other way, it is extremely difficult to account for the great change in Ulster, Albany and Rensselaer counties.

The whig ticket succeeded in New-York by a small majority, and C. C. Cambreling failed in being re-elected to congress.

After the result of the election was known, great efforts were made by many of Marcy's political friends, to induce him to call together the senate for the purpose of transacting executive business. There were, I believe, at that time some vacancies which, had the senate been in session, it would have been proper to have supplied by new appointments, but the real object was to enable those officeholders, whose term of office would expire during the next two years, to resign, and to procure the appointment of other persons, who were the political friends of the governor, and the personal as well as the political friends of the incumbents. These applications were urged with great ardor; but the governor had the virtue and firmness to resist them. The high moral sense of WILLIAM L. MARCY Would not permit him to lend himself to such an expedient for party purposes, or to gratify the desire for office, even of some of his ardent friends.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE EQUAL RIGHTS OR LOCO-FOCO PARTY.

I HAVE before remarked that in 1834-5, after all men became satisfied that the United States Bank would not be re-chartered, a pressure for charters in this state for banking purposes, was brought to bear with great and almostirresistible force on its legislature; that the means employed to procure charters, the manner in which the stock in new chartered banks was distributed, and the management of some of the banking companies, gave great uneasiness to, and indeed produced the most painful apprehensions in the minds of many reflecting, and I may add,' disinterested and patriotic citizens who were members of the democratic party. They perceived that the action of the legislature on the petitions of bank applicants, tended to the formation of corrupt combinations in the legislature, and that the mode of distributing the stock generally prescribed in bank charters, tended to corrupt the people themselves. The influence which the moneyed institutions already created, when combined, exerted upon the legislature and the community, alarmed sober and considerate men, and that alarm was increased by the consideration that bank paper had, in point of fact, become the money of the country, and that therefore the restraining law which was then in full and unmitigated force, conferred on these soulless institutions a power equal to the exclusive power of coining money for the use of the community. This last consideration had led men to inquire into the propriety of granting, by legislative enactment, exclusive rights to any class of men whatsoever. These were some of the views and circumstances which forced

into existence the EQUAL RIGHTS, or, as they were called by their opponents, the Loco-Foco party in the city of New-York.

My residence having been in the interior of the state, and the individuals who composed this party having been nearly all of them residents of the city, I am unable to state fully, or indeed as I fear accurately, the movements of these men, or present a detailed and correct statement of the merits, talents and character of the individuals who were most active and influential among them. The account, therefore, which I shall venture here to give of their operations as a party, must of necessity be very imperfect; but their principles were published to the world, and a synopsis of these I can of course state with more certainty.

Those persons in the city, who were opposed to all monopolies, in the summer of 1835, held several meetings, and many private consultations; and being most of them regular members of the democratic party, their first effort was to procure the nomination according to the usage of that party, of candidates for congress and assembly, who accorded with them in political principles; but they were unsuccessful in the incipient step taken to accomplish that object. A majority of the nominating committee were against them, and they presented Gideon Lee as the democratic candidate for congress, and four candidates for the assembly, who were peculiarly obnoxious to those who were opposed to monopolies. There was, however, another expedient by which the gentlemen to whom the antimonopolists objected, might be prevented from becoming the regular candidates of the democratic party. The custom of the party in New-York, if I understand it rightly, is, that a majority of the nominating committee, consisting of some seventy men, elected from the different wards, select the candidates to be supported by the party.

After the committee have thus agreed on the candidates, a general meeting of democratic citizens is invited at Tammany Hall, where the report of the nominating committee / is made, and at that stage of the nominating process, may be accepted, amended or rejected, by a majority of the citizens so assembled. The anti-monopolists resolved, at the meeting which was to be held a few days before the election in November, 1835, at Tammany Hall, to hear and act on the report of the nominating committee, and to resist the confirmation of the nomination of Mr. Lee and others, of whose principles they disapproved. The friends of these candidates anticipated opposition, and of course, at the hour appointed for the meeting, an immense crowd collected. The first question which arose, and which would test the strength of the parties, was the selection of a chairman. The friends of Mr. Lee, whom we will call Tammany men, supported Isaac L. Varian, since mayor of NewYork; and the anti-monopolists supported Joel Curtis. The Tammanies entered the hall as soon as the doors were opened, by means of back stairs, while at the same time the equal rights party rushed into the long room up the front stairs. Both parties were loud and boisterous; the one declaring that Mr. Varian was chosen chairman, and the other that Mr. Curtis was duly elected the presiding officer. A very tumultuous and confused scene ensued, during which the gas lights, with which the hall was illuminated, were extinguished. The equal rights party, either having witnessed similar occurrences, or having received some intimations that such would be the course of their opponents, had provided themselves with loco-foco matches and candles, and the room was re-lighted in a

moment.

The next day both parties claimed the victory, but the mass of the democratic party in the city, supported at

the election which took place a few days afterwards, the Tammany nomination as the regularly formed ticket.

Immediately after this outbreak at Tammany Hall, the Courier and Enquirer, a whig, and the Times, a democratic, (afterwards conservative,) newspaper, dubbed the anti-monopolists with the name of the Loco-Foco Party, a sort of nick-name which the whigs have since given to the whole democratic party.

The anti-monopolists refused to support the election of Mr. Lee, and several of the democratic candidates for the assembly. They nominated C. G. Ferris for congress, and three or four candidates for the assembly. This ticket received four or five thousand votes, but the Tammany ticket eventually succeeded.

After the election, various meetings were held with a view of organizing a political party, and at length, in January, 1836, a county convention assembled and framed a constitution and a code of by-laws for the regulation and government of the new pary. A declaration of rights, drawn by Dr. Moses Jacques, was presented to the convention and adopted, of which the following is a copy:

"DECLARATION OF RIGHTS."

"1. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created free and equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent inalienable rights; among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

"2. That the true foundation of republican government is the equal rights of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management.

"3. That the idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society we give up any natural right. The rightful

* The names of the Tammany candidates to whom the anti-monopolists objected, were Benjamin Ringgold, George Sharpe, Ezra S. Conner and Jesse West; the substitutes proposed were Job Haskell, John W. Vethake, John Windt and Rodney S. Church.