African Lodge was dropped from the English roll in 1813 or 1814. The illegitimate idea has been carefully fostered that this was done for the purpose of forfeiting the right of African Lodge to exist, or at least had that effect. Brother GRISWOLD corrects some erroneous ideas, as follows: 11
"In making said erasure, the Grand Lodge of England evidently recogiiizec! the fact that her American children, African Lodge among the rest, were of age and well able to take care of themselves. At that time, they all had their own Grand Lodges in this country, and in their formation had virtually severed their connection with the parent Grand Lodge. . The action of the Grand Lodge of England was simply a recognition of this fact. Prince Hall Grand Lodge proper was formed in 1808, five years before said erasure took place. When the attention of Bro. John Hervey, Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of England, was first called to this matter, he gave it as his personal opinion. in a letter to Bro. C. W. Moore, that said African Lodge, as a result of its erasure, had become irregular; but when, upon further examination, he found that all the American Lodges upon the English Grand Lodge register were erased at the same time, he evidently saw his mistake, and, in a still later letter, recalled his first opinion. In the Canadian Masonic ‑ATeu~s of January last, Bro. Jacob Norton says: 'In conversation with Bro. Hervey about the two letters sent by him to Bro. Moore, Bro. H. told me personally, that, upon retleetion, he really could not distinguish the difference between the legality or illegality of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge, or the Prince Hall Grand Lodge.'"
The facts of the case are these: At the end of 1813, the two rival Grand Lodges of England, the "Moderns" and the "Ancients"** effected a "happy union," and formed the present United Grand Lodge of England. This necessitated a renumbering of the Lodges. Our British brethren have always attached great importance to a high position on the roll. Hence,
*Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1870, p. 48. The English law left it tothe Lodges themselves to determine what siims the "circumstances of the Lodge" justified them in contributing to the Grand Charity.
t GOULD, Four Old Lodges, 75. Among several other inaccuracies, both as to facts and law, in letters written by Grand Secretary HERVEY to Grand Officers of Massachusetts, in 1868 and 1870, was his statement that this occurred in 1793.‑Proceedings G. L. of Mass., 1870, p. 48. Some recent writers would appear not to be aware that Bro. HERVEY afterwards retracted some of these opinions, notably the one that dropping African l,odge from the roll in 1813 affected its regularity.
'See Appendix 10, post.
11 Proceedings, G. L. of Minn., 1877, p. 58; Voice of Masonry, April, 1876. To avoid the effect of the fact that African Lodge was a recognized English Lodge at the time she aided in foriiiing a Grand Lodge for the negro Masons, in 1808, writers have not been above insinuating that the erasure occurred "about the beginning of the present century." ** See ~l, 22, 24, ante.
I I
58
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
great interest was taken in the matter. Lots were drawn to see whether an "Ancient" Lodge or a "Modern" should become No. 1. Then the remaining numbers were allotted, alternately, one to a "Modern" Lodge, the next to an "Ancient." As another step in the same attempt to secure high numbers, each of the expiring Grand Lodges struck from its roll every Lodge that was not certainly known to be ali,~e and desirous of remaining with the United Grand Lodge. This included every English lodge in America which had ever been on the roll of either Grand Lodge, and many in other countries ‑ some of which were alive and greatly resented being dropped. * There was not the slightest idea or the slightest pretence that the erasing of these Lodges affected the good standing of any of them that happened to be alive and I take it that none but the most bigoted of readers will question the statement of WILLIAM JAMES HUGHAN, ‑ that it did not affect the standing of African Lodge.
Up to that time, both English Grand Lodges had retained on their rolls
* For example, the famous Loge I' Anglais No. 363‑‑afterwards Nos. 240 and 204,‑at Bordeaux, of which Bro. G. W. SPETH gives a magnificent account in the current volume of Ars Q. C.‑‑volurne xii,‑‑atid which we shall furtli~r mention in ~. 53 post. This Lodge, although it had been engaged in defending English Freemasonry in a gallant war with the Grand Orient of France, and had been cut off from communication with the mother country by the Napoleonic wars, in 1818 learned, for the first time, with "dismay and grief," that it had been erased from the roll, with the others, in 1813‑14. This Lodge had maintained a regular representative near the Grand Lodge of England, a member of that DILLON family which produced a scion whose courtesy‑as W. J. CHETWODE CRAWLEY SO gracefully expresses it‑"stood the test of the guillotine:" "The gallant Count Dillon, one ofthe early victims oftlie Reign of Terror, was asked by a shrinking lady, condemned in the same batch, to precede her in the terrible procession. The count bowed with courtly grace, and saying 'Anything to oblige a lady,' stepped on to the plittforrn ofthe guillotine in her p lace."‑Ars Q. C., xii, 10.
tsee Appendix 15, poet. Yet, as we have plenty of.brave men in this country‑of the class who "rush in where angels fear to tread"‑who will not fear to reiterate that African Lodge was killed by being removed from the roll in 1813, let me beg some of them to tell us what was the standing of the following Lodges‑all of which still exist and are among the leading Lodges of the world‑and what was the standing of the men whom they initiated, during the years they were not on the roll of any Grand Lodge‑not even an "African" Grand Lodge,‑towit: UNioN LODGE, Frankfort‑on‑tlie‑Nrain, (Mother Lodge of Eclectic Union G. L.), warranted by Eng., 1742; independent, 1782; rejoined Eng., 1789; erased ‑ with African Lodge, 1813; rejoined, 1822; erased, 1823. Query, status 1782‑1789; 1813‑1822? G. L. FREDIE:RICK, Hanover, warranted by Eng., 1755; erased ‑ with African Lodge, 1813; replaced, 1821; independent, 1828. Query, status 1813‑1821? ENGLisH LODGE, Bordeaux, independent, 1732; warranted by Eng., 1766; joined G. 0. of France 1781, but remaining on Eng. roll; renounced G. 0., 1782; recognized as an Eng. Lodge 1792, 1802; erased, 1813; first knew of it, 1818. Query, status 1732‑1766; 1813‑? ST. CHARLES, Brunswick, warranted by Eng., 1770; joined Strict Observance, 1770, but remaining on Eng. roll; returned to Eng. rule, 1802; erased, 1813; joined G. L. of Hamburg, 18M. Query, status, 1770‑1802; 1813‑1835 ? BLACK BEAR,, lianover, warranted by Eng., 1786; seceded to Three Globes; rejoined Eng.,'ISW; erased, 1813; replaced, 1821; erased, 1827; joined G. L. ofhanover, 1828. Query, status 1813‑1821? THREE ARROWS, Nuremberg, warranted by Eng., 1790; erasetl, 1813; joined G. L. of Frankfort, 18?3. Query, status 1813‑1823? APOLLO, Leipzig, warranted by Eng., 1805; erased, 1813; joined G. L. of Saxony, 1815. Query, status 1813‑1815?
I I ~i
1 4 GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
59
practically all the American Lodges which had ever found a place there. GOULD gives a list of twenty‑eight "Modern" Lodges in America, dating from 1733 to 1787, which, he says, "were placed on the English Register, and without exception continued to figure annually in the official lists until 1813."* Among these were African Lodge and three other Massachusetts Lodges. HUGHAN f gives a list of forty‑three "Modern" Lodges in America ‑ in and outside of the United States ‑ exclusive of military Lodges, and says that "all" of them were stricken from the register at the union. He then adds a list of "Ancient" Lodges dropped, adding "so that at the union some thirty 'Ancients' were struck off, or, in other words, some seventy American Lodges connected either with the 'Moderns' or 'Ancients' were removed from the roll, immediately before the union of December, 1813!"t
~, 46. Alleged surrender of the warrant, 1824. ‑ Another of the objections which I class as immaterial, is the statement which used to be made but is now, I believe, entirely abandoned, that African Lodge returned its warrant to England in 1824, and thereafter worked under "a mutilated copy." There never was the slightest ground for the fiction that the warrant was returned to England, except in a strained construction placed on the words "renewal of our Charter" found in the letter, mentioned in 1 44, sent by African Lodge to the United Grand Lodge of England in 1824. The writers stated that they were Royal Arch Masons, but that the warrant of 1784 allowed them "to confer but the three degrees" and finding it injurious to have "no legal authority to confer the other four degrees," they solicited the "renewal of our Charter" so as to authorize them to confer the additional degrees, "as we are now getting in a flourishing condition." There is in the letter no suggestion of sending the old warrant to England, and as a fact it was not sent. It is still in the possession of the negro brethren and, as we have seen,** has been seen and examined by their adversaries, Brother CHARLESW. MOORE, who is said tf to have been largely responsible for this unwarranted objection was afterwards a member of the committee to which reported, in 1869, that‑ "Your committee examined the charter and believe it is authentic."
~ 47. Declaration of independence, 1827.‑The next objection is also immaterial because, like the last, it concerns the history of but one Lodge. In June, 1827, the Master, Wardens and Secretary of African
* History, iv, 258. t Voice of Masonry, Nov. 1876. Ilbid. !I See ~ 44, ante.
** see ? 19, avte.
tt Negro Mason in Equity, 32.
11 Curiously enough, Bro. MooRE's name is not appended to the report as printed in in Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1869, p. 129 et seq.; but is appended to the same report where printed as an appendix to the Woodbury report.‑Proceedings (T. L. of ‑ilass., Sept., 1876, p. 86.
60
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
Lodge published in a newspaper the declaration in question ‑ the importance of which appears to me to have been greatly overestimated. After reciting the history of African Lodge, and ‑ apparently with some degree of resentment ‑ its unsuccessful attempt to communicate with the English Grand Lodge ‑ evidently referring to the letter of 1824, mentioned in. the preceding section, ‑ the declaration goes on to say:‑
"Taking all these things into consideration, we have come to the conclusion that with what knowledge we possess of Masonry, and as people of color by ourselves, we are, and ought by rights to be, free and independent of other Lodges. We do, therefore, with this belief, publicly declare ourselves free and independent of any Lodge from this day, and that we will not be tributary, or be governed by any Lodge but our own. We agree solemnly to abide by all proper rules and regulations which govern the like Fraternity, discountenancing all imposition to injure the Order, and to use all fair and honorable means to promote its prosperity, resting in full hope that this will enable us to transmit it in its purity to our posterity for their enjoyment."*
The impression I receive from this is, that it indicates that, like the Bordeaux Lodge up to 1818,1 African Lodge did not know that it had been removed from the English roll; that although, like that Lodge, it had acted as a Mother Lodge; and ‑ just as that Lodge had "aggregated" with the Grand Orient f‑had been connected with African Grand Lodge; yet, like the Bordeaux Lodge, it regarded itself as all the time a constittient of the Grand Lodge of England; and that this declaration was intended to sever that relation. Some brethren have thought that white Masons might take advantage of this more or less petuiently expressed determination of the members of a single Lodge, "as people of color" to "tlock‑ by themselves," to forever deny the hand of fellowship to all other negro Lodges as well; but this suggestion seems to me to evince very little of "the spirit of Masonry." Other phases of the declaration are sufficiedtly noticed by Brother CLARK: l~‑
'‑We did no more than the Massachusetts Grand Lodge did on the 6th day of December, 1782, when it, in full Grand Lodge, adopted the following resolution, and made it part of its constitution:
"That this Lodge be hereafter known and called by the name of the 'Massachusetts Grand Lodge of Ancient Masons,' and that it is free and independent, in its government and official authority, of any other Grand Lodge or Grand Master in the Universe.'
"Did this declaration of independence destroy the legality, if it had tiny, of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge? Was its existence brought to an end by this act? We believe not. Then why should it destroy the legality of African Lodge, or terminate its existence, We demand that you measure both of us by the same rule, and we will abide the result; any other course is dishonest, unfair and unjust.
"But admit that, by this declaration, African Lodge, No. 459, did terminate its life. What effect would that have upon the status of negro Masons in America? None whatever. It would only be the extinction of one subordinate Lodge ‑ a something that frequently occurs in every
*The address is printe(i in full in Pt,oceedings, G. L. of jl‑a5s., lsio, p. 41.
j‑ See 45 attte, note. See 53, post; and list ofsimilar cases in long note under ~, 45, aiite, 1, Negro Mason in Equity, 42.
GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
6 t
Grand Lodge jurisdiction without in the least affecting the Grand Body. "In 1827 negro Masons were not dependent upon the existence of any one subordinate Lodge, for long before then they had provided for the legal propagation of the principles of Masonry and the regular succession of its organization by the establishment of Grand Lodges in a legal and regular manner. Masonry among colored men in America was well on its way in the dissemination of those sublime principles underlying the institution of Freemasonry, and was successfully creating therefrom a superstructure which sometime, sooner or later, will be tried by the square of virtue and receive its just designation of good and true work."
48. Alleged surrender of warrant to National Grand Lodge, 1847.The last of these objections to the continuing vitality of this single Lodge is an argument of Grand Master GARDNER's based on a misreading doubtless unintentional ‑ of the petition of LEWIS HAYDEN and others. Grand Master Gardner says *‑italics mine:
"In 1847 a National Grand Lodge was formed; and, says the petition of Lewis Hayden and others to this Grand Lodge, set out on page 132 of our printed Proceedings for 1869 : the African Lodge of Boston, becoming a part of that Body surrendered its Charter and received its present Charter dated December 11, 1847, under the title of Prince Hall Grand Lodge'," etc.
But, unfortunately for the Grand Master's argument, upon turning to the reference given by himself, we find that the petition of LEWIS HAYDEN and others, instead of the words which I have italicized in the above quotation, really said,‑
"The African Grand Lodge of Boston, becoming a part of that body" etc. f
We therefore pass this objection until we come to treat of negro Grand Lodges.1
OI)jections to Lodges.l~?tn(led by PRINCE HALL.
49. Prince Hall not a Grand Master and African Lodge not a Grand Lodge. ‑ We now arrive at an objection which seems a most serious one to the brother who knows Masonry only as it is at the end of the nineteenth century, and supposes it to be safe to judge eighteenth century acts by nineteenth century usages. It is stated by friends and foes alike, and is unquestionably a fact, that in 17()7 PRINCE HALL issued a "license" to thirteen black men, who had been made Masons in England, to "assemble and work" as a Lodge in Philadelphia‑, that another Lodge was organized by his authority at providence, R. I.; and that it was these two Lodges and African Lodge No. 459 that organized the first negro Grand Lodge. Two objections are raised to the creation of these Lodges: first, that they were an invasion of the territory of the Grand Lodges of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, respectively, and, second, that their erection exceeded the authority vested in either PRINCE HALL or his Lodge. As I shall have to consider the matter of "invasions" later, when considering the general diffusion
*Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1870, p. 35.
t Proceedings, G. L. of Mass., 1869, p. 132.
1 See ~,, 66, post.
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
of negro Masonry throughout the land, * let us pass that objection until that time, and proceed to examine the other one. I waive entirely the claim which negro writers have been disposed to insist upon, that PRINCE HALL probably had express authority from England to act as a Proviincial Grand Master among the negroes; t for I am, as stated in the outset, t simply giving the reader the reasons which have led me to the conviction that the colored Masons are entitled to recognition as members of our Fraternity, and I have not rested my conclusions upon that claim. This objection may be overthrown by showing either of two things which, indeed, are but two aspects of one thing,‑viz: that African Lodge had all the authority that was necessary to establish the Philadelphia and Providence Lodges; or, that the brethren in Philadelphia and Providence needed no higher authority than the "license" of PRINCE HALL, to justify them in working as a Lodge. I shall show both of these things.
1 50. Same.‑Doctrine oj Mother Lodgeq.‑Amoug the old Lodges whic h organized the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1736, were several which acknowledged themselves daughters of the still older Lodge at Kilwinning. This famous Mother Lodge withdrew from the Grand Lodge in 1744 and "resumed its independence, which in the matter of granting Charters it had in reality never renounced, and for well‑nigh seventy years continued to exist as an independent Grand Body", 11 chartering Lodges in every quarter of the globe. No doubt the example of this famous Lodge had something to do with the fact that throughout the century following the establishment of the grand lodge system it was no uncommon thing to see a Lodge assume the functions of a Mother Lodge, by granting authority to a body of Masons to assemble as a Lodge.
Instances are very numerous, but I see no necessity of citing more of them than are incidentally mentioned in other parts of this paper. In some cases, as when Union Lodge was formed at Albany, N. Y., in 1759, **
* See g 68‑71, post.
t It is quite true that, in the years involved, PRINCE HALL carried on an intimate correspondence with the Grand Secretary of England, ‑ perhaps more intimate than that of any other American ~Masoii; but, it seems to me that ‑although some strong arguments based on other grounds have been put forth by M. W. Bro. W. T. Boyd and others ‑ the theory that he was a Provincial G. M. arose chiefly from the fact that the Grand Secretary addressed him as "Right Worshipful." The extent of the Masonic knowledge of those who have bad the assurance to criticize the Grand Lodge of Washington during the last year is illustrated by the fact that they have made rare sport of the circumstance that, in one of its resolutions, this Grand Lodge applied to PRINCE HALL the title which he always bore in his life time: " To speak of * * * 'our R.*. W.'.Bro. Plrince Hall, Master of said lodge'," says the Kentucky committee, boiling over with merriment, "must provoke a smile from every well‑informed Mason. * * # It has never, been Masonic usage to dub the Master of a symbolic lodge Right Worshipful." Unfortunately for these wiseacres who, if we should let them alone, would end by proving that PRINCE HALL must have been a Provincial G. M., ‑ Bro. GOULD, of whom most of them have probably never heard, says:‑
"The letters 'R. W.' were prefixed to the Master's title in all Lodges under the original G. L. of England.
iv, 2P,8, note.
t, See ~ 5, ante.
i I GOULD, History, iii, 309.
** See ? 55, post.
~ion until ~irely the t PRINCE ~ Provin. e outset, convicabers of t claim. ~hingsi Lodge delphia I ProviALL, to ings.
Lodges several dge at Grand
tter of 11‑nigh dy 11, 11 D,MP]E ghout it was .other odge.
ire of .. In 59, **
correiat of 3leD is $‑the etary those last it, in h he
proge to ,eslave flrd,
itial
4
GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
63
or PRINCE HALL'S inchoate Lodge of 1776, * the authority was doubtless intended to be temporary, until a Grand Master's warrant could be secured; and the authorizing body had no ambition to be regarded as a Mother Lodge. In other instances, no further authority appears to have been contemplated, and the authorizing body appears to have intended to assert a rank somewhat superior to that of her daughters although usually retaining its own place upon the roll of a Grand Lodge, and never developing into a Grand Lodge. The English Lodge at Bordeaux + was an example of this, as, possibly was the Lodge at Fredericksburg, Va.; t and it seems probable that African Lodge, No. 459, after it become evident that the white Masons of the new nation intended to ostracise their colored brethren, would have developed into such a body, had not the death of PRINCE HALL rendered apparent the advisability of forming a Grand Lodge. In a third class of cases, the Mother Lodge was finally transformed into a Grand Lodge, and recognized as such throughout the world. We have seen that this was the origin of several of the most magnificent Grand Lodges in the world: ‑ the "Three Globes,'? at Berlin; of Saxony, at Dresden; of the " Sun," at Bayreiith; Eclectic Union, at Frankfort; and Royal York, at Berlin. 11 But was not this assumption of a power to establish Lodges, a usurpation of power Unquestionably it was; and perhaps all such power is of like origin, ** But, it would seem that, like the usurpation of sovereignty in nations, its justification lies in its success. "It is a condition, not a theory that confronts us." As we "cannot frame an indictment against a whole people," so we cannot successfully impeach the Masonry of half the continent of Europe. There must be something in the nature of a statute of limitations which shuts off criticism of the acts of those who have successfully exercised supreme authority in Masonry. Or, as a distinguished German brother expresses it, ff‑
"I believe that it is unwise and unjust to dispute the legal standing of any Lodge oi, Grand Lodge which practices Masonry according to our standard, and has been doing good and honest work amongst the people of its own class for upwards of a hundred years. It may be possible or even admissible to contest the legal standing of a Lodge or Grand Lodge at the time of its establishment, but if such Lodge or Grand Lodge has withstood this contention of legality and afterwards does successfully withstand the much severer test of vitality for over a hundred years, then in my opinion it has conclusively proved that it owes its existence not to mere chance or caprice, but that it is destined to fulfill a mission and to supply a Warrant. "
Tested by this rule, the act Of PRINCE HALL which, for more than a century, has withstood, not only the devouring tooth of Time, but every attack that the ingenuity of five generations of his white brethren could
* See 17, ante, and Appendix 1, post.
t See 53, post.
See 54, post.
See 35, ante, and Appendix 12, post.
** See ~p, 24, 31, ante.
tt CARL WHIRE, G. M. of Hamburg; see Appendix 20, post.
64
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
devise; and has resulted in diffusing the pure light of Masonry, through more than a thousand Lodges, among three nations of men;* and in offering to eight millions of souls practically their only opportunity to obtain a knowledge of the Word which was in the beginning, t is beyond successful attack. But, without appealing to any statute of limitations to justify the erection of the Lodges at Philadelphia and Providence, it seems to me that any candid man who considers the historical instances which are cited in this section must concur in the conclusion of that Prince‑Mason and prince of negrophobists, General ALBERT PIKE, that‑
"Prince Hall Lodge * * * had a perfect right (as other Lodges in Europe did) to establish other Lodges, making itself a mother Lodge. That's the way the Berlin lodges, Three Globes, and Royal York, became Grand Lodges. "t
~ ~‑)I. Same.‑Lodges without a warrant. ‑ Let us now investigate how far truth and falsehood commingle in the idea that there can be no lawful Lodge without "the Grand Master's warrant." It will be remembered that the first suggestion that any authority from a Grand Master was requisite occurred in a regulation ‑ the majority of whose companions have since been repealed, ‑approved in 1721 by a Grand Lodge which at no time in its existence ever claimed jurisdiction over any Masons except those of its own Lodges; and originally applied only to Lodges in London and Westminster; ii that that regulation did not profess to brand, as "clandestine," Masons made in non‑regular Lodges; that, even in its origiual tdild form, the regulation was a "usurpation of the inherent right of Masons, when in sufficient numbers, to meet and form a Lodge at their pleasure;"** and that that "usurpation" or infringement of their inherent right was steadily resisted, from the time of its inception, by large numbers of Masons.‑tt We thus see that the importance of a warrant or charter arose from the gradual acceptance of what was originally not a law of the Masonic Institution, but a mere grand lodge regulation; and that while we, as members of Grand Lodges whose dignity the regulation tends to enhance; as witnesses of the wisdom and utility of the regulation itself; and as Masons mindful of the installation charges, are bound, at the end of the nineteenth century, to uphold that regulation‑in its true meaning‑in. so far as our obligation to the higher la‑v of the Institution itself will pormit:f t yet in sitting in judgment on the acts of brethren of a
The United States, Canada and Liberia.
JO]LD, 1, 1.
See Appendix 12, post.
~l See the quotation from G. W. SPETH in ~ 42, ante, and see also ~ 22 ante and Appendix 16 post. In 1724 it was agreed by the Grand Lodge, "That if any brethren shall meet Irregularly and make Masons at any place within ten miles of London, the persons present at th6 making (the New Brethren Excepted) sliall not be admitted" into a regular Lodge, until after stibrnission.‑GO(jl,D, History, iii, 129.
~:* GE:ORGE W. SPETH, An English View of Freemasonry in America, 8.
ft See ~, 23, ante.
1,1 In our, doubtless, commendable, eflorts, through a century and a half, to strengthen the Grand Lodge System, we seem to have almost forgotten, at times, that the Grand Lodge is but a means to an end; and that the real Institution is that Universal Fraternity GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
65
previous century we are justified in assigning to the regulation, now so much respected, no greater authority than it had achieved for itse~f at the _period to which our inquiry relates. I shall now undertake to show, by citing a few typical instances out of hundreds that occurred, that at the time the Lodges were formed which received their authority from PRINcz HALL the new doctrine that authority from a Grand Master or Grand Lodge was necessary to the formation of a new Lodge, although rapidly winning its way, had not yet obtained general acceptance in practice; but, on the contrary, the approval of any well‑established body of Masons was treated as sufficient authority for forming a new Lodge; or, as one of our safest guides has expressed it, that "throughout the last century and well into this, lodges have been formed by British Masons without the previous consent or authority of Grand Lodge or the Grand Master, * * * neither have the founders of such lodges ever been censured for their irregularity of conduct."* and that, as our own Masonic descent is from such bodies, we are not in a position to cast a stone at a negro Mason whose Masonic pedigree is similar,‑even if‑ there were any sufficient reason for wisbing to do so.
152. Same.‑! Illustrations.‑] will not pause to speak of Lodges like those at Kilwinning, f Kelso, Melroset and Gateshead~i which, formed before the Grand Lodge system, existed independent of it for long periods. of time or, like the Lodge at Alnwick,** never submitted to it; or those, like No. 54 at Great Earl street, Seven Dials, f f and the Lodge of Felicity, now No. 58, tt which worked but briefly and at an early day before being "regularized;" orthorpe like the Lodgeat Hexham, of whom little more is known than that they existed after 1717 and never submitted to the Grand Lodge; or Lodges, like those already mentioned, Ilil which continued to flourish and be recognized after being erased from the Grand Lodge roll; or Lodges like Port Royal Kilwinning Cross Lodge and Cabin Point Royal Arch Lodge, whose origin no man knoweth, but from which perhaps half the Grand Lodges of the United States are descended, *** but
which has existed, and could exist again, without Grand Lodges or Grand Masters. "It wad frac monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion," if we could realize oftener and more distinctly that it is iititiation ii~ this immemorial Fleater?tity, and not the conformity ofhis initiation to some latter‑day rule of convenience, that mak" a man our brothel*. On this "hang all the law and the prophets." "He that hath an ear, let him bear." * G. W. SpuTH, An English View of Freemasonry in America, 3.
tsee ~50, ante.
t~ Lodge Kelso did not affiliate with the Grand Lodge of Scotland until 1754; nor Lodge Melrose St. John, till 1891.‑GOULD, Ars q. C~, vi., 70 li The Lodge of Industry, at Gatesbead, which was regularized in 1735, seems to have worked at Swalwell from 1717‑perhaps from 1690.
**The l~odge at Alnwick, 1701‑1757, never joined any Grand Lodge.
ftthis Lodge joined the Grand Lodge in 1728, but had been "working previously.,' 11 Petitioned Grand Lodge, 1735‑Ars. Q. C., v., 106. 11 ~l See note u D der ~ 45, ante.
*** The cdnjectures of DovE, GOULD, DuummoND and others as to the origin of these Virginia Lodges are only conjectures. Not improbably their origin was like that of Freder‑5
~jw 66
REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
will pass to particular instances. My first relate to a time when the regulation requiring " the Grand Master's warrant " was new and fresh in memory: my later ones to a time when its existence was known the world over.
(1.) The first whose disregard of the new regulation I note, was no less a person than the celebrated DR. WILLIAM STUKELEY, thought by some ‑ but not by me ‑ to have been the first person initiated in London after the revival of 1717. Says our best authority: *
" In June, 1726, Stukeley 'retired to Grantham,'at which place, he tells us,‑ 'I set up a Lodg of freemasons, wh lasted all the time I lived there., This was until February, 1730, when he removed to Stamford.
"'rhe Lodge at Grantham never appeared on the roll of the Grand Lodge, which it would have done, I think, had the proceedings of that body [the G. L.] been viewed with favour by the doctor [Stukeley.] Under the circumstances, therefore, it seems to point out, firstly, that independent Lodges continued to organize themselves for many years after the formation of a Grand Lodge (of which there is ample corroboration); and secondly," etc.
(2.) April 17, 1728, in the Grand Lodge, a letter being read from brethren in Madrid stating thai the Duke Of WHARTON‑who had been Grand, Master 1722‑3 but was not then an officer of the Grand Lodge‑had assumed to act as a " Second Deputy " and had formed them into a Lodge, and that they had made three Masons,‑
,I The Grand Lodge drank prosperity to the Brethren of the Lodge at Madrid t and desired the Grand Master to write them word of their being acknowledged and received as Brethren." t (3.) GOULD 11 finds that the New World did not differ from the Old:‑
" Brethren [in Scotland] united to form Lodges in neighborhoods where there were fair chances of their continuance, and such assemblies, though without any other sanction**, were not styled irregular when the Grand Lodge of Scotland was erected in 1736. * * *
" It is evident that the brethren who left the Old World and brought to their new homes a knowledge of the Craft, were as much within their rights in holding Lodges in Philadelphiaff, Portsmouth (New Hampshire), and elsewhere in America, as those who assembled in like manner in England and Scotland; and just as in the latter countries the members of
icksburg Lodge‑illustration (8) in our text. The Grand Lodge of Washington was formed by Lodges chartered by the G. L. of Oregon; the latter, in part by Lodges chartered by the G. L. of California; the latter, in part by Lodges sprung from the G. L. of the District of Columbia; the latter, in part by Lodges chartered by the G. L, of Virginia; and these two Lodges, of unknown origin, assisted in establishing that illustrious mother of Grand Lodges.
*R. F. GOULD, Masonic Celebrities. No. 5.‑The Rev. William Stukeley, M. D.; A)‑s.
Q. C., vi, 143.
t Who will join me in drinking, " Prosperity to the Brethren of the Lodge " formed by "Second Deputy" PRINCE HALL! Do not all speak atonce.
I Minutes of the Grand Lodge; quoted by SADLER, Jfasonic Facts attd FVctions, 3,3.
~l History, iv, 240.
In a Kingdom where there had been Mother Lodges from time immemorial, ivhose sanction" was sought by some other Lodges.‑w. n. u.
tt All the early, "Modern" Lodges in Philadelphia ‑ the Lodges to which BEN.JAMIN FRANKLIN belonged, and of which he was Grand Master ‑ were of this class; ‑ they had no " warrant" of any kind.‑W. H. t.
GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
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such Lodges were accepted as petitioners for written Constitutions without their legal status as Masons being demurred to, so we shall find that the Boston authorities raised no objection to the Masonic regularity of the Portsmouth brethren, but granted their request for a warrant in 1736. We have already seen that in 1734 the Prov. G. M. of New England was requested to confirm* Dr. Franklin and others in their privileges in Pennsylvania‑thus completing the parallel.
,In those early days a piece of paper or parchment, containing a written or printed authority for certain brethren and their successors to meet as a Lodge, was not held in the superstitious reverence with which it afterwards became regarded. The old customs wfre gradually being supplanted by the new, but the former evinced great tenacity of existence in some instances, especially in the British colonies, where they appear to have remained for the longest period of time unmodified.
,,The Fraternity there [in Philadelphia, in these unchartered Lodges] must be hold to have been as much and as legally a Grand Lodge as that of '‑All England at York.' "
1 53. More illustrations. ‑(4.) Our next illustration as strikingly resembles the case of the negro Masons as if the one had been copied from the other. In his brilliant and instructive account of the English Lodge at Bordeaux, f after mentioning that its first meeting was held Sunday, April 27, 1732, under the presidency of a Bro. MARTIN KFLLY whose identity has eluded research; that by 1737 it was in a prosperous condition; and that it still exists, Bro. SPETH goes on to say
,,The English Lodge quickly assumed the right to found other Lodges, and thus acquired the position of a Mother Lodge. In a similar way have arisen more than one Continental Grand Lodge; for instance, the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes at Berlin. The English Lodge at Bordeaux never seems however to have progressed beyond the status of a Mother Lodge, but in this character it proved very active. * * * None of the Lodges created by the Anglaise were ever reported to England, neither does the Lodge seem to have acted on behalf of the Grand Lodge of England : it was simply a Lodge, established so far as we know, without the knowledge ol‑ concurrence of the Grand Lodge of England, by Englishmen resident at Bordeaux, and which assumed the authority to create similar Lodges. Its first creation was the Loge Fransaise of Bordeaux, on the 13th December, 1740. These two titles prove to my mind that the Loge L'Anglaise did not intend to imply by its designation that it was under the rule of England, but simply that it was comprised mainly of Englishmen. whereas the Loge Franqaise was intended for Frenchmen. On the ist February, 1765, this latter Lodge affiliated with the Grand Lodge of France, then become more active in the Provinces, and chaiilred its name to La Fran ~aise ~lue Ecossaise. We shall hear a good deal about this Lodge. ‑,rhe other Lodges which are known to have been created by L'Anglaise are two at Brest in 1746 : one each at Limoges in 1751, at Pons in 1754, at Cayenne in 1755, at Cognac in 1760, and at P6rigueux and New Orleans in 1765. Two Lodges of which we shall hear more are the Harr,aonie at Bordeaux, most likely a daughter of l,'Anglaise, although this is not certain,‑from which sprung in 1746 the Amiti6. The above list must be very incomplete, for the Lodge, in a letter of the 2nd August, 1785, to the Grand Lodge of England claims to have constituted fortytwo Lodges, and in another " more than fifty," which may be an exagger‑
* The Pennsylvania view has always been that this request was not granted, but was practically withdrawn. The Massachusetts view, that it was granted.‑W. H. 1'.
t Ars Q. C., xii, 6.
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REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
ation, but certainly points to more than the ten or eleven mentioned above."
To the same authority we are indebted for the information that this Lodge resisted the authority of the Grand Lodge of France; that in 1766, "left almost isolated and without moral support," by its daughter Lodges, many of whom deserted to the enemy, it "appears to have for the first time bethought itself of its English origin". and took a warrant from the Grand Lodge of England, " under the No. 363, and with a note in our registers to the effect that the Lodge bad existed since 1732 "; that later the members became divided into two factions, one of which succeeded in getting the Lodge to vote in 1774 " that it would cease all correspondence with the Grand Lodge of England", and, in 1777‑8 to apply to come into either " affiliation " or " aggregation " with the Grand Orient of France; that in 1781 it was "formally installed as a Lodge in Correspondences with the Grand Orient; that in England it was renumbered, as 239 in 1780, 240 in 1781 and 204 in 1792 *‑which changes were unknown to the Lodge in 1802 ; that in 1782 the other faction got control of the Lodge, asserted its connection with England, broke with the Grand Orient, resumed correspondence with the Grand Secretary at London and waged war against the Grand Orient; that in 1802, like African Lodge tn 1824, it tried to obtain authority from England to work "high degrees " f ; that, although‑like African Lodge and so many others‑it had been dropped from the English register in 1813, waich it did not hear of till l8‑Z8, after the war in 1816, it‑again like African Lodge‑undertook to resume correspondence with England; but, in spite of an even pathetic letter, in which it recites the "painful but honourable struggle which we sustained with the G. 0. of France "‑reminding us of the equally "painful but honourable struggle " of the negro Masons‑" at a period when resistance was counted a crime, and passive obedience a duty ", it never succeeded in again obtaining English registration; that the Lodge has never relinquished its last English number, " but its title is to‑day 'La Loge Anglais No. 204'; " and many other interesting particulars. t
I must leave it to the reader to observe the many striking coincidences between this history and that of the negro Masons;‑reniarking only that, while the Lodge 1',4nglaise had far less authority for its original existence than the Lodges which PRINCE HALL founded in Philadelphia and Providence; in its development into a Mother Lodge; its erasure from the roll; its long existence among a people of another race; and its
* Its number had been changed to 298 in 1770.‑GoULD, Four Old Lodges, 64.
t See ~ 46, antc.
~ Among these I count the fact, which will amuse our Martiiiist friends, that in 1764 this Lodge refused admittance to a " foreign ofricer " because he had visited " the clandestine Lodge of MARTINEZ PASCALIS "in Bordeaux! This reminds us to ask those who insist on judging 18th century Masonry by 19th century usages, Are you going to brand as spurious all the Masonry that sprang from PAS6ALis and ST. MARTIN? And, if they answer" Yes," Do you know where ALBERT PIKE got the greater part of the contents of "Morals and Dogma" ? GRAND LODGE OF WASHINGTON.
69
long war with the supreme Masonic authority of that race, as well as in many minor particulars, the parallel between it and African Lodge and its offspring is well‑nigh perfect. Yet what Mason in the world‑before French Masonry abandoned a believe in God‑would deny the Masonry of the Loge 'l Anglaise, at any stage of its existencey
~ 54. More illustrations.‑(5) For our next example we are indebted to one of the older historians of Masonry in the northern kingdom.*
In 1747 a petition was presented to the Grand Lodge of Scotland stating that as "Alexander Drummond, late Master of the Lodge Greenock Kilwinning, and Past Provincial Grand Master of the West of Scotland, had taken up his residence at Alexandretta in Turkey, and desired to propagate the art and science of Masonry in those parts of the world, where he had already erected several Lodges," it was prayed that he might have a "Provincial Commission." The prayer was granted, "with full power to the said Alexander Drummond, and any other whom he might nominate, to constitute Lodges," etc.
(6). We have already seen ho ' w the "Ancient" Grand Lodge of Eng land was formed in 1751t‑exactly as the first Afrii2an Grand Lodge was formed in 1808, except that the former was organized by an "assembly" (that is, mass meeting of members) of five or six Lodges, none of which had warrants; while the latter was organized by representatives of three Lodges, one of which had a regular warrant and the other two de facto warrants. To illustrate how our ancient brethren believed irregularities in these petty matters of form and administration might be cured, I cite a note dated 5 Feb. 1752,t on the minute book of the "Ancients," that at this "General Assembly of Ancient Masons" of July 17, 1751, already mentioned, "an order was made" that "the Masters of Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 were authorized to grant Dispensations & Warrants & to act as Grand Master." Again, we learn from an entry made by DERMOTT in Morgan's Register 11 under date 14 Sept., 1752, that "whereas several of the Lodges have congregated and made Masons without any Warrant (not with a desire of Acting wrong, but thro: the Necessity above men tioned), "‑namely, the fact that, as yet, the "Ancients" had no Grand Master,‑to "Rectify" this, the Grand Committee provided that the Grand Secretary should "write Warrants," which were to be presented to the Grand Master for signature as soon as they should "arrive at the Great happiness" of having such an officer. This is practically what the Degro Masons also did.
(7.) As our next illustration, I desire simply to refer to the account, already giveD,** of the organization of St. Andrew's Lodge, Boston; whose
* LAuRiE, History of Free Masonry and The Grand Lodge of Scotland (Edinburg: 1859), 107.
t See g 24, aitte.
t Quoted in Ars Q. C., v, 166 et seq.; and by GOULD, ffistory, iii, 190.
11 Quoted by JOHN LANE, Ars Q. C., viii, 2b5; and by SADLER, illa8ottic Facts and Fictio?18, 70. "Morgan's Register," mentioned by GOULD in a note (History, iii, 187), long lost, was discovered by SADLER and announced to the world by LANE, in 1885.
**In ?. 28, ante.
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REPORT ON CORRESPONDENCE.
"early proceedings," as GOULD Says,* "were indeed as irregular as it is possible to conceive";‑and yet from the men whom she initiated during those "early proceedings", you and I derive our Masonry.
(8.) In his History of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, Brother JOHN DOVE says:f
"I'rom facts which reached us through persons, there can be very little doubt that occasional Lodges were hold and degrees conferred without Warrant, before and subsequent to this date [1733], at many places in Virginia, under the immemorial usage of the Ancient Grand Lodge at York.
"We have also evidence from the records of Falmouth Lodge, in Stafford County, that in the absence of a Warrant from any Grand Lodge, the competent number of Master Masons being met and agreed, acted under this immemorial usage, only asking the sanction oft the nearest Lodge in writing; and which document operated as their Warrant, as will be seen by the records of Fredericksburg lodge, No. 4, in granting this privilege to the Masons in Falmouth. We are also justified in inferring that the Military Traveling Lodges may have in many instances imparted the Degrees of Masonry to persons of respectability residing at or near their place of encampment, and on leaving gave them a Warrant to confer these Degrees on others, in lieu of a certificate of enrolment.,' ,
At the formation of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, this Fredericksburg Lodge was not able to claim a chartered existence prior to July 21, 1758; 11 yet before that it had made GEORGE WASHINGTON amason in 1752, and had empowered five brethren to form Botetourt Lodge at Gloucester Court House. This Botetourt Lodge, which had no other warrant until 1773, joined in forming the Grand Lodge of Virginia, from which the Grand Lodge of Washington is descended.
