The life and times of John Kelly, tribune of the people

by J. Fairfax McLaughlin

On Christmas Day, 1858, having been elected Sheriff of the City and County of New York, November 2d of that year, Mr. Kelly resigned his seat in the Thirty-fifth Congress. He remained in Washington at his post until it was necessary to go to New York to enter upon his new office; but in refreshing contrast to those Representatives in a subsequent Congress, the Forty-second, who voted themselves back-pay, he declined, after his election as Sheriff, to draw any salary at all for his service as a member of Congress. The total number of votes cast at the election for Sheriff was 69,088, of which John Kelly received 39,090, and William H. Albertson received 29,837, scattering 161. Kelly was the regular nominee of the Democratic party of the city. His majority was 9,092.

He entered with characteristic energy upon the duties of Sheriff, that most ancient of county officers known to the common law, Vice-comes to the Earl, as Blackstone calls him. The difficulties and responsibilities of this office in New York are peculiarly great. The reported cases upon Sheriff’s law in that city indicate the immense number of statutes applicable to the office, and the subtleties, refinements, and nice legal distinctions, together with the liabilities, which constantly press upon the Sheriff in the discharge of his duties. As laymen nearly always have been elected to the office, it was the rule, before Kelly’s term, for incumbents to rely for guidance upon legal advisers and prompters behind the scenes, whose special knowledge of business was supplemented by professional knowledge of law, and by training and experience in the office. But John Kelly set resolutely to work with his law books, for it is one of the leading traits of his character to perform conscientiously whatever duties are imposed upon him, and he was determined to delegate to no one else a labor which the people had elected him to do himself. While he was in the office the Under-Sheriff ceased to be the High-Sheriff. After reading one or two good elementary books, he next applied himself to the Code of Procedure, the Revised Statutes, and Reported Cases, and wrote out a syllabus, or private digest for himself, of opinions delivered in the lower Courts and the Court of Appeals in relation to Sheriff’s law. To master such questions he worked with unflagging zeal, not only by day but far into the night, during the greater part of his term. In the meantime he acquired familiarity with the routine and usages of the office. Thus equipped, he was perhaps the first Sheriff who thoroughly understood the duties of the office, and discharged them in person. He became a favorite among the members of the bar, and was an authority, theoretically and practically, upon disputed questions of Sheriff’s law. In the Sheriff’s Court Mr. Kelly himself presided over the intelligent juries there empanelled. He heard arguments of counsel, passed upon authorities cited, was conversant in the law applicable to cases, and in the opinion of leading members of the profession he displayed a judicial mind of high order.

The best body of jurors in the United States is undoubtedly the Sheriff’s Jury in New York city. The members of this jury are chosen annually by an eminent Commission of judicial and other high officers, and are selected from among the foremost citizens in the community, whose wealth, intelligence, and established character afford a guarantee of their freedom from improper influences. Large fines for absence are imposed, and cheerfully paid. An annual banquet, known of all men, ubique gentium, as the Sheriff’s Jury’s Dinner, is provided for with the ample sum thus accumulated. Delmonico’s choicest menu is laid under requisition, and a distinguished and brilliant company is always brought together.

That accomplished and discerning gentleman, Mr. Rosewell G. Rolston, President of the Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company of New York, was one of the members of the Sheriff’s Jury during Mr. Kelly’s term. He once expressed to the writer of these pages his high respect for the Sheriff, and descanted upon his sturdy qualities, saying, that while he was a stern and austere man to look at, he was, nevertheless, brimful of kindly human nature. After mentioning some occurrences which had come under his own observation, he said, with no little earnestness, “John Kelly is a love of a man, a grand fellow undoubtedly.”

Under-Sheriffs had presided at the trial of Sheriff’s cases before Mr. Kelly’s entry into the office. The Jury was surprised now to see the usual rule broken, and the new Sheriff going upon the bench himself. The more experienced members gave each other a smile of astonishment and a knowing wink, for they suspected that Kelly was led away by zeal, and by ignorance of the mysteries of the law, into whose knotty labyrinths he would be plunged presently by wrangling lawyers. But Mr. Rolston and his fellow-jurors quickly discovered that the imperturbable Sheriff behaved like a veteran under legal fire, and the lawyers themselves were surprised to find him not only familiar with questions at issue, both of traverse and demurrer, but practically master of the situation. He had broken the precedent, and what had been before a fiction was now a fact, a Sheriff of New York who knew more about his office than any of his subordinates. John Kelly made a reputation for honesty and capacity as Sheriff, which in the whole history of the office has never been excelled by any man who has occupied it. The best evidence of this is found in the fact that at the earliest moment when he was eligible under the Constitution of the State, namely, at the expiration of the term of Sheriff Lynch, his immediate successor, John Kelly was renominated and re-elected Sheriff of New York. He is the only man since the foundation of the Government who has been elected twice to this important office. In the early day, before the Hamiltonian or monarchical features of the State Constitution had been abolished, and the Jeffersonian or elective principle had been substituted for them by constitutional amendment, the Governor and Council held the appointment, not only of judicial and other great officers, a most fruitful source of corruption and centralization, but they were likewise clothed with the power to appoint Sheriffs and County Clerks in the several counties of the State. But twice only, in the early history of the State, did the Council of Appointment at Albany select the same men to fill a second term as Sheriff of the city and county of New York. Marinus Willett was appointed Sheriff of New York in 1784, and served until 1787. He was re-appointed in 1791, and held until 1795. Benjamin Ferris also held the office by appointment from 1808 to 1810, and again from 1811 to 1813. On the 6th of November, 1864, John Kelly, who had filled the office so faithfully from 1859 to 1861, was re-elected Sheriff of New York, an unprecedented honor, as well as endorsement of his official integrity, now bestowed for the first time in the history of the city, by the people themselves, upon any individual.

At this election there were three candidates in the field, two Democrats and a Republican, but after an exciting canvass John Kelly led the poll by a plurality of nearly 6,000, his Republican competitor coming next. The whole number of votes for Sheriff was 106,707, of which Kelly received 42,022, John W. Farmer 36,477, and Michael Connolly, commonly called the “Big Judge,” 28,099. The number of scattering votes was 109. Mr. Kelly’s second term expired December 31, 1867. That it was a repetition of the first one in his fidelity to the important interests and duties confided to his charge, was universally declared at the time, without one whisper of dissent. In the fierce conflicts of party fifteen years after his first term as Sheriff, and seven years after the second, when his talents and commanding position in the community had made him a formidable antagonist, John Kelly’s official integrity as Sheriff was called in question for the first time by certain political opponents, whose misconduct he had exposed, and whose arbitrary acts he had resisted. These tardy shafts of malice fell harmless at his feet.

In the year 1868, eleven months after he had ceased to be Sheriff a second time, a still handsomer testimonial to the stainlessness of his character was tendered to him than that implied in his re-election as Sheriff; an emphatic endorsement of his qualifications for the highest civic preferment was received by him when the Democratic Union of New York nominated him for Mayor of the city against A. Oakey Hall, the candidate of the Tweed Ring. In a laudable and patriotic attempt to drive the Ring from power at the Charter election of November, 1868, New York’s best citizens,—merchants, bankers, tradesmen, mechanics, and members of the various professions, turned to John Kelly to lead them, to the man whose admirable administration of the trusts he had previously held as Alderman, Congressman, and Sheriff, afforded satisfactory proof of his fitness to grapple with the Ring, and if elected, to crush it, and restore honesty and economy in the various municipal offices.

Among those who looked to Mr. Kelly at this interesting and critical hour in the history of New York, as a safe leader against the notorious triumvirate of Tweed, Sweeny and Connolly, were Samuel J. Tilden, Andrew H. Green, Augustus Schell, and still another—tell it not in Gath! mention it not in the streets of Ascalon! for it is surprising to relate—Nelson J. Waterbury himself. Yes, in the very next year after John Kelly had ceased to be Sheriff, this gentleman, who has since lavished so much savage abuse upon him for mythical misdeeds as Sheriff, the self-same Nelson J. Waterbury was an enthusiastic supporter of John Kelly for Mayor of New York.

The support which Mr. Tilden was disposed to bestow upon Mr. Kelly was a more important incident of that eventful campaign. For a long time they had been intimate acquaintances, and Tilden not only looked upon Kelly as a man of invincible honesty, but recognized in him a born leader of men. It was a most unfortunate thing that Mr. Kelly’s health, at this particular juncture, was so much impaired that it was not possible for him to stand the strain of such a contest, or, indeed, of any contest at all. The blackest chapter in the history of New York was about to be written. He felt the magnitude of the occasion, and rose from a sick bed to go meet the people half way, when they called him to lead them in the fight. No personal sacrifice could be too great, not even life itself, when the stakes were the reformation of the public service, and the rescue of a million people from the corrupt domination of such a Ring. “You will never live to reach the army,” said Voltaire to the feeble and emaciated Mareschal de Saxe, as the leader was setting out for Fontenoy. “The object now,” replied the fiery commander, “is not to live, but to go.” But Mr. Kelly, however willing to act his part, soon found that nature’s barriers are not to be overcome. The hand which had rejoiced in its strength was relaxed and powerless under wasting illness, and like that of Old Priam, telumque imbelle, no longer could strike an effectual blow. He was, indeed, destined to smite the Tweed Ring a death-blow, but not now, nor until four years had come and gone, when, with health restored, and energies all on fire, he drove them from Tammany Hall, and inscribed his name among the benefactors of New York. He lived, like Saxe, to fight and win his Fontenoy.

From early life Mr. Kelly had suffered from bronchial troubles, which always were increased by public speaking. His mind is intensely active. “I must be occupied in some way,” he once said to a friend, “and I can’t sit still five minutes without doing something. I cannot be an idler.”[53] Whatever he undertook to do, his faculties became concentrated upon the task until it was accomplished. His occupations for a long time had been engrossing and laborious, and his health had suffered under the strain. “For twenty years,” to repeat the remark of the editor of the Utica Observer, quoted in a preceding chapter of this volume, “he had devoted several hours of every day to the pursuit of literature and science,” and at length his constitution was seriously impaired. Domestic afflictions also came upon him about this period, and his physical maladies were increased fourfold.