Naturally, this petty act caused an immediate and strong reaction in a community endeared to Clinton by that splendid creation of his energy—the Erie Canal. No sooner did the news reach New York City than 10,000 persons held an indignation meeting in the City Hall Park and in front of Tammany Hall. Throughout the State similar meetings were held. In spite of the politicians, the cyclonic popular movement forced Clinton to be again a candidate for Governor.
The chiefs regretted their folly. At the same time they were subjected to public criticism in another direction. One of them, William P. Van Ness, Burr’s companion at the Hamilton duel, a Judge of the United States District Court, took it upon himself to select Tammany Hall permanently for a court-room, his object being to have the Government pay rent to the Tammany Society. His colleague, Judge Thompson, a scrupulous official, indignantly asked why the courts were not to be held in the City Hall, as usual. Judge Van Ness defiantly held court in Tammany Hall, Judge Thompson going to the City Hall. Public disgust asserting itself, an investigation was set afoot. Van Ness tried to throw the blame on his marshal. But this officer, as was conclusively shown, acted under written instructions from Van Ness in refusing to consider any other place than Tammany Hall, and he agreed to pay to the society $1,500 a year rent. The lease, which was made under the plea that no room was available in the City Hall, contained a stipulation that not only should the tavern be allowed in Tammany Hall but that the court-room should be used, when required, as the meeting place of the society or of the political conventions. The citizens assembled in the wards and denounced the proceeding. The Aldermen decided to shift the responsibility which Van Ness attempted to place upon them. Their committee reported (October 24, 1824),[6] that the City Hall always had been and would be at the service of the United States Court Judges, and that a room had been set apart especially for their use. Judge Van Ness was forced to return to the City Hall to hold court.[7]
Tammany now had recourse to its customary devices in endeavoring to bring out its usual vote in the coming election. The general committee announced that at no period in the last twenty years had the welfare and perpetuity of the party more imperiously required a rigid adherence to ancient usages and discipline. This was meant to play on the partizan emotions of the Democrats. It was likewise a threat to punish any man of independent views who disobeyed the orders of the general committee. Such summary, veiled notifications of the general committee were seldom disregarded by those who profited or expected to profit by politics. After toasting their “squaws and papooses” on July 4 the society impressively made this toast: “May regular nominations ever prevail”—a thrust at the method of Clinton’s nomination and a warning for the future guidance of all Tammany men.
Tammany further attempted to counteract the impetus of the Clinton movement by touching at length upon its own patriotism in the past and by stirring up class hatreds. On the vital issues the Wigwam was silent; but in another long fulmination it recalled the “sins” and “treason” of Clinton against the Democratic party. “He is haughty in his manners,” it went on, “and a friend of the aristocracy—cold and distant to all who cannot boast of wealth and family distinctions and selfish in all the ends he aims at.”
The partizans of Jackson carried the city. Presidential electors were still selected by the Legislature, and it is therefore impossible to determine Jackson’s vote. A fusion between the Clintonites and the People’s party caused the defeat of most of Tammany’s Assembly candidates, but the victors were Jackson men, and Clinton himself had declared for Old Hickory. The full Jackson strength was shown in the vote for the three Tammany candidates for Congress, who were elected.
Clinton’s victory was sweeping. The near completion of the Erie Canal, for which he had labored so zealously and which Tammany had opposed so pertinaciously, made him the idol of the people, and he was again elected Governor, carrying even New York City by 1,031 majority. That eye was blind which could not see in the opening of the canal the incalculable benefits Clinton had estimated from the first. This great work secured as a virtual gift to New York City the inland commerce of the vast empire west of the mountains, no rival being able to contend for it. The trade of the canal almost immediately increased the city’s business $60,000,000 annually, and year by year the amount grew. Along its course a hundred new and thrifty villages sprang into existence, and the State’s wealth and population went upward by leaps and bounds.
Compared with this illustrious achievement, a summary of the record of Clinton’s antagonists, the Tammany leaders, makes but a poor showing. Contributing to the development of democracy, for the most part, only so far as it benefited themselves; declining to take up even the question of manhood suffrage until forced to, they did little or nothing, even in the closer domain of the city, for the good of their own time or of posterity. In the years when Clinton was engaged in projecting and building the canal, they were too busy wrangling over offices or cribbing at the public treasury to improve city conditions. The streets were an abomination of filth. The local authorities long refused, despite public pressure, to take steps to have the city furnished with pure water. As a result of the bad water of a private corporation and the uncleanliness of the streets, yellow fever and cholera had several times devastated the city, and in one year (1822) it was so deserted that grass grew in the streets. To make up for municipal deficits the city fathers continued selling the public land, that might have been made into parks or retained for future uses, buying it in as individuals. Between 1813 and 1819, according to the admission of the Tammany organ in the latter year, $440,347 worth of land, whose present value probably amounts to tens of millions of dollars, was thus fraudulently disposed of.[8] In a word, their records, public and private, furnish an extreme contrast to the record of Clinton, who, while a politician when need be, gave his years and his talents to the completion of a public work of the greatest utility and importance.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The first election for Mayor by the Common Council, under the new constitution, resulted in the choice of William Paulding, Jr., 1823-25.
[2] Advertisements of the ward committees in the National Advocate, April 29, 1822.