Free Republic

The bizarre history of the Anti-Masonic Party William Morgan believed he had a big story to tell. What happened to him ended up being even bigger. An itinerant stone mason and failed brewer cursed by what one critical observer called “a wonderful faculty for getting into debt and none for getting out,” Morgan, 52, turned his ambition to writing in 1826. He thought he had a seemingly surefire way to cash in on the conspiratorial zeitgeist that flourished in the early years of the 19th century and remains a hallmark of American politics. Morgan was poised to expose what he...

The Democrat Party died yesterday in Hartford, Connecticut. Present when this venerable institution breathed its last were a minority of the Democrats in the Nutmeg State. The Party was the child of the Republican-Democrat Party, and the Anti-Federalist Party. It leaves no known descendants. However, political parties sometimes spawn children many years after their deaths. Is that verdict too harsh? The leaders of the Democrat Party in Washington, New York, and elsewhere, are not admitting even to a serious illness. It’s difficult to conduct a proper Irish wake when on-lookers insist on prodding the deceased to sing and dance. These...