ty proved unexpectedly
strong, and after this year it practically superseded the National
Republican party in New York. In 1829 the hand of its leaders was shown,
when, in addition to its antagonism to the Masons, it became a champion
of internal improvements and of the protective tariff. From New York the
movement spread into other middle states and into New England, and
became especially strong in Pennsylvania and Vermont. A national
organization was planned as early as 1827, when the New York leaders
attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade Henry Clay, though a Mason, to
renounce the Order and head the movement. In September 1831 the party at
a national convention in Baltimore nominated as its candidates for the
presidency and vice-presidency William Wirt of Maryland and Amos
Ellmaker (1787-1851) of Pennsylvania; and in the election of the
following year it secured the seven electoral votes of the state of
Vermont. This was the high tide of its prosperity; in New York in 1833
the organization was moribund, and its members gradually united with
other opponents of Jacksonian Democracy in forming the Whig party. In
other states, however, the party survived somewhat longer, but by 1836
most of its members had united with the Whigs. Its last act in national
politics was to nominate William Henry Harrison for president and John
Tyler for vice-president at a convention in Philadelphia in November
1838.

The growth of the anti-Masonic movement was due to the political and
social conditions of the time rather than to the Morgan episode, which
was merely the torch that ignited the train. Under the name of
"Anti-Masons" able leaders united those who were discontented with
existing political conditions, and the fact that William Wirt, their
choice for the presidency in 1832, was not only a Mason but even
defended the Order in a speech before the convention that nominated him,
indicates that simple opposition to Masonry soon became a minor factor
in holding together the various elements of which the party was
composed.

See Charles McCarthy, _The Antimasonic Party: A Study of Political
Anti-Masonry in the United States, 1827-1840_, in the Report of the
American Historical Association for 1902 (Washington, 1903); the
_Autobiography of Thurlow Weed_ (2 vols., Boston, 1884); A.G. Mackey
and W.R. Singleton, _The History of Freemasonry_, vol. vi. (New York,
1898); and J.D. Hammond, _History of Political Parties in the Stat