…Party in American Politics
"Samuel D. Greene came to Batavia, New York, in the 1820s to open a tavern. As he got to know the town, Greene realized that both his deacon and his doctor were Freemasons, and soon enough, a friend invited him to join the secretive fraternal organization. "Little did I dream," Greene would later recall in his 1870 memoir, The Broken Seal; Or, Personal Reminiscences of the Morgan Abduction and Murder, that only months after joining up, he would witness events "which would fill the whole land with intense excitement, moral and political, and would bring the institution itself of Masonry almost to the verge of destruction." Indeed, it's not a stretch to say that in the fall of 1826, Freemason Lodge 433 changed the course of American history entirely.
Freemasonry was established early in the Thirteen Colonies and soon became an integral part of American upper-class society. Though the colonists rejected the British system of aristocracy that valued inheritance over merit, men of stature still sought a means of displaying their wealth and influence. Masonry, with its secret oaths and public pageantry, offered them an avenue to do that: Not only were Masonic lodges open only to the connected, but their members also proudly displayed their status through elaborate parades, marching in white gloves, finely embroidered aprons and other status symbols…"
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