This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 edition. Excerpt: ... ence in the affairs of the Union, that this breach should be repaired, and this discord restored to harmony. (The Masonic controversy was the only point upon which the two divisions of the party were separated, but that separation I feared was irreconcileable. The party in opposition to the State Government, and friendly to the present federal administration, was necessarily Masonic, by adherence to their chief; himself DEGREES illustrious with Masonic acquirements and dignities/ The National Republicans were Masonic, by the declared adherence of their Chief to the same institution of which he was a distinguished member, and indications were not wanting that all the differences of principle between those two parties, ardent and bitter as they were, would be swallowed up, in the transcendent common interest of Freemasonry. So it had emphatically proved in the State of Vermont, and such was, in my apprehension, likely to be the issue in Massachusetts. It was with extreme reluctance that I consented to be placed within the wind of this commotion, for I saw that it would bring me in collision with the party then still wielding the power of the State, and with whose general principles and policy my own were in full accord. '. I had recently been re-elected, by the co-operation of that party, in the Congressional district where I reside, to a seat in the House of Representatives of the United States. I had previously been nominated by a Convention of the members of that party, as well as by an Antimasonic, and also a Republican Convention, to represent the District of Plymouth in the last Congress. At the expiration of that term of service, I was again nominated by an Antimasonic, and also by a National Republican Convention, to represent