John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, wrote a letter to W.L. Stone in 1833. This great man knew better than most in his time about the insidiousness of Freemasonry:
“Freemasonry, corporate Freemasonry, is chargeable with the stealing of a free citizen, and the murder of a father and husband. The proof of this subject is perfectly conclusive, and is to be found in the reports of the trials of the kidnappers of William Morgan, and in the official accounts given by different special Attornies. It is responsible for having baffled inquiry, for having defeated investigation by the removal of witnesses, and for having produced the acquital of persons notoriously guilty. It has been decided by Judge Marcy in New York, and by two sets of triers at a circuit court held by Judge Gardiner, in the same state, and by a court in Rhode Island, that the obligations of Freemasons disqualified a man from being an impartial juror in a case where a brother mason was a party; and such undoubtedly is the law of the land. The Grand Lodge of New York has given one hundred dollars, in charity, to one of the most guilty kidnappers of Morgan. The Grand Chapter of the same state has given one thousand dollars to aid and sustain other well known kidnappers, and to enable them to escape from justice, at a time when they had no money to bestow, in charity, to widows and orphans. This has recently been established in the trial of a libel suit, brought by Jacob Gould, which was tried at Albany, New York. But perhaps the most remarkable evidence of the binding force of masonic obligations and of the real power of the fraternity, is afforded in the conduct of those who control the newspapers of the country. When the English forger, Stephenson, was kidnapped in a distant state, and brought forcibly to New York, the whole country rang with the alarm which was sounded by the newspapers and every patriot was called on to resent this invasion of personal liberty. But when a free citizen of America was dragged from his family, forcibly carried through the country and drowned in the deep waters of the Niagra, a death-like silence pervaded the newspapers; or if they spoke, it was to notice the outrage in terms of irony and as a trifling and unimportant affair. The papers of every party teemed with the most gross misrepresentations; a simultaneous attack was made on all who were engaged in discovering the offenders; fabricated accounts of Morgan having been seen at different and distant places were incessantly circulated, and every effort was made to delude the public and mislead inquiry. How tremendously powerful must have been that organization, which could produce this shameful treachery of the press to it’s public duties! These facts are as notorious as the sun at noon-day, and a stronger proof of their general truth cannot be adduced, than the single circumstance, that to this day, thousands and millions of reading citizens of this country are ignorant of the history of Morgan’s abduction and murder, and are totally uninformed of the abominations of freemasonry.”
(John Quincy Adams, Adams letters Addressed to W.L. Stone{1833} 23-24, University of Rochester Library Archives).