"[...] We saw that the fatal consequence of Illuminism would be, to create a general distrust between the prince and his subjects, the father and his children, the minister and his secretaries, and between the different tribunals and councils. We were not to be deterred by that threat so often repeated, That no Prince can save him that betrays us. We abandoned, one after the other, this Sect, which under different names, as we have been informed by several of our former Brethren, has already spread itself in Italy, and particularly at Venice, in Austria, in Holland, in Saxony, on the Rhine, particularly at Frankfort, and even as far as America. -- The Illuminees meddle as much as possible in state affairs, and excite troubles wherever their Order can be benefited by them."

It is one thing for someone to speculate that the Illuminati had come to the United States via secret societies, but it is far more persuasive to have an actual document that specifies how this was done. In that regard, an extremely rare document, A Full Exposition of the Clintonian Faction and the Society of the Columbian Illuminati, located in the Library of Congress, is instructive. Its author, John Wood (who apparently had written to Judge Addison mentioned above), in 1802, revealed that the Theistical Society had been established in America -

. . .for the avowed purpose of propagating Deism and opposing the Christian religion. . . . It arose . . . in the same manner as the Illuminati originated . . . (and) after the example of the Illuminati were divided into three or more grades. . . . The grand literary journal set in motion by the Columbian Illuminati was the Temple of Reason. . . . Another great point with the Theistical Society of New York, in common with the Illuminati of Germany, was to endeavor, if possible, to get all the public offices in the United States, filled with deists. . . . The oath taken by the directors in the highest grade (of the Theistical Society) was nearly the same with the oath administered to the minerval among the Illuminati, . . . and must, without doubt, have been copied from it. It was reported to me in these words - "I, a member of the Theistical Society, protest before you, the worthy President of our order, that I acknowledge my natural weakness and inability. . . . I bind myself to perpetual silence, and unshaken loyalty, and submission to the order, in the person of our President, here making a faithful and complete surrender of my private judgment, my own will and every narrow-minded employment of my power and influence. I pledge myself to account the good of the order as my own, and am ready to serve it with my fortune, my honour and my blood." . . . By means of a corresponding committee, similar societies were established in the different cities of America. Their principles in politics corresponded with their ideas of religion, viz. the rankest jacobinism, with the vilest deism. They all attached themselves to the interest of Mr. DeWitt Clinton. . . . He has been the means of displacing several worthy Christians to make way for them; and he bestows in bountiful measure all his patronage to support their political paper, the American Citizen. Nothing can prove more distinctly the mutual affection and sympathy which exist between Mr. Clinton and the Columbian Illuminati than these acts of kindness. [11]

Confirming what Wood revealed, retiring Harvard University President, Joseph Willard, claimed on July 4, 1812:

There is sufficient evidence that a number of Societies, of the illuminati, have been established, in this land of Gospel light and civil liberty. . . . They are, doubtless, secretly striving to undermine all our ancient institutions, civil and sacred. These societies are closely leagued with those of the same order, in Europe: they have all the same object in view. . . . We live in an alarming period. The enemies of all order are seeking our ruin. Should infidelity generally prevail, our independence would fall of course. Our republican government will be annihilated, unless we, as a people, cultivate that righteousness which exalteth a nation. [12]

William N. Stemper, 
Conflicts and Developments
In Eighteenth Century Freemasonry:
The American Context

[...]

Morse was careful to segregate 'il-
luminist' Masons, such as Paine, from
Church-going Masons in his congrega-
tion. Yet, his intensity of millenarian fer-
vor (45) succeeds in questioning the whole
of Masonic compatibility with orthodox
Christianity.

Morse is clearly inspired by Scottish
preacher John Robinson (1739-1805)
whose 1798 attack on Freemasonry in
Edinburgh (Proofs of a conspiracy against all
religious and governments of Europe, carried on
in the recent meetings of Freemasons, Illumi-
nati, and Reading Societies, Edinburgh,
printed by George Forman for Cornelius
David, 1798) emphasizes the political na-
ture of the threat to orthodox theology.

This question is emphasized by John
Wood who sees in Illuminist Freema-
sonry not only specific instances of dis-
loyalty, as did Morse, but a particular
pattern of conspiracy in an organization
of Illuminati, led by New York Governor
DeWitt Clinton. Clinton would have
been suspect for three reasons. His
cousin married the Girondist Edmund
Charles Edouard Genet (1763-1834),
French ambassador to Washington from
1793. He was first head of the General
Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons,
a friend of Thomas Smith Webb and
patron of Salem Town. Clinton was also
a member of an eminent and aristocratic
New York state family and nephew of
Governor George Clinton (1739-1811),
serving as his uncle's private secretary.
In 1802, Wood attacks the "Clintonian
Faction" and the society of the
Columbian Illuminati (46). He quoted the
oath of the organization, and traced its
existence in its present American form,
"the Theistical Society," to the German
Illuminati from John Robinson (supra).
He singles out Thomas Jefferson,
Thomas Paine and the two Clintons as
members, and accuses it of "the rankest
Jacobinism with the vilest deism"
(Wood, pp. 33, 40, 45, 48 passim).
Both Morse and Wood set the tone and
pattern for the maelstrom of subsequent
political and religious attacks upon
Freemasonry in the Morgan era, c 1826.
But, the immediate response by Clinton
and his colleagues was to distance them-
selves from Paine's views, and to create
a unique synthesis of "priestly"
Freemasonry from English "Antient"
and other sources.

45. Yale University Library, Archives, Morse
Family, MSS, J. Morse, Jr., to J . Morse, Sr.,
July 18, 1795 and October 11, 1803.

46. John Wood, A Full Exposition of the Clintonian
Faction and the Society of the Columbian Illuminati. . ..
Newark: Printed for the author, 1802.

The Philalethes, October 1991

The rationalists who gathered around Elihu Palmer in New York were called the "Columbian Illuminati." The pompous epithet looks like an effort to connect them with the Columbian Order (Tammany) which was supposed to represent Jacobinism and French ideas generally. Their numbers were considerable, but they did not belong to fashionable society. Their lecturer, Elihu Palmer, was a scholarly gentleman of the highest character. A native of Canterbury, Connecticut, (born 1754,) he had graduated at Dartmouth. He was married by the Rev. Mr. Watt to a widow, Mary Powell, in New York (1803), at the time when he was lecturing in the Temple of Reason (Snow's Rooms, Broadway). This suggests that he had not broken with the clergy altogether. Somewhat later he lectured at the Union Hotel, William Street. He had studied divinity, and turned against the creeds what was taught him for their support.

"I have more than once [says Dr. Francis] listened to Palmer; none could be weary within the sound of his voice; his diction was classical; and much of his natural theology attractive by variety of illustration. But admiration of him sank into despondency at his assumption, and his sarcastic assaults on things most holy. His boldest phillippic was his discourse on the title-page of the Bible, in which, with the double shield of jacobinism and infidelity, he warned rising America against confidence in a book authorised by the monarchy of England. Palmer delivered his sermons in the Union Hotel in William Street."

Dr. Francis does not appear to have known Paine personally, but had seen him. Palmer's chief friends in New York were, he says, John Fellows; Rose, an unfortunate lawyer; Taylor, a philanthropist; and Charles Christian. Of Rev. John Foster, another rationalist lecturer, Dr. Francis says he had a noble presence and great eloquence. Foster's exordiurn was an invocation to the goddess of Liberty. He and Palmer called each other Brother. No doubt Paine completed the Triad.

Col. John Fellows, always the devoted friend of Paine, was an auctioneer, but in later life was a constable in the city courts. He has left three volumes which show considerable literary ability, and industrious research; but these were unfortunately bestowed on such extinct subjects as Freemasonry, the secret of Junius, and controversies concerning General Putnam. It is much to be regretted that Colonel Fellows should not have left a volume concerning Paine, with whom he was in especial intimacy, during his last years.

Other friends of Paine were Thomas Addis Emmet, Walter Morton, a lawyer, and Judge Hertell, a man of wealth, and a distinguished member of the State Assembly. Fulton also was much in New York, and often called on Paine. Paine was induced to board at the house of William Carver (36 Cedar Street), which proved a grievous mistake. Carver had introduced himself to Paine, saying that he remembered him when he was an exciseman at Lewes, England, he (Carver) being a young farrier there. He made loud professions of deism, and of devotion to Paine. The farrier of Lewes had become a veterinary practitioner and shopkeeper in New York. Paine supposed that he would be cared for in the house of this active rationalist, but the man and his family were illiterate and vulgar. His sojourn at Carver's probably shortened Paine's life. Carver, to anticipate the narrative a little, turned out to be a bad-hearted man and a traitor.

Paine had accumulated a mass of fragmentary writings on religious subjects, and had begun publishing them in a journal started in 1804 by Elihu Palmer -- The Prospect; or View of the Moral World. This succeeded the paper called The Temple of Reason. One of Paine's objects was to help the new journal, which attracted a good deal of attention.

[...]

Now a reviled figure, Paine was taunted in the streets, pelted with rocks by children. He was rejected from debates between Federalists and Republicans over centralized vs. decentralized national government. Henry Adams wrote that Paine now was "regarded by respectable society, both Federalist and Republican, as a person to be avoided, a person to be feared."

At age 64, the dejected political outcast retired alone to New Rochelle. Poor health and again no wealth kept him homebound or in nearby Bordentown. He wrote very little. For sociality, he associated with such New York radicals as Elihu Palmer and the "Columbian Illuminati."

Eighteenth-Century American Newspapers in the Library of Congress

New York

NEW YORK.

474. Temple of reason. w., Nov. 8-Dec. 31, 1800+

Note: Ceased publication in New York with the issue of Feb. 7, 1801; resumed in Philadelplhia on Apr. 22, 1801, and published there until Feb. 19, 1803.

Publisher: Dennis Driscol.

L.C. file contains:

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