Jefferson Masonic Association

The Masonic ceremony of laying cornerstones is very important in Freemasonry. It is a tradition that has been practiced for many generations:

Masons learn in the Entered Apprentice degree that the first stone of a building is usually laid in the northeast corner, whereupon to erect the future super-structure. While the Masonic cornerstone ceremony is today largely symbolic, our operative predecessors would first lay a cornerstone when beginning the task of erecting their buildings. The cornerstone was vital to the stability and strength of the building, since all vertical and horizontal measurements for erecting the structure were made from that corner. If the cornerstone was not properly laid as a reference point, the other foundation stones would be laid incorrectly, and the building was in danger of collapsing in upon itself.

Freemasonry at the founding of the American Republic was vital to the enduring strength and stability of this nation. Had this nation started with weak foundation stones, the experiment in republican government would have failed. Indeed, many of the Founding Fathers were themselves fearful that the new republic was a precarious experiment. Republics had existed before 1776, but all were confined to cities or very small states, and ended in either tyranny or anarchy. Never before in history had men attempted to create a republic of such geographic extent and such a large and varied population. The republic needed solid foundation stones to have even a chance at survival.

Freemasonry was, and remains, such a foundation stone. As a channel transmitting the social and political ideas of 17th century England and the 18th century Enlightenment to the thirteen colonies, Freemasonry’s cosmopolitan view of the world played a significant role during and after the American Revolution. Freemasonry had an extraordinary unifying effect socially, politically, and culturally on the new republic.

The British export of Freemasonry to the American colonies possessed distinctive characteristics of a civic or political nature grounded in the political and social context of the values shaped by the English Revolution of 1688. The form of the lodge became one of many channels that transmitted a new political culture, based on constitutionalism, which over time turned against traditional privileges and established, hierarchical society.

As the colonial leaders, and later the middle class, became Masons, in their lodges they learned the language of constitutionalism, and the importance of laws and regulations that would ensure order and good government of the fraternity. Although entirely private, and uniquely avoiding discussion of religion and politics, the typical 18th century British/American lodge was a microcosm of the ideal civil society. The lodges sought to make a better society through the virtue of each brother practiced within a constitutional setting. In a context of order and harmony so-induced, Masons learned that behavior, not birth, determined the character and virtue of a brother. More importantly for the success of the future republic, the American Masons received practical experience in the day-to-day workings of constitutional order: elections by ballot; majority rule; free debate; one man, one vote; rules of social behavior, civility, and decorum. By adopting their own by-laws and allowing for their amendment, Masons learned implicitly that laws and societies—not just the lodge—are human institutions, and can be altered by the will of the majority. For the Americans. It was but a short step to apply the lessons learned in lodges to challenging the hegemony of the British Empire and to demand first the constitutional rights of Englishman to be represented in Parliament, and if then denied, to seek independence and a radical change in the political relationship of the colonies to the Mother Country.

In the 1750s, colonial Masonry helped blunt and buffer the divisive forces of ethnicity, religion and nationality in the several colonies. As a society emblematic of the ideas of the Enlightenment, Masons saw themselves as a society promoting the 18th century ideal of universal love, and encouraging friendship and brotherhood among members chosen without regard to party factions and religious differences. Masonry identified itself publicly as a brotherhood of cosmopolitan and respected men joined together in a benevolent fraternity for the common good of society.

Freemasonry played a major part in the winning of the Revolutionary War and thus preparing the way for the young Republic. Uprooted from familiar settings, Continental army officers could not take conviviality among themselves for granted, especially during a period when the boundaries and perquisites of social rank seemed uncertain. Masonry, by emphasizing friendship and fraternity, allowed officers from distant states and social standing to meet upon the level. The esprit de corps thus built during the Revolution provided a sense of common purpose that helped the Continental army survive to win the war.

Freemasonry played an integral role in rebuilding and supporting the foundations of civil society in the post-Revolutionary United States. Members of the fraternity identified the ideals of the order with the republican ideals of the new nation. Masons advocated learning and an educated citizenry, which would guarantee a good and wise government. On July 4, 1795, Grand Master Paul Revere, at the cornerstone ceremony for the Massachusetts State House, identified the nation with the values Masons were claiming for the fraternity. He spoke of the United States as promoting the arts and sciences, and as a place where liberty had found a safe and secure home. He spoke of the republican (and Masonic) ideals of citizenship and equality. He admonished those assembled, Mason and non-Mason alike, to live within the compass of good citizens to show the world that the United States stood on a level with all mankind.

What we do not realize today, is that the ideas espoused by Freemasonry in the 18th and early 19th centuries, while sounding commonplace to us, were truly revolutionary in their own day. Freemasonry was a respected and integral part of American society, and was itself a channel for transmitting ideas about the political and social relationships among men and women. Freemasonry’s post-Revolutionary explanations held great power, for women and African-Americans as well as the majority society. Boston’s Hannah Mather Crocker and Prince Hall, though separated by great political and social distance from Brother George Washington, shared with him the same set of ideas of universal love and benevolence, virtue, learning, and equality that Masons identified with the fraternity. Prince Hall and Mrs. Crocker were able to challenge post-Revolutionary America’s continuing exclusions on the basis of Freemasonry’s moral ideals and standards, and to encourage others to rethink their political and social status.

As a foundation stone of the American Republic, Freemasonry continues to hold out a powerful vision for the United States. The Founding Fathers laid a straight and true foundation, and 225 years later we have been entrusted to continue the work. May the Great Architect give us the strength and wisdom to follow His Grand Design.

Adapted from "Freemasonry: Foundation Stone of the American Republic"

By Joel H. Springer III, Assistant Grand Secretary, State of California