Anti-Masonic Party

From TinWiki.org

The Anti-Masonic Party was the first major Third Party in American Politics, formed as a state Party in New York in 1828. It was also called the Anti-Masonic League.

Masonry had been widespread and popular in the Colonial period of American history and continued to be so after the Revolution. Many people, mostly from the upper class though with good numbers in what today would be called the working 'upper middle class' were Freemasons, and the Fraternity enjoyed widespread acceptance. 1826, the year of the Morgan Affair, changed that. Anti-masonic ideas became popular in New York State, where the political machinery was operated by Martin Van Buren, a mason. The anti-masonic aggitators appealed primarily to the poor, who weren't invovled in masonry. The party was primarily successful at getting its candidates elected to local and state offices.

By the 1830s, the party lost steam and began to fracture. Many of its members formed the Whig Party, and others joined the old Democratic Party.

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