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From Thomas Jefferson to Bishop James Madison, 31 January 1800
To Bishop James Madison
Philadelphia Jan. 31. 1800.Dear Sir
I have recieved your favor of the 17th. & communicated it to mr Smith. I lately forwarded you a letter from Dr. Priestly, endorsed ‘with a book’; I struck these words through with my pen, because no book had then come. it is now recieved, & shall be forwarded to Richmond by the first opportunity: but such opportunities are difficult to find; gentlemen going in the stage not liking to take charge of a package which is to be attended to every time the stage is changed. the best chance will be by some captain of a vessel going round to Richmond. I shall address it to the care of mr George Jefferson there.
I have lately by accident got a sight of a single volume, (the 3d.) of the Abbé Barruel’s ‘Antisocial conspiracy,’ which gives me the first idea I have ever had of what is meant by the Illuminatism, against which ‘illuminati Morse’ as he is now called, and his ecclesiastical & monarchical associates have been making such a hue & cry. Barruel’s own parts of the book are perfectly the ravings of a Bedlamite. but he quotes largely from Wishaupt whom he considers as the founder of what he calls the order. as you may not have had an opportunity of forming a judgment of this cry of ‘mad dog’ which has been raised against his doctrines, I will give you the idea I have formed from only an hour’s reading of Barruel’s quotations from him which you may be sure are not the most favourable. Wishaupt seems to be an enthusiastic Philanthropist. he is among those (as you know the excellent Price and Priestly also are) who believe in the indefinite perfectibility of man. he thinks he may in time be rendered so perfect that he will be able to govern himself in every circumstance so as to injure none, to do all the good he can, to leave government no occasion to exercise their powers over him, & of course to render political government useless. this, you know is Godwin’s doctrine, and this is what Robinson, Barruel & Morse have called a conspiracy against all government. Wishaupt believes that to promote this perfection of the human character was the object of Jesus Christ. that his intention was simply to reinstate natural religion, & by diffusing the light of his morality, to teach us to govern ourselves. his precepts are the love of god & love of our neighbor. and by teaching innocence of conduct, he expected to place men in their natural state of liberty & equality. he says, no one ever laid a surer foundation for liberty than our grand master, Jesus of Nazareth. he believes the Freemasons were originally possessed of the true principles & object of Christianity, and have still preserved some of them by tradition, but much disfigured. the means he proposes to effect this improvement of human nature are ‘to enlighten men, to correct their morals & inspire them with benevolence. secure of our success, sais he, we abstain from violent commotions. to have foreseen the happiness of posterity & to have prepared it by irreproacheable means, suffices for our felicity. this tranquility of our consciences is not troubled by the reproach of aiming at the ruin or overthrow of states or thrones.’ as Wishaupt lived under the tyranny of a despot & priests, he knew that caution was necessary even in spreading information, and the principles of pure morality. he proposed therefore to lead the Freemasons to adopt this object, and to make the objects of their institution, the diffusion of1 science & virtue. he proposed to initiate new members into this body by gradations proportioned to his fears of the thunderbolts of tyranny. this has given an air of mystery to his views, was the foundation of his banishment & the subversion of the Masonic order, and is the colour for the ravings against him of Robinson, Barruel & Morse, whose real fears are that the craft would be endangered by the spreading of information reason & natural morality among men.—this subject being new to me, I have imagined that if it be so to you also, you may recieve the same satisfaction in seeing, which I have had in forming the Analysis of it: and I believe you will think with me that if Wishaupt had written here, where no secrecy is necessary in our endeavors to render men wise & virtuous, he would not have thought of any secret machinery for that purpose: as Godwin, if he had written in Germany, might probably also have thought secrecy & mystycism prudent.—I will say nothing to you on the late revolution of France, which is painfully interesting. perhaps when we know more of the circumstances which give rise to it, & the direction it will take, Buonaparte, it’s chief organ, may stand in a better light than at present. I am with great esteem Dear Sir
Your affectionate friend & servt


https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-31-02-0297#TSJN-01-31-0297-kw-0003

To George Washington from G. W. Snyder, 22 August 1798
From G. W. Snyder
Frederick-Town (Maryland) Augt 22. 1798.Sir,
You will, I hope, not think it a Presumption in a Stranger, whose Name, perhaps never reached your Ears, to address himself to you the Commanding General of a great Nation. I am a German, born and liberally educated in the City of Heydelberg in the Palatinate of the Rhine. I came to this Country in 1776, and felt soon after my Arrival a close Attachment to the Liberty for which these confederated States then struggled. The same Attachment still remains not glowing, but burning in my Breast. At the same Time that I am exulting in the Measures adopted by our Government, I feel myself elevated in the Idea of my adopted Country. I am attached both from the Bent of Education and mature Enquiry and Search to the simple Doctrines of Christianity, which I have the Honor to teach in Public; and I do heartily despise all the Cavils of Infidelity. Our present Time, pregnant with the most shocking Evils and Calamities, threatens Ruin to our Liberty and Goverment. Secret, the most secret Plans are in Agitation: Plans, calculated to ensnare the Unwary, to attract the Gay and irreligious, and to entice even the Well-disposed to combine in the general Machine for overturning all Government and all Religion.
It was some Time since that a Book fell into my Hands entituled “Proofs of a Conspiracy &c. by John Robison,”1 which gives a full Account of a Society of Freemasons, that distinguishes itself by the Name “of Illuminati,” whose Plan is to overturn all Government and all Religion, even natural; and who endeavour to eradicate every Idea of a Supreme Being, and distinguish Man from Beast by his Shape only. A Thought suggested itself to me, that some of the Lodges in the United States might have caught the Infection, and might cooperate with the Illuminati or the Jacobine Club in France. Fauchet is mentioned by Robison as a zealous Member: and who can doubt of Genet and Adet? Have not these their Confidants in this Country? They use the same Expressions and are generally Men of no Religion. Upon serious Reflection I was led to think that it might be within your Power to prevent the horrid Plan from corrupting the Brethren of the English Lodge over which you preside.2
I send you the “Proof of a Conspiracy &c.” which, I doubt not, will give you Satisfaction and afford you Matter for a Train of Ideas, that may operate to our national Felicity. If, however, you have already perused the Book, it will not, I trust, be disagreeable to you that I have presumed to address you with this Letter and the Book accompanying it. It proceeded from the Sincerity of my Heart and my ardent Wishes for the common Good.
May the Supreme Ruler of all Things continue You long with us in these perilous Times: may he endow you with Strength and Wisdom to save our Country in the threatening Storms and gathering Clouds of Factions and Commotions! and after you have completed his Work on this terrene Spot, may He bring you to the full Possession of the glorious Liberty of the Children of God, is the hearty and most sincere Wish of Your Excellency’s very humble and devoted Servant
G. W. Snyder
ALS, DLC:GW.
In May of this year, Snyder published in Philadelphia The Age of Reason Unreasonable; or The Folly of Rejecting Revealed Religion.. . .
1. John Robison’s Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, published in Philadelphia in 1798, was in GW’s library at his death. This letter from Snyder initiated a flurry of correspondence between him and GW. GW replied on 25 Sept.: “Sir, Many apologies are due to you, for my not acknowledging the receipt of your obliging favour of the 22d Ulto, and for not thanking you, at an earlier period, for the Book you had the goodness to send me.
“I have heard much of the nefarious, & dangerous plan, & doctrines of the Illuminati, but never saw the Book until you were pleased to send it to me. ….


https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/06-02-02-0435

“ Timothy Dwight IV, son-in-law of Jonathan Edwards, president of Yale College, and a staunchly conservative Calvinist, saw Jefferson’s election as the advent of French revolutionary Jacobinism in the North American republic. “The great object of Jacobinism,” he warned after Jefferson defeated John Adams, “both in its political and moral revolution, is to destroy every trace of civilization in the world, and to force mankind back into a savage state.”

Dwight bewailed the advent of Jeffersonian politics and opined that the United States had “now reached the consummation of democratic blessedness. We have a country governed by blockheads and knaves.” He despaired that “the ties of marriage with all its felicities” had been “severed and destroyed” by the coming Republican order. “Our wives and daughters are thrown into the stews; our children are cast into the world from the breast and forgotten.” The very structure of the family seemed under attack. “Filial piety is extinguished, and our surnames, the only mark of distinction among families, are abolished. Can the imagination paint anything more dreadful on this side of hell?”[2]

Jefferson scoffed at Calvinist intransigence. He hated Calvin for many reasons, but he held an especially impassioned loathing for the French Reformer’s throaty trinitarianism and the doctrine of election. Calvin, in Jefferson’s reading of history, represented the clearest intellectual successor to the medieval Christian order he despised. He compared what he called the “simple” doctrines of Jesus—his phrase for Unitarianism—with “the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin.” Jefferson objected to the mysticism and anti-rationalism of Calvinism. He believed that Calvin was an enemy to reason.…” https://mereorthodoxy.com/john-calvin-thomas-jefferson/

A member of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society when it received its royal warrant, he was appointed as the first general secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1783–98). Robison invented the siren and also worked with James Watt on an early steam car. Following the French Revolution, Robison became disenchanted with elements of the Enlightenment. He authored Proofs of a Conspiracy in 1797—a polemic accusing Freemasonry of being infiltrated by Weishaupt's Order of the Illuminati. His son was the inventor Sir John Robison (1778–1843).

Biography


The son of John Robison, a Glasgow merchant, he was born in Boghall, Baldernock, Stirlingshire (now East Dunbartonshire) and attended Glasgow Grammar School and the University of Glasgow (MA 1756).[2] After a brief stay in London in 1758 Robison became the tutor to the midshipman son of Admiral Knowles, sailing with the Royal Navy on General Wolfe's expedition to Quebec and Portugal (1756–62). His mathematical skills were employed in navigation and surveying. Returning to Britain in 1762, he joined the Board of Longitude — a team of scientists who tested John Harrison's marine chronometer on a voyage to Jamaica.

Subsequently, he settled in Glasgow engaging in the practical science of James Watt and Joseph Black in opposition to the systematic continental European chemistry of Antoine Lavoisier and its adherents such as Joseph Priestley. In 1766 he succeeded Black as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. He in turn was succeeded in 1770 by Black's assistant, William Irvine.[3]

In 1769, he announced that balls with like electrical charges repel each other with a force that varies as the inverse-square of the distance between them, anticipating Coulomb's law of 1785.[4]

In 1770 he travelled to Saint Petersburg as the secretary of Admiral Charles Knowles, where he taught mathematics to the cadets at the Naval Academy at Kronstadt, obtaining a double salary and the rank of lieutenant colonel. Robison moved to Scotland in 1773 and took up the post of Professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He lectured on mechanics, hydrostatics, astronomy, optics, electricity and magnetism. His conception of mechanical philosophy’ became influential in nineteenth-century British physics. His name appears in the 1776 "Minute Book of The Poker Club", a crucible of the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1783 he became General Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1797 his articles for the Encyclopædia Britannica gave a good account of the scientific, mathematical and technological knowledge of the day. He also prepared for publication, in 1799, the chemical lectures of his friend and mentor, Joseph Black.

Robison worked with James Watt on an early steam car. This project came to nothing and has no direct connection to Watt's later improvement of the Newcomen steam engine. He along with Joseph Black and others gave evidence about Watt's originality and their own lack of connection to his key idea of the Separate Condenser.

Robison did however invent the siren, though it was Charles Cagniard de la Tour who named it after producing an improved model.

Proofs of a Conspiracy


Towards the end of his life he published Proofs of a Conspiracy in 1797, alleging clandestine intrigue by the Illuminati and Freemasons (the work's full title was Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies). The secret agent monk, Alexander Horn provided much of the material for Robison's allegations.[5] French priest Abbé Barruel independently developed similar views that the Illuminati had infiltrated Continental Freemasonry, leading to the excesses of the French Revolution.[6][7] In 1798, the Reverend G. W. Snyder sent Robison's book to George Washington for his thoughts on the subject in which he replied to him in a letter:

It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am. The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of separation). That Individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects; and actually had a separation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned.[8]
Modern conspiracy theorists, such as Nesta Webster and William Guy Carr, believe the methods of the Illuminati as described in Proofs of a Conspiracy were copied by radical groups throughout the 19th and 20th centuries in their subversion of benign organizations. Spiritual Counterfeits Project editor Tal Brooke has compared the views of Proofs of a Conspiracy with those found in Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope (Macmillan, 1966). Brooke suggests that the New World Order, which Robison believed Adam Weishaupt (founder of the Illuminati) had in part accomplished through the infiltration of Freemasonry, will now be completed by those holding sway over the international banking system (e.g., by means of the Rothschilds' banks, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank).[9]

Quick clarification… they don’t run The Highway! 😊

With the help of relatives, Rothschild secured an apprenticeship under Jacob Wolf Oppenheimer at the banking firm of Simon Wolf Oppenheimer in Hanover in 1757. The grandson of Samuel Oppenheimer taught Rothschild useful knowledge in foreign trade and currency exchange, before he returned to his brothers' business in Frankfurt in 1763. Rothschild said "Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws."

July 16–August 29 1782 – The Masonic Congress of Wilhelmsbad, Germany, one of history's most important ever secret society congresses, takes place. High-degree Freemasons from the whole of Europe spend the time deliberating the fate of the rite of Strict Observance, and hierarchy of the governing bodies of world Freemasonry, at the Hanau-Wilhelmsbad spa.

The Comte de Virieu, an attendee at the conference, comes away visibly shaken. When questioned about the "tragic secrets" he brought back with him, he replies: “I will not confide them to you. I can only tell you that all this is very much more serious than you think.” “The conspiracy which is being woven is so well thought out that it will be, so to speak, impossible for the monarchy and the Church to escape from it.”
From this time on, according to his biographer, "the Comte de Virieu could only speak of Freemasonry with horror.”

….at first favorable to the ideas of the French Revolution, he fought in the future.

Freemasonry becomes a major issue in the presidential election in the United States. John Adams wins the election by opposing Masonry, and his son….
President John Quincy Adams, objecting to the oath of secrecy, in particular to keeping undefined secrets, and to the penalties for breaking the oath, declared:

“I do conscientiously and sincerely believe that the Order of Freemasonry, if not the greatest, is one of the greatest moral and political evils under which the Union is now laboring ... a conspiracy of the few against the equal rights of the many ...Masonry ought forever to be abolished. It is wrong - essentially wrong - a seed of evil, which can never produce any good.”

On July 19, 1789, David Pappin, President of Harvard University, issued a warning to the graduating class, concerning the Illuminati’s influence on American politics and religion. In April, 1793, France sent new ambassador Edmond Genet to America, so he could collect payment for the American debt incurred during the American Revolution, so the money could be used to finance France’s war with England. However, his real reason for being here, was to gain political favor for France, and spread Illuminism, which he did, through the establishment of “Democratic Clubs”.

Washington said “they would shake the government to its foundations”, while John Quincy Adams, oldest son of the 2nd President John Adams, who became our 6th President in 1825, said that these clubs were “so perfectly affiliated with the Parisian Jacobins that their origin from a common parent cannot possibly be mistaken.” Because of the Illuminati threat, Washington and Adams lobbied Congress to pass the Alien and Sedition Act, which was “designed to protect the United States from the extensive French Jacobin conspiracy, paid agents of which were even in high places in the government.”

In 1785, the Columbia Lodge of the Order of the Illuminati was established in New York City. Among its members were Governor DeWitt Clinton, Horace Greeley (politician and editor of the New York Daily Tribune), Charles Dana, and Clinton Roosevelt (the ancestor of Franklin D. Roosevelt).

Roosevelt wrote a book called Science of Government Founded on Natural Law, in which he wrote: “There is no God of justice to order things aright on earth, if there be a God, he is a malicious and revengeful being, who created us for misery.”

He referred to himself and other members as the “enlightened ones,” and said that the U.S. Constitution was a “leaky vessel” which was “hastily put together when we left the British flag,” and therefore needed revision.

It can not be a part of general benevolence, but stands unalterably opposed to the highest well-being of society in general. The same, let me say, is true to a greater or less extent of all secret societies, whose members are bound by oath or pledge to treat each other with a favoritism that ignores the rights of others. Now, it has been said, and I think truly, that in the late war if a man wished preferment and high rank, he must be a high Mason. Such things were managed so much by high Masons that it was difficult for a man to rise in rank unless he could make himself known as a high Mason. And let the facts become known--and, I hope that measures will be taken to make them known--and I believe it will be found that the great mass of the lucrative offices in the United States are in the hands of the Freemasons.

It is evident that they are aiming to seize upon the government, and to wield it in their own interest. They are fast doing this, and unless the nation awake soon it will be too late. And let the church of God also awake to the fact that many of her ministers and members are uniting with a society so selfish and wicked as this, and are defending it, and are ready to persecute all who will not unite with them in this thing. - Charles G. Finney THE CHARACTER, CLAIMS AND PRACTICAL WORKINGS OF FREEMASONRY 1869

At a time, however, when there was no end of making game of and abusing secret societies, I planned to make use of this human foible for a real and worthy goal, for the benefit of people. I wished to do what the heads of the ecclesiastical and secular authorities ought to have done by virtue of their offices ...[17]
On 1 May 1776 Johann Adam Weishaupt founded the "Illuminati" in the Electorate of Bavaria. Initially Illumination was designated for a group of outstanding and enlightened individuals in the society. Indeed, the word was adapted from a Latin root, Iluminatus, which directly translates to "enlightened." He also adopted the name of "Brother Spartacus" within the order. Even encyclopedia references vary on the goal of the order, such as Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) saying the Order was not egalitarian or democratic internally, but sought to promote the doctrines of equality and freedom throughout society;[18] while others such as Collier's have said the aim was to combat religion and foster rationalism in its place.[19] The Illuminati was formed with the vision of liberating humans from religious bondage and undermining corrupted governments.[20]

The actual character of the society was an elaborate network of spies and counter-spies. Each isolated cell of initiates reported to a superior, whom they did not know: a party structure that was effectively adopted by some later groups.[18]

Weishaupt was initiated into the Masonic lodge "Theodor zum guten Rath", at Munich in 1777. His project of "illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason, which will dispel the clouds of superstition and of prejudice" was an unwelcome reform.[18][failed verification] He used Freemasonry to recruit for his own quasi-masonic society, with the goal of "perfecting human nature" through re-education to achieve a communal state with nature, freed of government and organized religion. Presenting their own system as pure masonry, Weishaupt and Adolph Freiherr Knigge, who organised his ritual structure, greatly expanded the secret organisation.[18]

Contrary to Immanuel Kant's famous dictum that Enlightenment (and Weishaupt's Order was in some respects an expression of the Enlightenment Movement) was the passage by man out of his 'self-imposed immaturity' through daring to 'make use of his own reason, without the guidance of another,' Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati prescribed in great detail everything which the members had obediently to read and think, so that Dr. Wolfgang Riedel has commented that this approach to illumination or enlightenment constituted a degradation and twisting of the Kantian principle of Enlightenment.[21] Riedel writes:

'The independence of thought and judgement required by Kant ... was specifically prevented by the Order of the Illuminati's rules and regulations. Enlightenment takes place here, if it takes place at all, precisely under the direction of another, namely under that of the "Superiors" [of the Order].[22]
Weishaupt's radical rationalism and vocabulary were not likely to succeed. Writings that were intercepted in 1784 were interpreted as seditious, and the Society was banned by the government of Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, in 1784. Weishaupt lost his position at the University of Ingolstadt and fled Bavaria.[18]