The Freemason Movement And Its Role Among Early American Political Leadership

Ricardo Batista

Hist113

Professor Alnutt

The Freemason Movement and Its Role among Early American Political Leadership

The Freemason movement traces its origin to the local fraternities of stonemasons (Rummel). The members of the organization are known as masons. The Masonic lodge is the basic organizational unit of freemasonry. The role of freemasons in the American Revolution was that of the destruction of the traditional social and political order. This was based on authoritarian philosophy and characterized by inequality and privilege. In the ancient regime, the church and the state mutually supported each in maintaining their respective places of predominance and privilege.

After the end of the victorious American Revolution, Masonic philosophy

There is a school of thought that tends to assume that government may have been established based on some building activity by some community of men. Ancient ruins discovered indicate that such buildings could not have been erected without a highly developed system of government. This is because such architecture requires high levels of control and coordination to put up. This is also because it required a highly developed corporate structure based on written charters and constitutions. Early British Masonic manuscripts contain three classes of material, which include legends of the early craft, regulations and Masonic ceremonies. In the regulations bit, there are early codes of ethics that apply to ethics, relations between master and apprentice, duties of fellows, payments and moral behavior of masons. The Masonic artisans bound themselves to their craft governed by an oath of obedience. This is similar to modern day citizens who bind himself to his civil

Anderson’s constitution conformed perfectly to Masonic ideas of government. In America, Benjamin Franklin issued a reprint of Anderson’s constitution at Philadelphia for use of American Masons. The government established for the Masonic fraternity adopted a federal system. The principle of representative government was adopted in article 10. The principle of electing officers and providing rudimentary means of protecting the ballot and elections from undue influence was established in the grand lodge. Section 3 article 11 established the term of office of the grand officers. Section 2 article 24 established the principle that fiscal agents are responsible to the legislative body. It is generally agreed that among American historians that had Franklin’s Albany plan been adopted, the American Revolution might never have occurred. The outbreak of the revolution brought the collapse of royal governments in the