United States
In the United States each state has a Grand Lodge that supervises the lodges within that state and is sovereign and independent within that jurisdiction. The Provincial Grand Lodge of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania was the first of these, founded in 1731, and also the third Grand Lodge ever formed around the world after England and Ireland. These are commonly referred to as the "regular" or "mainstream" Grand Lodges. There is no national Grand Lodge. All regular Grand Lodges in the US are in mutual amity with each other and with UGLE, with the exception of Ohio and West Virginia, which do not currently recognize one another.
In addition, most States also have a sovereign and independent Prince Hall Grand Lodge that is or was predominantly African-American. For many years the mainstream Grand Lodges did not recognize Prince Hall Freemasonry and considered them irregular. Within the last 20 years this situation has changed and today most mainstream Grand Lodges have come to recognize their Prince Hall counterparts and vice-versa. The few exceptions are in the former Confederate states (except Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas), as well as West Virginia, where the mainstream Grand Lodges do not yet recognize their Prince Hall counterparts.
Due to a 19th century argument and a resulting schism, not all Prince Hall Grand Lodges recognize each other, and generally the mainstream Grand Lodges have followed the lead of their Prince Hall counterparts when it comes to recognizing Prince Hall Grand Lodges in other states. UGLE has also granted recognition to Prince Hall Grand Lodges where they are recognised by their mainstream counterparts.
Thus, in most of the States of the US, there are currently two recognized Grand Lodges, each recognizing the other but maintaining independence and sovereignty over their subordinate lodges. This condition (the presence of two recognized Grand Lodges in one geographical area) is uncommon. Traditionally recognition has been granted under the concept of "Exclusive Jurisdiction", meaning that only one Grand Lodge is recognized within any given Jurisdiction.
Throughout the US there are also numerous bodies that claim to be Masonic Lodges and Grand Lodges, but which are not recognized as such by UGLE, the mainstream Grand Lodges, nor their Prince Hall counterparts. These are deemed to be irregular.
Read more about this topic: Regular Masonic Jurisdictions
Famous quotes related to united states:
“The popular colleges of the United States are turning out more educated people with less originality and fewer geniuses than any other country.”
—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)
“Steal away and stay away.
Don’t join too many gangs. Join few if any.
Join the United States and join the family
But not much in between unless a college.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity—an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“What chiefly distinguishes the daily press of the United States from the press of all other countries is not its lack of truthfulness or even its lack of dignity and honor, for these deficiencies are common to the newspapers everywhere, but its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion. It is, in the true sense, never well-informed.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)