Formation of A Political Party
Opposition to Masonry was taken up by the churches as a sort of religious crusade, and it also became a local political issue in Western New York, where, early in 1827, the citizens in many mass meetings resolved to support no Mason for public office.
In New York at this time the faction supporting President John Quincy Adams, called "Adams men," or the "Anti-Jackson" faction, were a very feeble organization, and shrewd political leaders at once determined to utilize the strong anti-Masonic feeling in creating a new and vigorous party to oppose the rising Jacksonian Democracy. In this effort they were aided by the fact that Andrew Jackson was a high-ranking Mason and frequently spoke in praise of the Order. The alleged remark of political organizer Thurlow Weed, that a corpse found floating in the Niagara River was "a good enough Morgan" until after the election, summarized the value of the crime for the opponents of Jackson. In the elections of 1828 the new party proved unexpectedly strong, and after this year it became the main opposition party in New York. In 1829 it broadened its issues base when it became a champion of internal improvements and of the protective tariff. The party published 35 weekly newspapers in New York. Soon one became preeminent, the Albany Journal, edited by Thurlow Weed. The newspapers reveled in partisanship. One brief Albany Journal paragraph on Martin Van Buren included the words "dangerous," "demagogue," "corrupt," "degrade," "pervert," "prostitute," "debauch" and "cursed."
Read more about this topic: Anti-Masonic Party
Famous quotes containing the words formation of a, formation of, formation, political and/or party:
“The formation of an oppositional world view is necessary for feminist struggle. This means that the world we have most intimately known, the world in which we feel “safe” ... must be radically changed. Perhaps it is the knowledge that everyone must change, not just those we label enemies or oppressors, that has so far served to check our revolutionary impulses.”
—Bell (c. 1955)
“That for which Paul lived and died so gloriously; that for which Jesus gave himself to be crucified; the end that animated the thousand martyrs and heroes who have followed his steps, was to redeem us from a formal religion, and teach us to seek our well-being in the formation of the soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“Almost all scholarly research carries practical and political implications. Better that we should spell these out ourselves than leave that task to people with a vested interest in stressing only some of the implications and falsifying others. The idea that academics should remain “above the fray” only gives ideologues license to misuse our work.”
—Stephanie Coontz (b. 1944)
“Though the Jazz Age continued it became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children’s party taken over by the elders.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)