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 practised 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 reelection. 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 partizans 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),
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, 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. De Witt
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
partizan 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 partizans 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, $440,347 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.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The first election for Mayor by the Common Council, under the new
constitution, resulted in the choice of William Paulding, Jr., 1823-25.
[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.