THE WORKINGMEN’S PARTY
1829-1830
In 1829 the indignation against the Tammany leaders crystallized in
a “purifying” movement. Under the direction of its banker, merchant
and lawyer leaders, Tammany Hall had been made a medium for either
coercing or bribing the Legislature or the Common Council into passing
dozens of bank charters and franchises with scarcely any provision
for compensation to either State or city.[1] In 1819 the Tammany
Society, in one of its pompous addresses, had recited the speculative
spirit and consequent distress brought about by the multiplication of
incorporated banks, and suggested that the Legislature adopt a prompt
and decisive remedy tending to the abolition of those institutions.
This sounded well; but at that very time, as before and after, the
Sachems were lobbying at Albany for charters of banks of which they
became presidents or directors. By one means or another these banks
yielded fortunes to their owners; but the currency issued by them
almost invariably depreciated. The laboring classes on whom this bad
private money was imposed complained of suffering severely. Each year,
besides, witnessed an increase in the number of chartered monopolies,
armed with formidable powers for long periods, or practically in
perpetuity.[2] To the first gas company, in May, 1823, the Common
Council had granted the exclusive right to light all the streets
south of Grand street for thirty years, without returns of any kind
to the city.[3] At the rate at which the city was expanding, this
was a concession of immense value, and formed one of the subjects of
complaint in 1829.
While laws were instituted to create a money aristocracy, the old
debt and other laws bearing on the working classes were not changed.
No attempt was made to improve a condition which allowed a dishonest
contractor to put up a building or a series of buildings, collect his
money and then swindle his laborers out of their wages. The local
administration, moreover, continued corrupt. It was freely charged
at this time that $250,000 of city money was being stolen outright
every year. The city charter drafted and adopted in 1829-30 contained
provisions which, it was thought, might remedy matters. It created two
bodies of the Common Council--the Aldermen and Assistant Aldermen--and
gave each a negative upon the propositions of the other, vesting a
supreme veto power in the Mayor. It again separated the election of the
Common Council from the general election. It abolished secret contracts
and compelled all resolutions involving appropriations of public money
or placing taxes or assessments to be advertised, and included other
precautionary measures against corruption. But it opposed the public
wish in still vesting the appointment of the Mayor in the Common
Council.
To battle against the prevailing injustices the Mechanics’ or
Workingmen’s party was formed. Its chief inspiration was Robert
Dale Owen, son of the famous Robert Owen. “Dale” Owen, as he was
familiarly known, and others had recently returned to the city after
an unsuccessful experiment at cooperative colonizing at New Harmony,
Indiana, and a number of bright and ardent intellects gathered about
him. Boldly declaring against the private and exclusive possession of
the soil and against the hereditary transmission of property, the new
party won over a large part of the laboring element. “Resolved,” ran
its resolutions adopted at Military Hall, October 19, 1829,
“in the opinion of this meeting, that the first appropriation
of the soil of the State to private and exclusive possession
was eminently and barbarously unjust. That it was substantially
feudal in its character, inasmuch as those who received
enormous and unequal possessions were _lords_ and those who
received little or nothing were _vassals_. That hereditary
transmission of wealth on the one hand and poverty on the
other, has brought down to the present generation all the evils
of the feudal system, and that, in our opinion, is the prime
source of all our calamities.”
After declaring that the Workingmen’s party would oppose all exclusive
privileges, monopolies and exemptions, the resolutions proceeded:
“We consider it an exclusive privilege for one portion of the
community to have the _means of education in colleges_ while
another is restricted to common schools, or perhaps, by extreme
poverty, even deprived of the limited education to be acquired
in those establishments. Our voice, therefore, shall be raised
in favor of a system of education which shall be equally open
to _all_, as in a real republic it should be.”
The banks, too, came in for a share of the denunciation. The bankers
were styled “the greatest knaves, impostors and paupers of the age.”
The resolutions continued:
“As banking is now conducted, the owners of the banks receive
annually of the people of this State not less than two millions
of dollars in their paper money (and it might as well be pewter
money) for which there is and can be nothing provided for its
redemption on demand.…”
The Workingmen put a full ticket in the field.
Tammany Hall, dominated by some of the same men and interests denounced
by the Workingmen’s party, opened a campaign of abuse. Commercial and
banking men outside the Wigwam joined ardently in the campaign. The new
movement was declared to be a mushroom party, led by designing men,
whose motives were destructive. The _Evening Post_, which represented
the commercial element and which sided with Tammany in opposition to
the new party, said that it remained for the really worthy mechanics
who might have associated accidentally with that party, to separate
themselves from it, now that its designs and doctrines were known. The
_Courier and Enquirer_, partly owned and edited by Noah,[4] styled
the Workingmen’s party an infidel ticket, hostile to the morals, to
the institutions of society and the rights of property. The Tammany
Hall, or to speak more technically, the Democratic-Republican General
Committee, declaiming on the virtues of Jackson and Democracy, advised
all good men, and especially all self-respecting laborers, not to vote
the Workingmen’s ticket.
Nevertheless, its principles made such an impression that in
November it polled over 6,000 votes, while Tammany, with its compact
organization, could claim little more than 11,000 votes. It was
well settled that numbers of Whig workingmen voted the new party’s
ticket; and that the rich Whigs secretly worked for the success of
Tammany Hall, whose ticket was almost entirely successful, though the
Workingmen elected Ebenezer Ford to the Assembly.
Tammany was dismayed at the new party’s strength, and determined to
destroy it by championing one of the reform measures demanded. In
January, 1830, a bill for the better security of mechanics and other
laborers of New York City was introduced by Silas M. Stillwell. The
Tammany men immediately took it up as if it were their own, urged
its passage and secured the credit of its adoption, when in April,
much emasculated, it became a law. It required, under penalties, the
owner of a building to retain from the contractor the amount due to
the mechanics employed thereon. By exploiting this performance to the
utmost, Tammany succeeded in making some inroads on the Workingmen’s
party. The organization leaders had recognized that it was time they
did something for the laboring classes. They were fast losing caste
with even independent Democrats of means, because of their subservience
to the aristocracy and of the common knowledge of the illegitimate ways
in which they were amassing wealth.
One result of the Workingmen’s movement was the failure of the Wigwam
to secure a majority in the Common Council. This seemed to frustrate
the design to reelect, as Mayor, Walter Bowne (Grand Sachem in 1820
and 1831). Fourteen Aldermen and Assistants were opposed to Bowne, and
thirteen favored him. There was but one expedient calculated to reelect
him, and to this Tammany Hall resorted. Bowne, as presiding officer
of the Council, held that the constitution permitted him to vote for
the office of Mayor. “I will persist in this opinion even though the
board decide against me,” he said. To prevent a vote being taken, seven
of Bowne’s opponents withdrew on December 28, 1829. They went back on
January 6, 1830, when Tammany managed to reelect Bowne by one vote. How
this vote was obtained was a mystery. Fourteen members declared under
oath that they had voted for Thomas R. Smith, Bowne’s opponent.[5]
Charges of bribery were made, and an investigating committee was
appointed on January 11; but as this committee was composed of Bowne’s
own partizans, it announced its inability to find proofs. Meanwhile the
general committee[6] had issued a loftily worded manifesto saying that
it (the committee) was established and was maintained to watch over the
political interests of the Democratic-Republicans of the city and “to
expose and repel the insidious and open machinations of their enemies,”
that it could not discover anything wrong in the conduct of the Chief
Magistrate of the city, and that it “repelled the accusations of his
enemies.”
The Workingmen’s party continued its agitation, and prepared for
another campaign. In the meantime the Wigwam’s agents skilfully went
about fomenting divisions, with the result that three tickets, all
purporting to be the genuine Workingmen’s, were put into the field
in October, 1830. One was that of the “Clay Workingmen”; it was
composed of a medley of admirers of Clay, the owners of stock in
various great manufacturing establishments, workingmen who believed
in a protective tariff, Whigs,[7] and a bunch of hack politicians who
had taken up the Workingmen’s movement for selfish ends. The second
was that of a fragment of the Workingmen’s party of the year before,
standing resolutely for their principles and containing no suspicious
politicians or monopolists. The third was that of the Agrarian party,
embracing a few individuals of views too advanced even for the
Workingmen’s party.
To the Clay Workingmen’s party[8] Tammany Hall gave little attention,
since it was made up mainly of Whigs who had always, under different
names, been opposed to the organization. But the genuine movement
Tammany Hall covered with abuse. “Look, fellow-citizens,” said the
address of the “general nominating committee,”
“upon the political horizon and mark the fatal signs
prognosticating evils of a dire and fatal nature! Associations
and political sects of a new and dangerous character have
lately stalked into existence, menacing the welfare and
good order of society. These associations … have assumed to
represent two of the most useful and respectable classes of our
citizens--our _Workingmen and Mechanics …_. Confide in them,
and when they have gained their ends they will treat you with
derision and scorn! Then rally round your ancient and trusty
friends and remember that honest men and good citizens never
assume false names nor fight under borrowed banners!”
To display its devotion to the cause of Democracy, Tammany Hall
celebrated, on November 26, the revolution in France. It persuaded
former President James Monroe to preside in Tammany Hall at the
preliminary arrangements, and made a studied parade of its zeal. There
was a procession, Samuel Swartwout acting as grand marshal. Monroe, in
a feeble state of health, was brought in a stage to Washington Square,
where for ten minutes he looked on. A banquet, the usual high-flown
speeches, and fireworks followed.
The election was favorable to Tammany. About 3,800 workingmen who
had supported the independent movement the previous year, went back
to Tammany, because of its advocacy of the mechanics’ lien law. The
average Tammany plurality was 3,000. The real Workingmen’s ticket
polled a vote of about 2,200; the Clay Workingmen’s ticket a little
above 7,000, and the Agrarian, 116.
For the next few years the contest of Jackson with the United States
Bank drew together the energies of all Democrats supporting him.
Dropping local contests, they united to renew his power. For the time,
the Workingmen’s movement ceased to exist.
FOOTNOTES
[1] “The members [of the Legislature] themselves sometimes participated
in the benefits growing out of charters created by their own votes; …
if ten banks were chartered at one session, twenty must be chartered
the next and thirty the next. The cormorants could never be gorged.
If at one session you bought off a pack of greedy lobby agents … they
returned with increased numbers and more voracious appetite.”--Hammond,
Vol. II, pp. 447-48.
Four conspicuous “charter dealers” at Albany were Sachems Samuel B.
Romaine, Michael Ulshoeffer, Peter Sharpe and Abraham Stagg, all
powerful organization leaders.
[2] Hammond, Vol. II, pp. 447-48.
[3] _MS. Minutes of the Common Council_, Vol. 48, pp. 59-60.
[4] Noah, after falling into financial difficulties, had been ousted
from the editorship of the _National Advocate_ and had now become
associated with his former political enemy, James Watson Webb, in the
conduct of the _Courier and Enquirer_.
[5] _MS. Minutes of the Common Council_, Vol. 70, p. 311. Shortly after
this the Wigwam men removed Smith from his post of Commissioner of
the Almshouse for opposing Bowne. So great was the haste to oust him,
before the Aldermen went out of office, that one of the board seconded
the motion for his removal before the motion was made.
[6] The general committee was now composed of thirty-six members,
mainly the directors in banking and other companies. Remonstrances at
this time were frequent that its important proceedings were a sealed
book to the electors. Among other things it dictated to the wards not
only when, but where, they should meet.
[7] The term “Whig” had now come to have a definite party meaning,
being used as a popular designation of the group led by John Quincy
Adams and Henry Clay, officially known (1828-36) as the National
Republican party. The term is first found in American politics applied
to the Separatists during the Revolution. About 1808 it was taken by
the anti-Burr faction of the Democratic-Republican party.
[8] The men of this party, as a rule, voted the Anti-Masonic State
ticket. While the Anti-Masonic party occasioned political commotion in
the State, there is no evidence that it had any perceptible effect on
Tammany’s career.