Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local political machine of the Democratic Party and played a major role in controlling New York City and New York state politics. Though initially an independent social organization, at its peak, Tammany Hall became synonymous with the New York County Democratic Party.
At its founding, the Society of St. Tammany was a social fraternal organization and one branch of a network of Tammany societies throughout the new United States of America. Politically, its members were Jeffersonian republicans opposed to the Manhattan aristocracy. As the immigrant population of New York grew, Tammany Hall became an important social and political organization, for Irish Catholic immigrants in particular. Following the 1854 mayoral election and the resulting mayoralty of Fernando Wood, Tammany Hall controlled Democratic Party nominations and political patronage in Manhattan for over a century through its organized network of loyal, well-rewarded, and largely Irish Catholic district and precinct leaders. It also gained support from the New York City business community for its efficient, if corrupt, solutions to problems.
At its peak, Tammany Hall also played a major role in state and national politics, particularly during the Gilded Age, when New York was sharply contested as a swing state, and it hosted the 1868 Democratic National Convention. Its positions typically represented the interests of its immigrant, ethnic, and Catholic voter base, in addition to the personal interests of its leadership. Prominent members or associates of Tammany included Aaron Burr, Martin Van Buren, Fernando Wood, Jimmy Walker, Robert F. Wagner, and Al Smith.
The Tammany Hall organization was also a frequent vehicle for political graft, most famously during the leadership of William M. Tweed, whose 1873 conviction for embezzlement gave the organization its national reputation for corruption. In the following decades, many reformist New York politicians developed national reputations opposing or criticizing Tammany influence, including Samuel J. Tilden, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fiorello La Guardia, Robert Moses, Thomas E. Dewey, Jacob Javits, and Ed Koch.
Tammany Hall declined during the twentieth century, following the 1898 consolidation of greater New York City, which forced it to compete directly with other local organizations, and decades of sustained opposition from reform activists and changing demographics in Manhattan. It was dissolved in 1967.
Before 1898, New York City was coterminous with the island of Manhattan and New York County. As the population center of New York state, one of the largest states in the new United States of America, in addition to its status as a commercial center for the continent, struggles for control of city, county, state, and national offices were fierce.
The 1686 charter divided the city into six wards and established a Common Council consisting of an alderman and assistant alderman from each ward. Until 1938, wards were the smallest political units in New York City and the building block of its political organizations.
Under the 1686 charter, the mayor of New York City was appointed by the state government. In 1821, the Common Council was given authority to elect the mayor until, in 1834, the state constitution was amended to require the election of the mayor by direct popular vote.
The Tammany Society was founded in New York City (at the time coterminous with both the island of Manhattan and New York County) on May 12, 1789, as a club for "pure Americans" and one branch of a wider network of Tammany Societies, the first of which had been formed in Philadelphia in 1772. The name "Tammany" came from Tamanend, a chief of the Lenape in the late seventeenth century who had become a folk hero and symbol of America, particularly in the area around Philadelphia. The Society adopted many Native American words and customs, including referring to their meeting hall as a "wigwam" and their leader as a "grand sachem".
The first Grand Sachem of the Tammany Society was William Mooney, a Nassau Street upholsterer. Although Mooney held the nominal leadership role, wealthy merchant and philanthropist John Pintard established the Society's constitution and its various Native American titles. Pintard declared the Society to be "[a] political institution founded on a strong republican basis whose democratic principles will serve in some measure to correct the aristocracy of our city." In 1790, the Society assisted the federal government in procuring a peace treaty with the Muscogee at the request of President George Washington.
Although many of its earliest civic activities were not explicitly political, the Tammany Society attracted supporters of Governor George Clinton and U.S. secretary of state Thomas Jefferson. At the time, New York state politics were divided between the Clintons, the Schuyler family (including U.S. treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton), and the Livingston family. In 1793, the Society hosted Edmond-Charles Genêt, the controversial representative of the French First Republic to the United States.
Aaron Burr and Matthew Davis era (1798–1804)
By 1798, the Society had grown increasingly political and supportive of the Jeffersonian republican cause. One of the city's leading politicians, Aaron Burr, saw Tammany as an opportunity to counter the Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternal organization largely populated by supporters of Alexander Hamilton and the Schuyler family. Through Burr's influence, Tammany emerged as the center of Jeffersonian politics in New York City. Burr used the Society, along with his own Manhattan Company, as a campaign asset during the 1800 presidential election. Some historians believe that without Tammany support, President John Adams might have won re-election. However, Burr alienated many supporters by opposing Jefferson in the contingent election in the United States House of Representatives, after the electoral college vote resulted in a tie between Burr and Jefferson.
In 1802, the Society became embroiled in party politics when U.S. senator DeWitt Clinton, the nephew of the governor, publicly attacked Burr, resulting in a duel between Clinton and Burr supporter John Swartwout. Clinton resigned from the Senate in 1803 to become mayor of New York City and used the position to distribute patronage to his family and supporters, alienating Tammany and emphasizing the growth of the spoils system in the city.
After Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, he was forced to leave politics in shame. He was succeeded as Tammany leader in 1805 by Matthew L. Davis, a friend and supporter who instituted many of the innovations which would establish the Society as a powerful political machine. Davis began by securing a state charter for the society as a charitable organization and establishing the General Committee of Tammany Hall, which would thereafter play kingmaker in party politics in New York City. One Tammany member by the name of Wortman, established the practice of an investigatory committee consisting of one member from each ward, which would identify political friends and foes and report on their movements to general meetings.
Corruption scandals tainted Tammany Hall from its early days. In 1808, local opinion turned against Tammany after public investigations by the New York Common Council revealed that a number of officials were guilty of embezzlement and other abuses of power. For example, New York City comptroller Benjamin Romaine was found guilty of using his authority to acquire land without payment and was ultimately removed from his office, despite the Council being controlled by Democratic-Republicans. In response to growing public disapproval and election defeats, Davis organized the Society's first public relations stunt, reinterring the remains of thirteen Revolutionary War soldiers who died in British prison ships and were buried in shallow graves at Wallabout Bay. On April 13, 1808, a dedication ceremony was held and symbolic coffins were sailed to Brooklyn. The state voted to provide $1,000 to build a monument, but the money was pocketed, and the monument was not built until 1867.