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whom, of good repute in society, have sworn to facts, which in the opinion of by-standers, were not credited by a single one of the hundreds of persons who were present. It is believed that grand juries, a majority of whom were masons, have omitted to find bills of indictment when there was proof before them of outrages, not surpassed in grossness and indecency, by any committed in the country since its first settlement. Those outrages were committed upon a mason, who had been in the daily habit of exposing in lectures, what were once called the secrets of masonry. Grand jurymen have said while assembled for the discharge of their duties, and when it was apprehended their masonic brethren would be implicated, we must not let our brethren suffer." In a case of recent occurrence, a defendant who had been sued by a mason, not willing to have his case tried by masonic jurymen, challenged them; stating to the court his readiness to prove the character of the masonic oaths, and to show that the obligations assumed by them were of a description, unfitting them to sit in judgment between the parties; and of such a nature as to disqualify them in point of law. With the assent of the circuit judge, the masonic jurymen left the box, and the trial proceeded. The counsel for the defendant, entertained no doubt, upon the law and the facts he could prove, that the challanges were well taken.

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The committee might multiply cases of this description, but they are omitted for others of more public notoriety, and tending to the same point. The case of Col. King, is one fully known to the public, and partly from information contained in his newspaper communications. The committee therefore recur to it, the more readily, but without any intention of expressing an opinion of his innocence or guilt. He had been suspected of having had a concern in some of the transactions affecting William Morgan. He went to Washington in the fall or winter of 1826-7; applied for public employment, and obtained, with the assistance of some of his masonic friends, the place of Sutler to the United States' troops in the territory of Arkansas. The suspicions resting upon the public mind in regard to him increased and Messrs. Garlinghouse and Bates were despatched by the Gover

nor of this State for the purpose of arresting him, and perhaps some others who were supposed to be fugitives from justice. They ascertained that King was at cantonment Towson, and procured an order from the Secretary of War, to the commander to surrender him forthwith.

The fruit of this sovereign exercise of the State and United States power, in procuring the return of this humble sutler to answer in the courts of this State for the misdemeanors charged upon him, was precisely such as might have been anticipated upon the supposition that the obligations of masons to each other, are such as they undoubtedly must be, upon the proof that has been presented to the public. Bound to protect each other by the tenor of obligations in their view of higher import than those they owe to the State or country which gives them protection, -the officer of the Fort, instead of obeying the order of the Secretary of War, notified King of his danger; and Garlinghouse and Bates soon found by the escape of King, that their labors, arduous as they had been, were defeated by the machinations of masonry.

The annals of criminal jurisprudence furnish no parallel in many respects to the case of William Morgan. The majesty of the laws and the powers of masonry have been brought into conflict. What may be the result of the mighty struggle none can tell. But the events of the two last years during which the conflict has been maintained, induce the belief that masonry will be victorious. The history of Morgan's fate is short and simple: On the 11th day of September, 1826, he was taken by several masons in broad day, by force, from the village of Batavia to Canandaigua, a distance of 50 miles, and there upon a process originated for the occasion, confined in jail. While on his way from Batavia, one of his kidnappers who had him in charge, said with an oath, Morgan should not be taken from him alive. After a short confinement in the prison at Canandaigua, he was taken out on Sunday the 12th, at evening, and amidst his distressing cries of murder, was forced into a post coach. He was then driven through a densely populated country, 110 miles to the United States Fort, on the Niagara river, and there confined. The horses and coaches used in conveying him from Canandaigua, were owned or procured by ma

sons.

And the owner of a livery stable kept at Rochester, who at that time and now is a royal arch mason, actually charged the Grand Chapter for the use of his coaches and horses to Lewiston. Pains were taken to obtain masonic drivers. The last driver, however, accidentally was not a mason. It was Corydon Fox. He drove the prisoner, attended by three masons to the graveyard, about 80 rods distant from the Fort, and was directed to halt. The party dismounted, and Fox was told to return to Lewiston. This was in the night time. Shortly after Fox made some observations about his trip to the Fort, which excited fears in the minds of the brotherhood, and within a short period, a special lodge was called, and Fox was initiated as a member of it. An unusual number of masons were at Lewiston, and in the vicinity of the Fort, during the three or four days of Morgan's confinement there, and nightly visited the Fort. The sufferings of Morgan were probably terminated on the night of the 18th of September, 1826.

Morgan was fifty years old; in point of talents and manners was above mediocrity-had fought in the defence his country at the battle of New-Orleans, and immediately preceding his abduction from Batavia had unfortunately for himself and family been concerned in writing a book upon masonry, disclosing its usages, oaths and obligations.

It has been fully established by the testimony in the various trials that have been had, that a great number of masons have been directly or indirectly concerned in the abduction and subsequent fate of Morgan. But notwithstanding the publicity of this transaction arising from the great number necessarily concerned in it-notwithstanding the thousands of dollars offered as rewards by the executive of this State, as well as the governor of Canada, to those who would give information of his fate, and the thousands contributed and expended by humane and patriotic citizens to ferret out the iniquity; and notwithstanding too, a commissioner has been sent by the legislature, to add his talents and industry to that of the courts in the country, still no record tells us whose hands have been stained with the blood of this masonic victim.

The committee assume the fact, that the life of Mor

gan has been destroyed; they are compelled to do so, from the irresistible weight of circumstances tending to fortify that conviction. The love of gold, incited by the great rewards which have been offered; the love of character stimulating individuals implicated, and indeed the fair fame of whole classes of men reproachfully assailed; the fear of punishment operating on the agents more immediately concerned; and in fact every consideration, that should influence men, pressed them to a re-deliverance of Morgan to his friends and to society, if it had been possible for them to do so. The people of the western counties, fully aware of the leading circumstances of this transaction, and having had more than two years for inquiry and reflection, have arrived to the decision with unexampled unanimity, that this man has become a victim and a sacrifice.

It is conceded that the facts herein detailed to show the interference of masonry in the administration of justice, come chiefly under the head of circumstantial evidence of its weight and conclusiveness, the Senate will judge; but it is entirely certain that it fully justifies the opinion of the commissioner, Daniel Moseley, Esq., expressed in a paragraph of his report to the Senate, in which he states that, "as to his fate subsequently thereto, it is not yet developed, nor can it be anticipated with much confidence, to be judicially determined by any tribunal over which men have control."

The committee will now proceed to remark upon other evidence which has come to their knowledge, in reference to the subject before them, of a different but highly alarming character, and calculated more directly to impress upon the Senate the necessity of ulterior legislation. Many masons at the west, whose feelings had been aroused by the enormities of the institution committed in that quarter, learned from witnessing the temper of the people, that they should be protected in any infractions of its laws. They were satisfied beyond controversy, that the strange oaths of an institution, governed by iniquitous principles, and used for evil, and sometimes for murderous purposes, ought in no respect to bind the consciences or conduct of those, who had imprudently taken them. They saw the absurdity of supposing that any human

being could be bound by an oath appealing to the Supreme Being, when that very oath enjoined an obligation to do that, which is in opposition to the laws of both God and man. They finally assembled at Le Roy in convention, on the 19th of February, 1828, and frankly and truly stated to the world, the substance of the masonic oaths and obligations.

Several of those masons who have seceded from the institution, are personally known to a majority of the committee, and they deem it proper to assure the Senate, that they are men of standing in the community, whose characters for veracity are beyond the reach of calumny.

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In the remarks which His Excellency has been pleased to make, in his message to the legislature, in regard to the abduction of William Morgan, and the excited state of public feeling consequent upon it, the committee have observed, not without sensibility, that just appreciation of the purity and intelligence of the western population of the State, which distinctly commands our acknowledgments. This merited eulogium from so high a source, is doubly welcome at a period when the opposers of masonry at the west have been nearly overwhelmed by the torrent of misrepresentation, reproach, and ridicule, heaped upon them without measure, by the friends of that institution, in all parts of the State and country. In this condition they have sustained themselves, and triumphantly too, by the force of their own moral feeling, and without the ordinary means of defence. The public press, that mighty engine for good or for evil, has been, with a few most honorable exceptions, as silent as the grave. This self proclaimed sentinel of freedom, has felt the force of masonic influence, or has been smitten with the rod of its power. His Excellency further observes in that part of the message referred to the committee, and in relation to the public feeling aroused at the west, that "it would not be extraordinary if attempts should be made to pervert this honest indignation of the people to selfish and sinister purposes. But the character of those who really feel what they profess upon this subject, affords the best security that the success of such unworthy schemes, cannot be great, or of long duration."

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