It must be understood, that I do not here refer to those reconsiderations of the ballot which are necessary to a full understanding of the opinion of the lodge, and which have been detailed in the ceremonial of the mode of balloting, as it was described in the preceding Section.

It may be asked whether the Grand Master cannot, by his dispensations, permit a reconsideration.  I answer emphatically, NO.  The Grand Master possesses no such prerogative.  There is no law in the whole jurisprudence of the institution clearer than this—­that neither the Grand Lodge nor the Grand Master can interfere with the decision of the ballot box.  In Anderson’s Constitutions, the law is laid down, under the head of “Duty of Members” (edition of 1755, p. 312), that in the election of candidates the Brethren “are to give their consent in their own prudent way, either virtually or in form, but with unanimity.”  And the regulation goes on to say:  “Nor is this inherent privilege subject to a dispensation, because the members of a lodge are the best judges of it; and because, if a turbulent member should be imposed upon them, it might spoil their harmony, or hinder the freedom of their communications, or even break and disperse the lodge.”  This settles the question.  A dispensation to reconsider a ballot would be an interference with the right of the members “to give their consent in their own prudent way;” it would be an infringement of an “inherent privilege,” and neither the Grand Lodge nor the Grand Master can issue a dispensation for such a purpose.  Every lodge must be left to manage its own elections of candidates in its own prudent way.

I conclude this section by a summary of the principles which have been discussed, and which I have endeavored to enforce by a process of reasoning which I trust may be deemed sufficiently convincing.  They are briefly these: 

1.  It is never in order for a member to move for the reconsideration of a ballot on the petition of a candidate for initiation, nor for a lodge to entertain such a motion.

2.  The Master alone can, for reasons satisfactory to himself, order such a reconsideration.

3.  The Master cannot order a reconsideration on any subsequent night, nor on the same night, after any member, who was present and voted, has departed.

4.  The Grand Master cannot grant a dispensation for a reconsideration, nor in any other way interfere with the ballot.  The same restriction applies to the Grand Lodge.

Section VIII.

Of the Renewal of Applications by Rejected Candidates.

As it is apparent from the last section that there can be no reconsideration by a lodge of a rejected petition, the question will naturally arise, how an error committed by a lodge, in the rejection of a worthy applicant, is to be corrected, or how such a candidate, when once rejected, is ever to make a second trial, for it is, of course, admitted, that circumstances may occur in which a candidate who had been once blackballed might, on a renewal of his petition, be found worthy of admission.  He may have since reformed and abandoned the vicious habits which caused his first rejection, or it may have been since discovered that that rejection was unjust.  How, then, is such a candidate to make a new application?