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The Anti-Masonic Party was the earliest third party in the United States. [11] Formally a single-issue party, it strongly opposed Freemasonry in the United States.It was active from the late 1820s, especially in the Northeast, and later attempted to become a major party by expanding its platform to take positions on other issues.
Under the leadership of anti-Masonic Thurlow Weed, an Anti-Jacksonist movement became (since Jackson was a Mason) the Anti-Masonic Party. This political Party ran presidential candidates in 1828 and 1832, but by 1835 the party had disbanded everywhere except Pennsylvania .
Thurlow Weed, a New York politician, gathered discontented opponents of President Andrew Jackson, a Mason, into the Anti-Masonic Party, which gained the support of such notable politicians as William H. Seward and Millard Fillmore. [47] In the 1828 campaign, other Jackson rivals, including John Quincy Adams, joined in denouncing the Masons. [48]
The Anti-Masons brought to the Whigs an intense distrust of politicians, a rejection of automatic party loyalty, and innovative campaign techniques to excite voters. They invented the national convention in 1835. [20] By 1840, the Anti-Masons had ceased to function as a national organization, and local cells had disappeared.
The Freemason movement was badly damaged and never fully recovered; the Anti-Mason movement merged into the coalition that became the new Whig Party. The anti-Masonry movement was not "radical"; it fully participated in democracy, and was animated by the belief that the Masons were the ones subverting democracy in America.
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On the other hand, major third parties typically emerged from the state level, including the Anti-Masons, Republicans, Know-Nothings and Populists. [5] The Anti-Masonic movement gave rise to or expanded the use of many innovations which became accepted practice among other parties, including nominating conventions and party newspapers. [6]
Articles related to Anti-Masonry in the United States, the "avowed opposition to Freemasonry", which has led to multiple forms of religious discrimination, violent persecution, and suppression in some countries as well as in various organized religions (primarily Abrahamic religions).