agricultural, the manufacturing ask for protection, and it is granted. But what is accorded the working-man? Nothing. Yet who needs protection more? The price of labor is hourly going down because of the numbers thrown out of employment by labor-saving machinery. The cost of every article of consumption meantime is increased by taxation. "Does not the present system under such circumstances tend to increase the poverty of the poor and add to the riches of the rich?" Let us then be represented in the Legislature. Let us unite at the polls and give our votes to no candidate who is not pledged to support a rational system of education to be paid for out of the public funds, and to further a rightful protection of the laborer. At Wilmington, Delaware, was another Free Press likewise pledged "to be open to all for the free, chaste, and temperate discussion of subjects connected with the welfare of the human family." Its mission was to arouse the attention of working-men to the importance of co-operation in order to attain the rank and station in society to which they are justly entitled by virtue of industry, but from which they are excluded by want of a system of equal republican education." In New York city two new journals of a strongly agrarian sort began their career early in 1830. The one, The Friend of Equal Rights, demanded the equal division of property among the adults of a family at the age of maturity. The other, the Daily Sentinel, was devoted " to the interests of mechanics and other working-men," and at once became a political power. Indeed, it was started for the sole purpose of becoming such a power.

The late election in the city made it clear that the workingmen had, in the language of our time, bolted their party, had supported a ticket which was not put forward by any political faction, and had done so because they were discontented, and because they did not believe that their grievances would ever be removed by the men then in power. Six thousand votes cast solidly for or against any of the three parties then struggling for control in the city and State was too serious a matter to be treated lightly, and each of the three began to strive eagerly for the support of the working-man.

These three parties were the friends of Adams and Clay,

1830.

"WORKEYISM."

107

who called themselves the Administration party; the friends of Jackson and Van Buren, who were known as the regular Republicans, and the Antimasons. The Republicans, with a show of public virtue to which they could lay small claim, sought to destroy the union of Working-men and Free Enquirers, and, in the hope of doing so, raised the cry of Infidel party, and called on the priests and ministers of every sect to stop the new movement. They expressed horror at the communistic and agrarian doctrine of the so-called Mechanics' party and its organ, the Daily Sentinel, and summoned manufacturers, business men, land-owners, farmers, "bank gentlemen," and friends of law and order to rally to the support of popular government; they held ward meetings and county conventions, and under the name of mechanics and workingmen protested against the doctrines of Frances Wright and Robert Dale Owen. But all in vain.

From the city the movement spread to the State, where it was taken up by the leaders of every one of the innumerable knots of anti-regency, anti-Van Buren, Antimasonic and Clay Republicans. At the charter election in Albany, in the spring of 1830, the working-men united on a ticket and carried four wards out of five. In Troy the same course was pursued, and "not one regency man," it was boastfully said, was elected. For this they were ridiculed by the Republican or Jackson press as "workies," and were held up as Federalists, as "the old enemy in a new disguise," as men bent on the destruction of society. When the autumn came and the time approached for the election of State officials, a convention was called to meet at Salina and name working-men's candidates for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. Seventy delegates from thirteen counties responded, and put Erastus Root and Nathaniel Pitcher in the field, but neither would accept. To this convention New York city sent two delegations, one of which was rejected; whereupon it met and nominated a rival working-men's ticket, on which were the names Smith and Hertlett. Neither of these men were serious candidates. The strength and the weakness of the party was in New York city, where, in September, a meeting was held in the North American Hotel. All who were in favor of a republican sys

tem of education; all who approved of the abolition of imprisonment for debt; who believed in protection to American industries; who were against the auction system; against monopolies, regency dictation, and Tammany management; all who were ready to resist encroachments on the rights of the people, were bidden to come and frame a ticket for Congress and the Assembly. This was a serious movement, and to the ticket then and there made was given the name North American Clay Working-men's Ticket. The platform declared it to be the duty of the Government to extend the means of education as widely as the population; complained of the militia system as an unnecessary and useless oppression of the laboring man; described imprisonment for debt as a relic of barbarism, and called for its abolition; demanded the protection of American industry; and indorsed Francis. Granger, the Antimasonic candidate for Governor. In return for this the Antimasons a little later formally approved the municipal part of the North American Clay Working-men's Ticket, and the union between the two factions, denounced by the Jackson newspapers as the Paul Cliffords and Jonathan Wildes of politics and morality, was complete.

From this union of petty opposition, malcontents, and aspiring politicians-a union of what in derision was called Clayism, antimasonry, and Workeyism-two classes of wouldbe workmen were carefully excluded: those who followed Fanny Wright and those who followed a leader named Skidmore, editor of the Daily Sentinel. The Fanny Wright party -the Infidel party, as they were called by their opponents; the Liberal Working-men's party, as they named themselves— held a convention at Syracuse and nominated Ezekiel Williams for Governor. The Skidmore or Agrarian Working-men, or, as they wished to be known, the Poor Man's party, chose James Burt, a farmer, and Jonas Humbert, a baker, as candidates for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, and at the November election gave them one hundred and fifteen votes. Williams received two thousand. The Working-men and Antimasons polled nearly eight thousand votes.

*New York American, November 2, 1830.

1826.

WILLIAM MORGAN.

109

Of all the political parties that have ever attained importance in our country, the most remarkable was the Antimasonic. The events which brought it into existence, the rapidity with which it rose to power, the limitation of its power to the New England belt of emigration, its sudden decline, and the traces of its existence left on our political institutions, all combine to make its history of no common interest.

Some time in the spring of 1826 rumors were current in western New York that William Morgan, a stone-mason of Batavia, had written a book revealing the secrets of freemasonry, and that David C. Miller, a printer in that village, was putting the work to press. Morgan was a native of Culpeper County, Virginia, where he was born in 1776. By trade he was a stone-mason and bricklayer, and, having by industry and frugality saved a little money, he began business as a small shopkeeper at Richmond. Wearying of this, he moved to York, in Upper Canada, where, in 1821, he became a brewer, and was fast acquiring a competence when fire consumed his brewery, reduced him to poverty, and led him to remove first to Rochester and then to Batavia. There he once more became a bricklayer, was made a member of the lodge of Royal Arch Masons at Le Roy in 1825, and in 1826 signed a petition praying for the establishment of a chapter at Batavia. Before the petition was presented some objection was made to his signature, because if a charter were granted he would in consequence become a member of the new lodge, where his presence would be most undesirable. A second petition was therefore written and presented without the signature of Morgan, who, when the charter arrived and the chapter was organized, was deeply mortified to find that he was not a member. Then it is probable he determined to be avenged not only on his fellow-townsmen who had excluded him from their lodge, but on the whole masonic fraternity, and formed the plan of writing a book revealing the secrets of masonry. However this may be, it is certain that in March, 1826, a contract was made with David C. Miller, editor of the Republican Advocate, a weekly newspaper published at Batavia, binding Morgan to write a book which Miller was pledged to print and publish.

As reports of the intended publication passed from mouth to mouth the respectable part of the community gave them no heed, or regarded the forthcoming book as a catchpenny for hawkers and pedlers. But there were among the Masons a few hot-heads, who took alarm, and, having made up their minds that the book should never appear, went on to carry out their decision, and began with intimidation. Many patrons of Miller's newspaper suddenly withdrew their subscriptions; suits were commenced against him to enforce the payment of small debts; and threats were made which led him to believe that an attack on his office was meditated. Even Morgan did not escape, and one day in August an abusive "notice and caution" was published in a Canandaigua newspaper called the Ontario Messenger, and was reprinted in the Batavia Spirit of the Times and the People's Press.

The publicity thus given to the matter now attracted the attention of a man of some means, who believed that, rightly managed, the book would prove to be a source of great profit. He came to Batavia accordingly, took lodgings at the tavern, represented himself as a Canadian, gave his name as Daniel Johns, and soon offered to join Miller in the publication of Morgan's book. The offer was gladly accepted. Johns was admitted to the partnership, advanced forty dollars, and obtained possession of some of the manuscript. The little he saw was enough to convince him that the book would never succeed, and a demand was at once made on Miller for a return of the money. Failing in this, Johns sued out a warrant before a magistrate of Le Roy. On the night of that same day some fifty men, under the lead of a resident of Canandaigua, met at a tavern in Stafford and marched thence to Batavia for the purpose of breaking into the printing office and destroying the manuscript and printed sheets of the book; but something deterred them, and no attack was made till the night of Sunday, September tenth, when the two buildings used by Miller as printing offices were discovered to be on fire. The flames were extinguished, and on examination it was found that an incendiary had been at work. The sides of the buildings were smeared with turpentine. A brush used for the purpose was