By Paul R Swanson, 32° KCCH
July 18, 2024
Freemasonry grew in America’s early years, staying mostly for the educated and elite until the Civil War’s adaptation of military traveling lodges changed things.
In 1828 the Anti-Masonic Party emerged into a third political party, a first for American politics. The Morgan affair was a political power grab by opportunistic politicians who wanted to play on the fears of society by targeting fellow Christians.
Masons were just the headline, not the root cause.
With several tell-all brochures circulating about Masonry throughout England and the United States from 1729 onward, the fears sparked by the threats to “real Christians aren’t masons” had a chilling effect on Freemasonry in America.
In the eyes of this new third party, anyone belonging to a “secret society” was anti-Christian and unworthy of being an American. Their political aim was to promote Christianity and Masons were not seen as compatible. The “Christian” aspect of the movement was motivated by the desire to purge Freemasons from the churches.
They became America’s Inquisition that had long haunted Europe.
There was still a strong memory of famous Masons like George Washington and Ben Franklin who were Deists or Universalists, both of which were opposed by the Anti-Masonic Party made up mostly of Presbyterians and Baptists.
The results were that Masonic membership nosedived nationwide after the rise of the Anti-masonry party.
Freemasons went from 100,000 to 40,000 in just ten years. In New York, the effect of Anti-masonry was devastating. The number of New York lodges declined from 480 to 82 and membership went from 20,000 to 3,000.
Andrew Jackson was born roughly 11 years before Davy Crocket. Both served in the federal government as Congressman, with Jackson reaching the presidency.
Both men are acclaimed to have been Masons, but in both cases, there is no record of them being initiated, passed, or raised.
Davy Crocket was elected to the U. S. Congress in 1826. During his time in Washington, he was initiated into Freemasonry and became a Master Mason. We only have as proof of his membership his apron which survives to this day and a few notes of meeting attendance after his time of initiation. He could barely read or write.
With Andrew Jackson, we have ample proof of his many attendances and meetings but no proof of his initiation.
There is also documentation of Jackson’s involvement in the Royal Arch ceremonies, which in those times were administered in the blue lodges customarily. Blue Lodges also were known to confer the ceremonies that today are known as part of the Knights Templar and the Red Cross of Constantine degrees. These are very Christian degrees.
In the United States and Canada, the teachings of the Royal Arch Mason performed then are now one of four degrees performed by the Royal Arch Chapters in the York Rite. Thus, most Masons were heavily invested in Christianity through their lodge teachings and degrees.
How did our heroes of the War of 1812 fair during this period in their political careers? Andrew Jackson was nearly immune, winning the Presidential election of 1828 while Davy had been in Congress for the past 2 years.
Davy struggled to keep his written records required by Congress due to his lack of literacy. His political opponents in Congress called him a “Man of the cane”, a derogatory term back then for a backwoods person. Davy was famous for humor and often managed to win over his fellow congressmen with his tall tales and his gift for making them laugh.
Davy tried to turn this “cane” retort into a strength with this quote. “I’m that same Davy Crockett, fresh from the backwoods, half-horse, half-alligator, a little touched with the snapping turtle; can wade the Mississippi, leap the Ohio, ride upon a streak of lightning, and slap any man in Texas.”
Andrew Jackson was older and a far more experienced politician by the time Davy entered Congress. Davy considered himself a supporter of his old commander from the War of 1812, known back then as the Second War for Independence.
However, slowly they parted ways over issues of the day. Davy was unwilling to sell out to the rich even when his party wanted him to.
Davy expressed his feelings of political isolation and rejection from his party in this way.
“Look at my arms, you will find no party handcuffs on them! Look at my neck, you will not find any collar, with the engraving ‘My Dog.-Andrew Jackson.’ But you will find me standing to my rack, as the people’s faithful representative, and the public’s most obedient, very humble servant.”
Davy, barely literate, probably relied too heavily on outside writers, and in one speech, he called Andrew Jackson “a greater tyrant than Cromwell, Caesar, or Bonaparte”.
President Jackson runs a smear campaign against Crockett’s reelection as retaliation for the lack of support for his programs in Congress.
Davy Crockett was so smeared by Andrew Jackson’s campaign against him that he was no longer welcome in his home state of Tennessee!
Crockett is famous for his leaving abruptly for Texas. Large parcels of land were offered for men who would take up the cause of Texas freedom.
During the siege of the Alamo, Crockett tried to keep everyone’s spirits up. He was always willing to tell a tale or joke. Now and then he would challenge John McGregor to a musical duel. Davy would play the fiddle and McGregor the bagpipes. The point was to see who could make the most noise.
Brother Andrew Jackson seems not to have recorded how he felt about Brother and fellow military officer Crockett’s death at the Alamo after driving him from the current boundaries of the United States.
Jackson’s past actions during the War of 1812 when he hung 6 men whose time was up for their volunteer service to prevent others from following suit was not lost on his new threats as President. He had been just as strict later as he imposed Martial Law over the city of New Orleans, with many citizens calling him a tyrant. He was also known for other hangings in his dealings in Florida, without a trial.
Jackson was a Southerner from South Carolina, but a firm Unionist.
He later warns South Carolina that “if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach.”
In other words, Andrew Jackson established the precedent that the federal government could use military force against a state that refused to enforce federal law. The irony here is that he refuses to enforce federal law that protects the American Indians against a State’s seizure of their property.
This double standard attitude regarding the Indian tribe who had initially made a treaty with Brother and President George Washington for their land and security was typical of the times and seen as normal.
Both Brothers were men of their times. Yes, Jackson owned slaves. Yes, Crocket fought for the Indian’s rights, something that didn’t make him popular with President Jackson. Both men were passionate, and both found some success in their lives. Both had been military officers in the same conflicts.
What kind of impact on history did these two contemporary brothers have? Brother Crockett is remembered for his remarkable self-promotion, with a play made while he served in Congress about his exploits, like the killing of 105 bears in one year carried to a wide audience, and his popularity soared. He lived a rags-to-fame life.
Later as the frontier moved westward, several brothers would follow this pattern and become well known. Brothers Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Crockett’s partners in the battle for Texas, Houston, and Auston all saw self-promotion as a promising path towards prosperity to some degree.
Walt Disney’s 1960s promotion of Davy Crockett would have stirred the heart of a man who had been run out of his home state and his country by a sitting U. S. President.
To my knowledge, there are no plays or hymns for Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans. There is a song by country singer Johnny Horton from 1959 about that battle though.
Both Crocket and Jackson are acclaimed as great Masons today, despite having to survive the Anti-masonic party during their political career as well as challenges to their Christian beliefs by the Anti-Masonic party.
Now for the rest of the story, as brother Paul Harvy would say.
On January 30, 1835, political leaders in Washington gathered for the funeral of Warren Davis, a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina. Jackson and Crockett were part of a crowd leaving the U.S. Capitol after the funeral.
As President Jackson walked out, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed painter, ran out of the crowd, firing at Jackson with a pistol — which misfired. It spared Jackson and gave Crockett and Lieutenant Thomas Gedney time to grab Lawrence.
Crockett and Gedney disarmed Lawrence and wrestled him to the ground, where Jackson proceeded to beat him with his cane.
Lawrence pulled out a second pistol and fired — and it also misfired. It was the first attempted assassination of a sitting United States President, but Jackson blamed his political opponents for scheming to have him killed.
In 1835, Crockett lost his reelection bid to Adam Huntsman, in part because Jackson and Tennessee Governor William Carroll campaigned against his reelection.
The political smear campaign was so effective that Crockett was no longer welcome in his home state of Tennessee! There were actually mobs searching for him.
Fed up with politics, Crockett reportedly told the people in his district, “Since you have chosen to elect a man with a timber toe to succeed me, you may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.”