The History of Tammany Hall Paperback - 1220

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HISTORY OF TAMMANY HALL CHAPTER I RESISTANCE TO ABISTOCRACY 1789-1798 THE Society of St. Tammany, or Columbian Order, was founded on May 12, 1789, a fortnight later than the establishment of the National Government, by William Mooney.1 His object, says Judah Hammond,2 an early member of Tammany, was to fill the country with institutions designed, and men determined, to preserve the just balance of power. His purpose was patriotic and purely republican. The constitution provided by his care contained, among other things, a solemn asseveration, which every member at his initiation was required to repeat and subscribe to, that he would sustain the State institutions and resist a consolidation of power in the general Government. Before the Revolution, societies variously known as the Sons of Liberty and the Sons of St. Tammany had been formed to aid the cause of independence. Tammany, or Tamanend, was an Indian chief, of whom fanciful legends have been woven, but of whose real life little can be told. Some maintain that he lived in the neighborhood of Scranton, Pa., when William Penn arrived, and that he was present at the great council under the elm tree. His name is said to have been on Penn's first treaty with the Indians, April 23, 1683. He is also described as a great chief of the Delaware nation, and his wigwam is said to have stood on the grounds now occupied by Princeton University. The fame of his wisdom, benevolence and love of liberty spreading to the colonists, they adopted his name for their patriotic lodges. When societies sprang up bearing the names of St. George, St. Andrew or St. David and proclaiming their fealty to King George, the Separatists dubbed Tammany a saint in ridicule of the imported saints. The Revolution over, the Sons of Li...