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CHAPTER XXI.

FRANCES WRIGHT.

MONG other absurd names which for a while was applied to the Equal Rights party was that of "Free Trade and Fanny Wright," which originated in this way: On one of the preelection parades in which this faction indulged certain banners were carried bearing the inscription "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights." Some wicked wit suggested that it should be "Free trade and Fanny Wrights." How the name of this brilliant and earnest reformer came to be connected with a political party is easily explained, as she had just previously addressed large meetings in Tammany Hall on education, political economy and kindred topics. As for many years this lady was, in the popular mind, identified with Tammany Hall, a brief sketch of her life and work will not be out of place here.

Frances Wright (d'Aurusmont) was a native of Dundee, Scotland; her father was a Presbyterian clergyman. She was early attracted by the idea of a free Republic, and in 1820 made her first visit to this country, traveling extensively through the Northern and Southern States. On her return to Europe, then only twenty-two years of age, she published a book entitled, "Views of Society and Manners in America," which gave to Europeans the first really correct idea of life in the United States at that period, and it was through this work that she acquired the permanent friendship of Lafayette. In 1833 she returned to New York, and commenced a series of lectures, being the first woman in this country to address public audiences on political topics. Some of these addresses were given in Tammany Hail, the churches not then being open to women lecturers. All her public speeches were marked by a spirit of liberality of thought, and the desire to elevate and benefit the masses who came to listen to her. The thinking portion of her audiences greatly admired the progressive democratic spirit which she evinced. The rougher portion were often rude in their behavior, not foreseeing that in a few years women on the platform would cease to be a novelty. Frances Wright held advanced views on nearly all of the many ethical questions now so generally adopted by all intelligent people. Her favorite maxim was: "Humankind is but one family; the education of its youth should be equal and universal." It speaks well for the liberality of the Tammany Hall managers of that day that this brainy woman was granted the use of their platform. Visiting France on the invitation of Lafayette, she there met and subsequently married M. d'Aurusmont. Some years later she returned to the United States, and here published a number of works. Her publisher was a well-known member of Tammany Hall, Mr. John Windt. Frances Wright was an exceedingly regal-looking woman, very nearly six feet in height, with a fine intellectual head and features. She spoke, when very earnest, with a slight Scotch accent. She died in Cincinnati in 1852, at the age of fifty-five.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE PATROONS.

NE of the subjects which greatly interested the Tammany Society was the feudal tenants' resistance to the collection of rents by the rich "patroons" occupying large estates on the banks of the Hudson River, which they had received by royal grants-some from the States-General of Holland, others from the British sovereign. The greater part of these lands lay in the Counties of Albany and Rensselaer, but there were also large tracts in the Counties of Columbia, Greene, Ulster, Sullivan, Delaware, Schoharie, Otsego, Montgomery and Schenectady; in fact, more or less in all of the counties on both easterly and westerly banks of the river. Those of these estates originally received by the protegés of the States-General of Holland, and now known as the Holland Patent, were re-transferred to the original owners by the British crown when these lands came into the possession of that government. The baronial holders let the land, except what they reserved for their own pleasure, to the agricultural population, upon perpetual leases, rents being payable in produce, poultry and by the rendition of personal service by men and teams. In brief, a system of ownership and labor such as was usual in the middle ages in Europe had been transported into, and was perpetuated in, the free republican State of New York down to 1846-7. Royal privileges were retained by the proprietors, who reserved to themselves all mill privileges, mines, minerals, and even the right of way, and the control of all waterways. And thus over the immense amount of land occupied by these patroons there could be no transfers of farm land without their consent, and naturally no increase of population by new settlers, no inducement to enterprise of any kind.

One of the largest estates of these feudal proprietors was that held by Stephen Van Rensselaer, which extended over a tract of land twenty-four miles long and forty-eight miles wide, lying on both sides of the Hudson River.

Others approximated to this in extent. It was on the occasion of the death of this proprietor of the Manor of Rensselaerwyck, in 1839, that the Anti-Rent contest began in earnest. The tenants, most of whom were largely in arrears for rent, flatly refused to pay, on the ground (learned from their lawyers) that the leases in perpetuity, or for a certain number of lives, were legally conveyances in fee-simply encumbered with certain conditions; and that in reality they owned the land, and were not mere tenants in equity. Thus instructed, the desire and the intention to resist became infectious; and soon the whole tenant class in the other counties where the patroons ruled were in revolt. A State Committee was finally appointed to inquire into their grievances, of which Samuel J. Tilden was chairman. This course was taken in answer to petitions and memorials which had been presented to the Assembly. As time wore on without any practical relief, the disorder in the several counties widened and became more violent. Men disguised as Indians lay in ambush and waylaid officers who were suspected

of bearing distress warrants. The question entered politics, and the result was that the Anti-Rent men were elected to the Assembly. Bills and acts intended to redress the wrongs said to be imposed upon the people by the ruling patroons began to pour into the State House at Albany. The questions at issue excited interest in other States, as well as in the City of New York, and throughout the length and breadth of the land. The condition of land titles in the river counties was certainly opposed to the spirit of American law, which has always discouraged the entailment of landed property, which the patroon system especially cultivated. If Tammany holds one democratic principal dearer than another it is the preservation of the American spirit, as opposed to everything mediæval and aristocratic; to antagonize the Europeanizing of this country was Tammany born, and to that work it has always been devoted. It may therefore be readily inferred that the Society put all its energy into sustaining the tenant claimants in their demands to be put upon an equal footing with other citizens of the State, who were free from the bondage of these antiquated "customs of the realm," derived from royal generosity in favor of a special class of settlers in a new country.

It was against the more violent anti-renters, who in some cases had been accused of incendiarism, that the term "barn-burners" was originally hurled, though later it was applied to quite another class of politicians.

The anomaly of feudal customs existing in the maintenance of these land tenures in the United States was finally wiped out by the Legislature by an equitable arrangement suggested by Mr. Tilden, which secured satisfactory compensation to the proprietors and left the farms in the hands of the occupants, with liberty to sell or retain, as they preferred; also to come and go at their own will and choice, like other agriculturists in the State--the last vestige of patroon right being abolished under the Governorship of Silas Wright.

[For full particulars of the legal proceedings in this matter, see Assembly documents of 1846.]

CHAPTER XXIII.

TAMMANY AND VAN BUREN.

AMMANY'S attitude toward Martin Van Buren varied at different periods. He was at first taken up by the Sachems, somewhat enthusiastically, in 1832, mainly because of the affront put upon him by the combination formed in Congress against him by the union of the "Clay Protectionists" and the Calhoun men, who, in the Senate, had rejected his nomination as Minister to England, apparently for no better reason than to annoy President Jackson, and it was largely due to the Tammany Society that Mr. Van Buren was elected President in 1836.

The principal measure which marked Van Buren's administration was the passage of the Independent Treasury bill, which was first introduced into the Senate by that sterling Democrat, Silas Wright, ably supported by Samuel J. Tilden. This bill was recognized as the favorite measure of the President, and was cordially indorsed by Tammany Hall. A large meeting of the Democrats of the county, as well as of the business men of the City of New York was held in the Wigwam on the 26th of February, 1836, on which occasion Mr Tilden made a stirring speech, advocating the complete severance of Bank and State. One line of his argument was that "the Government moneys would be safer in the hands of officers appointed by the Federal authority than in the hands of civilians, or simply business men," giving, in support of his opinion, the fact that "in the United States Mint there had not been a dollar lost in the last fifty years." "Men," said Mr. Tilden, “are more likely to assume debts which they cannot meet than they are to commit a felony." Tammany was an early and constant supporter of the free banking system. At a meeting, held on the 6th of February, resolutions were passed in favor of the Independent Treasury Bill, in these words:

"Resolved, That we require in banking no more than in government a monarch and privileged nobility to regulate our affairs, and that an application to finance of the principles of equal liberty, so successfully applied to politics, is imperatively required, etc.

"Resolved, That a general banking law, constructed on these obvious principles, ought to be enacted. It will close up the most fruitful source of legislative intrigue and corruption; it will prevent the fraud and favoritism practiced in the distribution of stock and remove a monopoly which, to the amount of the extra profit it confers, levies an indirect tax upon the unprivileged masses for the benefit of the few."

The Independent Treasury Act became a law June 30th, 1837.

Another very important act, in the interest of the people, was the passage of the pre-emption law, giving the preference to actual settlers in the sale of the public lands a system always advocated by the Tammany Society.

Later, when the slavery question entered into the practical politics of the country, Martin Van Buren lost his hold on Tammany and became the candidate of the Free Soil wing of the Democracy. From 1850 to 1860 Tammany was, in national politics, mainly occupied in endeavoring "to save the Union." Like the conservative Whigs, it was willing to sacrifice much to prevent the threatened

secession of the Southern States, but, as will be seen in subsequent chapters, when that event really took place, none was more prompt in meeting the exigency than the members of the Tammany Society.

In the "forties," and extending into the succeeding decade, there was more than one disturbing element in city politics. The Native-American party began to make itself felt. The Tammany Society has always been the strongest possible advocate of American principles, but also opposed the ideas of the Know-nothing, or Native-American party, as understood in politics; that is, the doctrine that none but native-born Americans should be entrusted with office. This sentiment, however, was very strong, not only in New York, but nearly all over the country, for a limited period. The idea was advocated in Congress. Members of Assembly were elected in New York, and in other States, to carry out, so far as they could the measures proposed by this new organization. Even in the City of New York, in 1844, its advocates were able to elect their candidate for Mayor, the gentleman chosen being the senior member of the publishing firm of Harper Brothers, Mr. James Harper.

But another subject of dissension was rising, destined to extinguish the Know-nothing and nearly all other questions upon which parties, or individual statesmen, differed. This was the question of the extension of slavery, arising approximately out of the proposition to admit Texas, then an independent Republic, into the Union as a State. Though Texas had won its practical independence from Mexico by force of arms, yet Mexico had not acknowledged this independence or ceased to claim sovereign rights over that lost territory. Hence to admit this revolted province of Mexico into the Union of the States must inevitably precipitate hostilities with this neighboring power; there was, nevertheless, a strong party which upheld the measure within Congress and out of it.

There was, however, a very strong opposition to it. Nearly all the Northern statesmen of the Whig side in politics viewed the annexation project unfavorably, and on this question Van Buren stood on very nearly the same ground as the conservative Whigs of the New England States. Back of the prospective war, however, was a sentiment stronger than any sense of justice to Mexico or repugnance to war; this was opposition to the extension of slavery in the United States. A large and growing party in the North was immovably fixed against any action by Congress which would increase the area of the slave States, which it was foreseen the admission of Texas would do.

Of course, the Southern politicians naturally favored it. As Tammany always took its share in the large questions of the day, it could not ignore this, and upon it the body of the Society was divided in opinion.

In 1846 adhesion to, or rejection of the "Wilmot Proviso" became the dividing line in the Democratic party in New York, as elsewhere throughout the States, and also in Congress. The object of this proviso was to prohibit the introduction of slavery into any territory acquired by purchase or otherwise from Mexico, which included the present State of California. It was Mr. Van Buren's attitude on this point which cost him the loss of the Democratic nomination for President and gave it to James K. Polk, two years previously, in 1844. It was this question of the extension of slavery which made the first formidable split in the Tammany Society. Other divisions had been healed without much difficulty," but this became to that, as to other parties, the "irreconcilable conflict," carrying

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