New England and the Bavarian Illuminati/Introduction
INTRODUCTION edit
Few if any periods in our national history have been marked by a greater variety of clashing interests than the closing decade of the eighteenth century. Owing in part to inexperience in grappling with the problems of government, in part to widely belligerent and irreconcilable elements among the people, in part to grave international complications and concerns, and in part, confessedly, to rumors and excitements for which, as events proved, no adequate grounds existed, the lives of the people of New England were tossed rudely about on rough currents and countercurrents of mingled hope and anguish. To a dispassionate observer (if anywhere on the green earth at the close of the eighteenth century such an individual might have been found) it must have seemed as though the citizens of New England were as so many bits of wood, bobbing up and down on waters excessively choppy but otherwise motionless. The agitation, however, was not merely superficial; issues and movements of the most profound significance were pouring their impetuous torrents through channels freshly cut and steadily deepened by new streams of human interest which the erection of the national government, in particular, had started on their tortuous ways.
The development of this thesis calls for an evaluation of the more significant elements and forces which gave to the period the characteristic temper of nervous excitability by which it was stamped. The profound spirit of apprehension, amounting to positive distress, with which for many a thoughtful religious patriot of New England the eighteenth century closed, constitutes a phenomenon as impressive as it is curious. To isolate that spirit, to analyze it, to explain its genesis and its development, to take account of its attachments and antipathies with respect to the special interest under consideration,—this must be regarded as no inconsiderable portion of the general task.
On the morning of May 9, 1798, in the pulpit of the New North Church in Boston, and on the afternoon of the same day in his own pulpit at Charlestown, the occasion being that of the national fast, the Reverend Jedediah Morse *l
- 1 Reverend Jedediah Morse, born at Woodstock, Connecticut, August 23, 1761, died at New Haven, June 9, 1826, was a man of note. He was the author of the first American geography and 1 gazetteer. His connection with the leading public men of his times, particularly with those of the Federalist party, was both extensive and intimate. His travels and correspondence in the interests of his numerous geographical compositions in part promoted this acquaintance; but his outspoken and unflinching support of the measures of government during the Federalist regime did even more to enhance his influence. Morse was graduated from Yale College in 1783 and settled at Charlestown as minister of the Congregational church in that place in 1789. His wife was Elizabeth Ann Breese, granddaughter of Samuel Finley, president of the College of New Jersey. Quite apart from all other claims to public recognition, the following inscription, to be found to this day on a tablet attached to the front of the house in Charlestown wherein his distinguished son was born, would have rendered the name of Jedediah Morse worthy of regard:
"Here was born 27th of April, 1791, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, Inventor of the Electric Telegraph."
W. B. Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. ii, pp. 247-256, contains interesting data concerning Morse's activities and personality. Sprague also wrote The Life of Jedidiah Morse, D. D., New York, 1874. (Morse's surname appears in the sources both as "Jedediah" and "Jedidiah"). Sawyer's Old Charlestown, etc., p. 299, has an engaging account of Morse's loyalty to the cause of Federalism, and of the painful, though not serious physical consequences, in which in at least one instance this involved him. Cf. also Memorabilia in the Life of Jedediah Morse, D. D., by his son, Sidney E. Morse. A bibliography of thirty- two titles by Morse is appended to the sketch in F. B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, vol. iv, pp. 295-304. made a sensational pronouncement. He first discussed with his hearers "the awful events" which the European Illuminati had precipitated upon an already distracted world, and then proceeded solemnly to affirm that the secret European association had extended its operations to this side of the Atlantic and was now actively engaged among the people of the United States, with a view to the overthrow of their civil and religious institutions. In the eyes of the distinguished clergyman, the matter was of such serious moment that he felt moved to remark:
I hold it a duty, my brethren, which I owe to God, to the cause of religion, to my country and to you, at this time, to declare to you, thus honestly and faithfully, these truths. My only aim is to awaken in you and myself a due attention, at this alarming period, to our dearest interests. As a faithful watchman I would give you warning of your present danger. *1
Morse's warning by no means fell upon deaf ears. The "due attention" he claimed for the alarm which he that day sounded was promptly and generally accorded. Soon ministers were preaching, newspaper editors and contributors writing, and clearheaded statesmen like Oliver Wolcott, Timothy Pickering, John Adams, and even the great Washington, inquiring, and voicing their serious concern over the secret presence in America of those conspirators whose greatest single achievement, a multitude had come to believe, was the enormities of the French Revolution.
It is true that before two years had passed men generally began to admit the baseless nature of the alarm that Morse
- 1 A Sermon, Delivered at the New North Church in Boston, in the morning, and in the afternoon at Charlestown, May 9th, 1798, being the day recommended by John Adams, President of the United States of America, for solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer. By Jedidiah Morse, D. D., Minister of the Congregational Church in Charlestown, Boston, 1798, p. 25. had sounded. None the less one may not dismiss the incident with the light and easy judgment that it signified nothing more than the absurd fears of a New England clergyman who, under the strain of deep political and religious concern, and after a hasty reading of the latest volume of religious and political horrors that had just arrived from Europe,[1] rushed into his pulpit and gave utterance to preposterous statements which his imagination for the moment led him to believe were justified. The episode has considerably larger and more important bearings. No man could possibly have awakened such wide-spread concern as the minister of Charlestown succeeded in awakening if it had not been true that significant concurrent and related circumstances gave both setting and force to the alarm which with such stout conviction he sounded.
What previous influences and events had tended to predispose the public mind favorably to Morse's alarm? What was the peculiar combination and cast of events which gave the notion of a conspiracy against religion and government in Europe and in America a clear semblance of truth? In what ways, and to what extent, did the alarm affect the lives and the institutions of the people of New England? Finally, what were the grounds, real or imaginary, upon which the charge of an Illuminati conspiracy rested? To answering these questions the following pages are devoted.
- ↑ Robison, Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the Secret Meetings of the Free Masons, Illuminati and Reading Societies. Edinburgh, 1797.