Details
BUCHANAN, James. Autograph memorandum signed ("James Buchanan"), as President, memorializing a meeting with Mr. Schell and Mr. Sickles on Tammany Hall matters in New York City, 21 August 1857. 2½ pages, 4to, with an autograph docket in Buchanan's hand, marked "private."
BUCHANAN ARGUES OVER "THE DIVISION OF THE DEM. PARTY IN THE CITY OF N. Y." WITH TAMMANY LEADER AND FUTURE GENERAL "MR. SICKLES"
Buchanan plays the role of party boss as he talks over problems in New York City with two of the "Sachems" of Tammany Hall, one of whom, "Mr. Sickles" is certainly the notorious, future Civil War General Daniel E. Sickles, a leading Tammany figure in the 1850s. Buchanan refers to this document in his docket as "memorandum of what occurred at an interview between Mr. Schell and Mr. Sickles in my presence on the subject of the division of the Dem: party in the City of N. Y. & the mode of removing them." Evidently there was a problem in composing the membership of a new, 110-member governing committee for Tammany, and three different ward leaders (Messrs Small, Savage and Cooper) vied to get as many of their members as possible onto this body. Buchanan proposes a formula: "The 5 members of the Small committee in each of the 22 wards of the City are to select two of their number to constitute a portion of the general committee, say 44." Likewise the 5 members of the Savage Committee in each of the 22 wards of the City would also select two members from each ward, while the Cooper Committee would contribute 1 member from each ward. After much back and forth, Schell finally agreed "to leave all that regarded the Associations in the wards to be decided by the new General Committee who would have undisputed possession of Tammany Hall." Tammany, initially formed as a social club in the 1780s, became a strong adjunct of the Democratic Party in New York during the 1830s. Tammany men were a strong presence in the usually poor, Irish neighborhoods, doling out food, money and jobs in return for votes. By the mid-1850s, Tammany was powerful enough to put one of their own in City Hall as Mayor. This made its internal doings important enough for the attentions of a Democratic President of the United States.
As for Sickles, one year after this meeting he murdered his wife's young lover, the son of Francis Scott Key. He got a jury to acquit him of murder by claiming temporary insanity as a defense--the first time it was used in an American court. He did not escape as easily from his folly on the second day of Gettysburg, when his unauthorized move forward to a dangerously exposed position cost him a leg. A fine association of a Civil War President with one of the war's more colorful and controversial generals.
BUCHANAN ARGUES OVER "THE DIVISION OF THE DEM. PARTY IN THE CITY OF N. Y." WITH TAMMANY LEADER AND FUTURE GENERAL "MR. SICKLES"
Buchanan plays the role of party boss as he talks over problems in New York City with two of the "Sachems" of Tammany Hall, one of whom, "Mr. Sickles" is certainly the notorious, future Civil War General Daniel E. Sickles, a leading Tammany figure in the 1850s. Buchanan refers to this document in his docket as "memorandum of what occurred at an interview between Mr. Schell and Mr. Sickles in my presence on the subject of the division of the Dem: party in the City of N. Y. & the mode of removing them." Evidently there was a problem in composing the membership of a new, 110-member governing committee for Tammany, and three different ward leaders (Messrs Small, Savage and Cooper) vied to get as many of their members as possible onto this body. Buchanan proposes a formula: "The 5 members of the Small committee in each of the 22 wards of the City are to select two of their number to constitute a portion of the general committee, say 44." Likewise the 5 members of the Savage Committee in each of the 22 wards of the City would also select two members from each ward, while the Cooper Committee would contribute 1 member from each ward. After much back and forth, Schell finally agreed "to leave all that regarded the Associations in the wards to be decided by the new General Committee who would have undisputed possession of Tammany Hall." Tammany, initially formed as a social club in the 1780s, became a strong adjunct of the Democratic Party in New York during the 1830s. Tammany men were a strong presence in the usually poor, Irish neighborhoods, doling out food, money and jobs in return for votes. By the mid-1850s, Tammany was powerful enough to put one of their own in City Hall as Mayor. This made its internal doings important enough for the attentions of a Democratic President of the United States.
As for Sickles, one year after this meeting he murdered his wife's young lover, the son of Francis Scott Key. He got a jury to acquit him of murder by claiming temporary insanity as a defense--the first time it was used in an American court. He did not escape as easily from his folly on the second day of Gettysburg, when his unauthorized move forward to a dangerously exposed position cost him a leg. A fine association of a Civil War President with one of the war's more colorful and controversial generals.