Compared with this illustrious achievement, a summary of the record of Clinton’s antagonists, the Tammany leaders, makes but a poor showing. Contributing to the development of democracy, for the most part, only so far as it benefited themselves; declining to take up even the question of manhood suffrage until forced to, they did little or nothing, even in the closer domain of the city, for the good of their own time or of posterity. In the years when Clinton was engaged in projecting and building the canal, they were too busy wrangling over offices or cribbing at the public treasury to improve city conditions. The streets were an abomination of filth. The local authorities long refused, despite public pressure, to take steps to have the city furnished with pure water. As a result of the bad water of a private corporation and the uncleanliness of the streets, yellow fever and cholera had several times devastated the city, and in one year (1822) it was so deserted that grass grew in the streets. To make up for municipal deficits the city fathers continued selling the public land, that might have been made into parks or retained for future uses, buying it in as individuals. Between 1813 and 1819, according to the admission of the Tammany organ in the latter year, $440,347 worth of land, whose present value probably amounts to tens of millions of dollars, was thus fraudulently disposed of.[8] In a word, their records, public and private, furnish an extreme contrast to the record of Clinton, who, while a politician when need be, gave his years and his talents to the completion of a public work of the greatest utility and importance.
[1] The first election for Mayor by the Common Council, under the new constitution, resulted in the choice of William Paulding, Jr., 1823-25.
[2] Advertisements of the ward committees in the _National Advocate_, April 29, 1822.
[3] It is a convincing commentary on the absolute disruption of party lines at this epoch that a contest could arise in such an organization as Tammany Hall between supporters of men of such diverse political beliefs as Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams.
[4] When United States Navy Agent in 1820, Robert Swartwout became indebted to the Government in the sum of $68,000, a defalcation he could not make good. The Government took a mortgage on his property for $75,000. This and political influence saved him from prison. It was because of Adams’s efforts in his behalf that his extraordinary devotion to the sixth President was credited. Tammany Hall, considerate of human infirmity, continued him in full favor as a leader. These facts were brought out in the suit of the United States Government against Francis H. Nicholl, one of Robert Swartwout’s sureties, before Judge Van Ness in the United States District Court, April 8, 1824.
