#Blue Star Byte: The first third-party political party in the U.S.

The first third-party in American history was the Anti-Masonic Party, established in 1828 by Thurlow Weed in New York State, which was then the center of the Protestant revival movement in America referred to as the Second Great Awakening. The party is also notable for holding the first national Presidential nominating convention in the U.S. in 1831.

The Anti-Masons were originally a single-issue, grass-roots movement against Freemasons, which evolved to oppose Jacksonian politics. The party was born out of rural Americans’ general distrust of the Society of Freemasons, stemming from the Freemasons’ perceived influence on American politics.

The party was established in response to the William Morgan Affair in 1826, an incident in which a bricklayer, William Morgan, went missing after threatening to publish an exposé on the practices and rituals of the Freemasons after being refused membership in a local Masonic lodge in New York state. Morgan’s disappearance fueled claims that local Freemasons had abducted and murdered him.

While there is still no clear consensus on what happened to Morgan, the event sparked a public reaction, amplified by the coverage of the affair in Weed’s publication, the Anti-Masonic Enquirer. While the party did not succeed in electing its candidates to higher office, it remained a political force in the American Northeast until 1840, when it coalesced with other parties opposed to Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party.