he fight and became the centre from which all
influences emanated was Thurlow Weed. Early in the struggle, as a
member of the Morgan committee, he investigated the crime of 1826.
Soon after, he founded the _Anti-Masonic Enquirer_ of Rochester, whose
circulation, unparalleled in those days, quickly included the western
and northern counties of New York, and the neighbouring States of
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Weed had been slow to yield to the
influences which carried the question into politics, but, once having
determined to appeal to the ballot-box, he set to work to strengthen
and enlarge the party. It became a quasi-religious movement, ministers
and churches, without any very far-reaching hopes and plans, labouring
to bring about a spirit which should induce men to renounce Masonry;
and in their zeal they worked with the singleness of thought and the
accepted methods that dominate the revivalist and temperance advocate.

The aim of Thurlow Weed was to reach the people, and it mattered not
how often he had to bear defeat, or the sneers of older politicians
and an established press; he flung himself into the work with an
indomitable spirit and an entire disregard of trouble and pain. Weed
was a born fighter. He saw no visions, he believed in no omens, and he
had no thought of bearing a charmed life; but he seems to have been
indifferent to changes of season or the assaults of men, as he
travelled from one end of the State to the other regardless of
inclement weather, answering attacks with rough and rasping sarcasms,
and meeting every crisis with the candour and courage of a John
Wesley. One reads in his autobiography, almost with a feeling of
incredulity, of the toil cheerfully borne and the privations eagerly
endured while the guiding member of the Morgan committee.

Weed proved a great captain, not only in directing and inspiring
anti-masonic movements, but in rallying to his standard a body of
young men destined to occupy conspicuous places in the State and in
the nation. Among those entering the Assembly, in 1829, were Philo C.
Fuller of Livingston and Millard Fillmore of Erie. When Weed first met
him, in 1824, Fuller was a law clerk in James Wadsworth's office, only
twenty-three years old. But Weed noted his fitness for public place,
and in 1828 had him nominated and elected to the Assembly.

Millard Fillmore was a year or two older. His youth, like that of
Weed, had been crowded with everything except s