ADAMS, John Quincy (1767-1848). Autograph letter signed (''J.Q. Adams'') to Stephen Bates, Quincy, 22 August 1831.

ADAMS, John Quincy (1767-1848). Autograph letter signed ("J.Q. Adams") to Stephen Bates, Quincy, 22 August 1831.
Four pages, 240 x 190mm, matted and framed to show both rector and verso (not examined out of frame).

On the eve of the 1831 National Anti-Masonic Convention, John Quincy Adams vehemently refutes the suggestion that his father was ever a member or supporter of Masonry. A candid, lengthy, and animated letter written at the height of the anti-Masonic movement that gripped the country in the wake of the disappearance of William Morgan, who had threatened to publish Masonic secrets in 1826. Here, Adams takes issue with a claim that his father was a member of the order, a claim based upon a laudatory letter the elder Adams wrote to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, characterizing it rather as a polite and complimentary address in which he categorically stated that "he had never been initiated in the Order. He therefore knew nothing of their Secrets – their Oaths – nor their Penalties." While Adams admitted his father "had known the love of the fine arts, the delight in hospitality, and the devotion to humanity of the Masonic Fraternity", it was in large part because he found them to be "excellent men" many of whom he counted as "intimate friends". But, Adams asserted, "To speak of the Masonic Institution as favorable to the support of civil authority at this day and in this country, would be a mockery, mockery of the common sense and sensibility of mankind." Adams also objected to Masonry's use of Washington's name: "The use of the name Washington to give an odour of sanctity to the institution as it now stands exposed to the world, is in my opinion as unwarrantable as that of my father's name."

Pre-Lot Text
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