materials." Immediately, Rochester
became the centre of anti-Masonry. In September, an anti-masonic
convention nominated a legislative ticket, which, to the amazement and
confusion of the old parties, swept Monroe County by a majority of
over seventeen hundred. Direction was thus given to the movement. In
the following year, when the state and national election was
approaching, it appeared that throughout "the infected district," as
it was called, the opponents of Masonry, although previously about
equally divided in political sentiment, had aligned themselves with
the Adams party, and that the Masons had affiliated with the followers
of Jackson. There was good reason for this division. The prominent men
in the anti-masonic body, for the most part, were not only leaders of
the Adams party, but, very early in the excitement, President Adams
took occasion to let it be known that he was not a Mason. On the other
hand, it was well understood that Jackson was a Mason and gloried in
it.

This was the situation when the Adams followers, who now called
themselves National Republicans, met in convention at Utica on July
22, 1828. The wise policy of nominating candidates acceptable to all
Anti-Masons was plain, and the delegates from the western half of the
State proposed Francis Granger for governor. Granger was not then a
political Anti-Mason, but he was clean, well-known, and popular, and
for two years had been a leading member of the Assembly. Thurlow Weed
said of him that he was "a gentleman of accomplished manners, genial
temperament, and fine presence, with fortune, leisure, and a taste for
public life."[254] Indeed, he appears to have felt from the first a
genuine delight in the vivid struggles of the political arena, and,
although destined to be twice beaten for governor, and once for Vice
President, he had abundant service in the Cabinet, in the Legislature,
and in Congress. Just then he was thirty-six years old, the leading
antagonist of John C. Spencer at the Canandaigua bar, and one whom
everybody regarded as a master-spirit. Dressed in a bottle-green coat
with gilt buttons, a model of grace and manhood, he was the attraction
of the ladies' gallery. He had youth, enthusiasm, magnificent gifts,
and a heart to love. All his resources seemed to be at instant
command, according as he had need of them. Besides, he was a born
Republican. Thomas Jefferson had made his father postmaster-general,
and during the thirteen yea