STATEMENT OF FACTS

RESPECTING THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF SOV. G. INSPECTORS GEN. 33o, NORTHERN JURISDICTION, U. S. A.,

REVIEW

WITH A

OF EDWARD A. RAYMOND'S ADDRESS.

By Rev. ALBERT CASE, Asst. G. Sec. Gen. H. E.*

EARLY in November I obtained a pamphlet entitled "Minutes of Proceedings of the Supreme Council, * ** Northern Jurisdiction," etc., in which I find an address prepared for Edward A. Raymond, and purporting to have been read by him in a Sovereign Grand Consistory on the 22d of May, 1861, at which time he represents himself as Grand Commander of a Supreme Council, and this too, some days after he had been deposed from that office, and a distinguished Inspector General of Ohio elected in his stead.

On perusing the pamphlet, I learned it was a record of the proceedings of a body Mr. Raymond had for months been organizing; and that now, having formally seceded from the legitimate Council, which had deposed him, he throws off the mask and declares the spurious body he had formed, the Supreme Coun

cil.

The address breathes a spirit of virulent hostility to the Council and Brethren he had left, denouncing and nullifying the former, and disfranchising the lat ter,-page after page declaring things hitherto unknown, perverting matters of history and record, to blind, deceive and mislead the brotherhood. Had Mr. Raymond confined his remarks to the history of the spurious body over which he presides, I should not have occasion to interfere with them; but as, for the most part, they were aimed at the Supreme Council over which he formerly presided, its record and its members; and as, during many of the years referred to by him, I recorded the proceedings of the Supreme Council, prepared them for the press, and superintended the publication thereof, under his direction and that of Grand Secretary General Chas. W. Moore, I believe a plain statement of facts in the case is called for, in vindication of the Supreme Council, its members and the record, so shamefully traduced in the address.

In fact, duty to the fraternity, especially of the A. and A. Rite, the Supreme Council and the Sovereign Grand Inspectors General, demands that many assertions in that address, which have no coloring of truth, should be exposed and denounced as erroneous,-put forth to deceive the members of the various bodies under the Supreme Council, and seduce them from the allegiance they owe to that body.

I commence with a narration of facts relative to Mr. Raymond and the legit imate Council over which he formerly presided; and as I proceed, shall take up the main points in error in his address, and examine them in the light of the record, and of other evidence that cannot be disproved, leaving the reader to judge

*This statement of facts was originally published in pamphlet form by the author in Dec., 1861; but Mr. Raymond and his injudicious advisers having recently caused the greater part of the document it so ably and unanswerably reviews, to be republished in one of the secular papers of the city, we comply with the request to give it a place in our pages.

who the "rebellious spirits" are "who seem determined to divide and destroy what they are neither able nor worthy to control."

It is notorious throughout the Northern Jurisdiction that there has been for years a want, on the part of subordinate bodies, of constitutions or rules and regulations by which they should be governed, and that this want ought to be supplied by the Supreme Council; but it has been impossible to obtain from the then Grand Commander, E. A. Raymond, permission to furnish them with any more than a few resolves, orders, &c., which were passed at different sessions of the Supreme Council.

At the annual session in May, 1860, the representatives of the subordinate bodies in the Sovereign Grand Consistory appeared determined that something should be done for the good of the Order in general, and of the bodies they represented in particular, and the following was passed by the Consistory, which led to the appointment, in Council, of a committee, consisting of Messrs. Raymond, Moore and Van Rensselaer, to prepare rules and regulations for the gov ernment of the subordinate bodies:

"Ill. Br. Carson presented the following, which was adopted :—

Resolved, That this Gr. Consistory request the Sup. Council to publish the Constitutions for the government of the Ancient and Accepted Rite in the Northern Jurisdiction; also, the Statutes, By-Laws, Rules and Regulations for the government and regulation of Consistories, Chapters, Councils, Lodges, &c., and to make such alterations and amendments to the Grand Constitutions of 1762, and the revised Constitutions of 1786, as will make said Constitutions applicable to the present wants of the Rite."

This committee was not called together by the chairman, Mr. Raymond, nor was any report made by him at the extra session in August, the same year, nor would he allow Mr. Van Rensselaer to report a code of rules and regulations he had prepared for the committee. But the demand of the representatives of subordinate bodies became so urgent as to induce Mr. Van Rensselaer, at the August session, to present the following, which, on motion of Mr. Starkweather, was adopted:

"Resolved, That a committee of three be now elected whose duty it shall be to report to this Supreme Council, Rules, Decrees and Regulations, for the government and more perfect organization thereof, and for the several bodies of the Rite under this Jurisdiction."

Remarks were made by Mr. Raymond and others, relative to the right of Council to elect its Committees; after which the Council, having decided that it possessed the right, Messrs. Van Rensselaer, Christie and Starkweather were elected, and hopes were entertained that the subordinate bodies would receive that attention and direction they had hitherto sought in vain, and the want of which had paralyzed their efforts, and impeded their prosperity.

The Committee thus elected determined to report at that Session, that the Rules, etc., might be adopted, and the chief want of the subordinates supplied. But, as will be seen in the sequel, Mr. Raymond was equally determined to prevent its making a report. He claiming that he, alone, could make Rules, etc., as no one but himself could be allowed to see the secret Constitutions which had been entrusted to his care; and he thought to succeed in his tyrannical opposi tion to the general demand, by abruptly closing the Council.

The address informs us that several meetings of the S. C. had been held since the last Annual Meeting, all of which had been duly notified, and that one Peter Lawson and others had been admitted to the 33rd degree, at a meeting of the S. C., duly notified and constitutionally convened, when no notice was extended to several members of the Supreme Council, and it is impossible to avoid the conviction that Raymond was then making Ins. Gen., and forming another Council, even before his deposition as Gr. Comr. of the legitimate Council, and while he professed to belong to the latter. And this conviction is fully confirmed, when, within a week after he is deposed, he throws off the mask, and comes out at the head of an unconstitutional body, formed by only two Ins. Gen. viz., Messrs. Raymond and Robinson.

In his address, Mr. Raymond acknowledges that he is unable to lay before his body any specific information relative to foreign Councils, but curiously enough excuses himself, and throws the blame on the Gr. Sec. Gen., saying the latter "has not seen fit to submit for my inspection any of the correspondence with foreign Bodies for the last two years." "I need not say to you," he continues, “that such a course on his part, has led to great embarrassment on mine. By withholding from me, for the last two years, all official documents addressed to the Sup. Council, or to him, as Secretary, and intended for my action, or that of the Council, has involved me in a seeming neglect of duty, and has been a fruitful source of complaint from other Masonic Bodies, whose communications, however important, remain unanswered.

"This state of things has, naturally enough, led to the charge of neglect of my office, and indifference to the general interests of the Institution, at whose head I had been placed."

The answer to all this is simple and effectual. Since the Annual Meeting, in 1859, no "official documents addressed to the Council, or to the Gr. Sec. Gen., intended for the Grand Commander's action," were received from foreign or other bodies, up to the extra meeting in August, 1860, and the Secretary had none to withhold from the Com. At the Annual Meetings previous to that of 1859, (which last Mr. Raymond did not attend,) the Gr. Sec. General had prepared the addresses that were delivered by G. Com. Raymond, and as the latter was absent in 1859, and Lieut. G. Com., the late Ex-Gov. Dunlap, presided, the G. Sec. Gen. did not prepore an address for the chair. He did prepare one for G. Com. Raymond, as was customary for him to do, for the Annual Meeting of 1860, but the G. Com, did not appear in Council till so late in the Session, that the address was not read.

It will therefore readily be seen, that the "state of things, which led to the charge of neglect of the duties of his office, and indifference to the general interests," etc., was not produced by any neglect, or withholding, on the part of the G. Sec. Gen. The correspondence of Council, which reached the G. Sec. Gen. was always in the office, and until within about two years the G. Com. was in the habit of listening to the reading of so much of it as he chose to, or could be prevailed upon to hear.

RECORDS.

Relative to these, Mr. Raymond says-" We have had no book of records

since the Council has been located in this city. It has been the practice of the Secretary, from memoranda, to print some time during the year, and commonly towards the close, an account of the proceedings, in pamphlet form. I was not aware of this neglect until within the last two years, when I gave great offence by some remarks made relative to this subject."

The truth is, the proceedings had been printed annually, and it was usual to dispense with reading the minutes of the last meeting, because the pamphlet containing them was before the members. This pamphlet gave a full and accurate transcript of the doings of the Council, and its truthfulness had never been questioned by the G. Com., who invariably had the original manuscript prepared for press the submitted for his examination. The original minutes, however, were preserved, and as soon as the book of records was received from New York their transfer to its pages was commenced, and has been so carefully continued, that there is no break in the written record up to this time.

The remarks about "printing from memoranda, commonly towards the close of the year," come with an ill grace from a man who caused the delay at different times. I have written out the proceedings for the printer, and submitted the manuscript to Com. Raymond, and waited for a month or more for its return, and then after correcting the proof sheets, have placed them in his hands, and under pretence of examining them he has detained them for months, and on one occasion in particular, after importuning him for "one form" for a long time, he concluded he had lost it. In fact, he was so lax in the examination, that we have been for more than once obliged to print without exhibiting the proof to him, in order to get the pamphlet out before "the close of the year."

PUBLICATION OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE REGULAR AND EXTRA SESSIONS IN 1860.

Mr. Raymond acknowledges the publication of the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting in May, and says they, with the proceedings of August, were "clandestinely circulated in distant parts of our jurisdiction, for weeks and months before they were allowed to see the light in this part. About the middle of December, having learned that a pamphlet had been published purporting to be the Proceedings of the Supreme Council, and while Brethren in Ohio and other remote States were liberally supplied with copies, the presiding officer knew nothing of such a document; so successful had been the effort of the Sec. General to conceal this fact from his knowledge."

All he has said on this subject can be best answered by a narration of the facts.

At the close of the extra session, the presiding officer Mr. Van Rensselaer, directed that the proceedings should be published and circulated within three weeks if possible. In the hope that the work might be done thus early, an ar rangement was made with a house that had the materials and workmen to do it at once, but when the proceedings were set up, I wrote P. Lt. G. Com. Van Rensselaer, proposing to have the Constitutions, &c., put in a separate pamphlet. This he thought not best, and the work went on. When a proof was ready, I obtained a sufficient number of sheets to send to each of the Inspectors General

for their examination, and some of them, in turn, referred the same to the bodies to which they belonged for their approval.

The delay to print was occasioned by a desire to hear from the Ins. Gen. who were interested in having a correct record of proceedings, rules, etc. Some time elapsed before we heard from some of them, as will be seen by the dates of letters, contained in the appendix, viz :—

That of Hon. W. B. Hubbard, dated Oct. 23; Hon. A. Bull, Oct. 23; E. T. Carson, Oct. 22; Wm. P. Preble, containing Preamble and Resolutions of Dunlap Chapter, R. C., Dec. 3; Peter Thatcher, Jr., and others, Jan. 23, 1861; Cam bridge Council, Jan. 28; also from Francois Turner, Jan. 9, and the venerable P. G Com. J. J. J. Gourgas, of Dec. 31, 1861.

The pamphlet was not circulated, until the aforesaid letters were printed, as will be seen on examination of its pages; and yet Raymond says it was circulated at the West for several months before he saw it in December. He may have seen a proof sheet of proceedings and constitutions, which had been sent for examination, but the proceedings were not circulated liberally nor otherwise, except the sheets sent for that purpose, until after the letters were printed, and some of them bear date in January, 1861. The pamphlet itself exposes the base falsehood of the address respecting the "persons engaged in publishing it, the Grand Secretary General, and their motives," so effectually that more need not be added.

There was no secrecy in the matter; it was not circulated at the West for months before it was circulated in Massachusetts; its publication was not denied after it was printed and covered and ready; and when he read that address to the spurious Council he knew he was giving utterance to that which would not bear the light of investigation, or if he did not, it was owing only to his inability to comprehend, from the dates of its letters, when the pamphlet was issued. There are statements in the address, in regard to "the pamphlet," "the men," and the "Council constitutionally closed," "the foul conspiracy to overthrow the institution they professed to love," "rebellious doings," "flaming falsehood," etc., that so well accord in their nature and spirit with Mr. Raymond's assumptions and rulings, that I am inclined to think he dictated them, and found a ready tool in some ambitious scribe, who framed them into the address; but they are not worth controverting, and I leave them and proceed to what the address terms the formation, in May, of

"THE PLOT."

"At the annual meeting in May of last year (1860,) the plot was formed. Then and there rank rebellion raised its baneful head, for the first time, in our Supreme Council. In the doings of that session there were strong indications of insubordination," says the address.

The Council met on Tuesday; the Grand Commander appeared, for the first time, on Thursday, when the minutes of the proceedings of both previous days were read, and the Grand Commander made no objection to them on account of any "rank rebellion," or "indications of insubordination.”

Let this be remembered, and let us ascertain where the "rebellion" and "indications of insubordination" were to be seen. The first business on Thursday