The Massachusetts spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1831-1858, 1832-12-05
From the .Neu York Commercial advertiser.
LETTERS FROM JOHN QUINCY
ADAMS.-No.2 2.
Quincy, August 90, 1892.

William L. Stone. Esq, .Ne,c York:
DEAR SIR,-Long, and fear. tedious as
you have founu my last letter, | was con-
PEELED by reluctance a: making it longer,
to compress the observations IN II upon the
intrinsic nature of the Masonic OdthS, Obi
cations, and Penalties, within compass
insufficient to disclose my opinion, and the
reasons upon which it is founded.
had said to you that the institution of
Free Masonry was Uicious, in its f1rst step,
the initiation Oath, Obligation and Penalty
of the entered apprentice. 70 sustain this
opinion ! assigned to you five reasons
Because they were:
/. Contrary TO the Laws of the Land
Extra judicially taken and administered.
2. In violation of the positive precept OF
Jesus Christ.
g. A pledge 20 keep underlined Secrets.
the Swearer being ignorant of their nature
4. A pledge to the penalty of death for
violations of the oath.
5. A pledge to mode of death, cruel,
unusual, unfit for utterance from human
lips.
fin the statement of these five oJec-
tions, upon principles IF Law, Religion,
and Morals, there be any thing unsound,
invite you to point il ont. But if you con-
test either of my positions, | must intreat
you not to trauel out o. the record.
| might ask you. not TO consider it refu-
tation of either of these reasons, to say that
you and all other honest and honorable Ma
sons, have never so understood or practised
upon this Oath, Obligation, and Penalty.
The inquiry is not what your practice. or
that of others has been, but what IS the OBJ
lnatinn itc Oath nd its Penalty.
I must request of you to give me no en-
plantation, of this Oath, Obligation and
Penalty, directly contrary to their unequiv-
ocal import. That you will not explain
black by saying that it means achite, or even
by alleging that Won so understand it. /
particularly beg not TO be told that honora-
BILE, intelligent and virtnous men, George
Washington and Joseph Warren, for exam
pie, understood that the penalty of death for
Treachery, meant the death of martyrdom
Cor fidelity.
would willingly be spared the necessity
of replying to the averment that the pat
terms of honor and virtue whom ] have just
named with long catalogue of such men
hare taken this Oath, and bound themselves
to this Obligation, under this penalty. For
might deem it proper TO inquire, whether
Oath, TO such Obligation, under such pen
atty, is not among the sins of the lnstl-
tuition.
l must ask you to suppose that such an
Intuition had never existed-that IT were
now to be formed, and that you were one
of ten or twenty, virtuous and intelligent
men, about to found a charitable, and con-
visial secret Association. Suppose a Com
mittee of such meeting appointed to draw
up Constitution for the Society. should re-
port the entered Apprentices Oath, Obli-
cation and Penalty, as a form of initiation
for the admission of Members. l do not
ask you whether you would vote for the ac-
ceptance of the Report but what would you
think of the Reporters?
] consider this as the true and only Test,
of the inherent and essential character OF
Masonry, and it was under this conviction,
that told you that the entered Apprentices
Oath was sufficient TO settle in my mind the
immoral character of the Institution.
1t is perhaps too much to ask of you, an
explicit assent to these positions, because
you may consider it an acknowledgment OF
error. Bot this is the first and fundamental
consideration from which | draw the con-
clusion that Masonry ought for ever to be
abolished. 1t is wrong-essentialiy wrong
"a seed of evil, which can never produce
any good. 1t may perish in the ground
1t may never rise to bear fruit; but what
ever fruit it does bear, must be rank poison
1t can never prove blessing, but by its
barrenness.
My objections to this seminal principle Of
Masonry, apply in all their force to the sin
gle Obligation. the form of which is given
in the Appendix to your Volume, p. 3,
where it is stated 10 have been she only OBJ
legation, taken for all three degrees, so late
as $780, when only three degrees of Ma
sonry were known. The Oath is in fewer
words, but more comprehensive, for the OBJ
legation is to keep "the secrets or secrecy of
.Mqsons or Masonry" There is indeed
qualification in the promise not to write,
print, mark, &C., which seems to keep the
obligation within the verge of the Law.
For the promise is to reveal nothing where
by the Secret might he unlatefaily obtain
ed. The penalty is also death, not for con-
stancy, but for treachery, $50 that there
shall lie no resemblance of me among Ma
sons"
This oath, obligation and penalty, the
only one taken in all the degrees of Mason
~ known but one century ago, is the pro-
life Parent of all the degrees and all the
Oaths, Obligations and Penalties since in
vented, and of the whole progeny of crimes
descended from them. The natural and
unavoidable tendency of such an obliga-
ton, is the multiplication of its kind. This
tendency is among the most obvious causes
which have led to the Introduction of all
such oaths and obligations, by the civil, the
ecclesiastical, and the moral law. The OBJ
legation is to keep underlined secrets. AS
they are underlined in the obligation itself.
there is nothing in the Constitutions Of
Masonry to define them, OF to secure uni
fornity either of the secrets or Of the obi
cations. Every lodge may vary the So
crets, obligations, and penalties, and &C.
cordingly they have been SO varied, that
scarcely any two aIhering masons give the
same account of them. Almost the only
defence of Masonry, after the publication
of the Books of David Bernard and Aver,
ALLYN, consisted in efforts to dlscredit them
by denying that the Oaths, Obligations, anC
Penalties were truly stated by them. 4
secret Institution in three degrees; the Sc
cret of each degree being withheld fror
the members of the degrees inferior to il
is perpetual temptation to the initiated t
multiply the secrets and the degrees. Thu
it is that the Lodges have grown into Chap
ters-the Chapters into Encampments--th
Encampments into Consistories and s.
LONG ago as December, 1902, the Grand In
spectors of the United States of America
issued at Charleston, South Carolina, Cir
cular, announcing the existence and tn
names of thirty.three degrees of Masonry