William M. Tweed had become a State senator in 1867. At this time he held seventeen city offices.[462] But one more place did not embarrass him, and in entering upon his new career he promptly invoked the tactics that strengthened him in the metropolis. Through the influence of a Republican colleague on the Board of Supervisors he secured appointments upon the important committees of Finance and Internal Affairs, the first passing upon all appropriations, and the second controlling most of the subordinate legislation in the State including Excise measures. This opportunity for reviewing general legislation gave him the advantage of a hawk circling in the sky of missing no chance for plunder. By means of generous hospitality and a natural affability he quickly won the esteem of his fellow senators, many of whom responded to his gentle suggestion of city clerkships for constituents. In his pretended zeal to serve Republicans he had offered, during the recent contest for United States senator, to marshal the Democrats to the support of Charles J. Folger, the leader of the Senate, provided two Republican senators and twelve assemblymen would vote for him.[463] Persons familiar with Tweed's true character understood that a senator of Folger's integrity and ability would be less in the way at Washington than in Albany, but his apparent desire to help the Genevan did him no harm.
Thus intrenched in the good will of his colleagues Tweed, early in the session, began debauching the tax levies for the city and county of New York. His party controlled the Assembly, and his henchman, William Hitchman, whom he had made speaker, controlled its committees. What the Senate did, therefore, would be approved in the House. The tax levies contained items of expense based upon estimates by the different departments of the municipal and county governments. They were prepared by the comptroller, examined by the city council and county supervisors respectively, and submitted to the Legislature for its approval. In the process they might be swelled by the comptroller and the two boards, but the Legislature, acting as an outside and disinterested party, usually trimmed them. Tweed, however, proposed to swell them again. Accordingly projects for public improvements, asylums, hospitals, and dispensaries that never existed except on paper, appeared as beneficiaries of county and city. The comptroller concealed these thefts by the issue of stocks and bonds and the creation of a floating debt, which formed no part of his statements.[464] When the committee on appropriations reported these additions, "the increase," it was claimed in the progress of the discussion, "was called for only by plunderers."
The passage of these vicious appropriations, requiring the help of Republicans, gave rise to numerous charges of bribery and corruption. "It was fully believed here," said the Tribune, "that tax levies supplied the means for fabricating naturalisation papers and hiring repeaters whereby Republicans were swindled out of the vote of this State."[465] Other corrupt practices in connection with important railroad legislation, having special reference to the passage of the so-called "Erie Bill," likewise attracted public attention. But Matthew Hale's investigating committee, after a long and fruitless session in the summer of 1868, expressed the opinion that the crime of bribery could not be proven under the law as it then existed, since both parties to the transaction were liable to punishment. This led to a new statute exempting from prosecution the giver of a bribe which was accepted.
However, the Legislature elected in November, 1868, proved no less plastic in the hands of the Boss, who again corrupted the tax levies. After allowing every just item the committee coolly added six millions,[466] an amount subsequently reduced to three.[467] This iniquity was immediately denounced and exposed through pamphlets, journals, and debates. Men frankly admitted that no reason or economic principle justified the existence of such monstrous levies. Indeed, every honest influence, legal, social, and political, opposed it. The press condemned it, good men mourned over it, and wise men unmasked it. But with the help of twenty Republicans, backed by the approval of John T. Hoffman, the bill became a law. This time, however, indignation did not die with the Legislature. The Tribune, charging that the twenty Republican assemblymen whose names it published were "bought and paid with cash stolen by means of tax levies," insisted that "the rascals" should not be renominated. "We firmly believe," it added, "that no Republican voted for these levies except for pay ... and we say distinctly that we do not want victory this fall if it is to be in all respects like the victory of last fall."[468]
Local party leaders, resenting the Tribune's declarations, packed conventions, renominated the black-listed legislators, and spread such demoralisation that George William Curtis, Thomas Hillhouse, and John C. Robinson withdrew from the State ticket. As a punishment for his course the State Committee, having little faith in the election of its candidates, substituted Horace Greeley for comptroller in place of Hillhouse.[469] In accepting the nomination Greeley expressed the hope that it never would be said of him that he asked for an office, or declined an honourable service to which he was called.[470]
If corruption had demoralised Republicans, fear of a repetition of the Tweed frauds paralysed them. The plan of having counties telegraph the votes needed to overcome an up-State majority could be worked again as successfully as before, since the machinery existed and the men were more dexterous. Besides, danger of legal punishment had disappeared. The Union League Club had established nothing, the congressional investigation had resulted in no one's arrest, and Matthew Hale's committee had found existing law insufficient. Moreover, Hale had reported that newspaper charges were based simply upon rumours unsupported by proof.[471]
Tweed understood all this, and his confidence whetted an ambition to control the State as absolutely as he did the city. At the Syracuse convention which assembled in September (1869) Tilden represented the only influence that could be vitalised into organised opposition. Tilden undoubtedly despised Tweed. Yet he gave him countenance and saved the State chairmanship.[472]
The campaign pivoted on the acceptance or rejection of the new State constitution, framed by the convention of 1867 and submitted by the Legislature of 1869. From the first the constitutional convention had become a political body. Republicans controlled it, and their insistence upon unrestricted negro suffrage gave colour to the whole document, until the Democrats, demanding its defeat, focused upon it their united opposition. As a candidate for comptroller Horace Greeley likewise became an issue. Democrats could not forget his impatient, petulant, and, as they declared, unfair charges of election frauds, and every satirist made merry at his expense. To denunciation and abuse, however, Greeley paid no attention. "They shall be most welcome to vote against me if they will evince unabated devotion to the cause of impartial suffrage."[473] But the people, tired of Republican rule, turned the State over to the Democrats regardless of men.[474]
Although this result was not unexpected, no one dreamed that the Democracy would win every department of the State government, executive, legislative, and judicial. For seventeen years the Democrats had twice elected the governor and once secured the Assembly, while the Republicans, holding the Senate continuously and the governorship and Assembly most of the time, had come to regard themselves the people's lawmakers and the representatives of executive authority. But Tweed's quiet canvass in the southern tier of counties traversed by the Erie Railroad exhibited rare cunning in the capture of the State Senate. Until this fortress of Republican opposition surrendered, Hoffman's appointments, like those of Seward in 1839, could not be confirmed.