Have Masonic concepts shaped U.S. government at all?
Yes. Leading up to the American Revolution, some of the values that were there within Masonic lodges, such as electing your own leaders and having a constitution, were ideas that did get put into play. Now, whether you can attribute that directly to Masons is a bigger question, because those ideas were also part of the Enlightenment, and they were loose in the world at large. Some 13 of the 39 signers of the Constitution were Masons. Coincidence? In the context of a new society being pulled together, Masonry did provide a kind of informal infrastructure for civil society. It was an organization where men could get together and meet each other across class lines. But I think the number of signers of the Constitution or of the Declaration of Independence was less a matter of, say, some Masonic grand master ordering the Masons to infiltrate the government and more just happening to have a lot of people who were fairly active in society at large who were also Masons. Could you say that joi
