The rule for the admission of new members, as laid down in the Thirty-nine Regulations, seems to me, therefore, to be applicable in this case; and hence, I conceive that to reverse a sentence of expulsion and to restore an expelled Mason will require as unanimous a vote as that which is necessary on a ballot for initiation.
Every action taken by a lodge for restoration must be done at a stated communication and after due notice, that if any member should have good and sufficient reasons to urge against the restoration, he may have an opportunity to present them.
In conclusion, the Grand Lodge may restore a suspended or expelled Mason, contrary to the wishes of the lodge.
In such case, if the party has been suspended only, he, at once, resumes his place and functions in the lodge, from which, indeed, he had only been temporarily dissevered.
But in the case of the restoration of an expelled Mason to the rights and privileges of Masonry, by a Grand Lodge, does such restoration restore him to membership in his lodge? This question is an important one, and has very generally been decided in the negative by the Grand Lodges of this country. But as I unfortunately differ from these high authorities, I cannot refrain, as an apology for this difference of opinion, from presenting the considerations which have led me to the conclusion which I have adopted. I cannot, it is true, in the face of the ma.s.s of opposing authority, offer this conclusion as masonic law. But I would fain hope that the time is not far distant when it will become so, by the change on the part of Grand Lodges of the contrary decisions which they have made.
The general opinion in this country is, that when a Mason has been expelled by his lodge, the Grand Lodge may restore him to the rights and privileges, but cannot restore him to membership in his lodge. My own opinion, in contradiction to this, is, that when a Grand Lodge restores an expelled Mason, on the ground that the punishment of expulsion from the rights and privileges of Masonry was too severe and disproportioned to the offense, it may or may not restore him to membership in his lodge. It might, for instance, refuse to restore his membership on the ground that exclusion from his lodge is an appropriate punishment; but where the decision of the lodge as to the guilt of the individual is reversed, and the Grand Lodge declares him to be innocent, or that the charge against him has not been proved, then I hold, that it is compelled by a just regard to the rights of the expelled member to restore him not only to the rights and privileges of Masonry, but also to membership in his lodge.
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 pa.s.sage 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 circ.u.mstances, 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.