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Trump Administration To Restore Albert Pike Freemason Memorial

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by blueapples
Thursday, Aug 07, 2025 - 11:00

"Force, unregulated or ill-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil and bruise itself. It is destruction and ruin. It is the volcano, the earthquake, the cyclone;--not growth and progress. It is Polyphemus blinded, striking at random, and falling headlong among the sharp rocks by the impetus of his own blows."

Those are the words of Albert Pike, who by all accounts is the most influential Freemason in American history. The quote is taken from the introductory paragraph of the first chapter of his tome Morals and Dogma, which offers the most comprehensive and accessible insight into the Masonic lore steeped in mystery and intrigue that has made the secret society the embodiment of the supranational forces of elitism that have truly driven history. Pike's words succinctly summarize the Masonic view of the masses, whom social architects like the Freemasons manipulate by manufacturing chaos to create social conditions that allow them to mold a society shaped in their image. The quote would prove to be prescient, as it forecast a culture war that swept across the United States in 2020, which used that tactic as the catalyst to irrevocably changed the course of American history.

Ironically, it is that chaos that was instilled in the masses that ultimately led to the destruction of a statue dedicated to Pike that stood in Washington, DC, for over a century. Given Pike's service to the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, his statue served as a beacon of an era that the social engineers reshaping the country sought to erase from its history. As hysteria swept across the streets of the nation's capital in 2020, the statue memorializing Pike was toppled over and set ablaze on Juneteenth as part of the destruction brought on by the nationwide Black Lives Matter riots.

Over 5 years after its destruction, the Trump administration has promised to resurrect the Albert Pike Memorial that once stood in Washington's Judiciary Square, just blocks from the US Capitol. Like those who destroyed the statue, the Trump administration's decision to restore the Albert Pike Memorial in the name of preserving American history puts forward a myopic narrative that obscures the complex history of the former Masonic leader, continuing to shroud his name and influence in mystery in a manner that sustains the secrecy that has allowed Freemasonry and other elite orders like it to steer the course of history from behind a veil that hides their unyielding power.

Albert Pike's statue in ruin after its destruction at the hands of BLM rioters.

The National Park Service announced the decision to rebuild the statue of Pike at its former site on Monday. Before its destruction, the statue was the only memorial to a Confederate general to stand in Washington, DC. In a statement, the NPS stated the decision to restore the statue of Pike “aligns with federal responsibilities under historic preservation law as well as recent executive orders to beautify the nation’s capital and reinstate pre-existing statues." Restoration of the Albert Pike Memorial is set to be finished by October. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also announced that a statue commemorating the Confederacy, which he referred to as the Reconciliation Monument, would return to its site at Arlington National Cemetery after it was removed during the Biden administration in 2023 after being featured in the cemetery since it was first erected in 1914.

Since returning to the Oval Office, President Trump has made a concerted effort to undo the historical erasure brought on by the cultural Marxist revolution that effectively installed his predecessor. In March, Trump issued an executive order entitled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. The executive order disavows the efforts of the Biden administration to use the chaos brought on by the Helter-Skelteresque manufactured race war of 2020 to rewrite American history, instructing the US Interior Department to restore any statue that was “removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.” The executive order frames the restoration of the Albert Pike Memorial as imperative to that endeavor of historical preservation.

Congressional delegate to the US House of Representatives for the District of Columbia Eleanor Holmes Norton responded to the NPS announcement of the restoration of the Albert Pike Memorial, expressing her opposition. Instead of rebuilding the statue, Norton wishes for it to be placed in a museum. "Given the NPS announcement that it will reinstall the statue, I plan to reintroduce my bill to remove the Pike statue and authorize the Secretary of the Interior to donate the statue to a museum or a similar entity. A statue honoring a racist and a traitor has no place on the streets of DC." she wrote in a press release announcing her intentions to introduce a bill to the House of Representatives preventing the statue from being restored in Judiciary Square.

The idea that the restoration of the Albert Pike Memorial reconciles a false reconstruction of history is just as tenuous as the premise that the statue dedicated to him was erected to honor a racist and a traitor. If anything, focusing on Pike's military service under the Confederacy alone creates an equally distorted account of his life that subverts his role as a leader in Freemasonry from public perception. Conversely, categorizing Pike as nothing more than a racist and traitor entirely overlooks the intricacies of the relationship Pike had with the Confederacy that was as equally complex as his standing in American history as the nation's most influential Freemason. Each perspective reduces the legacy of Albert Pike into a simplistic narrative utilized for political expedience rather than putting forward any objective historical assessment. In doing so, the influence of Freemasonry on American history is relegated deeper into obscurity.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Pike was appointed as an envoy to Native American tribes throughout the southern US. During his career as an attorney before his military service to the Confederacy, Pike represented various tribes in pursuit of regaining their historical lands. Pike became the first attorney to argue before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Native American tribes in their quest to reclaim land when he represented the Creek Nation in 1852. The relationships Pike built with various Native American tribes made him a considerable asset to the Confederacy, which sought to sign treaties with them to oppose the Union. Pike successfully negotiated several treaties with tribes on behalf of the Confederacy, including one with the Cherokee Nation, which promised the tribe recognition of a state if the South emerged victorious from the war.

In any other context, advocating for the return of land to Native American tribes would be heralded as an achievement in the fight for civil rights. However, that chapter of Pike's life is disregarded by leftist opponents of the restoration of his statue, as it doesn't fit their narrative about him. Unsurprisingly, that is the same case for the rest of his tumultuous relationship with the Confederacy, which branded Pike as a traitor itself.

Pike's success leading treaty negotiations with Native American tribes led to him being named a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army on November 22nd, 1861. He was given command in the Indian Territory and trained cavalry regiments comprised of Native American soldiers, leading them in the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862. The battle brought the first of Pike's conflicts with Confederate military leadership following allegations that one of his Native American troops scalped defeated Union soldiers under his directive. Although Pike was successful in substantiating his claim that the scalping was a rogue act and not one that he sanctioned, it marked the beginning of the erosion of his relationships with his superior officers in the Confederate Army.

The fraught relationship between Pike and his superior officers fell into further disrepair when he alleged their orders violated the terms of the treaties he negotiated on behalf of the Native American tribes he led with the Confederacy. Those treaties stipulated that his regiments would be tasked with defending the Indian Territory against the Union and not be deployed to other theaters of the Civil War. His protestations fomented a particularly adversarial relationship with District Commander General Thomas C. Hindman, who issued the orders Pike opposed. Pike personally wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis about his disagreements with Hindman and his other superior officers, including Hindman's predecessor, General Earl Van Dorn, whom Pike accused of misappropriating provisions, equipment, and money intended for his regiments.

Pike resigned from his post as brigadier general in response to General Hindman's insistence that his regiments serve the Confederate Army in Arkansas outside of the Indian Territory. In response, Hindman charged him with the same allegations of misappropriation that he made against Van Dorn after Pike refused to turn over weapons and money given to his command when martial law was declared in Arkansas by General Hindman. These charges led to Pike being arrested for insubordination and treason against the Confederacy on November 3rd, 1862. However, the allegations made by General Hindman lacked any credible evidence and appeared to be nothing more than a vendetta brought against Pike. As a result of being exonerated of the charges, Pike's resignation from the Confederate States Army was accepted, and he was discharged from his post.

Following the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War, Pike fled to New York City and Canada, where he sought refuge from further persecution in the occupied South. On June 24th, 1865, Pike appealed to United States President and fellow Freemason Andrew Johnson for a full pardon on any charges that could be brought against him for serving in the Confederacy. In his request, Pike stated he would voluntarily withdraw from any political pursuits and instead dedicate his life to his studies in Freemasonry. President Johnson granted Pike's pardon on April 23rd, 1866.

While Pike's service to the Confederacy has put him in the crosshairs of leftists who use it to vilify him, a more thorough examination of his military and legal career demonstrates that he was someone who, by all accounts, would be regarded as progressive for his time, as evidenced by his commitment to fight for the rights of Native American tribes. However, Pike's racial views on African-Americans offer more than enough ammunition for his opponents in their crusade to condemn him as a bigot. Critics of Pike highlight his virulent opposition to black suffrage and other beliefs in the superiority of the white race. On the issue of black suffrage, Pike was quoted as saying, "The white race, and that race alone, shall govern this country. It is the only one that is fit to govern, and it is the only one that shall."

However, Pike's views on the role of African-Americans in Freemasonry demonstrate a more nuanced racial outlook. Although Pike remarked that "When I have to accept negroes as brothers or leave Masonry, I shall leave it" in 1875, he spent the last years of his life aiding the advancement of Prince Hall Freemasonry, a branch of Freemasonry founded by its namesake, the freed black Prince Hall, as a means of initiating African-Americans in the secretive fraternal order. Pike formed a kinship with his contemporary and Supreme Grand Commander of the United Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Prince Hall Affiliation, Thornton A. Jackson, in an effort to improve the lodges dedicated to black Freemasons. The bond between the men grew so close that Pike would give Thornton his complete set of rituals from the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for use in Prince Hall lodges. The evolution of Pike's views on African-Americans in Freemasonry was conveyed in a letter written by William W. Allen in 1945 during his tenure as the Sovereign Grand Commander of Prince Hall Freemasonry, who wrote, "It is not necessary to remind you of what practically all Masonic scholars know very well, that in the closing years of General Pike’s Masonic career, he became a very staunch friend of Negro Masonry."

In light of his commitment to the advancement of the rights of Native Americans and Prince Hall Freemasonry, the reductive view that Albert Pike was nothing more than a virulent racist is juxtaposed by an equally perplexing position from the Trump administration in favor of restoring his statue. Since his first successful presidential campaign, Trump has built a cult of personality centered on the idea that his leadership will disrupt the existing political establishment. That narrative has been furthered with rhetoric aimed at toppling the secret forces that circumvent democracy under the shadow of darkness, i.e., the Deep State. Paradoxically, Freemasonry is the epitome of everything Trump has claimed to stand against in that vein. Thus, the decision to rebuild the Albert Pike Memorial reconstructs a statue dedicated to the very forces that Trump and his supporters have reviled as being the enemy leading the destruction of the American republic.

Pike's association with Freemasonry as a subversive force dictating the course of history and undermining national sovereignty is best demonstrated by his alleged letter written to Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini. In the alleged letter, Pike forecasts more than the next sesquicentennial of world history, writing:

"The First World War must be brought about in order to permit the Illuminati to overthrow the power of the Czars in Russia and of making that country a fortress of atheistic Communism. The divergences caused by the "agentur" (agents) of the Illuminati between the British and Germanic Empires will be used to foment this war. At the end of the war. Communism will be built and used in order to destroy the other governments and in order to weaken the religions.

The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the Fascists and the political Zionists. This war must be brought about so that Nazism is destroyed and that the political Zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International Communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm.

The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the "agentur" of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. 

Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion... We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. 

Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. 

This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time." 

While no proof substantiating the veracity of the letter has ever been produced, the letter represents a historical truth nevertheless like many apocryphal quotes. Giuseppe Garibaldi, a follower of Mazzini's who helped lead the Risorgimento which unified Italy in 1871, was a known Freemason who helped pave the way for the rise of Fascism in the 20th century. Garibaldi formed the Freemasonic Rite of Memphis-Misraim in 1881, just one year before his death. Following Garibaldi's death, the rite of obscure Egyptian Freemasonry steeped in esoteric philosophies like Hermeticism and Kabbalah would be led by a series of other leaders. Their expansion of the Rite of Memphis-Misraim would initiate members whose contributions would elicit political and social consequences that would reshape the existing world order.

Under Theodor Reuss, the last Grand Master and Grand Hierophant of the Rite of Memphis-Misraim, a man named Rudolf von Sebottendorf would become initiated into the order. Following his initiation, von Sebottendorf would go on to found the Thule Society in Germany. According to von Sebottendorf, members of the Thule Society included men who would go on to be leading figures in the Nazi Party, such as Dietrich Eckart, Gottfried Feder, Hans Frank, Hermann Göring, Karl Haushofer, Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler, and Alfred Rosenberg. The connection between Freemasonry and the Thule Society so integral to the political ascent of the Nazi Party echoes the undertones of Pike's alleged letter to Mazzini, illustrating the impact Freemasonry has had in driving the course of history.

American history is even more replete with connections to Freemasonry, as 14 of the 47 US Presidents have been confirmed to be Freemasons. Others, including George W. Bush and his 2004 presidential opponent John Kerry, have been known to belong to different groups that share parallels with Freemasonry, such as the Yale-based secret society Skull and Bones. The emergence of the Bush and Kerry connection to Skull and Bones during the 2004 election cycle served as an eye-opening moment highlighting how deeply immersed those in control of the country were in secretive societies, demonstrating the subversive influence they have. However, like Albert Pike's history as a Freemason, those connections have largely been shrouded in secrecy, making the Trump administration's choice to revere Albert Pike at odds with its supposed commitment to rid the nation of the pervasive influence of a secret cabal comprised of the social elite.

The omission of any discourse on Freemasonry makes the decision by the Trump administration to restore the Albert Pike Memorial less about historical preservation and more about waging the next battle in the ongoing culture war dividing the American people. What the restoration of the Albert Pike Memorial brings isn't a reconciliation of the historical erasure that ran rampant during the Biden administration. Instead, the decision serves as its own attempt at revisionist history, which obfuscates the role Freemasonry has had in placing the power controlling the US government in the hands of a select few.

Contributor posts published on Zero Hedge do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Zero Hedge, and are not selected, edited or screened by Zero Hedge editors.
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