If you saw the list of Supreme Court justices who were Free-masons, you’d be terrified. It’s not only the size of the list, but which ones were free-masons:
Hugo Black (1937-1971), S. F. Reed (1938-1957), William Douglas (1939-1975), Robert Jackson (1941-1954), James Byrnes (1941-1942), Wiley Rutledge (1943-1949), Harold Burton (1945-1958), Fred Vinson (1946-1953), Tom C. Clark (1949-1967), Sherman Minton (1949-1956), Earl Warren (1953-1969), John Marshall Harlan (1955-1971), Potter Stewart (1958-1981), Thurgood Marshall (1968-1991).
At times, seven or eight Supreme Court justices were Masons. And that’s only counting the ones we know.
Assertions that nearly all American presidents were Masons is hogwash. Clinton, Nixon, Ford, and neither Bush appears to have been Mason, and Reagan’s ties were certainly weak, if they were at all real. But Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson were, and, conspiratorially or not, they put their men — who all shared the same radical disdain for precedent and originalism — in the Supreme Court.
Much has been made over the fact that Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Roberts and Kennedy are all Catholic. Jokes have been made about Catholic conspiracies. But they all do have one thing in common: they would be excommunicated from their religion if they were to become Free-Masons.
A generation of liberals (Bader-Ginsberg, Breyer, O’Connor, Stevens) appears to have been non-Masonic, but by the time of their service, the precedents had been set.
Not known to be Free-masons:
Felix Frankfurter (1939-1962). Very liberal, but outspoken advocate of judicial restraint.
Frank Murphy (1940-1949).
Harlan Stone (1941-1946).
William J. Brennan (1956-1990).
Charles Evans Whittaker (1957-1962).
Byron White (1962-1993).
Abe Fortas (1965-1969).