I cannot conceive how a Brother, whose innocence has been declared by the verdict of his Grand Lodge, can be deprived of his vested rights as the member of a particular lodge, without a violation of the principles of justice. If guilty, let his expulsion stand; but, if innocent, let him be placed in the same position in which he was before the passage of the unjust sentence of the lodge which has been reversed.
The whole error, for such I conceive it to be, in relation to this question of restoration to membership, arises, I suppose, from a misapprehension of an ancient regulation, which says that "no man can be entered a Brother in any particular lodge, or admitted a member thereof, without the unanimous consent of all the members"—which inherent privilege is said not to be subject to dispensation, "lest a turbulent member should thus be imposed upon them, which might spoil their harmony, or hinder the freedom of their communication, or even break and disperse the Lodge."
But it should be remembered that this regulation altogether refers to the admission of new members, and not to the restoration of old ones—to the granting of a favor which the candidate solicits, and which the lodge may or may not, in its own good pleasure, see fit to confer, and not to the resumption of a vested and already acquired right, which, if it be a right, no lodge can withhold.
The practical working of this system of incomplete restoration, in a by no means extreme case, will readily show its absurdity and injustice.
A member having appealed from expulsion by his lodge to the Grand Lodge, that body calmly and fairly investigates the case. It finds that the appellant has been falsely accused of an offense which he has never committed; that he has been unfairly tried, and unjustly convicted. It declares him innocent—clearly and undoubtedly innocent, and far freer from any sort of condemnation than the prejudiced jurors who convicted him.
Under these circumstances, it becomes obligatory that the Grand Lodge should restore him to the place he formerly occupied, and reinvest him with the rights of which he has been unjustly despoiled. But that it cannot do. It may restore him to the privileges of Masonry in general; but, innocent though he be, the Grand Lodge, in deference to the prejudices of his Brethren, must perpetuate a wrong, and punish this innocent person by expulsion from his lodge.
I cannot, I dare not, while I remember the eternal principles of justice, subscribe to so monstrous an exercise of wrong—so flagrant an outrage upon private rights.