ciety, of New York city, and were commonly known as 'bucktails." (See TAMMANY SOCIETY, BUCKTAILS.) They claimed to be the only veritable supporters of the administration, and the opponents of Clintonism, personal government, and disguised or open federalism. The Clintonians, however, were strong enough to elect Clinton presidential electors on joint ballot in 1812. (See FEDERAL PARTY, II.)- The election for governor in 1813 revealed a long suspected breach in the dominant party. De Witt Clinton found his influence in his party overbalanced by that of Gov. Tompkins, Ambrose Spencer, Martin Van Buren and John W. Taylor; he therefore became an opponent of Tompkins' re-election, and entirely lost control of his party. His own faction, with the aid of the federalists, held control of the offices until 1815, when an anti-Clinton council made a clean sweep of all the federalist and Clintonian officeholders. This defeat put an end to the federal party in New York, and seemed to be equally fatal to Clinton. Tompkins, Van Buren and Spencer were now the leaders of the party, but the two former were so much more influential than Spencer that he, about the year 1816, sought a reconciliation with his former ally, but late political enemy, De Witt Clinton, and brought him back into politics to restore the balance. The new coalition was immediately successful; to succeed Tompkins as governor, Clinton was nominated and elected in 1817, against Peter B. Porter, the candidate of the Tammany men, or "bucktails"; and with his entrance to office he initiated the "canal policy" of the state. The connection between the seaboard and the interior had been one of the earliest problems in American politics. (See ANNEXATIONS, I.) Its great difficulty lay in the mountain barrier which extends from northern Alabama to Maine, parallel with the coast; and the most practicable breach in this was that which was made in the state of New❘ York by the Hudson river. From its upper regions a level territory, excellently adapted for a canal, stretched westward to Lake Erie. The idea of such a canal seems to have been suggested by Gouverneur Morris, of New York, first in 1777 and at intervals afterward. April 8, 1811, the New York legislature passed an act appointing Morris, Clinton, R. R. Livingston, Robert Fulton, and others, "commissioners of inland navigation," but the project slept through the war, which soon after followed, until 1815, when Clinton, during his enforced retirement from politics, renewed his advocacy of it with redoubled vigor. Immediately upon his inauguration, supported by a thorough-going canal legislature and council, his public life became entirely devoted to the construction of the Erie canal, or "Clinton's ditch," as his opponents contemptuously called it. - The anti-Clinton republicans through out the state now generally accepted the name of bucktails. Though in a popular minority for some years, they were always superior to their opponents in point of ability, for Clinton would not willingly endure a rival near the throne, and dangerously able men among his own supporters rapidly gravitated toward the bucktails. Their leaders were Van Buren, Erastus Root, Samuel Young, Roger Skinner, Peter R. Livingston, Joseph C. Yates, and Ogden Edwards, all noted names in New York politics; Tompkins was already hopelessly lost under a load of debt which he had accumulated in defense of the state during his governorship, and which was really the cause of his death in 1825. The leadership of the Clintonians was strictly confined to Clinton himself and Spencer, who had no aspirations for office. The remnant of the federalists was led by Wm. A. Duer, Peter A. Jay, W. W. Van Ness, and Abraham Van Vechten. Most of them supported Clinton; but a small division, often derisively called “highminded federalists," from their frequent use of the phrase "high-minded men " in their addresses, supported the bucktails and opposed the Clintonians as a personal party. In 1820 the bucktails at last gained complete control of the legis lature, but it is noteworthy that at the same election Clinton was re-elected governor over Tompkins. For this success he was indebted mainly to his canal policy; but his term of office was embittered by the rigorous manner in which the bucktail council exercised the power of removal. This body was abolished by the constitution of the next year, and its last year was acknowledged on all hands to have been the most extraordinarily evil year of its existence. The extent of its power for evil may be estimated from the statement that, in 1820, 8,287 military and 6,663 civil officers throughout the state were absolutely at its mercy. Clinton also complained most bitterly, in his messages to the legislature, of the manner in which the administration at Washington had placed the federal patronage at Van Buren's disposal, and of interferences in state elections by federal officeholders "as an organized and disciplined corps."-In the election of 1822 the former bucktails at last became the republican party of the state, and the Clintonians were completely overthrown. Clinton himself had discreetly declined to be a candidate for the governorship, and his opponents elected their candidate for governor without opposition, the entire senate, and almost all the assembly. The result was partly due to the Clintonian opposition to the revision of the constitution in 1820-21, but far more to the advance of the democratic idea in the state. The day of personal politics was very nearly The growth of the state's population, and the enlargement of the right of suffrage, had made the body of voters so large that it was no longer possible for any one man to exercise direct personal control over a controlling mass of voters. The increase may be shown by comparing the vote at intervals of nearly ten years: (1792) George Clinton 8,440, John Jay 8,332; (1801) George Clinton 24,808, Stephen Van Rensselaer 20,843; (1813) D. D. Tompkins 43,324, Stephen over. Van Rensselaer 39,718; (1824) De Witt Clinton | 103,452, Samuel Young 87,093. The party was now headed by a number of leaders, who were at one in their feelings, interests and methods, and who aimed rather to ascertain than to control the feelings of the people. (See ALBANY REGENCY.) -III.: 1823-50. The regency began its long and successful career with a mistake. Its members were strongly in favor of Crawford for president in 1824 (see DISPUTED ELECTIONS, II.), as were a great majority of the legislature, which then had the power to choose electors. The party at large seems to have preferred Adams, and many members of the legislature were elected under a pledge to vote for an electoral law to give the choice of electors to the people. The Clintonians, who were also for Adams, were naturally in favor of such a law, and the regency members, after postponing the bill to a date beyond the presidential election, passed a resolution to remove De Witt Clinton from the unsalaried position of canal commissioner, to which he had retired in 1822. The resolution was introduced in order to compel the recalcitrant Adams members either to become identified with the Clintonians or to break with them altogether; the result was to excite a lively indignation throughout the state. Clinton was brought back into politics again, and elected governor in 1824, and again in 1826. In the choice of electors in 1824 the legislature was much divided. The Adams and Clay members at last united on a ticket composed of twenty-six Adams and ten Clay electors. The Adams electors, on the next ballot, were all chosen, but by some legerdemain only four Clay electors were chosen, five of the remaining six being for Crawford and one for Jackson. The change of these five votes from Clay to Crawford excluded the former from the list of three candidates to which the house of representatives was confined in voting for president. One of the most singular political manœuvres ever contrived was successfully carried out in the election for United States senator in February, 1825. By law the senate and assembly were to ballot separately for a senator, and, if they chose different persons, the decision was to be made by joint ballot. The Clintonians had a majority in the assembly and on joint ballot; the regency had a majority in the senate. The assembly nominated Ambrose Spencer; the ten Clintonians in the senate voted for him also; but the twenty-two regency senators, by voting each for a different candidate, prevented a choice by the senate and a joint ballot, so that the senatorial election went over to the next year, when a regency senator was chosen. - The failing health of Crawford during Adams' presidency compelled the regency to look elsewhere for a candidate. As between Adams and Jackson, the former seems to have been the natural preference of the regency, as the latter was of Clinton personally. Until Sept. 26, 1827, the regency preserved a profound and almost ostentatious neutrality between the two most prominent candidates remaining; on that day the first Jackson address was issued from Tammany Hall, and thereafter all the political prospects of the regency were hazarded upon the chances of Jackson's election. Before Clinton had any op portunity to define his position, his sudden death, Feb. 11, 1828, left the opposition to the regency almost without a head. Nevertheless the Adams opposition was strong enough to secure sixteen of the state's electors, who were then chosen in congressional districts, though the eighteen Jackson electors, being a majority of the college, chose the two electors at large and made the state's electoral vote twenty to sixteen in favor of Jackson. Van Buren was at the same time chosen governor. Immediately afterward he passed into Jackson's cabinet, and carried with him the methods which had long been familiar in New York politics. Thereafter national democratic politics were to be marked by the use of popular conventions as nominating bodies, by absolute submission to the majority, no matter how small a portion of the party might make the decision, unsparing punishment of individual action in opposition to the majority, and the use of the civil service as an instrument of reward or punishment. The whole programme may be summed up as the unitizing of political action. Majorities were to be absolute in every democratic organization, national, state, county or city; minorities were simply to be ignored; and individuals were morally and politically bound to follow the majority of their organizations, even in opposition to their own party organization of higher rank. (See DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICAN PARTY, IV.; ALBANY REGENCY; NATIONAL CONVENTIONS; TAMMANY SOCIETY.) But, though regency methods thus became national, the regency itself remained cautiously, judiciously and strictly a state organization; it refrained carefully from interfering in national politics, except to secure the federal patronage within the state, and, in dangerous or difficult elections, to call back some one of its former members from the federal service to serve as its candidate. - The Adams, or national republican, party in New York was seriously embarrassed not only by its lack of leaders, but by the sudden rise of an antimasonic party, pledged to proscribe every freemason of any party. (See ANTI-MASONRY, I.) From motives of expediency the Adams conventions usually endeavored to conciliate the antimasonic candidates in their nominations; but at the same time the Adams men, who were freemasons, preferred a regency candidate to an anti-masonic candidate, and frequently gave their votes and influence to the former. The result was that, though the two parties, voting separately, generally polled as large a vote as the Jackson men, any attempt at coalition was followed by a defeat. For eight years, therefore, New York was democratic (the "Jackson men" having taken the name of democrats); the governors were regency men; and the legislature was strongly democratic the whigs to power. The regency were able to in both branches. In 1837 the democrats were for the first time beaten in a legislative election, the whigs carrying six of the eight senatorial districts, and 101 of the 128 assembly districts; and in the following year Wm. H. Seward, who had been beaten in 1836 by Marcy, was elected governor over Marcy. In all this long struggle the western part of the state, commonly called by the democrats "the infected district," was the staying power of the opposition. It never wavered. Its opposition to the regency had begun under Clinton, was continued (since most of the regency were freemasons) in the form of anti-masonry, but when the anti-masonic fever had died out so far that the anti-masons accepted Clay, a freemason, as one of its leaders, the "infected district" was as cohesive as ever in its opposition; and the territorial location of party strongholds in the state is closely and curiously similar in 1883 to that which existed while Clinton and Spencer were fighting the bucktails in 1818-22. Under the reign of the regency every governor and legislature were democratic until 1846, with the exception of this period, 1837-41, when the state became whig through democratic divisions. The charter of a national bank was the question which divided political parties from 1833 until 1843 (see BANK CONTROVERSIES, III., IV.; WHIG PARTY); and in New York this was further complicated with others relating to state banks (see Loco-Foco), so that there were there three parties: the whig party, which supported banking interests in general, the regency democratic party, which opposed a national bank but supported the state banks, and the "loco-foco" democratic party, which opposed the grant of special banking privileges to any corporation whatever. Further, the canal question had divided the democrats into hunkers, or conservatives, and barnburners, or radicals; the former desiring the extension of the canal system, and the latter its limitation to immediately profitable canals. The loco-foco division of the party ceased after 1839; the hunker and barnburner division continued even after the adoption of the constitution of 1846, which removed the original | cause of division, and the barnburners then became practically the regency party, though Croswell and Marcy, of the regency, inclined toward the hunker faction. These democratic divisions gave the whigs some temporary successes. 1839 they gained a majority in the senate, which had been steadily democratic for twenty-one years, and in 1840 they secured the electoral vote of the state for Harrison. The democratic divis-ily republican. In 1862, during the depression ion as to banks was then healed, and the legisla ture in 1841, and the governor in 1842, again became democratic. — In 1844 the regency labored with more than usual energy to carry the state, its ablest member, Silas Wright, leaving the United States senate to run for the governorship. Polk, soon after his inauguration, began to cultivate a New York faction of his own, in opposition to the regency, and the result was a wider disruption of the democratic party, and the return of In caused by federal disasters, the democrats elected the governor and state officers, but the senate was republican and the assembly a tie. Since that time the vote of the state has been very uncertain and irregular. The legislature has usually been republican, but the state has nevertheless often been carried by the democrats on the total vote. In 1868 the democrats elected the governor and state officers, and secured the electoral vote of the state, but the legislature remained republican in both branches. That there was fraud in the vote seems to be undeniable, for in all previous elections, even in such exciting contests as 1840, 1844, 1860, and 1864, the proportion of voters never exceeded 90 to 92 per cent. of the legal voting population, while in 1868 it reached the incredible proportion of 97.07 per cent. The enormous democratic majority in New York city (112,522 dem., 43,372 rep.), and the control of the count by the Tweed ring, seem to localize the fraud beyond question. In 1870 the democrats again carried the state, electing the governor, state officers, and a majority in both branches of the legislature. In 1872 the state was carried by the republicans, Governor Dix's majority over his opponent being over 50,000.- By this time the political condition of the state had been very considerably changed. From 1854 until about 1873-4 the democratic party was practically a minority in the state outside of New York city, and the only question was, whether the republican majority in the rest of the state would be large enough to overcome the democratic majority which it was to encounter at the Harlem river. The organization of the republican party throughout the state had long been very complete, under the leadership at first of R. E. Fenton, and, after 1868, of Roscoe Conkling, whose sympathy with the then administration was more pronounced than his predecessor's. The democratic organization, outside of New York city, had long been imperfect; its local managers were discouraged; and there was no recognized state leadership, except in the counsels of Gov. Seymour. About 1873 the leadership was suddenly assumed by Samuel J. Tilden, only known hitherto as a lawyer, the chairman of the democratic state committee, and one of the agents in the overthrow of the Tweed ring. (See TAMMANY SOCIETY.) Abandoning the absolute dependence of former years upon New York city, he pushed the reorganization of the party throughout the state, secured entire control of its machinery, and in 1874 was elected governor by over 50,000 majority over Dix. His term was distinguished by his success in breaking up a canal ring in the western part of the state, and in 1876 he was nominated for the presidency by the democratic national convention. (See TIL DEN, S. J.) His retirement from state politics left the organization which he had revived under the control of a circle of his most trusted supporters. The most prominent of these was Lucius Robinson, who was nominated for the governorship in 1879. The organization of both the great parties in the state was now strikingly similar. It may best be described in the words of the "Evening Journal," a republican newspaper of Albany, which, though used with reference to the republican "machine, are just as applicable to its rival. "The choice of delegates [to the state convention] was a 'put-up job.' The plan of operations was carefully and minutely mapped out at head quarters. Trusty and well-instructed | lieutenants were assigned to each district. These had their sergeants in every county, and these their corporals in every town. Success was made the test of fidelity, and rewards were to follow in proportion to the success achieved. No man could be a tide-waiter who did not carry his ward; no man could be a harbor-master who did not carry his county; and no man could be so much as thought of for canal superintendent, or auditor, or state assessor, or bank superintendent, who did not take his district with him to the Utica convention. It was a race for the spoils on the part of the subordinates, and a race for the presidency on the part of the chiefs." The democrats of the state, outside of the city of New York, seem to have been very well satisfied with the workings and results of their "machine"; but in New York city a new Tammany, under a local leader named John Kelly, had arisen from the ashes of the old one. The Kelly organization seems to have become disaffected partly by a general dislike to the predominance of the country democracy, partly by a disinclination to submit to any authority whatever, but most of all by the apprehension that the Tilden "machine" intended to substitute some more popular nominating body or bodies in the city instead of the Tammany oligarchy. It therefore declared war upon the Tilden machine, and, when it was excluded from the state convention, a rival body of delegates admitted, and Robinson nominated, it nominated its leader, Kelly, for the governorship. The republican machine had given great dissatisfaction to its party, and a number of its voters, commonly called "scratchers," or independents, decided to erase from their ballots the names of its candidates for governor and state engineer. In the election the two parties were almost a tie on most of the candidates. Kelly polled 43,047 votes in New York city, 34,519 in the rest of the state, from various elements illaffected to the Tilden machine, and 77,566 in all; the republican candidate for governor fell 16,737 below the lowest of the unscratched candidates; and the Kelly revolt was thus successful in defeating Robinson, and in giving the republicans a majority of seventy-three out of the 161 members of the legislature. In 1880 the electoral vote of the state was republican. The popular vote shows the character of the party strength and its locality very clearly. What may be called the urban counties, the seats of the great cities of Albany, New York and Brooklyn, or in their immediate neighborhood, all gave heavy democratic majorities; outside of these, only five of the sixty counties gave democratic majorities, and these were all exceedingly small.—When the new administration of President Garfield was inaugurated in 1881, it was almost immediately called upon to solve the problem which had em barrassed almost every administration since that of Washington-the settlement of a modus vivendi with the chief of the party in New York. The solution could only be found in choosing between an open conflict and a grant of the fed become prominent in New York politics are of course very numerous. Among them are those of C. A. Arthur, Aaron Burr, De Witt Clinton, George Clinton, Roscoe Conkling, Millard Fillmore, Francis Granger, Horace Greeley, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Rufus King, Wm. L. Marcy, Wm. H. Seward, Horatio Seymour, S. J. Tilden, D. D. Tompkins, Martin Van Buren, Wm. A. Wheeler, Silas Wright (see those names), and the following: John Armstrong, democratic United States senator 1801-4, minister to France 1804-10, and secretary of war 1813-14; Daniel D. Barnard, whig representative in congress 1827-9 and 1839-45, minister to Prussia 1850–53, and the ablest contributor to the "Whig Review" (see WHIG PARTY); Benjamin F. Butler, Van Buren's law partner, and attorney general and secre eral patronage within the state to the state leader. (See CONFIRMATION BY THE SENATE.) The president sought to find a middle course by dividing the patronage between the two factions of New York republicans. Thereupon the two New York senators, one of whom was the recognized leader of the republican "machine" in the state, re signed their positions, apparently under the delusion that, if they should be re-elected by the state legislature, the administration would be utterly unhinged by such a rebuke, and would succumb at once. The contest in the legislature was long, and roused a curiously intense excitement. (See GARFIELD, J. A.) The senators were defeated for re-election. But their close political associate, Vice-President Arthur, became president at Garfield's death; and the division of feeling was thus extended into the state elec-tary of war under Jackson and Van Buren (see tion of 1882, which resulted in the choice of a democratic legislature and governor, the majority of the latter (192,854) being the largest yet recorded in a state election. - The political situation in New York in 1883 is very singular. There are two great parties in the state. Both are distracted by quarrels in which the mass of voters take little or no interest; neither has now any recognized leader, nor would either submit generally to the guidance of a leader, if one could be found; neither has a trace of principle or policy in state interests, such as divided parties in the state until 1850; and both organizations maintain a precarious exist ence as offshoots of the national parties, the adherents of the dominant party struggling for federal offices in præsenti, as their opponents do in prospectu. The only strictly state organization is the much-berated Tammany society of New York city, whose efforts are directed solely to local offices, with such few federal offices as it can secure by barter. The whole political history of the state is the clearest possible record of the inevitable results of the spoils system in politics: its first employment by a few strong-willed men, with some idea of great principles in its application; its extension to a clique of smaller and less passionate leaders, who use it more as a business means; its immediate and brilliant success in winning elections, and in compelling all parties to adopt it; its further debasement as a mere tool in the hands of men who use it without knowledge of, or care for, any other weapon in politics; its certainty to drive men of a higher understanding of politics out of the competition, as bad money drives out good; and its ultimate disintegration of all parties who employ it, as soon as local leaders, through it, learn to regard political contests as without principle, and to employ the spoils system against their own party as well as against their opponents. To the Italian astronomer Jupiter's moons seemed to be hung in the sky as a convincing proof of the truth of the Copernican system; to the political student the last eighty years of New York's history are fully as instructive. The names of men who have ' ADMINISTRATIONS, XIII.); Churchill C. Cambre- |