“are becoming organized to overawe, not only the electors but the elected under our government; such are the Washington and the Tammany Societies. The latter was originally instituted for harmless purposes and long remained harmless in its acts; members from all parties were admitted to it; but we have seen it become a tremendous political machine.… The Washington Jacobin Club, it is said, consists of at least two thousand rank and file, and the Tammany Jacobins to perhaps as many.… The time will come, and that speedily, when the Legislature, the Governor and the Council of Appointment shall not dare to disobey their edicts.”
Tammany retaliated upon Cheetham by having a bill passed by the Legislature taking away from him the position of State Printer, which paid $3,000 a year.
Tammany’s comparative weakness in the city, as shown in the recent vote, prompted Clinton to suggest a compromise and union of forces. Overtures were made by his agents, and on July 13, 1809, twenty-eight of the leaders of the Clinton, Madison, Burr and Lewis factions met in a private room at Coleman’s Fair House. Matthew L. Davis told them the chiefs ought to unite; experience demonstrated that if they did they would lead the rest—meaning the voters. Tammany, he said, welcomed a union of the Republican forces so as to prevent the election of a Federalist Council of Appointment. Davis and Wortman proposed that they unite to prevent any removals from office; that the two opposition Republican clubs in turn should be destroyed and that their members should go back to the Tammany Society, which, being on the decline, must be reenforced. Or, if it should be thought advisable to put down the Tammany Society, “considering its prevailing disrepute,” then a new society should be organized in which Burrites, Lewisites, Clintonites and Madisonians were to be admitted members under the general family and brotherly name of Republican.
De Witt Clinton cautiously kept away from this meeting, allowing his lieutenants to do the work of outwitting Tammany. A committee of ten was appointed to consider whether a coalition of the chiefs were practicable; whether, if it were, the people would agree to it; whether the Whig (opposition Republican) clubs should be destroyed and whether the Tammany Society should be reenforced.
The meeting came to naught. In this effort to win over the Tammany chiefs, De Witt Clinton abandoned his protégé and dependent, Cheetham, who had made himself obnoxious to them. Finding Clinton’s political and financial support withdrawn, Cheetham, out of revenge, published the proceedings of this secret meeting in the American Citizen, and, awakening public indignation, closed the bargaining. A few nights later a Tammany mob threw brickbats in the windows of Cheetham’s house. By his death, on September 19, 1810, Tammany was freed from one of its earliest and most vindictive assailants.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Journal of the Assembly, 1821, p. 532, also p. 758.
[2] Ibid., 1826, p. 750.
[3] MS. Minutes of the Common Council, Vol. 16, pp. 239-40 and 405.
[4] MS. Minutes of the Common Council, Vol. 16, pp. 288-89.