Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFATORY:
IN the year 1859, the Sovereign Grand Com- mander of the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States prepared, and gave to Bro.-. Robert Macoy, who published it on his own account, an edition of the Grand Constitutions of 1 762, and the Statutes, Institutes and Regulations of the Rite of Perfection subsequent thereto, and of the Latin Grand Constitutions of 1786, and the Statutes of the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction. In this work, these, with additions, are published by that Supreme Council.
Thory, (Acta Latomorum, i. 79, ) says: "1762, 21 September. - Committees from the Council of Emperors of the East and West at Paris, and the Council of Princes of the Royal Secret, framed, at Bordeaux, the Regulations of the Masonry of Perfection, in thirty-five Articles, and fixed the degrees administered by the Council." All the other French writers of Masonic History state the same, with little or no additional information.
Copies of these Constitutions and Regulations of 1762, and of the subsequent Statutes, Institutes and Regulations, of unknown date and uncertain authenticity, which follow the Constitutions in this volume, were published in French, at Paris, in the "Recueil des Actes du Supreme Conseil de France," in 1832, by authority of that body.
In the Archives of the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction, at Charleston, is a book, in manuscript, written by the Bro.: Jean Baptiste Marie Delahogue, father-in- law of the Bro.: Comte Alexandre Francois Auguste de Grasse, in 1798 and 1799; containing among other documents, a copy of the Constitutions of 1762, and of other Statutes and Regulations; all authenticated by his signature and that of the Bro.: Comte de Grasse; and under the Seal of the Sublime Grand Council of the Princes of the Royal Secret, then in existence and sitting at Charleston.
The Comte de Grasse was a member of the Supreme Council at Charleston, and its Grand Representative for the French West Indian Islands, where he established a Supreme Council, at Port-au-Prince, in 1803, and thence went to France, and there in 1804 established the Supreme Council of France. The Bro.: Delahogue was commissioned by the Supreme Council for the United States at Charleston to extend the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in Louisiana, went to Santo Domingo with the Bro.: de Grasse, was Lieut.: Gr.: Commander of the Council established there; and accompanied him to France, and held the same office in the Supreme Council of France.
There is also in the same Archives another book, being the register delivered by the Bro: . Jean Baptiste Aveilhe, Deputy Grand Inspector-General and Prince Mason, to the Bro.: Pierre Dupont Delorme, Deputy Gr.: Insp.: General and Prince Mason, at Port-au-Prince, on the 10th of December, 1797, containing the same and other documents. In this book, there is attached to the copy of each document a copy of a certificate that it is a correct copy, of the Bros.: Hyman Isaac Long, Jean Baptiste Marie Delahogue, Auguste de Grasse, Dominique Saint Paul, Alexis Claude Robin and Remy Victor Petit, Dep'y.: Insps.: General and Princes Masons, given at Charleston, on the 9th of June, 1799; with the certificate of the Bro.: Aveilhe, dated, 10th December, 1797; and each is vise by the Bro: . de Grasse, as Sov.: Gr.: Insp.: General, 33d degree, on the 12th of March, 1802.
