TAMMANY “PURIFIED”
1837-1838
One of the important changes in the composition of Tammany Hall came in
1837. The United States Bank dependents, lobbyists and supporters had
left the Wigwam, as has been noted, in 1832, but the State Bank men,
well satisfied with the destruction of the great rival corporation, had
remained. Finding the organization no longer subservient to them they,
in turn, quit Tammany during Van Buren’s administration.
This happened in the Fall of 1837. The Tammany General Committee, whose
membership had recently been increased from thirty-six to fifty-one
members, held a meeting on September 7, thirty-six members being
present. Resolutions were offered upholding Van Buren’s scheme of
placing the United States funds in sub-treasuries. This was a bitter
dose to the State Bank men who, wanting to retain Government deposits,
opposed the sub-treasury plan. The “bank conservatives” vainly tried
to put off a vote on the resolutions, but being repeatedly outvoted,
all but one of them left the room before the main question was put.
Nineteen members remained. As seventeen formed a quorum, the question
was put and the resolutions were adopted by a vote of 18 to 1. The bank
men pretended that the resolutions were passed clandestinely, and they
so deviously managed things that in a few days they regained control of
the general committee, which at their behest refused to call a public
meeting to act on the resolutions.
But the Democratic-Republican Young Men’s Committee was saturated with
Equal Rights ideas and rebelled at the policy which allowed the acts
of the bankers to antagonize Democrats of principle and bring defeat
to Tammany Hall. This committee met in the Wigwam on September 11 and
passed a series of resolutions with which the Anti-Monopolists were
as pleased as the bankers were angry. The resolution declared the
public satisfaction in anticipating the separation of bank and state,
and welcomed the approach of an era when legislation should not be
perverted to the enrichment of a few and the depression of the many.
The Young Men resolved that the crisis was sufficient reason for their
committee assuming to recommend a public meeting of those who approved
Van Buren’s recent message, to be held in Tammany Hall, on September 21.
The bank men were angry that the Young Men’s committee should dare to
act independently of the elder, the general committee. The latter,
meeting on September 14, disapproved of the manner in which the Young
Men’s meeting had been called, declined cooperation with it, and by a
vote of 21 to 16 ordered the Young Men’s General Committee to withdraw
the recommendation for that meeting. The Young Men ignored the order
and held their meeting. Van Buren and his prospective sub-treasuries
were indorsed and fiery resolutions adopted denouncing the incorporated
banks.
Coming, as this denunciation did, from Tammany Hall, which had a
far-reaching influence over the Union, the “bank conservatives”
grew even more exasperated, for they had come to look upon the
organization as almost their private property. As two-thirds of the
Sachems belonged to their clique, they held a meeting in the Wigwam,
on September 25, to disapprove of the sub-treasury scheme. In rushed
the progressive Democrats in overwhelming force, and for an hour the
place was a fighting arena. The bank men were forced to leave, and the
progressives organized and carried out the meeting.
Regarding Tammany as having ceased to be the tool of the exploiting
interests, the Anti-Monopolists were disposed to a union with the
advanced organization party. When the Equal Rights men met at
Military Hall on October 27, Col. Alexander Ming, Jr., one of the
party’s organizers, said that one of the chief purposes of the Equal
Rights party was to effect reform in Tammany Hall; this having been
accomplished, it was the duty of every Democrat to unite on one ticket
against the “high-toned Federalists, Whigs and aristocrats.” A fusion
Assembly ticket was made up, composed of both Tammany and Equal Rights
men, each Tammanyite subscribing in writing to the Equal Rights
principles. A small contingent of the Equal Rights party, however,
accused their comrades of selling out to the Wigwam, and nominated
their own candidates--Job Haskell, Daniel Gorham, William E. Skidmore
and others.
The “bank conservatives” allied themselves with the Whigs. They were
credited with raising an election fund of $60,000, a sum which at that
time could do great execution. By raising the cries of “agrarianism”
and “infidelity,” ascribing the effects of the panic of 1837 to the
Democrats, coercing laborers and using illegal votes, the combined
conservatives wrested nearly 3,000 majority out of a total of 33,093
votes.
Stimulated by this victory, the bank men attempted to regain control
of Tammany and called a meeting for January 2, 1838, at 7 o’clock, in
the Wigwam. The Anti-Bank Democrats then issued a call for a meeting
on the same night, but one hour earlier. The Council of Sachems were
mostly either “bank conservatives” themselves or sympathizers; but they
feared to alienate the dominant progressives. As the best solution,
they agreed that neither party should meet in the Wigwam. On January
1 they resolved that both calls were unauthorized and that neither
had been sanctioned by any act of the general committee. “The lease
of Tammany Hall,” read their resolution, “reserves to the Council of
Sachems of the Tammany Society the right to decide on all questions of
doubt, arising out of the rooms being occupied by or let to a person
or persons as a committee or otherwise for political purposes!” The
Council sent a copy of these resolutions to Lovejoy and Howard, the
lessees[1] of Tammany Hall, forbidding them to “rent, hire to, or allow
either of the assemblages named on the premises.” Identical with this
decree, Lovejoy and Howard issued a notice (which was published in the
public prints) that their lease of Tammany Hall “contained covenants”
that they would not permit any persons to assemble in the hall “whose
political opinions the Council of Sachems of Tammany Society should
declare not to be in accordance with the political views of the general
committee of said Tammany Society,” and they (Lovejoy and Howard)
therefore could not permit either meeting.[2] The conservatives then
met in the City Hall Park, where they were assaulted and maltreated.[3]
The Anti-Bank men won over the general committee, which gave the
necessary permission for their meeting in the Wigwam on January 9. The
policy of Jackson and of Van Buren was upheld, and it was set forth
that while the Democracy, unlike its calumniators, did not arrogate to
itself “the possession of all the decency, the virtue, the morals and
the wealth of the community,” it felt no more disturbed at being called
“Agrarians,” “Locofocos” or “Radicals” than it did at being abused in
the days of Jefferson.
That foremost Equal Rights advocate, the _Evening Post_, now
acknowledged the purification of Tammany Hall;[4] saying that
the spurious Democrats who had infested the party for their own
selfish purposes had either been drummed out of the ranks, had left
voluntarily, or had acquiesced sullenly in the decision of the majority.
FOOTNOTES
[1] It will be remembered that in 1828 the Sachems had bought back a
lease on the building in order to shut out the Adams men. The lease had
again been let, but under restrictions which left the Sachems the power
to determine what faction should be entitled to the use of the hall.
[2] These details are of the greatest importance as revealing the
methods by which the society asserted its absolute ascendency over
the organization. They proved the absurdity of the claim that the two
bodies were distinct and separate from each other.
[3] The _New Yorker_ (magazine), January 13, 1838. This journal was
edited and published by Horace Greeley.
[4] January 11, 1838. The credit for this temporary purification must
in considerable measure be given to the _Evening Post’s_ editors,
William Cullen Bryant and William Leggett.