WEGAI - Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall (Lesson)

Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall

The Gilded Age was a period characterized by excessive greed and wealth as well as extreme political corruption.

No one individual personifies political corruption more effectively than William Marcy “Boss” Tweed and Tammany Hall.

Boss Tweed learned that he had a “knack” for politics as a young man. He had charisma and was an imposing figure. He did a brief stint in Congress as a representative in the 1850s; he preferred to go home to New York and served in local political offices as alderman for the Seventh Ward, a volunteer firefighter, school commissioner, street commissioner, and was a member of the county board of supervisors.

He became one of the most corrupt, well-known politicians of the day. He learned to make friends and allies and his “friends” chose him to lead the political machine.

In New York City Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall controlled the Democratic Party and the most votes.

Tweed’s first act (which solidified public support for Tweed) was to restore order after the chaos of the draft riots in 1863.

(The New York Draft Riots in July 1863 were the most violent in United States history. Working-class New Yorkers protested the drafts to fight in the Civil War. Many protestors were Irish immigrants who opposed the draft because wealthy males were able to hire substitutes for $300 to fight in their places. The less wealthy men couldn’t afford to hire substitutes.)

Boss Tweed brokered a deal for family men (not just the rich ones) to get exemptions and even a loan from Tammany Hall to pay substitutes to fight in their stead. Tweed won a lot of local autonomy with this accomplishment; as a result, the federal government had to accept the deal he brokered.

In 1870 the New York state legislature granted New York City a new charter that gave local leaders power over local offices and appointments (rather than the state of New York.) The charter was labeled the “Tweed Charter” because Tweed wanted local control so badly that he had paid thousands of dollars in bribes to gain it.

The very corrupt “Tweed Ring” (Tweed’s “inner circle/organization) accumulated millions of dollars by skimming money off the top of projects. Tweed doled out thousands of jobs, profitable contracts, and patronages in exchange for favors, bribes, and kickbacks.

Tweed paid off judges for rulings favoring him and his organization. For major building projects in the area—new hospitals, museums, courthouses, paved roads, and (even the Brooklyn Bridge!) the budgets were padded with the excesses going to Tweed and his allies directly.

For example, when a county courthouse was under construction at a real cost of $250,000, the cost was eventually $13,000,000! The “Tweed Ring” got most of the excess money above $250,000.

Tweed also had huge amounts of real estate and owned the printing business that had a contract with the City of New York---they printed all of the election ballots amongst other forms and documents. Tweed also had large payoffs from the railroads.

Boss Tweed had a luxurious Fifth Avenue mansion, an estate in Connecticut, gave lavish parties, and owned tens of thousands of dollars worth of diamonds and jewelry.

In total, the “Tweed Ring” accrued between $50,000,000 and $200,000,000 in dirty money.

The bigger issue was the way Tweed cheapened the rule of law and degraded civil society in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Additionally, Tweed manipulated city elections—he hired people to vote multiple times, had sheriffs and their temporary deputies protect them while doing so and he bribed election inspectors. If the inspectors resisted, Tweed had them arrested by the corrupt police he had paid off. Sometimes there were more ballots cast than voters in the districts. Tweed used street violence and used intimidation to control elections. Sometimes Tweed just had the election results falsified.

 

Did Boss Tweed do anything positive?

Boss Tweed helped immigrants and the poor in many ways. He helped thousands of immigrants become naturalized citizens and helped the males gain the right to vote. 

The city often lacked basic services and Boss Tweed would ensure those services for the price of a vote or two. He made sure immigrants had jobs, shelter, food, medical care, and even coal money to heat their dwellings in the winter.

Moreover, Tweed contributed millions of dollars to institutions that helped immigrants—synagogues and churches, Catholic schools, orphanages, hospitals, and other charities.

Immigrants were grateful for the assistance from Tammany Hall. Tweed seemed to be creating a healthier city, so immigrants voted for Democratic candidates that Tweed supported in city elections.

But ultimately, Boss Tweed’s blatant greed and corruption were too much to ignore. The New York Times ran a series of stories that exposed extreme corruption and various frauds. Harper’s Weekly (a magazine) ran editorial political cartoons by Thomas Nast which poked fun at the Tweed Ring for their illegal activities.

Tweed was actually more concerned about the political cartoons than the news reports because many of his constituents were illiterate and as such couldn’t read the articles, but they could look at the political cartoons and understand the message. Tweed offered bribes to both publications and both refused the bribes. Boss Tweed was arrested in 1871 and was tried in 1873. The first trial ended in a hung jury and the second trial concluded with convictions on 200+ crimes. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He could visit his family and have dinner with them while he was in jail and he had guards outside his front door. But he escaped across the Hudson River one day and traveled by boat to Florida, then to Cuba, and then to Spain.

Spain’s government wanted help in Cuba from the United States, government officials used Thomas Nast’s political cartoons to gain a likeness of Tweed, subsequently caught him, and sent him back to the United States.

Tweed’s health was in decline and he had few supporters left by this time. He died in jail in 1878.

Machines existed in all major cities, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest where millions of immigrants settled. The machines provided vital services for the immigrants, but the corruption destroyed good government and civil society by eroding the rule of law.

By the early 20th century, Progressive reformers started targeting bosses and political machines in order to reform municipal governments.

 

Please watch this video from the Bill of Rights Institute.

 

 

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