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 The following address, prepared by tlie Committee on 
 Orgnnization, was read by Major Quincy at the final lueeting, 
 on the 20th December, of the General Committee of 1875, 
 of Tammany Hall, and was unanimously adopted us a fitting 
 Address of the Democratic party of the City of New York 
 to the P^lectors at large : — 
 
 In closing the labors of the year 1875, the General Com- 
 mittee of 'the Democratic Republican party of the city and 
 county of New York deems it due to the enlightened public 
 (.pinion of the metropolis to publish to the country a clear 
 statement of its past and present attitude on the great 
 (|Ucstions of the day, and to review the record it has made 
 in the work of securing good government in Ne^vl^ork. 
 
 Amid the chaos of parties which followed after the down- 
 i'all of the Ring in 1871, the people took refuge in a commit- 
 tee of seventy citizens, which was drawn together indiffer- 
 ently from the ranks of the two great parties. A so-called 
 non-partisan reform government was installed in power in 
 1872 ; but the record which it made was not creditable, and 
 the services which it rendered were n )t such as the people 
 had a right to expect at the hands of true reformers. It was 
 chiefly usef^ul in the lesson it taught of the necessity to 
 foster the healthy and rival agencies of two regular and 
 responsible political organizations in the government of our 
 citv no less than in that of the whole country. 
 
 7? 
 
Publicists and statesmen have laid it down with the 
 precision of an elementary truth that the affairs of any nation 
 or republic are best administered and most honestly pro- 
 moted where the people are divided into two patriotic but • 
 opposite and competini^ parties, (.avalier and Puritan, Whig;. " 
 and Tory, have been the great and useful divisions in Eng- 
 lish politics since the dawn of constitutional government in 
 (jreat Britain, Federalist and Republican, Whig and Dem- 
 ocrat, Democrat and Republican, have been the rival claim- 
 ants for the suffrages and leadership of the American people 
 since the adoption of the Constitution in 1789. 
 
 Irresponsible organizations may accede to power in times 
 of commotion ; but they are at best but the makeshifts of the 
 hour, restrained by no accountability to punishment or reward, 
 the prey to the proletarian agitators of society, and constant 
 elements of danger to the public liberties 
 
 Impressed with such convictions, we, the representatives 
 of the Democratic-Republican j'arty of the city and county 
 of New York, detern.ined, after the riuhteous overthrow of 
 the Ring robbers, to rally to the support of our great party 
 in the supreme peril by which it was confronted. 
 
 Believing in the principles of Democracy, anchoring our 
 faith in the creed of Jefferson, we resolved to stand by the 
 time-honored Democratic ship from which the pirates had been 
 driven, and to try and guide it safely out of the tempest and 
 storm that threatened to sink it We made no bargains, 
 sacrificed no principle, invited to our side no enemy of the 
 Democratic party, but. dedicating our labors to the vindica- 
 tion of the truth and the maintenance of the right, as Jeffer- 
 son taught the one and Jackson enforced the other, we reor- 
 ganized Tammany Hall conformably to regularity and party 
 usage; we drove from its portals the still powerful remnants 
 of the adherents of the Ring, who obstinately contested the 
 ground inch by inch against the true representatives of the 
 Democracy, and we restored to the people of this metropolis 
 the right to govern themselves, which that Ring had robbed 
 them of in the day of its power. 
 
 The verdict of the American people in 1874 was not simply 
 intended (though it meant that, too) as an emphatic choice 
 of Democratic leaders for the future. Its dimensions were 
 larger; its significance was more solemn. It was the protest 
 of freemen against the continuance of Grantism and the 
 further domination of the military power. New York was the 
 Banner State in that great political revolution, for in this 
 city reorganized Tammany led the column of reform. We 
 
~^ha(l defeated the unholy alliance between Tweed and the 
 
 ^Custom House, and driven it from power in the City Govern- 
 
 *^uient. We had returned honest and able iudoes to the 
 
 Cybench of the Supreme and other courts, whose record is 
 
 ^^Cbefore the community, challenging its admiration and re- 
 
 '^spect. and redounding to the credit of the party which elected 
 
 them. When at last the waters divided and the revolution 
 
 came in 1874, the true party of reform led the great host 
 
 in New York, assailing organized dishonesty in the State, as 
 
 it had already assailed and overthrown it in the city. 
 
 The Democratic ticket swept both city and State, and the 
 opportunity had arrived to make good our professions of 
 reform. 
 
 A YEAR OF DEMOCRATIC RULE. 
 
 For twelve months the Empire State of the Union lias 
 been governed by the Democratic party. The Senate, hold- 
 ing over from a former year, alone remained in the hands 
 of the Republicans. The Democratic Assembly reduced the 
 
 public expenses by a system of retrenchment more rigid 
 and searching than had been practised in the Legislature 
 since 1860. 
 
 The exorbitant, salaries of county officers, which had grown 
 year after year by successive exactions of corruption, were 
 cut down in this city alone almost a hundred thousand 
 dollars per year Special legislation, the parent of a thou- 
 sand frauds, was killed by constitutional amendment. The 
 railroad monopolies, which for so many years had entered 
 the lobby, purse in hand, thwarting the will of the people 
 in a hundred ways, met their first great defeat in the Demo- 
 cratic Legislature of 1875, in the memorable struggle over 
 rapid transit 
 
 If the depreciated value of real estate in this city and the 
 languishing prosperity of all business interests should be 
 traced to their causes, it would be found that, chief among 
 them, the underlying cause of the retarded growth of New 
 York, is the want of adequate terminal facilities. The 
 stream of population has poured so steadily outside the city 
 limits, especially into New Jersey, in quest of cheap homes, 
 that hundreds of millions of wealth made here and 
 belonging here liave been diverted from the legitimate 
 channels of the Metropolis and have gone to the enrichment 
 of other places. This hemorrhage of the life blood of New 
 York could be stopped but in one way, and that way was 
 
barred for the past ten or fifteen years by the railroad kinp^s 
 of the lobby, who held in their grasp the trading politicians 
 of successive Republican Legislatures. Rapid transit, which, 
 by fixing the population to the soil, would invigorate the 
 energies of the metropolis with new life; which would build 
 up the waste r)laces of the whole island and rescue fiom 
 universal paraly«is the interests of real estate ; this has been 
 for the past decade our crying want and paramount necessity. 
 It was by the representatives of the Democratic party that 
 this great exigency was met, that the lobby was defeated. 
 and rapid transit secured to the city of New York. We 
 point to the record of a single year of Detnocratic rule in the 
 State with justifiable pride. 
 
 If we turn to the city our stewardship offers an equally 
 good account of itself Dishonesty, rebuked into its hiding- 
 places, has not appeared in a single deptirtment .>f the City 
 Government controlled by Democratic officials. We chal- 
 lenge the most bitter enemy of the party to place his finger 
 on a single corrupt act — a single dereliction on the part of 
 any official nominated and elected by the Tammany Democ- 
 racy in 1874 We challenge the most bitter enemy of tho 
 party to point to a single dishonest or incapable officer in any 
 department of the City Government who owes his place to 
 the appointment of a Democratic Mayor and the confiruuition 
 of a Democratic Board of Aldermen It cannot be done. 
 " By their fruits ye shall know them." The pledges we 
 iLiade to the people last year we have put into practice this 
 year. We have cut down expenses, pruned out ring excres-' 
 cences wherever we could reach them, made no terms with 
 corrupt politicians, and given New York the best local 
 government it has had for twenty-five years. 
 
 THE LATE ELECTION. 
 
 Inspired by the inflexible purpose to take no step back- 
 ward, we placed before the people at the late election candi- 
 dates for office worthy of their support, and representative by 
 their ability and incorruptible honesty of the reforiu princi- 
 ples we uphold. 
 
 Perhaps in a utilitarian age purity, like optimism, cannot 
 always be made a successful dogma of political ethics; but 
 its moral victory is always assured to those who have the 
 courage to practise it, and, whatever the temporary success 
 of placemen and demagogues may be. the people will yet 
 find out that a mistake has been made and realize the lesson 
 of the " ill-husbandry of injustice." It is quite a suggestive 
 
5 
 
 fact thcat the very papers wliich opposed our candidates the 
 most bitterly began to sound their praises as soon as the 
 election was over, and to express patketic and eloquent regret 
 over their defeat. We had expected Te Deums, but lamenta- 
 tions alone resounded- The minor key of rejjret may yet 
 swell into the wSympliony of self-condemnation. 
 
 The old tactics of the Tweed ring and the Custom- tlouse 
 Republicans were brought to bear against the Democratic 
 party at the recent election. The very men whose names 
 are an evil und a reproach to the community, and who figured 
 (as the records of the courts abundantly show) in nearly 
 every raid on the treasury during King rule, have renewed 
 their former terms of intimacy and union with the Custom 
 House Republicans. 
 
 The cant and hypocrisy of principles are at last boldly 
 thrown oiF by the latter. A Presidential campaign ap- 
 proaches, and the party of '' great moral ideas " again falls 
 into line behind the political tramps whom Tweed has be- 
 queathed to New York. 
 
 A new political alias is adopted by these Ring politicians, 
 and this time it is " Anti-Tammany." Their monumental 
 infamy is already inscribed in the official tomes of the city. 
 The utmost vigilance of the people will be required to pre- 
 vent a repetition of their crimes. 
 
 ISSUES OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CAM- 
 PAIGN. 
 
 At the time the Democracy of New York was effecting 
 
 the purification of Tammany Hall, the conduct of national 
 
 affairs under a Republi'an Administration had brought 
 
 the American name into a by-word of reproach and shame 
 tiiroughout the civilized world. The demoralization caused 
 by the war had become, after seven or eight years of peace, 
 more widesoread than ever before ; the use of Credit Mobilier 
 stock had debauched the easy morality of many of the 
 highest officers of Government; "corners" in gold, in 
 whiskey, in grain, in iron, in worthless railroad stocks, were 
 multiplying on all sides; but step by step with their growth 
 was the progress of special legislation, was the increase of 
 corrupt subsidies, the accumulation of giant monopolies, the 
 spread of legalized ssvindling and licensed robbery, like that 
 of Jayne's in the Customs and Joyce's and McDonald's in 
 the Revenues Why continue the black roll of shame and 
 dishonor which the military party has introduced into the 
 
administration of Federal aifairs ? Is it matter of wonder 
 that this saturnalia of licentiousness and national debauchery 
 should have culminated in a crash as terrible as it was melan- 
 choly and desolating — the financial cataclysm of 1873 ? Is 
 it matter of wonder that the sincerity of the President's 
 prayer, " Let us have peace/' was seriously doubted when 
 he and his Cabinet approved of the infamous " banditti" 
 dispatch, and the dispersion of the Leo:;islature of Louisiana 
 by General Sheridan and his dragoons ? Peace indeed ! 
 with sovereign States overrun and hurled from their ap- 
 pointed spheres, while a mob of thieving adventurers con- 
 sumed the substance of the land ! Peace indeed ! with a 
 Polandized South and a Cossack reconstruction as the out- 
 come of Grantism in a free, constitutional Government ! 
 
 When the party which had thus tarnished the honor of 
 the American name came before the people at the next gen- 
 eral election, the responsibility for Republican misrule was 
 fixed, as we have already said, where it justly belonged, and 
 the Democratic party was returned to power by overwhehn- 
 ing majorities Baffled and defeated in every previous 
 scheme to strengthen his political fortunes, the President at 
 last changes front in the face of his victorious opponents, 
 discards the " bloody shin " as an obsolete rag. and. nailing 
 to the mast the black flag of Know-Nothingism, unsheathes 
 his sword for a " religious war." 
 
 THE "KNOW-NOTHING'' FIRE-BRAND. 
 
 The Republic of the United States for 100 years has en- 
 joyed the blessings of civil and religious liberty. Reliuion, 
 having descended dove-like on white wings from Heaven, 
 sits peacefully brooding over the land where conscience is 
 
 free and toleration is interwoven amonothe sacred muniments 
 and titles of our social and political compact Suddenly 
 and without warning the Chief Magistrate of the Union 
 sounds the "fire-bell in the night;" from the regions of per- 
 secution he invokes the spirit of religious intolerance and bids 
 it erect its sable throne in this land of liberty and in this 
 age of enlightenment and vaunted progress. 
 
 Has history no terrors for his imaginntion. as he looks back 
 over the sanguinary fields, the blocks, the gibbets, the stakes, 
 which stand like grim milestones of blood across the religious 
 track of the past 300 years? Or is the historic page as a 
 sealed book to the unlettered soldier who has risen from 
 the tented field to the Presidcncv, and who would clutch 
 
7 
 
 at power and hold on to it with bull-dog tenacity even 
 over the ruins of his country ? 
 
 President Grant made a speech at Des Moines on the 30th 
 of September last, at a meeting of the '' Army of the Tennes- 
 see." He startled the country by predictino; the imminence 
 of another war, and arrayinp; the hostile hosts, not on sectional 
 sides of Mason and Dixon's line, but in opposite camps of " in- 
 telligence and superstition." 
 
 Intelli<z;ence and Superstition ! We look in vain for the 
 words in the political vocabulary of the republic As 
 Daniel Webster would say, It is net constitutional language. 
 Does General Grant know what he is about? Would he 
 deliberately explode an infernal machine among the ranks of 
 bis now united countrymen, and. reviving the fanaticism of 
 a bygone a^e, would he forge a wall of fire between fathers 
 and sons, between members of the same communities, between 
 citizens welded together in the ties of political brotherhood 
 and peace ? 
 
 The flank movement follows the direct assault, and a re 
 li^ious firebrand is flung after the unsuccessful Force bill. 
 
 We denounce this atrocious attempt of the President to re- 
 call from its dishonored grave the howling dervise of Kuow- 
 Nothiiigism. The successful soldier, in his ambition to 
 (injoy a third term, in violation of the common law of Amer- 
 ica, has seized the torch of religious persecution, and would 
 apply it to the temple of the Most High no less than to the 
 fabric of our civil liberties. 
 
 We arraign President Grant for the prostitution of his 
 L'reat (office to the promotion of his personal and political 
 designs, and for seeking to incite a religious war among 
 brethren who are now dwelling together in peace, and who are 
 prepared to uphold each other's right to worship God ac- 
 cording to the dictates of their own conscience, to the utmost 
 extremiiy and against all comers. That sacred right was 
 won irom tyranny by George Washington. The ritual of 
 its consecration was pronounced by Franklin, Jefferson, 
 Hamilton, and Adams; and General Grant is just a century 
 ton late in his attempt to strike it down. 
 
 THE FUTURE. 
 
 In conclusion, we congratulate our countrymen on the 
 favorable auo;uries for a brighter future. The House of 
 Representatives has been handed over to the Democratic 
 party by the American people The change means legislative 
 
8 
 
 and administrative ref'orii). It means equal and exuet 
 justice to all men, without regard to race or color, and the 
 obliteration of the passions and antipathies which designing' 
 politicians have fomented and kept alive at the South. It 
 means purity of government and sacred observance of fuith 
 with the public creditors It means a recurrence to first, 
 principles in our Federal relations, and the inextinguishnbie 
 love of the people for the twofold sovereignty of their States 
 and their Union. 
 
 Democrats of the city and State of New York I let us keep 
 the faith with unwavering courage ', let us close up our lines 
 for the civic battle of 18"() ; let us help carry our party in 
 triuujph to 'Washington, in the Centennial year, as the 
 champion of reform in administration, and the inflexible 
 vindicator of the Constitution and the laws. 
 
 JOHN J CLARKE. Chairman 
 R. J. MORRISON, 
 JA(;OB A. GROSS. 
 WILLIAM A. BOYD. 
 
 Committee on Affdrpus. 
 
 JOHN KELLY. 
 
 Chairman of Committee on Onjanization. 
 Edward D. Gale, ^ 
 Ge()R(JE W. Morton, > SccretarieH. 
 Henry D. Purroy, ) 
 
 ARRAM S. HEWITT, 
 Chairman of the General Committee. 
 
 Wm. II. QlTINCY, ") 
 
 Thos. L. Feitner |- Secretaries. 
 
 Alfred T. Ackert, ) 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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