The explanation of the blindness of the Wigwam officials to the escape of the rich from taxation is simple. The Tammany Hall of 1818 was not the Tammany Hall of 1800. In that interval the poor young men who once had to club together in order to vote had become directors in banking, insurance and various other corporations, which as members of the Legislature or as city officials they themselves had helped to form. Being such, they exerted all the influence of their political machinery to save their property from taxation. From about 1805 to 1837 Tammany Hall was ruled directly by about one-third bankers, one-third merchants and the remaining third politicians of various pursuits. The masses formed—except at rare times—the easily wielded body. The leaders safeguarded their own interests at every point, however they might profess at election times an abhorrence of the aristocracy; and the Grand Jury being of them, ignored Genet’s complaint.
A new series of revelations concerning the conduct of Tammany chieftains was made public during 1817-18. Ruggles Hubbard, a one-time Sachem and at the time Sheriff of the county, absconded from the city August 15, 1817, leaving a gap in the treasury.[3] John L. Broome, another Sachem, was shortly after removed from the office of City Clerk by the Council of Appointment for having neglected to take the necessary securities from Hubbard. John P. Haff, a one-time Grand Sachem and long a power in the organization, was removed by President Monroe on November 14, 1818, from the office of Surveyor of the Port, for corruption and general unfitness.[4]
But the most sensational of these exposures was that concerning the swindling of the Medical Science Lottery, by which Naphtali Judah[5] and others profited handsomely. The testimony brought out before Mayor Colden, November 10, 1818, showed that a corrupt understanding existed between Judah and one of the lottery’s managers, by which the former was enabled to have a knowledge of the state of the wheel. Not less than $100,000 was drawn on the first day, of which Judah received a large share. Further affidavits were submitted tending to show a corrupt understanding between Judah and Alderman Isaac Denniston in the drawing of the Owego Lottery, by which Denniston won $35,000. John L. Broome was also implicated in the scandal, and Teunis Wortman, while not directly concerned in it, was considered involved by the public, and suffered a complete loss of popular favor,[6] though retaining for some time a certain degree of influence in the society and organization.
Always as popular criticism began to assert itself, Tammany would make a sudden display of patriotism, accompanied by the pronouncement of high-sounding toasts and other exalted utterances. Such it did in 1817, when the society took part in the interment of the remains of Gen. Montgomery in St. Paul’s Church. And now the Sachems prepared to entertain Andrew Jackson at a banquet, and also indirectly signify that he was their choice for President. William Mooney, again elected Grand Sachem, sent to Gen. Jackson, under date of February 15, 1819, a grandiloquent letter of invitation which, referring to the battle of New Orleans, said in part:
“Columbia’s voice, in peals of iron thunder, proclaimed the dread fiat of that eventful morn! Terra was drenched with human gore! The perturbed elements were hushed! Mars and Bellona retired from the ensanguined field! and godlike Hera resumed her gentle reign.… We approbate your noble deeds and greet you hero. Scourge of British insolence, Spanish perfidy and Indian cruelty—these, sir, are the sentiments of the Sons of Liberty in New York who compose the National Institution of Tammany Society No. 1 of the United States. Here, sir, we guard the patriot flame—‘preserved by concord’—its effulgence, in a blaze of glory, shall surround and accompany you to the temple of interminable fame and honor.”
Jackson accepted the invitation. Cadwallader D. Colden, who had been reappointed Mayor a few days before, was asked to preside. When, on February 23, the banquet was held and Jackson was called for his toast, Colden arose, and to the consternation of the Tammany men proposed: “De Witt Clinton, the Governor of the great and patriotic State of New York.” This surprising move made it appear that Jackson favored the Clinton party. To counteract the impression, the General instantly left the room, “amidst reiterated applauses,” and a dead silence ensued for three minutes. This incident, it may well be believed, did not dampen the society’s enthusiasm for Jackson; it continued to champion him ardently.
Colden was reappointed Mayor for the third time in February, 1820. Municipal issues were dividing the public consideration with Tammany’s renewed efforts to overthrow Clinton. The report of the Common Council Finance Committee, January 10, 1820, showed that the city would soon be $1,300,000 in debt. An attempt was made to show how the money had been spent on the new City Hall and Bellevue Hospital, but it proved nothing. Although the law expressly prohibited Aldermen from being directly or indirectly interested in any contract or job, violations were common. It was alleged that streets were sunk, raised and sunk again, to enable the contractors to make large claims against the city. To soothe public clamor, the Aldermen made a show of reducing city expenses. The salary of Colden—he being a Clintonite—was reduced $2,500, and the pay of various other city officers was cut down. The salaries of the Wigwam men were not interfered with.
The wholesome criticism of municipal affairs was soon obscured again by the reviving tumult of the contest between Tammany and Clinton. The Governor stood for reelection against Daniel D. Tompkins in April, 1820. Tompkins had long been the idol of the Tammany men and for a time was one of the society’s Sachems. In 1818 he had been practically charged with being a public defaulter. State Controller Archibald M’Intyre submitted to the Legislature a mass of his vouchers, public and private (for the time Tompkins was Governor), which showed a balance against him of $197,297.64. In this balance, however, was included the sum of $142,763.60 which was not allowed to Tompkins’s credit because the vouchers were insufficient. Allowing Tompkins this amount, the balance against him was $54,533.44. Tompkins, on the other hand, claimed the State owed him $120,000. His partisans in the Senate in 1819 passed a bill to re-imburse him, but it was voted down in the Assembly.[7]
The statements of both sides during the campaign of 1820 were filled with epithets and strings of accusations. Tammany contrasted Clinton’s alleged going over to the British with Tompkins’s patriotism in the War of 1812. Party lines were broken down, and Federalists and Tammany men acted together, as they had done the year before (1819), when their Legislative ticket won over the Clintonites by 2,500 majority. The Clintonites were tauntingly invited to visit the Wigwam, because in that “stronghold of Democracy would be found no ‘Swiss’ Federalism, no British partizans, no opponents of the late war, no bribers or bribed for bank charters, no trimming politicians, no lobby members or legislative brokers.” In Tammany Hall they would see a body of independent yeomen, of steady and unerring Republicans and men who rallied around their country in the hour of danger.[8]
While Clinton’s adherents in New York City on election day were inactive, his opponents, ever on the lookout, carried the city by 675 majority. The popularity of the Erie Canal, however, which was fast nearing completion, carried the rest of the State for Clinton.[9] “Heads up! tails down,” shouted the exuberant, successful Clintonites some days after, pointing to the disappointed, discomfited Bucktails. For Tammany had been so sure of Tompkins’s election that it had procured, at considerable expense, a painting of him which was to be exhibited in the hall when the news of his election should arrive. By way of consolation the Sachems drank to this toast at their anniversary on May 12: