CLINTON MAINTAINS HIS SUPREMACY
1817-1820
With Gov. Clinton at the head of the Council of Appointment, Tammany
men expected the force of his vengeance. They were not disappointed. He
removed many of them for no other reason than that they belonged to the
organization.
Hoping to make terms with him, the Wigwam Assemblymen, early in 1818,
presented to the Council of Appointment a petition praying for the
removal of Mayor Radcliff and the appointment in his place of William
Paulding, Jr. “Radcliff,” the paper read, “is an unfit person longer
to fill that honorable and respectful office.” Clinton smiled at this
ambidexterity. It was rumored that he intended to award the honor to
Cadwallader D. Colden, a Federalist supporter of the War of 1812, and
one of the Federalists Tammany Hall had sent to the Assembly in 1817,
as a means of breaking up that party. Colden now let it be understood
that he sided with Clinton.
The whole Tammany delegation lived in a single house at Albany and
met in a large room, No. 10, in Eagle Tavern. “This system of acting
as a separate body,” admitted Tammany’s own organ,[1] “was very
injudicious to our city. It created suspicion and distrust among
country members; it looked like a separate interest; a combination of
a powerful delegation to frown down or overpower the delegation of a
smaller county.” Colden did not join in these nightly meetings. One
day he was coaxed in to take a glass of wine. To his surprise, upon
opening the door of No. 10, he found the delegation in caucus. The
meeting seemed to be waiting for him before transacting business. He
had scarcely taken a seat, when one of the members arose, and in a long
speech protested against any member of the city delegation accepting
an office, and suggested that each member should pledge himself not
to do so. Colden saw at once that the resolution was directed against
himself. He exclaimed energetically against the trickery, declaring
that he had not asked for the office of Mayor, but would accept it if
offered. The meeting broke up; Colden was appointed Mayor, and Tammany
Hall from that time denounced him.
In Albany, Clinton was vigorously pushing forward the Erie Canal
project; the Tammany men were as aggressively combatting it.[2] While
Clinton was thus absorbed in this great public enterprise the Wigwam
was enriching its leaders in manifold ways. An instance of this was
the noted Barker episode. Jacob Barker was a Sachem, a leader of
great influence in the political organization, and such a power in
financial and business circles that at one time he defied the United
States Bank. He and Matthew L. Davis were Burr’s firmest friends to
the hour of Burr’s death. Early in 1818 a bill prohibiting private
banking, prepared at the instance of the incorporated banks, which
sought a monopoly, passed the Senate; though as a special favor to
Barker the Senate exempted from its provisions the latter’s Exchange
Bank for three years. But Barker desired an indefinite lease. To create
a show of public sentiment he had the hall packed with his friends
and creatures on April 14, when resolutions were passed stating that
the proposed bill would destroy all competition with the incorporated
banks, “benefit the rich, oppress the poor, extend the power of
existing aristocracies, and terminate the banking transactions of an
individual whose loans have been highly advantageous to many laborious
and industrious mechanics and neighboring farmers.” The Legislature
granted the privileges Barker asked. A few years later (1826) the
sequel to this legislative favoritism appeared in the form of one of
the most sensational trials witnessed in early New York.
The year 1818 saw Tammany Hall in the unusual position of advocating
a protective tariff. The War of 1812 having injured domestic
manufacturing, the demand for such a measure was general. Party
asperity had softened, and Republicans, or Democrats--as they were
coming to be known--and Federalists alike favored it. The society made
the best of this popular wave. It issued an address, advising moderate
protective duties on foreign goods. But New York then, and until after
the Civil War, was a great shipbuilding center; and the shipbuilders
and owners and the importing merchants soon influenced Tammany to
revert to the stanch advocacy of free trade.
The almost complete extinction of national party lines under Monroe
caused the disappearance of violent partizan recriminations and brought
municipal affairs more to public attention. From 1817 onward public
bodies agitated much more forcibly and persistently than before for
the correction of certain local evils. Chief among these were the high
taxes. In 1817 the city tax levy was $180,000; in 1818 it rose to
$250,000, “an enormous amount,” one newspaper said. Though the city
received annually $200,000 in rents from houses and lots, for wharves,
slips and piers, and also a considerable amount from fines, yet there
was a constantly increasing deficit. The city expenses were thought
to be too slight to devour the ordinary revenue. The Democratic, or
Tammany, officials made attempts to explain that much of the debt was
contracted under Federalist Common Councils, and said that sufficient
money must be provided or “the poor would starve.”
At almost the identical time this plea was entered, E. C. Genet
was laying before the Grand Jury a statement to this effect: that
although it was known that the aggregate capital of the incorporated
banks, insurance and commission companies in New York City, exclusive
of one branch of the United States Bank, amounted in 1817 to about
$22,000,000, in addition to the shares in those companies, yet the city
and States taxes combined “on all that vast personal estate in New York
City are only a paltry $97,000.”
The explanation of the blindness of the Wigwam officials to the escape
of the rich from taxation is simple. The Tammany Hall of 1818 was not
the Tammany Hall of 1800. In that interval the poor young men who once
had to club together in order to vote had become directors in banking,
insurance and various other corporations, which as members of the
Legislature or as city officials they themselves had helped to form.
Being such, they exerted all the influence of their political machinery
to save their property from taxation. From about 1805 to 1837 Tammany
Hall was ruled directly by about one-third bankers, one-third merchants
and the remaining third politicians of various pursuits. The masses
formed--except at rare times--the easily wielded body. The leaders
safeguarded their own interests at every point, however they might
profess at election times an abhorrence of the aristocracy; and the
Grand Jury being of them, ignored Genet’s complaint.
A new series of revelations concerning the conduct of Tammany
chieftains was made public during 1817-18. Ruggles Hubbard, a one-time
Sachem and at the time Sheriff of the county, absconded from the city
August 15, 1817, leaving a gap in the treasury.[3] John L. Broome,
another Sachem, was shortly after removed from the office of City
Clerk by the Council of Appointment for having neglected to take the
necessary securities from Hubbard. John P. Haff, a one-time Grand
Sachem and long a power in the organization, was removed by President
Monroe on November 14, 1818, from the office of Surveyor of the Port,
for corruption and general unfitness.[4]
But the most sensational of these exposures was that concerning the
swindling of the Medical Science Lottery, by which Naphtali Judah[5]
and others profited handsomely. The testimony brought out before Mayor
Colden, November 10, 1818, showed that a corrupt understanding existed
between Judah and one of the lottery’s managers, by which the former
was enabled to have a knowledge of the state of the wheel. Not less
than $100,000 was drawn on the first day, of which Judah received
a large share. Further affidavits were submitted tending to show a
corrupt understanding between Judah and Alderman Isaac Denniston in the
drawing of the Owego Lottery, by which Denniston won $35,000. John L.
Broome was also implicated in the scandal, and Teunis Wortman, while
not directly concerned in it, was considered involved by the public,
and suffered a complete loss of popular favor,[6] though retaining
for some time a certain degree of influence in the society and
organization.
Always as popular criticism began to assert itself, Tammany would
make a sudden display of patriotism, accompanied by the pronouncement
of high-sounding toasts and other exalted utterances. Such it did in
1817, when the society took part in the interment of the remains of
Gen. Montgomery in St. Paul’s Church. And now the Sachems prepared to
entertain Andrew Jackson at a banquet, and also indirectly signify
that he was their choice for President. William Mooney, again elected
Grand Sachem, sent to Gen. Jackson, under date of February 15, 1819, a
grandiloquent letter of invitation which, referring to the battle of
New Orleans, said in part:
“Columbia’s voice, in peals of iron thunder, proclaimed the
dread fiat of that eventful morn! Terra was drenched with human
gore! The perturbed elements were hushed! Mars and Bellona
retired from the ensanguined field! and godlike Hera resumed
her gentle reign.… We approbate your noble deeds and greet you
hero. Scourge of British insolence, Spanish perfidy and Indian
cruelty--these, sir, are the sentiments of the Sons of Liberty
in New York who compose the National Institution of Tammany
Society No. 1 of the United States. Here, sir, we guard the
patriot flame--‘preserved by concord’--its effulgence, in a
blaze of glory, shall surround and accompany you to the temple
of interminable fame and honor.”
Jackson accepted the invitation. Cadwallader D. Colden, who had been
reappointed Mayor a few days before, was asked to preside. When, on
February 23, the banquet was held and Jackson was called for his toast,
Colden arose, and to the consternation of the Tammany men proposed:
“De Witt Clinton, the Governor of the great and patriotic State of New
York.” This surprising move made it appear that Jackson favored the
Clinton party. To counteract the impression, the General instantly
left the room, “amidst reiterated applauses,” and a dead silence ensued
for three minutes. This incident, it may well be believed, did not
dampen the society’s enthusiasm for Jackson; it continued to champion
him ardently.
Colden was reappointed Mayor for the third time in February, 1820.
Municipal issues were dividing the public consideration with Tammany’s
renewed efforts to overthrow Clinton. The report of the Common Council
Finance Committee, January 10, 1820, showed that the city would soon
be $1,300,000 in debt. An attempt was made to show how the money had
been spent on the new City Hall and Bellevue Hospital, but it proved
nothing. Although the law expressly prohibited Aldermen from being
directly or indirectly interested in any contract or job, violations
were common. It was alleged that streets were sunk, raised and sunk
again, to enable the contractors to make large claims against the city.
To soothe public clamor, the Aldermen made a show of reducing city
expenses. The salary of Colden--he being a Clintonite--was reduced
$2,500, and the pay of various other city officers was cut down. The
salaries of the Wigwam men were not interfered with.
The wholesome criticism of municipal affairs was soon obscured again
by the reviving tumult of the contest between Tammany and Clinton. The
Governor stood for reelection against Daniel D. Tompkins in April,
1820. Tompkins had long been the idol of the Tammany men and for a
time was one of the society’s Sachems. In 1818 he had been practically
charged with being a public defaulter. State Controller Archibald
M’Intyre submitted to the Legislature a mass of his vouchers, public
and private (for the time Tompkins was Governor), which showed a
balance against him of $197,297.64. In this balance, however, was
included the sum of $142,763.60 which was not allowed to Tompkins’s
credit because the vouchers were insufficient. Allowing Tompkins this
amount, the balance against him was $54,533.44. Tompkins, on the other
hand, claimed the State owed him $120,000. His partisans in the Senate
in 1819 passed a bill to re-imburse him, but it was voted down in the
Assembly.[7]
The statements of both sides during the campaign of 1820 were filled
with epithets and strings of accusations. Tammany contrasted Clinton’s
alleged going over to the British with Tompkins’s patriotism in the
War of 1812. Party lines were broken down, and Federalists and Tammany
men acted together, as they had done the year before (1819), when
their Legislative ticket won over the Clintonites by 2,500 majority.
The Clintonites were tauntingly invited to visit the Wigwam, because
in that “stronghold of Democracy would be found no ‘Swiss’ Federalism,
no British partizans, no opponents of the late war, no bribers or
bribed for bank charters, no trimming politicians, no lobby members
or legislative brokers.” In Tammany Hall they would see a body of
independent yeomen, of steady and unerring Republicans and men who
rallied around their country in the hour of danger.[8]
While Clinton’s adherents in New York City on election day were
inactive, his opponents, ever on the lookout, carried the city by 675
majority. The popularity of the Erie Canal, however, which was fast
nearing completion, carried the rest of the State for Clinton.[9]
“Heads up! tails down,” shouted the exuberant, successful Clintonites
some days after, pointing to the disappointed, discomfited Bucktails.
For Tammany had been so sure of Tompkins’s election that it had
procured, at considerable expense, a painting of him which was to be
exhibited in the hall when the news of his election should arrive. By
way of consolation the Sachems drank to this toast at their anniversary
on May 12:
“De Witt Clinton, our lean Governor--
---- May he never get fat,
While he wears two faces under one hat.”
FOOTNOTES
[1] _National Advocate_, October 7, 1822. A circumstantial account of
the meeting referred to on the following page appears in this issue.
The paper was edited and owned by M. M. Noah, who became Grand Sachem
in 1824.
[2] Hammond, Vol. I, p. 450.
[3] In what year Hubbard was Sachem is uncertain. His name is included
in Horton’s list. He was one of the chiefs in the nominating committee
from 1815 to 1817. It is worthy of note that only a short time before
his flight a committee of the Common Council had examined his accounts
and approved them as correct.
[4] That Haff was removed is certain, though the author has been unable
to find a record of the fact in the available papers of the Treasury
Department. The Tammany organ, the _National Advocate_, November 19,
1818, commented as follows: “The rumors which, for several days past,
have been afloat and which we treated as idle and interested, are
confirmed--Captain Haff has been removed from office.” Many evidences
of public gratification were shown. In one instance, eighty citizens
dragged a field piece from the Arsenal to the Battery and fired a
salute.
[5] Naphthali Judah had been Sachem of the Maryland tribe in 1808, and
continued for some time to be a leader in the party’s councils. He was
again elected a Sachem in 1819.
[6] How deeply the people of New York were concerned in lotteries may
be gathered from the fact that in 1826 there were 190 lottery offices
legalized by statute in New York City. A saying obtained that “one-half
the citizens got their living by affording the opportunity of gambling
to the rest.” Many State institutions were in part supported from the
proceeds of the lotteries. These swindles, therefore, became a matter
for legislative investigation. A great number of pages of the Journal
of the Assembly for 1819 are taken up with the testimony.
[7] _Journal of the Assembly_, 1819, pp. 222-45, and _Ibid._,
pp. 1046-53. Tompkins, now Vice President, made this race for
“vindication.” It is altogether likely that this particular charge
against Tompkins was made for political effect in a campaign in which
each side sought to blacken the other by fierce personal attacks.
[8] _National Advocate_, March 29, 1820.
[9] Tammany charged that in the construction of the Erie Canal, land
had been cut up in slips to make additional voters for Clinton and
cited the county of Genesee, which, though polling but 750 freehold
votes in 1815, gave nearly 5,000 votes in this election.