In the Fall election of 1838 the Whig frauds were enormous and indisputable. The Whigs raised large sums of money, which were handed to ward workers for the procuring of votes. About two hundred roughs were brought from Philadelphia, in different divisions, each man receiving $22. Gen. Robert Swartwout, now a Whig, at the instance of such men as Moses H. Grinnell, Robert C. Wetmore and Noah Cook, former Wigwam lights, who left the Hall because the “destructionist” Anti-Monopolists captured it, arranged for the trip of these fraudulent voters. After having voted in as many wards as possible, each was to receive the additional compensation of $5. They were also to pass around spurious tickets purporting to be Democratic. The aggregate Whig vote, it was approximated, was swelled through the operations of this band by at least five to six hundred.[4] One repeater, Charles Swint, voted in sixteen wards. Such inmates of the House of Detention as could be persuaded or bullied into voting the Whig ticket were set at large. Merritt, a police officer, was seen boldly leading a crowd of them to the polls. Ex-convicts distributed Whig tickets and busily electioneered. The cabins of all the vessels along the wharves were ransacked, and every man, whether or not a citizen or resident of New York, who could be wheedled into voting a Whig ballot, was rushed to the polls and his vote was smuggled in. The Whigs were successful, their candidate for Governor, William H. Seward, receiving 20,179 votes, to 19,377 for William L. Marcy.
Departing from its custom of seeking local victory on national issues, Tammany, in April, 1839, issued an address expatiating on the increase of the city expenses from a little over $1,000,000 in 1830 to above $5,000,000 in 1838. Deducting about $1,500,000 for the Croton works, there would still remain the enormous increase of $2,500,000. The city population had not trebled in that time, nor had there been any extraordinary cause for expenditure. Where had all this money gone?
Tammany further pointed out that, unlike the Whigs, it had never stooped so low as to discharge the humble laborers in the public service, when it (Tammany) held the Common Council. Nor had it ever been so abject as to provide them with colored tickets, as the Whigs had done, so that the laborers might be detected if they voted contrary to their masters. Tammany further charged that the Whigs in the previous election had taken the Almshouse paupers, with embossed satin voting tickets in their hands, to the polls, and were planning to do it again.
Tammany made good use of this charge. But the practise was not exclusively a Whig industry. In those years both Democrats and Whigs, according to which held power, forced Almshouse paupers to vote. For a fortnight before the election the paupers were put in training. On the morning of election they were disguised with new clothing, so that the public might not see their gray uniforms. They were given tickets to vote “and tickets for grog, silver coin and also good advice as to their conduct at the polls.” Then they were carried to the polls in stages, with an officer on each step to see that none escaped. Many would return to the Almshouse drunk and with torn clothing, or after having exchanged their new garments for liquor.[5] There were usually about 300 paupers. In the Fall and Winter of 1838 a quarter of the population was relieved at the Almshouse.
Clark and Varian were both renominated for Mayor in the Spring of 1839. Preparations for fraud on a large scale were made by both parties. The newspapers supporting Varian admitted that Tammany thought proper to follow the Whigs’ example, and to counteract its effects, by colonizing the doubtful wards with Democratic voters. On both sides repeating was general. An Albany police officer named Coulson brought twenty-three persons, one of whom was only seventeen years old, to New York City, where they voted the Whig ticket in the different wards. For this they received $5 in advance, and $1 a day.
Of the 41,113 votes Varian[6] received 21,072, and Clark 20,005. The Wigwam secured a majority of 12 in the Common Council.
Fearing that Tammany in power would use the administration machinery in elections even more than had the Whigs, the latter now made a great outcry for a registry law,[7] proclaiming it the only fraud preventive. The sudden conversion of the Whig leaders to civic purity called forth derision. But the people at large, the non-politicians, ashamed of such barefaced frauds in their city, took up the agitation. The Registry bill was introduced in the Legislature in May, 1839. It provided for the registration of voters in New York City, and made fraudulent voting a felony, with severe penalties.
After the frauds of 1834 the Wigwam leaders had given out that they would take serious steps to obtain from the Legislature a law causing voters to be registered, but had done nothing. They now opened a campaign against the Whig bill. In the Spring of 1840 the ward committees declared against it on the pretext that it interfered with constitutional rights; that it was an insidious attempt to take from the poor man either his right of suffrage or to make the exercise of that right so inconvenient as practically to debar him from voting. The Common Council, on March 16, 1840, denounced the proposed law as inquisitorial, tyrannical and disfranchising in its effect, as well as unjust, because they (the Aldermen) “know of no sin which she (New York City) has committed to make her worthy of the signal reproach now sought to be cast upon her.”[8] A few days later the Common Council on joint ballot delivered itself of a solemn protest against the constitutionality of the Registry bill, and on the night of March 24 an assemblage in the Wigwam did likewise. It was in this year that the full account of the Whig frauds of 1838 was made public. Commenting upon this, the Tammany Nominating Committee, with characteristic naïveté, said in its address: “It is with shame that we record these dark transactions and proclaim them to the people. We would, if we could, blot out their existence, for it brings disgrace on our whole country and will make the enemies of civil freedom laugh with joy.”
The Registry bill became a law, but Tammany continued to protest against it. When, in 1841, the Legislature increased the penalties for its violation, Acting Mayor Elijah F. Purdy commented upon it severely.[9]
The able, sincere and high-minded William Leggett, the guiding spirit of the Equal Rights party, died on May 29, 1839, not quite forty years old. The Tammany Young Men’s General Committee eulogized his virtues and talents, proclaimed him amongst the purest of politicians and announced the purpose of raising a monument to his memory. Of this committee, curious to relate, the chairman was Fernando Wood and the secretary Richard B. Connolly—two men who became known for anything but devotion to the virtues they here exalted.