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by Cornell University Library 1993.Political Parties
AND
Their Places of Meeting
IN NEW YORK CITY
BY
THOMAS E. V. SMITH
Read before the New York Historical Society
February 7TH, 1893
NEW YORK
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR
1893Political Parties
AND
Their Places of Meeting
IN NEW YORK CITY
BY
THOMAS E. V. SMITH
Read before the New York Historical Society
February 7TH, 1893
NEW YORK
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR
1893
KCopyright, 1893, by
THOMAS E. V. SMITHPOLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR PLACES OF MEETING
IN NEW YORK CITY.
The word “politics/* according to a distinguished lexicogra-
pher, has a triple signification, primarily meaning the science of
government, and in a lower sense the management of a political
party, while in a bad sense it signifies artful management to secure
the success of political candidates or parties. In the history of
political parties in New York City, there is to be found a mixture of
these three significations of the word, combined in proportions
which would vary with the political opinions of each individual,
but containing at all times, according to the opinion of defeated
parties, a large excess of the last element. Questions of politics,
however, are not to be here discussed, the only subjects of consid-
eration being the political parties which have existed in New York
City and, in a lesser degree, the causes of their formation and the
methods adopted in their organization. In the American mind the
idea of an election of representatives of the people is most closely
associated with that of political parties, and a starting point in this
sketch of party history may therefore be found in the first election of
representatives by the people which took place in what is now New
York City, although the element of party difference in it was slight
and the city itself was not yet under a municipal form of government.
The first popular election was held in Fort Amsterdam in August,
1641, when the heads of families elected twelve men as representa-
tives of‘Manhattan, Breukelen and Pavonia, to devise means for
avenging the murder of Claes Swits by the Indians. During the
Dutch domination in New Amsterdam there were other instances of
the popular election of representatives, chiefly for advisory pur-
poses, and in 1653 the city received a municipal form of govern-
ment administered by a Schout, two Burgomasters and five
Schepens, who were appointed by Director General Stuyvesant.
There were also bitter quarrels between the Burghers and the Direc-
tor General, but the government was entirely non-elective, and as
political parties, in the present sense of the term, can hardly be
said to have existed, this period may be dismissed with the sole
further remark that a reminder of it is to be found in the word
“boss,” which is derived from the Dutch word baas of similar
meaning.4
After the capture of New Amsterdam by the English in 1664,
the city government was administered by a Mayor, five Aldermen
and a Sheriff, who were appointed by the Governor of the Province,
until by Governor Dongan’s charter of 1686, the right of electing
aldermen was granted to the people. From 1664 to 1689 no great
political divisions arose, but in 1689 there appear two distinct
political parties, divided upon the question of government, and also
to a certain extent by differences of nationality and religion. The
cause of concentration of these two parties was the news of the
English revolution of 1688, upon the receipt of which Edmund
Andros, the Governor, was imprisoned in Boston. One party, com-
posed largely of men of Dutch descent, thereupon claimed that the
colonial government had fallen with the home government and was
extinct; while the English party, as it was somewhat inaccurately
called, held that the lieutenant-governor, then in New York, should
be regarded as in legitimate authority until the arrival of a new
chief-magistrate from England. On the second day of June, 1689,
the former party requested Jacob Leisler, a German by birth, to
take charge of the government until the receipt of further instruc-
tions from England, it being recorded that upon this occasion thle
people met at Leisler’s door, which was on the west side of the
present Whitehall street, between Pearl and State streets, with a
marketplace in front of it. On the third day of June, 1689,
Leisler took charge of the Fort, which he held until the arrival of
Governor Sloughter on the 19th of March, 1691, whereupon he
was immediately imprisoned, was tried, and with one of his asso-
ciates was hanged on, the 16th of May, 1691. Several worthy
Dutchmen, who had been prominent in his support, narrowly es-
caped sharing Leisler’s fate, and the rancor between the parties in
this matter had an effect upon the politics of New York throughout
the whole colonial period, a notable outbreak of it occurring in the
year 1702, when Nicholas Bayard, the chief opponent ot Leisler,
was himself sentenced to be hung, but was pardoned. One inci-
dent of this strife was the election of a mayor in 1689 by popular
vote, in contravention of the city charter, which provided for the
appointment of that officer by the governor of the province. The
method of conducting elections at that time is also illustrated by
the statement that when Leisler’s son-in-law, Robert Walters, was
an aldermanic candidate and hard pressed for votes, Leisler himself
appeared at the polling place and gave these instructions: “I vote
for my son Walters, my son Jacob votes for his brother Walters, and
my son Walters votes for himself; that’s three, put them down.”
Walters was elected. The chief meeting-places of the Anti-Leis-
lerian Party were the tavern of Peter Matthews, near the gallows on
the Common, and the King’s Head tavern, on Smith (now Wil-
jiam) street, near Old Slip, kept by Roger Baker, who on Guy5
Fawke’s Day, 1701, made the remark that King William was “but
a Dutch King, and a Nose of Wax, and no longer king than we
please”; for which 1 offense he was tried before a jury of Dutch-
men and was heavily fined. In 1699 the strength of these two
parties, as displayed in the election of assemblymen, was 455
Leislerians and 177 members of the opposing party, and a further
illustration of election methods appears in the agreement that, in
order to save time and trouble, the voters of the one party should
announce their votes as cast for the Mayor of New York and Com-
pany, while their opponents voted for Mr. Wenham and Company,
the proper names of four candidates on each side appearing on
the poll-lists.
In 1732 we again find one party supporting Rip van Dam, and
another party upholding Governor William Cosby, the subject of
contention being the fees which Mr. Van Dam had collected while
acting as governor for thirteen months ending on the 1st of
August, 1732. Of these fees Governor Cosby succeeded in obtain-
ing one-half for himself, but a more important result of the contro-
versy was the trial for libel and the acquittal of John Peter Zenger,
editor of the New York Weekly Journal, which kept the party
strife alive for a number of years, and vindicated the liberty of the
press in this country. Thus, down to the time of the Revolution
there were party divisions arising partly from purely political mat-
ters, but often tinged by family rivalry and by religious dissensions
between the Dutch, Presbyterians and Episcopalians.
In 1765 the purely political question regarding the Stamp Act
gave rise to the famous Non-Importation Agreement entered upon
by the merchants of New York on the 31st of October, 1765, at
Burns’ City Arms Tavern, which was followed by the more active
opposition of the Sons of Liberty, among whose leaders were Isaac
Sears, John Lamb, Marinus Willett, and Alexander McDougal, who
has been called “the Wilkes of America.” Bitterly contested elec-
tions of members of the Colonial Assembly arose from the organi-
zation of the Sons of Liberty, and in 1770 we find two parties
divided upon the question of the use of secret ballots in voting. Of
these parties, the one, which included Theophylacte Bache, Isaac
Low, John Alsop, William Ludlow and other prominent merchants,
met at the Merchant’s Coffee House, while the Sons of Liberty,
who favored the use of secret ballots, left petitions for that ob-
ject to be signed at James McCartney’s, in Bayard street, Henry
Becker’s, in Broadway, Jasper Drake’s, between Beekman and
Burling Slips, and at the tavern of David Phillips, situated on the
present William street, between John and Fulton streets, which ac-
quired such notoriety as to be called “The Rebel Meeting House.”
Another noted meeting-place of the Sons of Liberty was the tavern
kept by Abraham Montagnie, on the north side of Murray street, a6
short distance west of Broadway. In January, 1770, the windows
and crockery of this tavern were broken by British soldiers as a
sign of animosity toward the frequenters of it, and, perhaps be-
cause of Montagnie’s fear of further destruction of his property, the
Sons of Liberty in February, 1770, purchased the corner house in
Broadway near the Liberty Pole, which they named Hampden
Hall, and there celebrated with due festivity the anniversary of the
repeal of the Stamp Act. As the outbreak of the Revolution ap-
proached, meetings were held in the Fields, at the Liberty Pole, at
the City Hall, and at the Merchant’s Exchange, but with the cap-
ture of the city by the British in 1776, and its accompaniment of
military rule, all political activity ceased within its limits. It is
difficult to state with accuracy the relative strength of the Whig and
Tory parties during the period immediately preceding the Revolu-
tion, but in the hotly contested election of assemblymen in 1769—
the last assembly election held during the colonial period—the total
number of voters was 1,515, of whom 650 may be taken as repre-
senting anti-British sentiment. In an election held in March, 1775,
to choose a committee for the appointment of delegates to the Gen-
eral Congress, the votes cast for the committee numbered 825,
while those cast in opposition to it were 163 in number, but the
full strength of neither party was then displayed.
In the first city election after the departure of the British, held
in December, 1783, the Whigs naturally held full sway, and no im-
portant party divisions occur until the discussions raised by the
adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1787. From these discus-
sions arose the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties, the latter
soon becoming known as the Republican party because of its sym-
pathy with the French Revolution, during which period Democratic
or, as the Federalists called them, Jacobin clubs, sprang up in
great number, the meetings of which were of a most spirited charac-
ter. Of these two parties the Federalists controlled the Board of
Aldermen until the year 1804, and cast a majority of city votes for
candidates for the governorship down to the year 1801, their meet-
ings being held at Gautier’s Assembly Rooms in William street, at
the City Assembly Rooms in Broadway, and at various taverns.
The Republicans, who were a majority of the voters in the state,
but not in the city, during this period held meetings at Hunter’s
Hotel, at Adams’ Hotel in William street, and at the City Tavern
in Broadway, while there also soon began to be a display of partisan-
ship at the meeting-place of the Tammany Society or Columbian
Order. This Society, which held its first public celebration on the
12th of May, 1789, had its origin in opposition to the supposedly
aristocratic tendency of the Society of the Cincinnati, and at first
included members of both parties, but about the year 1798 the Fed-
eralist membership rapidly decreased; and by the year 1800 the1
Tammany Society was recognized as a Republican organization.
Its meetings were at first held in the City Tavern, on Broadway, but
about the year 1798 it removed its headquarters to a tavern kept by
Abraham Martling, on the southeast corner of Nassau and Spruce
streets, which from its dilapidated appearance was known among
the Federalists as the “ Pigpen.” Here the Society held its meet-
ings until the completion of its first Hall in 1812, the old building
remaining in existence until about 1814.
In 1801, after the party control of national government had
fallen into the hands of the Republicans, George Clinton, the
Republican candidate, for the first time received a majority of the
city votes cast for governor, and in 1804 and 1807 there were no
regular Federalist candidates for the governorship.
In 1804 the Federalists also lost control of the Common Coun-
cil, and in spite of quarrels between the Republican factions of
Clintonians, Burrites and Lewisites or Quids, as they were com-
monly called, they remained in the minority until 1809, when they
elected sixteen out of the twenty members of the Board of Aider-
men. This revival of Federalist strength was probably due in large
measure to the efforts of a society organized on the 12 th of July,
1808, known as the Washington Benevolent Society, its most active
organizers being Isaac Sebring, Richard Varick, and Gulian C.
Verplanck, and its object the restoration of Washingtonian Feder-
alism, as was shown by its certificate of membership, which
consisted of a small book containing a portrait of Washington, and
a reprint of his farewell address. This society held its first public
celebration on the 22d of February, 1809, at Harmony Hall, on
the corner of William and Duane streets, whence it proceeded to
Zion Church to hear an oration delivered by Samuel M. Hopkins,
and thence dispersed to dine in various places, the number
of members being too great to be accommodated in any dining-
hall in the city. After this public display of its strength, plans
were adopted for the erection of a building for the use of the
Society, in accordance with which subscriptions were solicited by
Isaac Sebring and Richard Yarick for 8,000 shares of stock of the
par value of ten dollars a share, to be used as a building fund. In
April, June and September, 1809, five lots of land were purchased
in the name of John V. B. Varick from different owners for the
sum of $21,001, the whole plot, somewhat irregular in shape, hav-
ing a frontage of ninety feet nine inches on Broadway, with a depth
of one hundred and twenty-seven feet six inches on the southerly
side of Reade street. Here, on the 4th of July, 1809, the Society
proceeded with great ceremony to lay the corner stone of Washing-
ton Hall, which appears to have been the first hall erected in this
city for distinctly party purposes. The Committee of Arrange-
ments for this occasion consisted of Aquila Giles, Benjamin S.Kapp, John T. Champlin, Robert Brown, Samuel M. Hopkins,
Peter Talman, John W. Mulligan, Thomas R. Mercein, and Gulian
Verplanck, Jr., and their arrangements were evidently well-planned.
Meeting at the College Green the Society marched to the corner of
Broadway and Reade street four abreast in thirteen divisions, each
of which was preceded by a banner bearing the name of a deceased
Revolutionary hero, while a Revolutionary officer, who had been
wounded at the Battle of Monmouth, bore aloft the great Washing-
ton standard of white satin, which displayed on one side a bust of
Washington, and on the other side the Genius of America resting
on a shield bearing a portrait of Washington and the motto, taken
from his farewell address, “ Let that free constitution, which is the
work of our own hands, ever be sacredly maintained.7 * When the
procession had reached its destination the corner stone of the build-
ing was laid by Isaac Sebring, and the Society then proceeded to the
North Dutch Church, where an original ode was sung, the Declara-
tion of Independence was read, and an oration was delivered by
Gulian C. Verplanck, who, it is interesting to note, also delivered
an oration at the laying of the corner stone of the present Tammany
Hall on the 4th of July, 1867. The two thousand members of the
Society then completed their ceremonies by feasting and rejoicing
at three long tables in the Rope Walk.
Washington Hall, however, was not a pecuniary success. The
Benevolent Society first met in it on the 4th of July, 1811, from
which it would appear that the Great Hall in it was finished at
that time, but the rest of the building, which was to be used as a
hotel, was not finished in 1812, and more money was then needed
for its completion, the amount of stock then taken apparently being
but 4,379 shares or $43,790. In this exigency $25,000 was bor-
rowed by Mr. Sebring upon his own responsibility, and in 1813
the premises were leased for $3,600 a year, but in 1816 the indebt-
edness to Mr. Sebring had increased to such an amount that the
premises were mortgaged to John Van Vechten to secure Mr.
Sebring’s advances, and in the following year this mortgage was
foreclosed, the property being sold at auction on the 18th of April,
1817, to John G. Coster for $52,250. The large meeting room
was then used as a theatre for some years, in which, in August, 1819,
we find exhibited, “A Grand Perspective View of Hell,” while
another flaming advertisement headed, “Wild Men! Native
Indians ! Sons of the Forest! ” might lead to the supposition that
the braves of the Tammany Wigwam were revelling in the haunts
of their ancient foes, but in fact merely indicated that seven harm-
less redmen were on exhibition in Washington Hall. The rest of
the building was used as a hotel, which, in 1827, was most elegantly
re-decorated and furnished, the banqueting room, which was prob-
ably the former political meeting-place, becoming one of the finest9
and largest meeting-rooms in the city. For this purpose the building
was used until, on the 4th of July, 1844, its interior was en-
tirely destroyed by fire, the walls only remaining intact. On the
29th of October, 1844, the executors of John G. Coster sold the
premises to Alexander T. Stewart for $109,500, and in the follow-
ing year the ruins were entirely removed to make room for the
erection of Mr. Stewart’s store. The exhumation of the last relic
of this building is described by Philip Hone in his diary under the
date of April 7th, 1845, as follows: “In removing the rubbish
which remained after the hall was burned, the corner stone was
brought to light and exhumed this morning, with some formalities,
resembling in a degree those of its original deposition. Well do I
remember the ceremony of laying this corner stone on the 4th of
July, 1809, when the Federalists were on their high horse, and
when I subscribed $250—which I wish I had now—and walked in
procession to the North Church, where Gulian C. Verplanck (who
happened just then to be a Federalist), delivered the oration, and
Robert Morris, Jr., father of Robert H. Morris, the late Mayor,
now an ultra-Democrat, then an out-and-out Federalist, was one of
the vice-presidents of the Washington Benevolent Society. These
firebrands of that fine old party are now shining lights in the Loco
Foco camp, and abuse their old associates who continue to fight
under their original colors. How do the very stones rise up in
judgment against them. ’ ’
The organization of the Washington Benevolent Society in
New York was followed by that of similar societies in a number of
States (that in Philadelphia was in existence as late as 1825), and
probably had a considerable effect upon the vote cast by the Fed-
eralists in this city, as they retained control of the Common
Council from 1809 to 1816, and cast the majority of the city votes
at gubernatorial elections in 1810, 1813 and 1816.
As political handbills were at this time a favorite means of
spreading abuse of the opposing party, the matters which were
brought to the immediate attention of the people may be found to
a certain extent in that degraded class of publications. Thus, in
1804, we find a Clintonian opponent of Aaron Burr denying that
the allied Clinton and Livingston families were enriching them-
selves by office-holding, and showing that the combined salaries of
the members of those families amounted to but $34,458, while Mr.
Burr and his followers were drawing $35,250 in salaries. In 1807,
when Mr. Van Rensselaer was injured in a fracas with Judge Taylor
in Albany, a handbill appeared which declared that he had been
rightly treated, and which also used the incident as a means of
attack upon Governor Lewis. A portion of this document reads
thus: “Republicans! see the Reign of Terror revived with all its
violence and horror—see young tories attacking old whigs—because10
they are Republicans ! Judge Taylor, whose head is white with the
hoar of years, fought the battles of our independence, and has ever
since been a firm and undaunted whig. But what shall we say of
Morgan Lewis, the Governor of the State ? Behold him, Republi-
cans, encouraging tumult and violence ! Behold him lend his cane
to an upstart Tory; behold him assisting that tory to do violence
to Judge Taylor—a revolutionary soldier—a Senator of this State—
an old man, and an inflexible Republican. Is such a man fit to be
the Governor of a free people ! Republicans ! rise in your might,
and put down this infamous composition of Toryism and Apos-
tacy.” In 1807 the Federalists raised an outcry against the
increasing influence of foreign-born voters, and the result was the
nomination of an American ticket for assemblymen, headed by
Rufus King, which was overwhelmingly defeated. A broadside of
this time declares that “ The present American Ticket was once the
Federal Ticket, next the Federal Republican Ticket. One hitch
more and it will be right—the Tory Ticket—then with great pro-
priety they might put a King on it; ” while another handbill an-
nounced that this ticket was supported by ‘‘ the tories, traitors and
privateersmen of the revolution, ’ ’ and closes with the appeal:
“ Remember, Republicans, the scalping knife and the prison ships
—-the plains of Saratoga and the fields of Yorktown.” The oppo-
sition of the Federalists to the Embargo and the War of 1812 led
their opponents to the declaration that they were tories and friends
of Great Britain, the votes of the ‘ ‘ Exiles of Erin ’ ’ being sought after
on this ground. Roman Catholics were especially called upon to
oppose the so-called British ticket, while, on the other hand, the
Federalists appealed to the Quakers, as lovers of peace, to oppose
the war by voting the Federalist ticket. Political songs were also
circulated among the people, a portion of one of which was as
follows:
“ Fed’ralists with blacks unite,
And tell us wondrous stories;
And after they have spit their spite,
We prove them to be Tories.”
This mention of “ blacks ” appears to refer to a “ General Meet-
ing of the Electors of Colour” held in April, 1808, at Heyer’s
Tavern in Chatham street in support of the American Ticket—
probably the first meeting of the kind ever held in the city.
In 1811 there also appeared the letters of Abimelech Coody,
written by Gulian C. Verplanck against DeWitt Clinton, the pub-
lication of which was followed by the desertion of some forty
members of the “ Coody Party” from the Federalists to member-
ship in the Tammany Society.
Its opposition to the War of 1812, and its secret proceedings
in the Hartford Convention of 1815, were destroying the Feder-II
alist Party during this period, and, as its last public celebration ap-
pears to have taken place on the 4th of July, 1817, the Washing-
ton Benevolent Society probably ceased to be ot any political
importance after the loss of its hall, the Tammany Society ruling
supreme as a political organization in the city, although the Wash-
ington Benevolent Society held meetings as late as 1820. Stirred
by the erection of Washington Hall, the Tammany Society on the
13th of May, 1811, laid the corner stone of its first hall on the
southeast corner of Frankfort and Nassau streets, the stone being
laid by Grand Sachem Clarkson Crolius, and an oration delivered
by Alpheus Sherman, surrounded by the warriors and hunters in
Indian costume, with bucktails in their hats. In 1812 the building
was finished and the headquarters of the Republican party were
established in it. Here the Bucktails, after the fall of the Feder-
alists in 1816, waged war against their great enemy, DeWitt
Clinton, and held full sway in city politics until the year 1823,
when there arose the question of the choice of presidential electors
by popular vote. To this measure the Bucktails were opposed, but
were beaten by the People’s Party, which obtained control of the
Common Council, the division of political parties in the city from
1823 to 1830 being such as to preclude accurate description,
although the chief divisions were the People’s Party, which, to a
certain extent, supported DeWitt Clinton, and the Tammany
party, which opposed him, the former casting a majority of the city
votes for gubernatorial candidates, of whom there were none other
than those of the different factions of the Republican party from
1817 to 1828. In 1828 the people of this state first voted for
presidential electors, who had previously been appointed by the
legislature, and a new element of national elections had its begin-
ning, the great party divisions at that date being the Democratic-
Republican Party, which supported Andrew Jackson, and the
National Republican or Whig Party, which supported John Quincy
Adams, the latter name of “ Whig” being given to the party, ac-
cording to his own account, by Philip Hone, at a public meeting
in Washington Hall. Under these names the two great parties op-
posed each other in presidential elections until the year 1856, there
being, however, divisions in local as well as national politics, which
at times had some effect upon the strength of the two chief parties.
The first of these minor divisions was the Anti-Masonic Party,
which had its origin in the alleged revelation of masonic secrets by
William Morgan, and his mysterious disappearance in 1826. In
1828 this party presented a candidate for the governorship in the
person of Solomon Southwick, a Democratic politician, who re-
ceived 141 votes in the city, and 33,345 votes throughout the state.
In 1832 the Anti-Masons also nominated William Wirt and Amos
Ellmaker as candidates in the presidential election, but the influ-12
ence of the party was slight in New York City, and in 1833 it
became practically extinct. The only present relic of this party is
to be found in the occasional use of the expression that some politi-
cal topic will be “a good enough Morgan until after election,” a
phrase which is said to have been first used by Thurlow Weed when
a corpse of doubtful identity was announced to be that of William
Morgan.
In 1830 there also arose in the city a Workingmen’s Party,
organized with anti-monopoly principles by the master stair-build-
ers, but, like the Anti-Masonic Party, its influence was slight and
its existence brief, the action of the Common Council being con-
trolled by the Democrats from 1827 to 1834, and the majority of
city votes for governors being cast by them during that period.
In 1834 a new source of political excitement arose in the first
election of a mayor by popular vote, that officer having been pre-
viously appointed by the Governor and State Council of Appoint-
ment, and after the year 1822 by the Common Council. This
first mayoralty election was most hotly contested during its three
days’ continuation, the Sixth Ward being the scene of violent dis-
order. On lower Broadway the air was darkened with missiles
hurled at the ship Constitution, which was drawn through the streets
by the Whigs, whose headquarters in Masonic Hall were also
stormed by the mob. An application for assistance made by the
Whigs to officers in command of United States troops was refused
as without legal warrant, and Mayor Gideon Lee, who was himself
injured in the riot, finally suppressed the exuberant enthusiasm of
the Democracy by placing several companies of militia under arms.
The result was a small victory for the Democrats, whose candidate,
Cornelius W. Lawrence, received a majority of but 181 votes over
his opponent, Gulian C. Verplanck, while the Whigs obtained a
majority of two members in the Board of Aldermen.
In 1835 another party was added which had its beginning in a
riot at Tammany Hall, where pitched battles had already taken
place in 1817 and 1823, at which latter time the regular organiza-
tion had been compelled to take refuge in the “ Pewter Mug,” a
well-known tavern next door to Tammany Hall. On the 29th of
October, 1835, a meeting took place at Tammany Hall to ratify
nominations made by the Democrats, among whom there had
arisen a faction known as the Equal Rights Party, which especially
opposed the use of paper money and the creation of monopolies.
When the Equal Rights men entered the hall at the appointed hour
they found the chair already occupied by Isaac L. Yarian, a regular
Tammany man, whom they at once proceeded to eject by force.
In the battle which followed, the regular Democrats were completely
routed, the gas was turned off, and the Equal Rights men con-
tinued their proceedings by the glow of candles lighted with “loco-*3
foco” matches, from which event they at once received the title
of the Loco Foco Party. For two years this faction held its meet-
ings in a dingy room in the Military and Civic Hotel on the
southwest corner of the Bowery and Broome street, where nomina-
tions were made of candidates for the mayoralty and governorship
in 1836, and for the mayoralty in 1837, but the greatest number
of votes cast by the party was 4,243 for Moses Jacques, candi-
date for the mayoralty in 1837, and in the latter part of that year
the greater number of the Loco Foco party returned to the Tam-
many organization.
In 1835 we also find a new outbreak of native Americanism,
and in the following year Prof. S. F. B. Morse received 1,497 votes
as an American candidate for the mayoralty, but after an interval
of five years he received but 77 votes for the same office, and the
Native American Party showed no strength until the year 1844,
when it elected James Harper to the mayoralty by a plurality of
4,000 votes over the Democratic candidate, and of 19,000 votes over
the Whig candidate. In the same election this party elected aider-
men in ten of the seventeen wards, but in the following year its
candidates received but few votes, and in 1848 the party drops
out of sight until its re-appearance in the Know Nothing Party in
the election of 1854.
In 1838 a small number of Conservative Democrats, who
opposed President Van Buren’s financial policy, cast 395 votes for
Richard Riker, as a candidate for the mayoralty, but this faction
was hardly worthy of the name of a party.
Hence it may be said that next in order, after the Native
American Party, there appears the Liberty or Abolitionist Party,
which is said to have possessed but one idea—the abolition of
slavery. This party made its first appearance in the city in October,
3:833, when a meeting summoned through the influence of William
Loyd Garrison for the purpose of forming an Anti-Slavery
Society, was refused the use of the old Clinton Hall on the corner
of Beekman street and Theatre alley, and was promptly broken up
by a mob when it assembled in the Chatham Street Presbyterian
Chapel, which was situated on the west side of Chatham street
south of Pearl street. This party, however, does not take part in
politics until 1838, when Gerrit Smith, candidate for the govern-
orship, received 105 votes in the city, and the presidential candi-
dates, Birney and Earl, received 153 votes. In 1842 and 1843 we
find Abolitionist candidates for the mayoralty who respectively
received 136 and 30 votes, and for a few years there were candi-
dates for the governorship and for the presidency, but the vote
cast for them was insignificant, and after the election of 1848 the
Liberty Party was practically merged in that of the Free Soil
Democrats, until its re-appearance with candidates for the govern-*4
orship, but with very few votes, in 1858 and in i860, soon after
which time the outbreak of the Civil War and its results did away
with the necessity for this party organization.
In 1842 there was also a small split in the Whig Party between
the supporters of Henry Clay and those of John Tyler, but this
incident is hardly worthy of mention, as the Tyler candidate for
the mayoralty received but twenty-two votes.
There was, however, arising at this time a division in the
Democratic Party which was serious in its proportions, the cause
of dissension being the treatment of the slavery question. One
section of that party, which favored at least the restriction of
slavery, became known as the Barnburners, a name derived ac-
cording to some authorities from the sympathy of this party with
the anti-rent agitation, while others refer its derivation to the story
of a Dutchman who burned his barn to the ground to rid it of rats.
The opponents of this party were known as the Old Hunkers,
because of their possession of all the offices. The Barnburners
supported the Wilmot Proviso of 1846 that slavery should not
exist in Mexican territory acquired by the United States, and in
1848 they appear as the Free Soil Party, with Martin Van Buren
as their candidate for the presidency and John A. Dix as a guber-
natorial candidate. The former received but about 5,000 city
votes, and the latter about 8,000 votes; but the vote for them
throughout the State exceeded that cast for the regular Democratic
candidates, and gave the Whigs a glorious victory. In the city
this dissension threw the control of the Common Council into the
hands of the Whigs, who retained it until 1851, but the Free Soil
Party soon lost its strength, Minthorn Tompkins, its candidate for
the governorship, receiving but 218 city votes in 1852, while its
presidential candidate received but 206 city votes. After that year
the Free Soil Party practically disappeared in other organizations,
but the Democratic division in this State continued, the successors
of the Barnburners being known by the new name of Soft Shells,
and the successors of the Hunkers by the name of Hard Shells.
At the same time with the Barnburners another party also ap-
pears in 1846 with the title of the National Reform Party, its
platform demanding that only a limited quantity of land should be
held by each individual; that labor should be limited to ten hours
a day ; that beggary should be done away with by locating the
poor upon government lands ; and that official salaries should be
limited in amount to one thousand dollars each. Ransom Smith,
this party’s candidate for the mayoralty, received 654 votes, which
was the highest number of votes received by any of its candidates
until its extinction in 1849.
In 1847, after a long series of defeats, the Whigs succeeded
in electing William V. Brady as mayor, and, although the Demo-cratic Barnburners and Hunkers reunited in 1849, the Whigs again
elected their mayor in that year, and repeated their success in
1850 with Ambrose C. Kingsland against Fernando Wood,
although in the same year the Democratic candidate for the govern-
orship received a majority of about 700 votes in the city through
the support of a Whig faction called the Silver Grays, who opposed
Whig measures for the exclusion of slavery from the newly organ-
ized State of California, and other measures for its restriction.
In the first half of this century we thus have fourteen political
parties, nominating candidates for various offices in this city, whose
places of meeting were numerous, the greater part of them having
no regular general headquarters; but, putting aside the meeting
places of the ward associations, we find that the Federalists, after
the year 1800, held their general meetings in the Circus on the
north side of Anthony (now Worth) street west of Broadway; in
Mechanic Hall, on Broadway facing the Park; in Washington
Hall; and in Harmony Hall, on one of the corners of William and
Duane streets. The headquarters of the Democratic Party were
at Martling’s Tavern and in Tammany Hall, while the LocoFoco
opponents of the Tammany Society met at the Military and Civic
Hotel, on the southwest corner of the Bowery and Broome street.
The Whigs, during the greater part of their existence, had
their headquarters at the Broadway House, on the northeast corner
of Broadway and Grand street, holding their great meetings in
Masonic Hall, on the east side of Broadway, next to the southerly
corner of Pearl street; in Washington Hall; in Lafayette Hall,
on the west side of Broadway south of Houston street; in Niblo’s
Garden; in Castle Garden; in Constitution Hall on the east side
of Broadway between Bleecker and Bond streets; in National Hall,
on Canal street; and in the Harrison campaign of 1840 a huge
log cabin, one hundred feet long by fifty feet wide, was erected on
Broadway near Prince street, in which meetings were held. The
headquarters of the Abolitionists were at No. 138 Nassau street,
and at Nos. 5 and 45 Beekman street, great meetings of this party
being held in Metropolitan Hall and in the Tabernacle on the
east side of Broadway, north of Worth street. The National Re-
form Party had various meeting-places, one of which was Military
Hall, on the corner of Grand and Ludlow streets ; and the Native
American Party in 1844, the year of its only victory, met in
Washington Hall and the Park.
In the second half of this century the first new political.ele-
ment to appear in this city was the Temperance Party, with alder-
manic candidates in 1851. In the following year Henry M.
Western, the Temperance candidate for the mayoralty, received
861 votes, but he is apparently the only regular Temperance candi-
date for that office to be found for many years, In September16
1855, a New Temperance or Good Liquor Party, was organized
at No. 360 Grand street, and made nominations for some city
offices on a platform opposing the Maine Prohibitory Law, and
advocating a high-license fee of one thousand dollars, in oppo-
sition to the principles of the Temperance Alliance, whose rooms
were, at that time, at No. 461 Broadway. In subsequent years the
Temperance Party appears as the Anti-Dram Shop Party, and in
1869 there appeared the present Prohibition Party. Since 1870 this
party has had candidates for the presidency, governorship, mayor-
alty, and other city offices; but the votes cast for such candidates
in this city, although generally increasing with each election, have
been insignificant in number, although in the State they numbered
38,190 in the last presidential election of 1892. The city vote
for the mayoralty candidate in the same year was 2,575, which was
the largest ever cast for any Prohibitionist candidate for any office
in this city.
In 1851 the Democrats recovered from the Whigs thirteen
out of twenty wards in the aldermanic election, and in 1852
elected their candidate for’the mayoralty by 10,000 majority, and
their aldermanic candidates in fifteen wards. The supremacy of
the Tammany Democracy was, however, threatened by internal
dissensions, and that of the party at large by its division into the
rival factions of Hard Shells and Soft Shells, while, a few years
later, a third faction, known as the National Democratic Union
Associations, was dubbed the “ Half Shells.”
In the latter part of 1853 a new party was also formed by the
organization of the secret Order of United Americans, commonly
known as the Know-Nothing Party, from the reply: “I don’t
know, ’ ’ which was made by its members to all questions regarding
their organization. In the following year, 1854, we also find a
Committee of Municipal Reform, meeting in the New York Uni-
versity Building, with Peter Cooper as chairman ; and at the same
time a Hard Shell contingent left Tammany Hall and formed what
was known as the Stuyvesant Hall Party, from its meeting at Stuy-
vesant Institute, on the west side of Broadway opposite Bond
street, this party being the first of the Anti-Tammany Democratic
organizations which have appeared in nearly every year since 1854.
In the mayoralty election of 1854 we therefore have a Tam-
many Hall candidate in Fernando Wood, who received 20,003
votes; the Know-Nothing candidate, James W. Barker, who
received 18,547 votes; the Stuyvesant Hall candidate, Wilson G.
Hunt, who, being supported also by the Municipal Reformers and
Temperance Party, received 15,397 votes; and lastly the Whig
candidate, John J. Herrick, who received 5,696 votes. In the
gubernatorial election of the same year there were also four candi-
dates representing the same parties, the Whig candidate standingi7
m third place with regard to the city vote, but being elected
because of the division between the Hard and Soft Democrats
throughout the State.
With this election the Whig Party practically ceased to exist
in this city, being absorbed by both the Republican and Know-
Nothing organizations, although as late as 1859 we find a few Old
Line Whigs nominating a mayoralty candidate at Thorpe’s Hotel
on the corner of Broadway and Eighth street.
In 1855 we come to our present principal party divisions in
the formation of the Republican Party, recruited from Whigs,
Know-Nothings and Democrats. Its first county convention for
the election of delegates to a state convention was held on the 1st
of September, 1855, in Free Mason’s Hall, on the east side of
Broadway between Prince and Houston streets, and in November
of that year the Republican candidate for the county clerkship
received 7,721 votes. In the following year Anthony J. Bleecker,
who ran as an independent Republican candidate for the mayoralty,
received 9,654 votes, and the first Republican national candidates
received 17,771 votes in the city, both local and national candi-
dates being defeated by both Democrats and Know-Nothings.
From that date until the present time there have been but few
dissenting Republican factions which have been actually organ-
ized, those existing down to the year 1872 being confined to the
Radical Republicans, Custom House Republicans, and Anti-Cus-
tom House Republicans. In 1872 there arose the serious dissen-
sion of the Liberal Republicans, but with that exception the
organized factions have been utterly insignificant.
With the breaking up of political organizations in 1856, an
anti-slavery section of the Know-Nothing Party bolted the nomi-
nation of Fillmore and Donelson by their party convention in
Philadelphia, and transferred their proceedings to this city.
Under the leadership of Chauncey Shaffer, George Law and others,
they organized a convention on the 12th of June, 1856, in the
Apollo Rooms, on the east side of Broadway a little north of
Walker street, and there nominated John C. Fremont and William
F. Johnston. These proceedings, in turn, were also unsatisfactory,
and a third Know-Nothing faction left this convention to meet
first in Palace Hall, on the corner of Broadway and Walker street,
then in an American Chapter room opposite the Apollo Rooms,
and finally in National Hall, on Canal street, where Robert F.
Stockton and Kenneth Raynor were nominated. All this work,
however, was thrown away so far as the city vote was concerned,
inasmuch as the Democratic candidates, Buchanan and Breckin-
ridge, received more city votes than those cast for all other candi-
dates combined. In the mayoralty election of the same year
James R. Whitney appeared as a Reform candidate, and James S.i8
Libby as an Anti-Tammany candidate, but the votes cast for them
had no effect upon the result of the election, as in that year Tam-
many Hall and Stuyvesant Hall recombined, and were victorious.
In 1857, however, an Anti-Tammany combination of Know-
Nothings, Republicans, and Democrats under the leadership of
John McKeon, succeeded in electing Daniel F. Tieman as mayor
by a majority of about 2,300 votes over Fernando Wood, the Tam-
many candidate. The result of this Democratic defection, and the
election of a Tammany General Committee hostile to him, was the
organization, by Mr. Wood, of the Mozart Hall Democracy, its
party name being derived from its place of meeting, situated on
the west side of Broadway between Bond and Great Jones streets.
In 1859 Mozart Hall cast 29,940 votes, by which effort it elected
Mr. Wood to the mayoralty over both the Tammany Hall and
Republican candidates, but this was its only success in mayoralty
elections, and after Mr. Wood had been mollified by the support
of Tammany Hall when he was a congressional candidate, the
Mozart Hall Democracy dwindled away, and by the year 1871 was
extinct. The McKeonite Democracy appeared prominently at
intervals between 1857 and 1866, electing Mr. C. Godfrey Gun-
ther to the mayoralty in 1863 ; but in 1865 he received only 6,758
votes in a total of about 81,000 votes, and this faction also dis-
appeared.
In the presidential election of i860 the Democratic party
divided into three sections, which supported respectively Douglas
and Johnson, Bell and Everett, and Breckinridge and Lane. A
fourth division known as the Constitutional Union Party held
its only national convention in that year, with the sole principles
that the Union must be preserved and the laws enforced. This
party gave its support to Bell and Everett, but as a fusion ticket
was voted by the New York Democrats in that year, it is impossible
to determine the strength of these party divisions, except that
William Kelly, the Douglas candidate for the governorship, received
56,056 city votes, while James T. Brady, the Breckinridge candi-
date, received but 3,834 city votes. The Constitutional Union
Party took some part in city politics down to about the year 1869,
its votes being cast chiefly in connection with other organizations.
When a successor to Mr. Lincoln was to be chosen in 1864,
a section of the Republican Party which desired more radical
measures to be taken for the suppression of the Civil War, met in
national convention at Cleveland, under the title of the Radical
Republican Party, and took its stand upon a platform demanding
among other things an uncompromising suppression of the rebel-
lion ; a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery; and the
confiscation of rebel lands, to be followed by their distribution
among northern soldiers and settlers. The convention nominated19
as its national candidates General John C. Fremont and General
John Cochrane of New York, the latter having been president of the
convention. These gentlemen afterwards withdrew in favor of the
regular Republican candidates, Lincoln and Johnson; but the
Radical Republicans, who had been previously organized in New
York City, took some part in city politics for several years, their
headquarters in 1867 being on the corner of Broadway and
Twenty-second street. During the period of the Civil War there
also came into existence a number of independent political organi-
zations, such as the Taxpayer’s Union, the People’s Union, the
St. Nicholas Union, and others, which made but few independent
nominations and merely followed the lead of the greater organiza-
tions. To this period there also belongs the Citizens’ Association,
with headquarters at No. 813 Broadway, organized December 12,
1863, and continuing its existence until 1876, for the purpose of
effecting a thorough reform in local self-government, without par-
tisan connection. Of a similar nature was the Council of Political
Reform, which arose from a state convention of political reformers
held in Albany on the nth of April, 1870, the city branch organi-
zation being formed on the 27th of May, 1870, and making its
first important public appearance at a mass-meeting held in Cooper
Institute on the 6th of April, 1871. This organization continued
until the year 1875. At a Citizen’s meeting held in Cooper Insti-
tute on the 4th of September, 1871, for the purpose of reforming
the city government, there was also appointed the Committee of
Seventy, the labors of which ended with a farewell address issued
in October, 1873. Of minor reform associations there was a
swarm, it being stated that nineteen associations of that description
requested Mr. Havemeyer to become a mayoralty candidate in
1872.
In 1870 Tammany Hall, against which the chief attacks of
these organizations were directed, was supreme in the city govern-
ment, and in that year overwhelmed a new antagonist, the Young
Democracy, whose mayoralty candidate, Thomas A. Ledwith,
received but 46,402 votes against 70,937 votes cast for A. Oakey
Hall, the Tammany Hall candidate. The meeting-place of the
Young Democracy was Apollo Hall, situated on the north side of
Twenty-eighth street, one door west of Broadway, from which fact
its occupants received the title of the Apollo Hall Democracy. In
1871 this faction, in union with the Republicans and the followers
of the Committee of Seventy, routed the Tammany Democracy;
but in 1872 when it independently supported James O’Brien as a
candidate for the mayoralty, although casting nearly 35,000 votes,
it merely threw the election into the hands of the Republicans. In
1873 it again united with the Republicans and after a total defeat,
followed by bitter accusations of treachery on the part of both26
members of the alliance, the Apollo Hall Democracy passes from
sight with Apollo Hall itself, which was then torn down to be
replaced by the Fifth Avenue Theatre. During the years from
1867 to 1873 there were also a number of smaller Democratic
factions, such as the Ely Democratic Union, the Waterbury Demo-
cratic Union, the Masonic Hall Democratic Union, and the
Roosevelt Democratic Union, but their efforts bore no appre-
ciable results and were merely temporary in their character.
In 1870 the Labor Reform Party presented James S. Graham
as a gubernatorial candidate, supporting him throughout the State
with 1,459 votes, and in 1872 the same party cast 1,454 through-
out the State for Charles O’Conor as a presidential candidate, unit-
ing with the Democrats in the election of a governor. In this
latter year there also arose the most formidable of Republican dis-
sensions in the shape of the Liberal Republican Party, formed as a
protest against the re-nomination of General Grant. In connec-
tion with the Democratic Party this organization cast a plurality
of the city votes in 1872 for the presidential and gubernatorial
candidates, but was defeated in the mayoralty election. By the
year 1875, however, the strength of the Liberal Republicans had
become so slight that in their county convention, held in that year
at 1266 Broadway, they resolved to make no nominations, and
passed out of existence.
Following upon the passage of the act providing for the
resumption of specie payments, approved by the President on the
14th of March, 1875, there appeared the Independent National or
Greenback Party, which was fully organized in 1876 for “the
rescue of our industries from ruin and disaster resulting from its
enforcement.” From the year 1876, when its presidental candi-
date, Peter Cooper, received 289 city votes, down to the year 1885,
this party, at times in connection with labor organizations, pre-
sented candidates for various offices, but displayed no strength in
this city. The greatest number of votes cast by it for a presi-
dential candidate were 3,499, received by Benjamin F. Butler in
1884, he being also supported by an Anti-Monopoly Party. The
greatest effort of the Greenback Party in aid of a gubernatorial
candidate was in 1882, when it cast 1,537 votes in the city, but in
mayoralty elections its strength was limited to not more than 650
votes.
The remaining parties which have appeared in the city since
1872 have been either labor or socialistic organizations, or Anti-
Tammany Democratic factions, or citizens’ movements for the
extirpation of Tammany Hall. Thus, in 1874 we find an Industrial
Party, which first nominated Charles A. Dana for the mayoralty,
and, upon his declination, cast eighty-five votes for John Swinton ;
in 1878 Alexander Jonas, the Socialistic candidate for the mayor-alty, received 1,649 votes, but by the year 1882 the number of
votes for a similar candidate was but sixty-three; and in the year
1882 the Labor Union candidate received 2,581 votes. In 1886,
Henry George, the Labor candidate for the mayoralty, received
68,110 votes, but this exceptional display of power was followed
by a disruption of the Labor Party, and in 1888 there appeared
three Labor parties, the Union Labor Party, the United Labor
Party, and the Socialistic Labor Party. The candidates of the
National Convention of the United Labor Party, whose chairman
of the Committee on Resolutions was the Rev. Edward McGlynn,
received 2,184 votes in this city, and the mayoralty candidate
received 9,809 votes. In the gubernatorial election this party
cast its lot with the Republican Party. The candidates of the
Union Labor Party received no votes in this city. The Socialistic
Labor Party, in 1888, cast 1,772 city votes for presidential electors,
2,549 city votes for its candidate for the governorship, and 2,645
votes for its mayoralty candidate. In 1890 it cast 6,295 votes in
the mayoralty election, and in 1892 it appears as the sole political
representative of Labor, supporting its presidential candidate with
5,945 city votes, its candidate for the governorship with 5,190 city
votes, and its mayoralty candidate with 6,295 votes. In 1890 a
Commonwealth Party also cast 684 votes for James Redpath in the
mayoralty election, and a somewhat larger number of votes for
other county officers, but the existence of this party seems to have
been confined to that year.
Of the Anti-Tammany Democratic factions which have arisen
since 1873 there have been two of prominence, the Irving Hall
Democracy and the New York County Democracy. The first
of these, so-called from its meeting in Irving Hall, had its begin-
ning as the successor of Apollo Hall in 1874, under the name of
the People’s Liberal Democratic Organization, and preserved its
existence, by combining with other parties, down to the year 1889,
when it practically ceased to exist. .The candidates for prominent
offices which it supported solely with its own strength were few in
number, and it is therefore difficult to ascertain its voting strength.
The second of the Anti-Tammany factions, the New York County
Democracy, first appeared in 1878, but was practically organized
two years later. In December, 1880, a number of gentlemen held
a meeting at the Brunswick Hotel, which resulted in the summon-
ing of a mass-meeting, which was held in Cooper Institute on the
28th of December, 1880. At this meeting a committee of one
hundred members was appointed to organize the new party, which
was composed of former members of both Tammany Hall and
Irving Hall. Carefully avoiding the use of headquarters which
might be called a “Hall,” the County Democracy by its title
claimed to be the only regular representative of the Democratic22
Party in this city, and was recognized as such by the Democratic
State Convention in 1881. In that year it mustered nearly 47,000
votes, and by the year 1885 it was sufficiently strong to obtain
63,000 votes for its candidate for the county clerkship. In com-
bination with other organizations it also proved itself a most formid-
able antagonist of Tammany Hall, but gradually lost its strength,
until in 1891 its candidates received less than 12,000 votes, and
after the election of 1892 the County Democracy returned to Tam-
many Hall. Of minor Democratic factions there existed in 1878
the City Democracy; from 1884 to 1886 we find the Independent
Democracy under the leadership of James O’Brien ; and in 1890
there also appears the New York Democracy under the leadership
of John R. Voorhis. This last faction, which was organized in
Webster Hall, in East Eleventh street, confined its independent
labors in 1890 to the nomination of two aldermen, one of whom
was elected. In 1891, however, its independent strength as shown
by its highest vote cast for a coroner was 20,200 votes; but in 1892
its only independent nominees were two candidates for the State
assembly and three aldermanic candidates, all of whom were
totally defeated. To this list there should perhaps be added the
so-called Anti-Snappers, who temporarily organized in 1892 to
protest against the holding of the State Democratic Convention
at the time regularly appointed for its meeting. Of Citizen’s
movements there have been a number; the more recent ones
occurring in 1882, 1884, 1888, and 1890 ; that in 1884 being the
only one of these which met with success.
The sole remaining party to be noticed is the People’s Party,
organized in 1892 as a national party. Its platform begins with the
statement that ‘‘ we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the
verge of moral, political, and material ruin,” and then proposes to
remedy the national evils chiefly by abolishing banking corpora-
tions; by the unlimited-coinage of silver and gold, and the increase
of the circulating medium to not less than $50 per capita (it is now
about $24.47); by a graduated income tax; by the establishment
of postal savings-banks and government operation of railroads,
telegraphs and telephones; and by the reclamation by the govern-
ment of all lands held by corporations in excess of their actual
needs, and the holding of it for the use of actual settlers only. In
this city this party cast 2,366 votes for its national candidates,
Weaver and Field, and about the same number of votes for its
mayoralty candidate.
The political meeting places since 1850 have been numerous,
but the following places, with those already mentioned, include
those in which some county conventions and the more important
general meetings have been held. Tammany Hall has always been
the headquarters of that branch of the Democracy except during23
the period of construction of the present hall, the corner-stone of
which was laid on the 4th of July, 1867, when the Society met
in the old Masonic Hall, now Clarendon Hall, at No. 114 East
Thirteenth street, on the south side of the street, between Third
and Fourth avenues. Great meetings under the auspices of
Tammany Hall have also been held, in Steinway Hall, in Cooper
Institute, and in Bryant’s Hall, adjoining the Academy of Music.
The old Masonic Hall was also used by the Mozart Hall Democ-
racy; by the Industrial Party in 1874; and by Anti-Tammany
Democrats in 1878. The headquarters of the Hard Shell Demo-
crats were in Stuyvesant Hall, and in St. John’s Hall, on the
corner of Delancey street and the Bowery. The McKeonites
in 1857 held their meetings at the Merchant’s Exchange, now
the Custom House, and in the Academy of Music ; at a later
date their headquarters were at the Sinclair House, on the corner
of Broadway and Eighth Street, and their meetings were held in
Cooper Institute. The headquarters of the City Democracy in
1878 were- at No. 337 Fourth avenue, between Twenty-fourth
and Twenty-fifth streets; and the O’Brien Democracy of 1884
held its meetings in Clarendon Hall, in East Thirteenth street.
The County Democracy met in Cooper Institute, Chickering
Hall, and Nilsson Hall, on Fifteenth street east of Irving Place.
The Republican headquarters were in Stuyvesant Institute for a
number of years after the organization of the party, but from
1861 to 1873 the county conventions were held in Republican
Hall, on the southeast corner of Broadway and Twenty-third
street. In 1874 the county convention was held in a new
Republican Hall on Thirty-third street, one door east of Broad-
way, where the headquarters remained until 1886, when they were
transferred to the Grand Opera House, in which the county
conventions have since been held, with the exception of the year
1890 when the delegates assembled in Webster Hall, in East
Eleventh street. The great Republican meetings have generally
been held in Cooper Institute, and on one occasion in the Madi-
son Square Garden. The Greenback Party favored as its meeting
places, Cooper Institute ; Science Hall, at No. 141 Eighth street;
the present Clarendon Hall; a hall at No. 291 Bowery; and in
1884 its county convention was held at No. 12 Union Square.
Labor organizations have generally held their greater meetings in
Cooper Institute and in Clarendon Hall. The Citizen’s head-
quarters in recent years have been in Municipal Hall, No. 67
Madison avenue, between Twenty-seventh and Twenty - eighth
streets, and in Nilsson Hall. Of out-door meeting-places there
may be mentioned the City Hall Park; the corner of Wall and
Broad streets; Wall street, in front of the present Custom House ;
Union square; and the Polo Grounds, at One Hundred and
Tenth street and Sixth avenue.24
As a general summary of the trend of political opinion in this
city it may be said that since the year 1789 there have been forty-
five elections of candidates for the governorship, and in these
elections, in this city, the Federalist candidates received a majority
of the votes seven times; the Whig candidates were successful
twice; and the Democratic candidates have defeated their oppo-
nents thirty-six times. Since the year 1828, when the people in
this State first voted for presidential electors, there have been
seventeen presidential elections, in all of which, in this city, the
Democratic candidates have been successful, with the exception of
that in the year 1848, when the Whig candidates, Taylor and
Fillmore, received a majority of the city votes. Since the year
1834, when the mayor was first chosen by popular vote, there
have been thirty-nine mayoralty elections, in which there have
been elected one Native American candidate ; five Whigs; three
Anti-Tammany candidates, all of whom were Democrats, supported
by Democrats, Citizens or Republicans; two Republicans; and
twenty-eight Democrats, of whom one was the candidate of Mozart
Hall, one of the McKeonites, and three were nominees of a union
of Democratic organizations, while twenty-three have been the
nominees of Tammany Hall.
The candidates for the governorship who have been successful
in the city since 1789 have been as follows, the numerals indicating
successive nominations, and the letters the party of the candidate :
Robert Yates, F.
John Jay (3), F.
George Clinton, D.
Aaron Burr, D.
Morgan Lewis, D.
Jonas Platt, F.
Stephen Van Rensselaer, F.
Rufus King, F.
De Witt Clinton, D.
Daniel D. Tompkins, D.
Joseph C. Yates, D.
DeWitt Clinton (2), D.
Martin Van Buren, D.
Enos T. Throop, D.
William L. Marcy (3), D.
The mayors of New York Ci
Cornelius W. Lawrence (3),
Aaron Clark (2), W.
Isaac L. Varian (2), T.
Robert H. Morris (3),T.
James Harper, N. A.
William H. Seward, W.
William C. Bouck (2), D.
Silas Wright "(2), D.
Hamilton Fish, W.
Horatio Seymour (3), D.
Amasa J. Parker (2), D.
William Kelly, D.
Horatio Seymour (2), D.
John T. Hoffman (3), D.
Francis Kernan, D.
Samuel J. Tilden, D.
Lucius Robinson (2), D.
Grover Cleveland, D.
David B. Hill (2), D.
Roswell P. Flower, D.
y since the year 1834 have been :
William F. Havemeyer, T.
Andrew H. Mickle, T.
William V. Brady, W.
William F. Havemever, T.
Caleb S. Woodhull, W.25
Ambrose C. Kingsland, W.
Jacob A. Westervelt, T.
Fernando Wood (2), T.
Daniel F. Tieman, A. T.
Fernando Wood, M. H.
George Opdyke, R.
C. Godfrey Gunther, McK.
John T. Hoffman (2), T.
A. Oakey Hall (2), T.
Thomas F.
William F. Havemeyer, R.
William H. Wickham, T.
Smith Ely, T.
Edward Cooper, A. T.
William R. Grace, D.
Franklin Edson, D.
William R. Grace, A. T.
Abram S. Hewitt, D.
Hugh J. Grant (2), T.
Gilroy, T.
The times for holding the elections at which the strength of
these parties, as well as of their principles, has been put to the prac-
tical test of the popular vote, and the offices for which candidates
have been presented, have varied considerably since popular elec-
tions were first allowed in New York City. The times for holding
charter elections, or, as they have more recently become, elections
of city and county officers, have been as follows, except at times
when new charter provisions were being gradually brought into
effect:
1686-1800. St. Michael’s Day, September 29th.
1800—1815. Third Tuesday in November.
1815-1822. Third Tuesday in April.
1822-1831. First Monday in November.
1831-1850. Second Tuesday in April.
1850-1857. Tuesday after first Monday in November.
1857-1871. First Tuesday in December.
1871-1893. Tuesday after first Monday in November.
The number of days upon which the polls have remained open has
also varied, there being at times an opportunity to vote during as
many as five days.
Elections of State and county officers have been held on the
following days:
1778-1822. Last Tuesday in April.
1822-1842. FirsCMonday in November.
1842-1893. Tuesday after first Monday in November.
The legislative branch of the city government has also been
frequently changed in form, while the number of its members has
varied with the growth of the city. From 1686 to 1853 a system
of election of ward aldermen and assistant aldermen prevailed,
their number depending upon the number of wards in the city. In
1853 the board of assistant-aldermen was abolished, and there was
established in its place a board of sixty councilmen, each of whom
represented one of sixty districts into which the city was divided,
. the aldermen still being elected by wards. In 1857 this system
was changed by the establishment of seventeen aldermanic districts,2 6
each to be represented by one alderman, while six councilmen were
to be elected in each senatorial district. A return was made, how-
ever, in 1868 to the system of electing aldermen and assistant-
aldermen; one member of each board to be chosen in each assem-
bly district. A further change was made by the charter of 1870,
which provided for the election of fifteen aldermen-at-large, to be
elected upon a general ticket, and a board of assistant aldermen,
one of whom was to be chosen in each assembly district; this system
remaining in force until 1874, when three aldermen were elected
in each senatorial district, and six aldermen-at-large were elected
upon a general ticket. The act, passed in 1873, by which this
last arrangement was effected, also provided that each voter should
vote for but two of each group of three aldermanic candidates, and
for but five of the six alderman-at-large, thus making provision
for minority representation in the Common Council. From this
provision, which was claimed to be unconstitutional, as depriving
voters of the right to cast their ballots for all officers to be elected,
there arose the body known as the Wolf or Cromwellian Board of
Aldermen, who were chosen in pursuance of the provision of the
charter of 1870 for the election of fifteen aldermen-at-large, it
being claimed that such provision was still in force, owing to the
unconstitutional character of the act of 1873. The name of Wolf,
attached to this board, was derived from that of a prominent advo-
cate of its claims, while its Cromwellian designation is owing to
its revolutionary demands for recognition as the legitimate Board
of Aldermen, which have been repeated after every election down
to the present time. By chapter 410 of the Laws of 1882 aider-
manic districts were again established, with one alderman in each
district, and six aldermen-at-large, to be elected upon a general
ticket. In 1884 the elective office of president of the board of
aldermen was created ; and in 1887 the election of alderman-at-
large yas abolished, and the board was made to consist of a presi-
dent and one alderman from each assembly district. By chapter
408 of the Laws of 1892, the board now consists of a president,
and one alderman from each assembly district, except the district
comprising the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth wards, from
which there are two representatives, the whole board being com-
posed of thirty-two persons. For a considerable time the mayor
and recorder were also members of the Common Council, but by
the charter of 1830 their membership ceased after the second
Tuesday in May, 1831. By chapter 43 of the Laws of 1884, the
brightest jewel was snatched from the aldermanic crown by the
provision that the sole appointing power should rest in the mayor
without confirmation of his appointments to office by the aldermen.
By the early charters of the city the offices of assessor, collec-
tor, and constable, were made elective, and by chapter 187 of the27
Laws of 1849 the heads of the newly-created departments, including
the comptroller, street commissioner, commissioner of repairs
and supplies, commissioner of streets and lamps, city inspector,
governors of the almshouse, and counsel to the corporation, were to
be chosen by popular vote. These latter officers continued to be
elected by the people until by the charter of 1857 the appointment
of those whose offices were not abolished was placed in the hands
of the mayor, with the exception of the comptroller and corpora-
tion counsel, the latter of whom also ceased to be an elected officer
by force of an act passed April 18, 3871.
The offices of register (created in 1812), county clerk,
sheriff, and coroner, were filled by appointment of the governor
until made elective by the revised State Constitution adopted by
the people in 1822, while the recorder and surrogate continued
to be appointed by the governor until the passage of an act of
December 15, 1847, which provided for their election by popular
vote. The office of district attorney was made elective by the
State Constitution of 1846. By chapter 304 of the Laws of 1874
the governments of the city and the county were consolidated into
one body corporate.
The manner of conducting elections in early times was some-
what informal, the names of the candidates being written on poll-
lists, which contained the names of the voters, and a mark being
placed under the name of the candidate for whom each elector
announced by word of mouth his intention of voting. The use
of written or printed ballots was recommended by the State
Constitution of 1777, and their use, with that of ballot-boxes,
was required in elections of State officers by chapter 15 of the
Laws of 1787, but the first statutory mention of them in connection
with the election of city officers appears to be contained in chapter
62 of the Laws of 1804. The registration of the names of voters, as
a prerequisite to the casting of ballots, was first required by chapter
78 of the Laws of 1840, which also first provided for the division of
the city into election districts, each to contain as nearly as possible
five hundred voters, a number which has since been reduced to two
hundred and fifty, with provision, however, that no existing
district shall be subdivided until it contains at least four hundred
voters. Provision was also made by this act for the popular elec-
tion of commissioners of registry and election inspectors ; but in
1842 the act was repealed so far as registration and the election of
these officers was concerned, and no further registration of voters
took place until a revival of this requirement was made by chapter
380 of the Laws of 1859.
In the manner of nominating candidates for office there has
also been considerable variation in national, state and city politics.
Down to the year 1804 there was no formal method of nominating28
presidential candidates, but on the 25 th of February in that year
the Republicans began the system of presidential nominations by a
party caucus of the members of the two Houses of Congress,
which, by the year 1824, was superseded by nominating caucuses
in State Legislatures and by a few popular county conventions.
These in turn gave place to our present system of national conven-
tions, the first of which was held by the Anti-Masonic Party in .
September, 1831, and was followed by those of the Whigs and
Democrats in 1832. Nominations of candidates for the governor-
ship were also at first informal, being made either by the candidates
themselves or at scattered meetings of citizens called together by
party friends of those who desired to be candidates. This method
gave place to that of nominating caucuses of members of the Legis-
lature, until, in 1816, the followers of De Witt Clinton introduced
the system of a State convention composed of county delegates,
which became the regular method of nominating candidates for the
governorship in 1826.
The method of party organization in the city from an early
date was that of ward committees chosen by the voters, with a cen-
tral committee for the general management of party affairs. In
the first mayoralty election in 1834, the Whig organization con-
sisted of a general committee composed of three delegates from each
ward. There were also committees in each ward, who called meet-
ings of the Whig electors for the nomination of city officers for
their respective wards. At these meetings of the electors there
were chosen ‘4 retiring ’ ’ or nominating committees, who presented
the names of nominees for the consideration of the voters, who at the
same meetings chose vigilance committees, upon whom fell the duty
of looking after their party interests in their respective wards during
the election. In that year there were also chosen, apparently by
the vigilance committees, twenty delegates from each ward, who
met in city convention on the 26th of March, at the Fifteenth
Ward Hotel, on Broadway between Bleecker and Bond streets, for
the purpose of nominating a candidate for the mayoralty, the call
for the convention in that year being made by delegates from the
Fifth Ward. At the present time the assembly district has taken
the place of the ward as the basis of division of the city for political
purposes, and the methods of organization of the two chief parties
have changed accordingly. The Republican organization consists,
for city purposes, of an association of enrolled Republican voters
in each of the thirty assembly districts. These associations annually
elect their own officers and five inspectors of primary elections, as
well as a District Committee, whose duty it is to take measures for *
the general interests of the party in its assembly district. Each Dis-
trict Committee consists of as many members as there are election
districts in the assembly district, with the district association officers,2 9
inspectors of election, and delegates to the County Committee as
ex officio members.* The general management of party affairs
in the city is in the hands of a County Committee of delegates
elected annually by the district associations; each association
electing one delegate for each 150 votes or majority fraction of 150
votes cast for the Republican presidential electors in the dis-
trict. Among the powers of the County Committee are those of
disciplining members of the organization, of calling meetings of
the district associations for the election of delegates to conven-
tions, and of fixing the number of such delegates, except in the
case of State conventions, proportionally to the number of party
votes cast in each assembly district in the preceding State elec-
tion. The general management of the affairs of this committee
is in turn intrusted to its Executive Committee, which consists
of one member from each district appointed by the county
committeemen from the several districts, and an ex officio mem-
bership of the officers of the County Committee and tbe chair-
men of the standing committees of it, each appointed member
having a number of votes proportional to the number of county
committeemen from his district, while the ex officio members have
but one vote each. The district associations are required to meet
once a month, except in June, July and August, and the County
and Executive Committees hold regular meetings once a month,
except in July and August.
The political organization of Tammany Hall consists primarily
of enrolled voters in each assembly district, who annually elect
an Assembly District Committee and delegates to the Tammany
Hall Democratic General Committee. Each District Committee
consists of not less than five members from each election dis-
trict in the assembly district, elected as such, together with the
district delegates to the General Committee, the committee itself
having power to make additions to its membership. To this
committee is intrusted the care of party affairs in its assembly
district, and by it, among its other officers, are chosen captains for
each election district, whose duty it is to bring the voters to the
polls, and to promote party success in their respective election
districts at the time of the election. There are headquarters of
the District Committee in each assembly district. The Tam-
many Hall General Committee consists of delegates elected by the
enrolled voters, the basis of representation being one delegate for
every fifty voters in each assembly district. This committee,
which at the present time consists of between four and five thousand
members, holds monthly meetings, and acts each year as a County
* Since this statement was written the constitution of the Republican organization has been
amended, in March, 1893, in several minor provisions, and the membership of each District Com-
mittee has been increased to at least five members from each election district.30
Convention for the purpose of presenting the party candidates for
public office. Its principal sub-committees are the Committee on
Organization, and the Executive Committee. The Committee on
Organization consists of thirty members from each assembly dis-
trict chosen from among their own number by the general com-
mitteemen from each district, the officers of the General Com-
mittee, sixty-seven in number, being also ex officio members of it.
Its duties include all matters of party organization, the calling of
primary elections, and the oversight of the details of conducting
elections of public officers. It also has power to reject the nomi-
nations of candidates for public office made by the County Con-
vention, and to substitute other candidates in their stead when the
interests of the organization require such action. This committee
meets once a month. The Executive Committee consists of one
member from each assembly district chosen by the general
committeemen from the district, with an ex officio membership con-
sisting of the chairmen of the General Committee and of the com-
mittees of organization, finance and correspondence. The
members chosen by the general committeemen are known as the
district leaders, their appointment being subject to the approval
'of the Committee on Organization. The Executive Committee is
the mainspring of the party mechanism, deciding upon the issues
which shall be especially discussed during each political campaign,
and also making selection of the candidates for public office who
are to be nominated by the County Convention. The fact that
the last Tammany Hall candidate for the mayoralty received
173,510 votes against 109,259 votes cast for all other candidates
for the same office goes far to prove the accuracy of the statement
of the present leader of Tammany Hall, that this system of organ-
ization is ‘ ‘ admirable in theory, and works excellently well in prac-
tice.”