The Enlightenment Ideals of America's Founders

Why did George Washington wear an apron to lay the cornerstone of the United States Capitol in 1793?

As America's founders, Washington and his fellow Masons embraced their Enlightenment ideals when they donned the apparel and followed the rituals of Freemasonry.

Es siegte die Stärke
und krönet zum Lohn
die Schönheit und Weisheit
mit ewiger Kron'!

In the 18th century Freemasonry was a leading expression of Enlightenment ideals and attracted adherents from all walks of life in Europe and then America. Joseph Smith was a Mason, and so Mormon ritual shows Masonic influences.

Thus these ideals rebuked reactionary establishments -

• from the Catholic church in the 18th century
• to the Nazis in the 20th
• to the Trumpist Dixiecrats in the 21st

If you look at American paper money, you see

• Washington, Jackson, Franklin - Masons
• Jefferson, Lincoln, and Hamilton - who never became Masons but were leading exponents of Enlightenment ideals
• Grant - an Odd Fellow. Several American presidents were both Masons and Odd Fellows - McKinley, Harding, FDR, Truman.

In rural America, fraternal orders often provided life or at least burial insurance to their members. The rise of mass-market commercial life insurance companies reduced that particular incentive to joining. Like many other kinds of voluntary in-person organizations, fraternal orders are now struggling to find their footing in an urbanized world connected by fast internet and social media.

So what were those Enlightenment ideals that threatened minority rule?

From the Declaration of Independence -

• "all men are created equal" - there is no natural hereditary nobility or caste.
• "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" - fundamental rights come from the Creator, not from state or church.
• "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" - there is no divine right of kings or presidents - government is "of the people, by the people, for the people".

• Government is rule of law rather rather rule of men.
• Law applies to all men equally.
• Reason over faith and superstition - conviction is gained by facts and logic and empirical inquiry, rather than decree from political or religious authorities. In a complex society, it is necessary to rely on the judgment of others on many things. But conventional wisdom is expected to be refined over time. The criterion is whether any conventional wisdom can be challenged and changed by better facts and logic and theory.
• Separation of church and state - America's founders knew from recent and contemporary experience that joining the powers of church and state was the way of hell, not heaven.
• Public service is an opportunity to give, not to take.
• Social and intellectual progress and improvement is possible and desirable. As opposed to the pessimistic view that people were "conceived in [original] sin and born in corruption" and so was, on the whole, impervious to moral improvement - Enlightenment optimism held what while people might never be perfect, striving toward perfectibility of individuals and organizations yielded worthwhile improvements.

The last point is important - the 18th century Masons, being human, had blind spots reflecting their times - many in America were slaveholders, and they really meant "men" rather than "people". But they expected truth to be a continuing revelation, that by diligent effort, they could understand more fully over time. The goal of Freemasonry is "to make good men better".

We can see that the same forces that opposed the Enlightenment in the 18th century are still at work today. There are plenty of governments today - Russia, China, North Korea, Iran being the worst examples - that

• do not consider all people to be created equal
• do not allow the governed to express or deny consent
• define truth as whatever political or religious authority say
• define rights as whatever the authorities permit
• ally with state religion to oppress nonconformance
• tend to make ruling class economic and political power hereditary
• make laws for the masses that the ruling classes ignore
• consider the masses to be beneath improvement and expendable

And there are plenty of kleptocratic faux-populist dictators hoping to move their countries in the same direction.

Most governments in most times and places have been directly opposed to the goals and methods of Enlightenment democracy. Such democracies are difficult to build and easy to destroy, as often from within as without. These Enlightenment ideals can only prevail when upheld as a precious inheritance by most members of a society.

Even now, prominent American political leaders announce that they are getting tired of democracy and tired of separation of church and state.

So the spirit of Maria Theresa - who might be the inspiration for the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Magic Flute - lives on in those leaders. Vladimir Putin, perhaps channeling her, no doubt nods his head, knowing exactly what those tired American leaders mean, and thinking up ways to encourage them.

So when we ask What's wrong with Trump and Trumpists and Trumpism? - it's not just high crimes and misdemeanors against the Constitution, or violent insurrection against the Capitol where Washington laid the cornerstone, or treasuring foreign dictators as friends, but above all mortal sins betraying the Enlightenment ideals of America's founders expressed in the Declaration of Independence and their other writings.

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