The Anti-Masonic Party (also known as the Anti-Masonic Movement) was the first "third party" in the United States.[1] It strongly opposed Freemasonry and was founded as a single-issue party aspiring to become a major party. It introduced important innovations to American politics, such as nominating conventions and the adoption of party platforms.

Thomas Paine has a claim to the title The Father of the American Revolution because of Common Sense, the pro-independence monograph pamphlet he anonymously published on 1776; signed "Written by an Englishman", the pamphlet became an immediate success.

It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect — that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few... They... consequently are instruments of injustice.

In New York at this time the faction supporting President John Quincy Adams, called "Adams men," or the "Anti-Jackson" faction, were a very feeble organization, and shrewd political leaders at once determined to utilize the strong anti-Masonic feeling in creating a new and vigorous party to oppose the rising Jacksonian Democracy. In this effort they were aided by the fact that Andrew Jackson was a high-ranking Mason and frequently spoke in praise of the Order.

Originally posted by TheLoneArcher
reply to post by OleMB

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Take off them damned sunglasses and obey.
2nd