PART 4:THE HISTORY OF TAMMANY HALL, THE SUFFRAGE CONTEST,PRESIDENTIAL FACTIONS,CORRUPT JACKSON ELEMENT VICTORIOUS

We should not wonder why there is so much political corruption in America.It does not matter how old this book is,as you read through its pages you come across political 'tricks' that are still in play right up on to the present in 2018. This is my second time reading this one,and the real corruption is still to come,particularly with regard to the insurance scam that is still being run on people in the present day to our shame...here for those on spybook is a Democrat play still in full force,and dividing the country greatly..... 

The History of Tammany Hall

By Gustavus Myers

CHAPTER VII
The Suffrage Contest
1820-1822

TAMMANY HALL now entered upon a step destined to change its composition and career, and greatly affect the political course of the State and nation.  From its inception the society had declared among its objects the accomplishment of two special reforms — the securing of manhood suffrage and the abolition of the law for the imprisonment of debtors.  No steps so far had been taken by either the organization or the society toward the promotion of these reforms;  first, because the leaders were engaged too busily in the contest for office, and second, because Tammany Hall, though professing itself devoted to the welfare of the poor, was, to repeat, essentially a middle-class institution.  Having property themselves, the men who controlled and influenced the organization were well satisfied with the laws under which Tammany had grown powerful and they rich;  they could not see why so blissful a state of affairs should be changed for something the outcome of which was doubtful.  The farmer, the independent blacksmith, the shoemaker with an apprentice or two, the grocer—these had votes, and though they looked with envy on the aristocratic class above them, yet they were not willing that the man with the spade should be placed on a political equality with themselves.  In addition, most of the aristocratic rich were opposed to these reforms, and the Tammany leaders were either ambitious to enter that class or desirous of not estranging it.  Lastly, the lower classes had sided with Clinton generally;  they regarded him as their best friend;  to place the ballot unrestrictedly in their hands, Tammany Hall reckoned, would be fatuous.  As to the debtors’ law, the tradesmen that thronged Tammany were only too well satisfied with a statute that allowed them to throw their debtors, no matter for how small an amount, into jail indefinitely.

Agitation for these two reforms, begun by a few radicals, gradually made headway with the public.  The demand for manhood suffrage made the greater progress, until in 1820 it overshadowed all other questions.  The movement took on such force and popularity that Tammany Hall was forced, for its own preservation, to join.  Agreeable to instructions, the National Advocate, September 13, 1820, began to urge the extension of the right of suffrage and the abolition of those cumbersome relics of old centralizing methods, the Council of Appointment and the Council of Revision — the latter a body passing finally on all laws enacted by the legislature.  On October 7, a meeting of Democrats from all parts of the State was held in the Wigwam, Stephen Allen presiding, and the Legislature was called upon to provide for a constitutional convention for the adoption of the amendments.

The aristocracy and all the powers at its command assailed the proposed reforms with passionate bitterness.  “Would you admit the populace, the patron's coachman to vote?” asked one Federalist writer.  “His excellency (the Governor) cannot retain the gentry, the Judges, and the 'manors' in his interest without he opposes either openly or clandestinely every attempt to enlarge the elective franchise.”  “We would rather be ruled by a man without an estate than by an estate without a man,” replied one reform writer.  The Legislature passed a bill providing for the holding of a constitutional convention, and the Council of Revision, by the deciding vote of Clinton, promptly rejected it.  Doubtless this action was due to the declared intention of the advocates of the constitutional convention to abolish this body.  Again an assemblage gathered at Tammany Hall (December 1) and resolved that as the “distinction of the electorial rights, the mode of appointment to office and the union of the judiciary and legislative functions were objectional and highly pernicious,” the next Legislature should pass the pending bill.

Upon this issue a Legislature overwhelmingly favorable to the extension of suffrage and other projected reforms was elected.  The aristocratic party opened a still fiercer onslaught.  But when the Legislature re-passed the convention bill, the Council of Revision did not dare to veto it.  The convention bill was promptly submitted to the people and ratified.  On the news of its success the Democratic voters celebrated the event in the Wigwam, June 14, 1821.

Beaten so far, the Federalists tried to form a union with the reactionary element in Tammany Hall by which they could elect delegates opposed to the projected reforms.  All opposition was unavailing, however;  the reformers had a clear majority in the convention, and the new amendments, embodying the reforms, were submitted to the people.  They were adopted in January, 1822, the city alone giving them 4608 majority.1  When the Legislature took oath under the revised constitution on March 4, the bells of the city churches were rung;  flags were flung on the shipping and public buildings;  “a grand salute” was fired by a corps of artillery from the Battery;  the City Hall was illuminated at night, and the municipality held a popular reception there.  In Tammany Hall a gala banquet was spread, one toast of which ran:  “The right of suffrage — Corruption in its exercise most to be apprehended from its limitation to a few.”  After that pronouncement, so edifying in view of later developments, came another as instructive:  “The young and rising politician — May integrity and principle guide him — studying the public good, not popularity.”

So Tammany Hall built for itself a vast political following, which soon made it practically invincible.

CHAPTER VIII
Struggles of the Presidential Factions
1822-1825

INEVITABLY the greater part of the newly created voters gravitated to Tammany Hall, but they did not instantly overrun and rule it.

A new set of leaders came in view.  Wortman and Judah had been forced from public life through the lottery exposures of 1818, and Broome had lost prestige.  Hubbard had fled; Haff, Buckmaster, Strong and Prince were no longer powerful, and Jonas Humbert, who until 1820 had been a person of some authority, was now no longer in public notice.  Stephen Allen and Mordecai M. Noah, with a following of some of the old Burrites, were now regarded as being at the helm.

The pro-Tammany Council of Appointment chosen late in 1820, before the new constitutional amendments were adopted, had removed Colden and appointed Allen (Grand Sachem about this time) Mayor 1 in his place.  Noah was made Sheriff, and all the other offices were filled with Wigwam men.

The new voting element coming into the organization had to be impressed with the traditional principle of discipline.  Otherwise there might be all kinds of nominations, whose effect upon the machine-made “regular” nominations of the organization would be disastrous, if not destructive.  To this end the different ward committees passed resolutions (April 27 and 28, 1822) declaring in nearly identical terms that the sense of a majority, fairly expressed, ought always to govern, and that no party, however actuated by principle, could be truly useful without organization.  “Therefore, that the discipline of the Republican party, as established and practiced for the last twenty-five years, has, by experience, been found conducive to the general good and success of the party.”2

In 1822 Clinton declined to stand for re-election.  Tammany Hall was considered so invincible in the city that the Clintonites and the remnant of the Federalists refused to nominate contesting candidates for Congress and the Legislature.  Experience demonstrating that almost all the voters cast their ballots for the “regular” ticket without asking questions, competition for a place on that ticket, which now was equivalent to election, became sharp.  When, on October 30, the nominating committee reported the name of M.M. Noah for the office of Sheriff, Benjamin Romaine moved to have that of Peter H. Wendover substituted.  Two factors were at work here;  one was religious prejudice against Noah, who was a Jew;  the other and greater, was the struggle between the partisans of Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams and William H. Crawford to get control of Tammany Hall, as a necessary preliminary to the efforts of each for the nomination for President.3  Romaine was an Adams supporter and could easily have nominated a ticket independent of Tammany Hall, but it would have lacked “regularity,” and hence popular support.  A row ensued;  and while Noah’s party rushed out of Tammany Hall claiming the “regular” nomination, the other faction, by the light of a solitary candle, passed resolutions denouncing Noah and claiming that Wendover was the “regular” nominee.

Each of the candidates put himself before the people, declaring that a majority of the nominating committee favored him as “regular.”  The leaders of the organization inclined to Noah, as one of its heads, but Wendover skillfully appealed to Anti-Semitic bigotry and gathered a large following.  The Sachems dared not interfere between them, and each in consequence had a room in Tammany Hall, where his tickets were distributed and his agents made their headquarters.  Noah was defeated at the polls;  but his defeat did not impair his influence in Tammany Hall.  He was a person of singular ability.  A facile writer and effective manipulator, he maintained his hold.

“Regularity,” then, was the agency by which the leaders imposed their candidates upon the thousands of voters who, from their stores and benches, offices and farms, went to the polls to deposit a list of names prepared for them.  The voters were expected only to vote;  the leaders assumed the burden of determining for whom the voting should be done.  An instance of the general recognition of this fact was given in 1820 when the counties of Suffolk, Queens, Kings and Dutchess voted to discontinue the practice of holding Senatorial conventions in Tammany Hall because a fair expression of the wishes of a great proportion of the Democratic-Republican electors was not obtainable there.  At the same time, and for years later, complaints were frequent that the ward meetings had long since become an object of so little interest that they were nearly neglected;  and that a small knot of six or eight men managed them for their own purposes.

In 1823 attempts Were made by different factions to obtain the invaluable “regular” nominations.  Seemingly a local election, the real point turned on whether partisans of Jackson, Adams or Crawford should be chosen.  Upon this question Tammany Hall was still divided.  The nominating committee, however, was for Jackson.  The voters were bidden to assemble in the hall at 7 o’clock on the evening of October 30 to hear that committee’s report.  When they tried to enter, they found the hall occupied by the committee and its friends.  This was a new departure in Tammany practices.  Since the building of the hall the nominating committee had always waited in a lower room for the opening of the great popular meeting, and had then marched up stairs and reported.  To head off expected hostile action by the Adams men, the committee this time started proceedings before the appointed hour.  The names of its candidates were called and affirmed in haste.  Gen. Robert Swartwout, a corrupt but skillful politician and an Adams supporter, proposed a substitute list of names, upon which the chairman declared that the meeting stood adjourned.  A general fist-fight followed, in the excitement of which Swartwout took the chair, read off a list of names and declared it adopted.  Epithets, among which “liar” and “traitor” figured most, were distributed freely.  Both tickets went to the people under the claim of “regularity,” and each carried five of the ten wards.

Though Robert Swartwout 4 was for Adams, another Swartwout (Samuel)[L], an even shrewder politician, was Jackson’s direct representative in the task of securing the organization’s support for President.  A third and less important group were the Crawford advocates.  They were led by Gen. John P. Van Ness[R], an adroit intriguer and one of the old Burr chieftains of Tammany., In 1821 Adams, then Secretary of State, ascertaining that Van Ness, as president of the Bank of the Metropolis, was indebted to that institution to the amount of $60,000 and that its affairs were in bad condition, transferred the account of the State Department to another bank.  From that time Van Ness bore deep hatred against Adams, and supported Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, for President.  Crawford had deposited as a standing balance with Van Ness about the same sum Adams had withdrawn, notwithstanding the bank’s suspicious character.  The Crawford men went first about the business of obtaining complete ascendency in the Tammany Society.  With that end in view they tried in 1823 to elect a Grand Sachem favoring Crawford.  The old Burr faction now brought forth a Presidential candidate of its own in the person of John C. Calhoun, and taking advantage of the absence of most of the society’s members, dexterously managed to elect William Todd, a partisan of Calhoun, Grand Sachem.

The popular voice for Jackson becoming daily stronger, some of the Adams leaders changed about.  Perhaps having a premonition that Adams would be chosen President by the House of Representatives, the general committee of Tammany Hall, on October 3, 1823, resolved that the election of President by that branch of Congress was “an event to be deprecated,” and that the constitution ought to be so amended as to give the election directly to the people without the intervention of electors.  The ward committees passed similar resolutions.  This action was on a line with that of a few years before when the Wigwam, fearing the nomination of Clinton for Governor by legislative caucus, recommended that State nominations be made by a State convention of delegates.  In the following April (1824) Jackson’s friends filled Tammany Hall and nominated him for President.

Before the election came on, however, the organization, in the full swing of power, again brought public odium upon itself.  DeWitt Clinton, having filled his gubernatorial term, was now serving in the modest post of a Canal Commissioner, without pay and utterly without political power.  Yet Tammany carried its hatred of him so far as to cause the Legislature to remove him (April 12, 1824), despite the protests of a few of its more sagacious members.5

Naturally, this petty act caused an immediate and strong reaction in a community endeared to Clinton by that splendid creation of his energy — the Erie Canal.  No sooner did the news reach New York City than 10,000 persons held an indignation meeting in the City Hall Park and in front of Tammany Hall.  Throughout the State similar meetings were held.  In spite of the politicians, the cyclonic popular movement forced Clinton to be again a candidate for Governor.

The chiefs regretted their folly.  At the same time they were subjected to public criticism in another direction.  One of them, William P. Van Ness, Burr’s companion at the Hamilton duel, a Judge of the United States District Court, took it upon himself to select Tammany Hall permanently for a court-room, his object being to have the Government pay rent to the Tammany Society.  His colleague, Judge Thompson, a scrupulous official, indignantly asked why the courts were not to be held in the City Hall, as usual.  Judge Van Ness defiantly held court in Tammany Hall, Judge Thompson going to the City Hall.  Public disgust asserting itself, an investigation was set afoot.  Van Ness tried to throw the blame on his marshal.  But this officer, as was conclusively shown, acted under written instructions from Van Ness in refusing to consider any other place than Tammany Hall, and he agreed to pay to the society $1,500 a year rent.  The lease, which was made under the plea that no room was available in the City Hall, contained a stipulation that not only should the tavern be allowed in Tammany Hall but that the court-room should be used, when required, as the meeting place of the society or of the political conventions.  The citizens assembled in the wards and denounced the proceeding.  The Aldermen decided to shift the responsibility which Van Ness attempted to place upon them.  Their committee reported (October 24, 1824 ),6 that the City Hall always had been and would be at the service of the United States Court Judges, and that a room had been set apart especially for their use.  Judge Van Ness was forced to return to the City Hall to hold court.7

Tammany now had recourse to its customary devices in endeavoring to bring out its usual vote in the coming election.  The general committee announced that at no period in the last twenty years had the welfare and perpetuity of the party more imperiously required a rigid adherence to ancient usages and discipline.  This was meant to play on the partisan emotions of the Democrats.  It was likewise a threat to punish any man of independent views who disobeyed the orders of the general committee.  Such summary, veiled notifications of the general committee were seldom disregarded by those who profited or expected to profit by politics.  After toasting their “squaws and papooses” on July 4 the society impressively made this toast: “May regular nominations ever prevail”—a thrust at the method of Clinton’s nomination and a warning for the future guidance of all Tammany men.

Tammany further attempted to counteract the impetus of the Clinton movement by touching at length upon its own patriotism in the past and by stirring up class hatreds.  On the vital issues the Wigwam was silent;  but in another long fulmination it recalled the “sins” and “treason” of Clinton against the Democratic party.  “He is haughty in his manners,” it went on, “and a friend of the aristocracy — cold and distant to all who cannot boast of wealth and family distinctions and selfish in all the ends he aims at.”

The partisans of Jackson carried the city.  Presidential electors were still selected by the Legislature, and it is therefore impossible to determine Jackson’s vote.  A fusion between the Clintonites and the People’s party caused the defeat of most of Tammany’s Assembly candidates, but the victors were Jackson men, and Clinton himself had declared for Old Hickory.  The full Jackson strength was shown in the vote for the three Tammany candidates for Congress, who were elected.

Clinton’s victory was sweeping.  The near completion of the Erie Canal, for which he had labored so zealously and which Tammany had opposed so pertinaciously, made him the idol of the people, and he was again elected Governor, carrying even New York City by 1,031 majority.  That eye was blind which could not see in the opening of the canal the incalculable benefits Clinton had estimated from the first.  This great work secured as a virtual gift to New York City the inland commerce of the vast empire west of the mountains, no rival being able to contend for it.  The trade of the canal almost immediately increased the city’s business $60,000,000 annually, and year by year the amount grew.  Along its course a hundred new and thrifty villages sprang into existence, and the State’s wealth and population went upward by leaps and bounds.

Compared with this illustrious achievement, a summary of the record of Clinton’s antagonists, the Tammany leaders, makes but a poor showing.  Contributing to the development of democracy, for the most part, only so far as it benefited themselves;  declining to take up even the question of manhood suffrage until forced to, they did little or nothing, even in the closer domain of the city, for the good of their own time or of posterity.  In the years when Clinton was engaged in projecting and building the canal, they were too busy wrangling over offices or cribbing at the public treasury to improve city conditions.  The streets were an abomination of filth.  The local authorities long refused, despite public pressure, to take steps to have the city furnished with pure water.  As a result of the bad water of a private corporation and the uncleanliness of the streets, yellow fever and cholera had several times devastated the city, and in one year (1822) it was so deserted that grass grew in the streets.  To make up for municipal deficits the city fathers continued selling the public land, that might have been made into parks or retained for future uses, buying it in as individuals.  Between 1813 and 1819, according to the admission of the Tammany organ in the latter year, $440,847 worth of land, whose present value probably amounts to tens of millions of dollars, was thus fraudulently disposed of.8  In a word, their records, public and private, furnish an extreme contrast to the record of Clinton, who, while a politician when need be, gave his years and his talents to the completion of a public work of the greatest utility and importance.

CHAPTER IX
The Jackson Element Victorious
1825-1828

FACTIONAL strife had not entirely smothered the demand for improvement in the city government.1  The arbitrary powers of the Common Council, composed, as it was, of one Board in which sat both Aldermen and Assistant Aldermen, excited general dissatisfaction.  Having the power of making assessments, ordering public improvements, and disposing of the public property at will, the Aldermen made no detailed account of their expenditures.  One writer advised the Aldermen to curtail some of their own extravagances:  “Why not stop,” he wrote,

“in their career of eating the most unreasonable and costly suppers every time they meet on public business and drinking such wines as they never in the course of their lives tasted before; choice wines that cost $40 a dozen ?  O! but I will soon tell a tale that will make our citizens stare.  I understand that our city expenses are now nearly $2,000 a day.”

The State constitution of 1821-22 had granted the Common Council greater powers than before in vacating and filling important offices in the city.  In 1823 the city debt was rising, and though the Common Council professed to attempt retrenchment, no real effort was made, the fathers being loath to give over the voting of pretended improvements out of which they benefited as individual contractors.  The agitation continuing, the Legislature, in April, 1824, had passed a law to “erect” two separate chambers — a Board of Aldermen to be elected from among the freeholders for two years, and a Board of Assistants for one year, with concurrent powers.  The opponents of the new branch termed it derisively the “House of Lords” and denounced its aristocratic nature.  The amendment was defeated by the radicals in June, though the interest in it was slight.  Over 8,000 electors failed to vote.

Other schemes for municipal reform dissolved in talk, and by the Spring of 1825 public attention became concentrated again on the matter of Jackson’s candidacy for the office of President.  Barely had John Quincy Adams been inaugurated when Tammany set about to make Jackson his successor.  On May 12 Sachem Nicholas Schureman, at the anniversary celebration of the society, gave this toast:  “Jackson, the Hero of New Orleans, our next President.”  Again, on July 4, the principal toast was to Jackson.2

The Jackson campaign went energetically on.  But it was rudely interrupted during the following Autumn by a fresh series of revelations regarding certain Tammany chieftains.  The legislative favoritism by which Jacob Barker was enabled to secure advantages for his Exchange Bank (1818)3 now culminated in a grave public scandal.  In September, 1826, Barker, Henry Eckford, another of the line of Sachems;  Matthew L. Davis, lately Grand Sachem, and several other accomplices were principals in one of the most extended and sensational trials which the city had known.  They stood charged with swindles aggregating several million dollars.  The Grand Jury’s indictment of September 15 charged them, and also Mark Spencer, William P. Rathbone, Thomas Vermilyea and others, with defrauding the Mechanics’ Fire Insurance Company of 1,000 shares of its own capital stock, 1,000 shares of United States Bank stock and $50,000;  the Fulton Bank of 2,000 shares of its own capital stock and $50,000;  the Tradesmen’s Bank of 2,000 shares of its own capital stock and $50,000;  the Morris Canal and Banking Company of 2,000 shares of its own capital stock and $50,000;  and the Life and Fire Insurance Company of 2,000 shares of its own capital stock.  The indictment further charged these men with obtaining fraudulently 1,000 promissory notes for the amount of nearly $100 each, belonging to the Fulton Bank;  and the same number of notes for similar sums belonging respectively to the Tradesmen’s Bank, the Morris Canal and Banking Company, and the Life and Fire Insurance Company, and with additionally obtaining by fraud the sum of $50,000, the property of Henry Barclay, George Barclay and others.4

A disagreement of the jury marked the first trial;  the second brought a conviction of the prisoners.  Tammany Hall was unwilling to see any of its leaders go to prison.  As soon as the storm of popular indignation blew over, a new trial was had for Davis, and owing to strong political influence his acquittal was the outcome.  Barker was again convicted, but, thanks to the discreet use of his money, never saw a cell.  He went South and lived on till over ninety years of age.5  Eckford fled to the Orient and died in Syria.  The severity of the law fell on the minor offenders, two of whom, Mowatt and Hyatt, went to prison for two years, and the Lambert brothers for one year.[smfh,almost 200 years later,and nothing changes with regard to the pond scum DC]

The trial over, public interest again centered on the Presidential struggle.  Alive to the necessity of winning Tammany to his interest, President Adams chose most of his New York appointees from its organization, thereby creating in that body an alert clique of devoted partisans.  If the leaders had been able to direct the organization absolutely, Adams might have bribed nearly all of them with offices, favors or promises, but there were other deciding factors.  The first was the mass of the Democrats who favored Jackson and forced most of the leaders to his support.  The second was the organizing genius of Martin Van Buren.  He was a member of the Tammany Society, and in September, 1827, he visited New York to compose the discord in the general committee, which was divided equally on the question of the Presidency, although in the society itself a majority was for Jackson.  The Jackson men quickly gained predominant influence.  On September 27 the general committee recommended in a public address to its “fellow-citizens” that when they met in their wards, they should elect such citizens only, to represent them in their different committees, as were favorable to Jackson.  The Adams men were enraged.6  Col. James Fairlie, a veteran of the Revolution; Benjamin Romaine, Peter Sharpe, William Todd, W.H. Ireland, Abraham Stagg, Peter Stagg and John L. Lawrence, known as “the elite” of Tammany Hall, and others, denounced this action.  “Was such a power of proscription and dictation ever delegated to or practiced by any other general committee?” they asked in an address.

The ward primary elections on the night of October 3 were tumultuous.  The Jackson men took possession of the meeting rooms, installed their own chairmen and passed resolutions, without allowing the Adams supporters a chance to be heard.  Both factions then alternately held meetings in Tammany Hall.  So determined was the struggle to get possession of the Wigwam that the Adams men contrived to expel their opponents from it for one day, and the Jackson men had to make their nominations in the cellar called “the Coal Hole.”  At a later meeting of the Adams faction, embracing a group of old Federalists, Col. Marinus Willett, a venerable Revolutionary patriot, who presided, spoke of “the danger and absurdity of confiding the destinies of the country to a mere arbitrary soldier.”  The meeting passed resolutions denouncing the general committee majority and reiterating its support of Adams.  The Jackson men rallied to the Wigwam in force and approved the ticket nominated in “the Coal Hole.”  The nominees were for local offices and were themselves of no particular importance.  The great question was whether New York City favored Jackson or Adams, and the coming election was the accepted test.

The Jackson men made desperate efforts to carry the city.  Now were observable the effects brought about by the suffrage changes of 1822 and 1826.  The formerly disinherited class had become attached to Tammany Hall, and the organization, entirely reversing its exclusive native policy, declared for a reduction of the five-year naturalization period.  From that time forth the patronage of aliens became a settled policy of Tammany.  In this election these aliens exercised a powerful influence, materially aiding Jackson.[Sounds like they were 21st century Democrats to me DC]

Cases of fraud and violence had hitherto been frequent;  but nothing like the exhibition at the primaries and polls in November, 1827, had ever been known.  Cart-loads of voters, many of whom had been in the country less than three years, were used as repeaters in the different wards.  An instance was known of one cart-load of six men voting at six different places.  Other men boasted of having voted three and four times.  In an upper ward, where the foreign population had full sway, an American found it almost impossible to appear or vote at all.  If he tried the experiment, he was arrested immediately, his votes were taken from him and Jackson votes put in his hands.  Many of the polling places had no challengers, and most of the inspectors did duty for the Jackson ticket by a display of stout hickory branches.  By such means the Jackson men rolled up in the city a majority of nearly five thousand.

Reflective citizens of both parties were alarmed and humiliated by the events of the election.  The public conscience was not used to the indiscriminate stuffing of ballot boxes.  To the revelations of this election can be traced the origin of the Native American party, whose cry that “political privileges should belong exclusively to the natives of the country” even now was heard.  Though a year before the time for choosing a President, the result of this election strongly indicated the choice of Jackson and caused great exultation and encouragement among his supporters in other cities.  In the Winter of 1827, Tammany sent a delegation to visit him at New Orleans, ostensibly to present an address on the anniversary of the battle of New Orleans, but in reality, it was supposed, to confer with him on the work to be done in his behalf.  By the beginning of 1828 the organization was controlled wholly by Jackson men.  Not a nomination, however petty, was made of a man not known to be his partisan.  The great body of Democrats approved this course on the ground that Jackson’s election was the real issue, and that local issues were subordinate for the time.  When the Adams men tried to hold anti-Jackson meetings in the Wigwam, the Sachems stepped forward and exercised a long dormant power -- a power which explains the real connection between the society and the organization, and which it frequently used later against hostile factions.  Through pressure, the lessee of Tammany Hall sold to the society his lease.  This secured, the society put in charge of the building (which was fitted in part as a hotel as well as a hall) another person, instructed not to let any room to the Adams committee.  The Adams men asked by what right a “charitable and benevolent society” interfered in politics.  But, being excluded, they could no longer claim they represented Tammany Hall — a fatal loss to them and an important advantage to the Jackson men, who now were the only Tammany organization.  The Adams committees were thus shut off from holding any meetings in the hall.

With the Adams committees put out, the Jackson men began to quarrel among themselves for local and State nominations.  The Wigwam’s inveterate foe, De Witt Clinton, was out of the way, he having died on February 11, 1828, while still Governor.  As nominations continued to be looked upon as almost certainly resulting in election, there was a swarm of candidates.7  The ambitions of few of these were gratified.  The nominations were settled beforehand by a small clique, headed, it was said, by M.M. Noah.

Of a voting population of 25,000, Tammany Hall secured a majority of 5,831 for Jackson 8 and elected all its candidates except one.  That hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal votes were counted was admitted.  Boys of 19 and 20 years of age voted and were employed to electioneer for the Jackson ticket.  On the other hand, craftsmen just arrived from the interior and men who had no homes were gathered in bunches and sent to swell the Adams vote, though it is doubtful whether their votes were counted.  For the first time in city elections money was used to influence voting.

The Common Council soon after removed every officeholder not of the Jackson faith.  As a matter of course, Jackson rewarded his friends.  He made Samuel Swartwout Collector of the Port and filled every Federal local post with his Tammany adherents.

NEXT

The workingman's party

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Chapter 7

1 A considerable increase in the number of voters was made by the suffrage reform.  The last remnant of the property qualification was abolished in the State in 1826 by a vote of 104,900 to 3,901.
      The abolition of the Council of Appointment carried with it a clause vesting the Appointment of the Mayor in the Common Council.  It was not until 1834 that the Mayor was elected by the people.  By the Constitutional Amendments the gubernatorial term was changed to two years and the election time to November.

Chapter 8

1 The first election for Mayor by the Common Council, under the new constitution, resulted in the choice of William Paulding, Jr., 1833-25.

2 Advertisements of the ward committees in the National Advocate, April 29, 1822.

3 It is a convincing commentary on the absolute disruption of party lines at this epoch that a contest could arise in such an organization as Tammany Hall between supporters of men of such diverse political beliefs as Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams.

4 When United States Navy Agent in 1820, Robert Swartwout became indebted to the Government in the sum of $68,000, a defalcation he could not make good.  The Government took a mortgage on his property for $75,000.  This and political influence saved him from prison.  It was because of Adams’s efforts in his behalf that his extraordinary devotion to the sixth President was credited.  Tammany Hall, considerate of human infirmity, continued him in full favor as a leader.  These facts were brought out in the suit of the United States Government against Francis H. Nicholl, one of Robert Swartwout’s sureties, before Judge Van Ness in the United States District Court, April 8, 1824.

5 Journal of the Senate, 1824, p. 409.

6 MS. Minutes of the Common Council, Vol. 52, pp. 75-78.

7 During this agitation Jacob Barker, Judge Van Ness and M.M. Noah repeatedly presented, in the public prints, arguments in favor of using Tammany Hall as a court-room.  We shall have need to refer to Barker again on another page.

8 For a part of this time, it should be stated, the Federalists were in power.

Chapter 9

1 William Paulding was succeeded by Philip Hone (1895-6), who in turn was followed by Paulding (1826-29).

2 This anniversary was the first on which the society, since its formation, did not march in the streets and go to church.  Each “brother,” wearing a bucktail in front of his hat, went instead to the great council chamber, where the Declaration of Independence was read by Matthew L. Davis.

3 See Chapter vi.

4 Minutes of the Oyer and Terminer, Vol, 6, pp. 3-137.

5 Barker maintained that a conspiracy had been formed against him.  A pamphlet entitled, Jacob Barker’s Letters Developing the Conspiracy Formed in 1826 for His Ruin, was extensively circulated about this time or later.

6 The action of the general committee had a sweeping national importance.  “The State of New York represents the Democracy of the Union;  the City of New York gives tone to the State;  the General Committee govern the City.”  Quoted by “A Journalist” as applying to these years in his Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett and His Times, New York, 1855.

7 “Should the Independent electors,” wrote one of them, Aaron Sergeant, “give me a nomination (for Sheriff) (as there will be several candidates for the office) I shall succeed by a handsome majority.  The Sons of Erin are my most particular friends.  I rely with confidence on their support.
     “Knowing the office to be one worth $10,000 per annum, should I be elected, I shall give one-third of the income of this office to be divided equally to [among] the several charitable Religious Societies in the city.  My claims for the office are, that I am a citizen born, and my father one of the Patriots of the Revolution for seven long years...”

8 This was the first election in the State in which Presidential electors were voted on by the people.