‘Remembering Daniel D. Tompkins’

    

Daniel D. Tompkins

On this date in 1774 was born a great, if historically overlooked, American man and Mason: Daniel D. Tompkins. Biographical highlights include being made a Freemason at Hiram Lodge 72 in Westchester County (later affiliating with Salem 74); serving as Grand Secretary of our Grand Lodge; and becoming the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. Oh, and he was governor of New York (1807-17) before becoming the sixth vice president of these United States (1817-25). He died June 11, 1825 and was buried in Manhattan.

While George Washington is credited for transcribing a seventeenth century book of ethics into his personal journal as a boy, Daniel Tompkins composed a series of philosophical essays while a student at Columbia College. He addressed moral quandaries that impacted American life at the close of the 1700s, from slavery to capital punishment to how best to select government officials. He also expounded on matters of personal growth: education, honesty, prejudice. These essays, some of them fragmentary because of the vicissitudes of time, were anthologized for a book published by Columbia University in 1940 under the title A Columbia College Student in the Eighteenth Century. (The originals are found in the State Library in Albany.)

Of course this is long out of print—I can’t imagine a student at Columbia today even picking up this book with a pair of tongs—so I share brief excerpts here to remember how serious a young mind can be. Daniel Tompkins was a credit to our nation and to our gentle Craft. (I leave it to you to read of how he came to die tragically.)

The only criterion I know of by which to judge of the expediency of electing a man that has filled a station is to inspect into his former conduct. Has his aim hitherto been the good of the people? We may then reason from analogy that such will be his conduct hereafter. In fine so long as the people hold in their hands the chastening rod, the freedom of frequent elections [and] the right of making a change, we need not fear but that the officer will endeavor to secure the happiness and liberty of his constituents.

On Choosing Public Officials, 1792.

’Tis true that many valuable authors have written in the dead languages but I doubt whether there are not equally celebrated ones in the English and French languages and equally valuable…. If four or five years of Virgil’s early life had been spent in the study of languages other than his own, we should not have been favored with such excellent poetry from him so early as his twenty-fourth year.

On the Study of Dead Languages, 1792.

Happy for America that she has been successful in her struggle for Liberty, but unhappy that she has not fully completed her design although it was in her power to have done it. It would seem that the inhabitants of this Country have not that innate love for Liberty which many of them profess; otherwise we should not behold our fellow creatures in Slavery when it is in our power to relieve them. Liberty naturally fits and qualifies us for improvement in knowledge and knowledge allures us to, and gives us a relish for “the ineffable delights of sweet humanity.” Among those who are free and enlightened, if one man promote the happiness of another, his own delight is increased in the same ratio; and no man can enjoy real felicity whilst he beholds others miserable.

On Slavery 1, 1793.

In short if we look into the world, we shall find few men utterly free from prejudice of one kind or another. Local attachments, habit and the like frequently beget and nourish prejudice. I know many who are of this and the other profession in Religion and [profess] a substantial reason for it too, to wit, that their fathers before them were of the same profession. Yet subject as we all are, to be duped by Prejudice, the least appearance of it in others excites our disgust. When we find the historian swayed by prejudice in the relation of facts all our pleasure of reading him is diminished.

On Prejudice, 1794.

In society, every member is bound by the most sacred ties to preserve Harmony and the Tranquility of all the community. This consideration sufficiently evinces the perniciousness of Dishonesty. Besides whatever success Knavery may find for once, it will find it difficult to succeed a second time, for one imposition places all on their guard, and affixes a mark of infamy, which causes the person to be universally shunned. Prodigality generally accompanies dishonesty; and soon consumes what an act of Knavery has acquired. He is therefore reduced to the necessity of having recourse a second time to dishonesty. But as I said before, he will find all prepared for his attack—and even tho’ he should find it necessary to deal for once with probity, he will find none to negotiate with him. For when the wind blows from one quarter we commonly expect it to continue there for sometime.

On Dishonesty and Extreme Indulgence, 1794.

In short, whether Law, Divinity or Physic be your aim—whether Agriculture or Trade is to be made a science, there may you lay the foundation to advantage. Go on then students of Columbia, with eminence and glory in your view. In this land of liberty and peace, genius may extend her wings, unshackled by the restraints of arbitrary power. And real fame, true and lasting honor, belong only to the virtuous and the good. With tender wishes for your prosperity and happiness, we bid you…be virtuous! Be happy.

Valedictory Oration, May 6, 1795.

     

‘The very cement and support of society’

    

It’s not often a lodge thinks to tender a formal statement of contemporary social importance. Of course that’s not easy to do. Government intrudes into our lives so often and so directly, it’s nearly impossible to form a civic-minded opinion that doesn’t trespass into partisan politics. Like sectarian religious views, political opinions are forbidden in our lodges. That is a key ingredient that makes our essential harmony possible, but it also has stifled much potential discussion of ideas. We seem to have filled the silence with less provocative conversations, and the fraternity expects its lodges and their members to act, and make Masonic charity evident in their activities.

Late last year, one of the cofounders of Columbia Lodge 1190, part of Grand Lodge’s academic lodge program, contacted me for an opinion on a statement the lodge crafted. Columbia Lodge should be commended simply for thinking and speaking on what’s happening outside the Temple today. And, since today is World Day of Social Justice, I hereby share with you Columbia Lodge’s recent proclamation:

Freemasonry, at its core and throughout its ritual, promotes the principles of Social Justice. By meeting “on the level,” we are summoned to recognize all with whom we stand as Brothers without regard for any differences that may, in the profane world, serve as pretexts for exclusion, prejudice, intolerance, or hatred. Columbia Lodge 1190 affirms and embraces the principles of Social Justice so eloquently expressed within our ritual, and strives to become a beacon of inclusion and Brotherhood within the Craft.

Columbia Lodge was constituted for Masons with a connection to the Ivy League university uptown in Morningside Heights: alumni, students, faculty, etc. The lodge has no affiliation with the university.

I am flattered my opinion was sought. I am neither a member of the lodge nor connected to the university. (I graduated from the downtown behemoth private university.)

What first comes to mind is Freemasonry’s teaching of Justice. It is a Cardinal Virtue in Freemasonry, just as it was to Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and others. As we reveal in the Entered Apprentice Degree:

Justice is that standard which enables us to render to every man his due, without distinction. This virtue is not only consistent with Divine and human law, but is the very cement and support of society; and, as justice, in a great measure, distinguishes the good man, so should it be your practice to be just.

Unlike Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance, which are inner qualities, this fourth Cardinal Virtue is exhibited outward. Justice is social, so, to my mind, “Social Justice” is a redundancy.

More problematic is a modifier prefixed to Justice. Any qualification limits the meaning of the subject. For instance, today also is International Pipe Smoking Day. Without that second word, we have a general image of stressed addicts huffing their drug and littering the world with discarded butts, but with the modifier “Pipe” in place, we may envision serene hobbyists sweetening the air with gentle Cavendish in hand-carved briars, perhaps whilst reading Tolkien or playing chess in the study.

Words matter, and prefixing “Social” to “Justice” crimps the universality of justice. Lesson in Grammar and Rhetoric.

Then of course there is the politically combustible usage of the term in today’s hyper-partisan society. “Social Justice” is the all-inclusive excuse for everything from the “decarceration” that makes public spaces dangerous to the spectacle of grown men putting their hair in pigtails to steal the championships and scholarships of women’s sports. Most of the people outside who would use the term probably would have no love for Freemasonry. Read Columbia University’s thoughts.

About a year and a half ago, I reproduced the then current message from the then president of the Masonic Society, which dubs Freemasons the “Enlightenment Social Justice Warriors” but invokes the Cardinal Virtues because all we have to do is uphold the meaning of Masonry with its familiar anodyne language.

     

‘In Thy light shall we see light’

     

The title of this edition of The Magpie Mason derives from Psalm 36, and it is the motto of Columbia University, the elder of the two Ivy League institutions located in New York State. Columbia is in the Masonic news today thanks to the effort being undertaken to establish a Masonic lodge with a relationship to the university. I told you about Illumination Lodge last month, and now Grand Lodge’s Fraternity on Campus Committee is seeking brethren to create Morningside Alma Mater Lodge 1754.

Morningside Heights is the area of Manhattan where the university is located, and 1754 is the year when the institution was founded as King’s College. Bro. Misha from Old No. 2 is leading this effort. From the publicity:


Some of you may be aware that, at our last Grand Lodge session, a motion was passed to lower the admission age to 18. Since then, the Grand Master has formed the Fraternity on Campus Committee, which was tasked with establishing lodges to be dedicated to serving institutions of higher learning in New York State, identifying young men who are interested in Freemasonry, and facilitating a safe environment for them to learn and grow beyond the university setting. After months of meetings and planning, the committee has approved moving forward with the petition to establish a lodge serving the Columbia University community, comprising students, alumni, faculty, and staff of Columbia’s degree-granting faculties.

This is a call to all brothers who wish to support this historic initiative as founding members of this lodge, which will be named Morningside Alma Mater Lodge. It is also a call for members of the Craft in New York and beyond to propose eligible men to be considered for admission into Morningside Alma Mater.

Please make your interest in joining and/or your ideas about possible new petitioners by email here.

I don’t know if anyone on the 17th floor reads this website, but I am free to organize a group to work on Perstare et Praestare Lodge 1831. Or maybe Washington Square Lodge 1831.

I love being part of a Grand Lodge that makes Freemasonry so significant in so many ways!