Freemasons’ Heritage in the US Constitution

The purpose of this article is to study the question of the degree of influence of Freemasons on the formation of the United States, as well as using the example of the article "Freemasons and the Education of the United States" to make an attempt to critically analyze the work of Michael Baigent and Richard Lee, well-known Western authors of works on history, religious history, and law. In particular, in their works they claim that the Constitution is the embodiment of the political ideals of the Freemasons. The Anderson Constitution, one of the fundamental documents of Freemasonry, and the main source of data on Masonic ideology, administrative structure, legislation, and ethics, was used as a source for studying this issue. The provisions of the Anderson Constitution were compared with those of the U.S. Constitution. As a result of studying this issue, it was possible to conclude that the authors of the US Constitution partly relied on Masonic traditions and, in particular, on the Anderson Constitution, the main Masonic document regulating the organization of lodges since 1723. In the process of comparative analysis of the U.S. Constitution and the Anderson Constitutions, the following correspondences were identified: the same age limit of 25 years, established for a candidate to join the Lodge and for election to the U.S. House of Representatives; the general democratic character of both documents, expected for the US Constitution, but not quite obvious to a researcher who is not familiar with the Anderson Constitutions; federalism, which is expressed in the ability of each individual lodge to have its own internal charter, budget, and establish its own positions for the executive functions of the lodges, which is broadly similar to the powers of the States; prohibition on the creation of new states and lodges without obtaining the consent of Congress or the Grand Lodge; the absence of a mechanism for the withdrawal of states from the United States, similar to the absence of a mechanism for the withdrawal of lodges from the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge; there is a certain similarity in the mechanism of electing the Grand Master of all Lodges and the President of the United States, which is expressed in the use of electors to exercise the right to vote in both cases. The scientific novelty of this work is due to the fact that it is the first serious comparative analysis of the foundations of legislative construction in the United States and Masonic organizations.

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