though far below Gardiner and David L. Seymour in number of votes,
would better unite the convention, and upon Gardiner's withdrawal
Parker immediately received the nomination.

[Footnote 488: Fernando Wood was a Quaker and a Philadelphian by
birth. In early youth he became a cigarmaker, then a tobacco dealer,
and later a grocer. At Harrisburg, his first introduction to politics
resulted in a fist-fight with a state senator who was still on the
floor when Wood left the bar-room. Then he went to New York, and, in
1840, was elected to Congress at the age of twenty-eight. Wood had a
fascinating personality. He was tall and shapely, his handsome
features and keen blue eyes were made the more attractive by an
abundance of light hair which fell carelessly over a high, broad
forehead. But, as a politician, he was as false as his capacity would
allow him to be, having no hesitation, either from principle or fear,
to say or do anything that served his purpose. He has been called the
successor of Aaron Burr and the predecessor of William M. Tweed. In
1858, he organised Mozart Hall, a Democratic society opposed to
Tammany.]

Amasa J. Parker was then forty-nine years of age, an eminent,
successful lawyer. Before his thirty-second birthday he had served
Delaware County as surrogate, district attorney, assemblyman, and
congressman. Later, he became a judge of the Supreme Court and removed
to Albany, where he resided for forty-six years, until his death in
1890. Parker was a New England Puritan, who had been unusually well
raised. He passed from the study of his father, a Congregational
clergyman, to the senior class at Union College, graduating at
eighteen; and from his uncle's law library to the surrogate's office.
All his early years had been a training for public life. He had
associated with scholars and thinkers, and in the estimation of his
contemporaries there were few stronger or clearer intellects in the
State. But his later political career was a disappointment. His party
began nominating him for governor after it had fallen into the
unfortunate habit of being beaten, and, although he twice ran ahead of
his ticket, the anti-slavery sentiment that dominated New York after
1854 kept him out of the executive chair.

The Republican state convention assembled at Syracuse on the 17th of
September. A feeling existed that the election this year would extract
the people from the mire of Know-Nothingism, giving the State its
first