From John Jay to the Tammany Society, 11 May 1796
To the Tammany Society
[New York 11th. May 1796.]
The Governor has taken into Consideration the request signified to him by a Committee of the Tammany Society in this City “That he would order the Flags on Governor’s Island, and also on the Battery, to be hoisted on the day of their Anniversary, vizt. the 12 May Instant.”—1
It appears to him that if such a Compliment be paid to the Tammany, it ought not to be refused to any other of the numerous Societies in this City and State. Arbitrary Preferences would be partial and unjust; and to discriminate on any principle of comparative Utility or respectability, would be a Task too invidious to be undertaken for an object like the present. He doubts the policy and prudence of making such marks of public Respect, more general than they now are; and thinking it his duty to observe the Limits which Usage and acknowledged propriety prescribe, he presumes that his declining to give the Orders in Question will, on being maturely considered, meet with approbation.—2
The President and Members of the Tammany Society in the City of New York—
LbkC, N: Governor’s Lbk. 1 (EJ: 03009). , 4: 213.
1. The Tammany Society’s request has not been found. Founded in 1786, the Tammany Society of New York City was incorporated on 12 May 1789.
2. A 1796 city directory lists forty-two social, benevolent, trade, professional, and ethnic societies (including fourteen Masonic lodges). The entry for the Tammany Society, or Columbian Order notes that this organization “was founded on the true and genuine principles of republicanism, and holds out as its objects, the smile of charity, the chain of friendship, and the flame of liberty; and in general, whatever may tend to perpetuate the love of freedom, or the political advantages of this Country.” John Low, The New-York directory, and register for the year 1796 (New York: 1796; , series 1, no. 30706), 57.
Established as a fraternal organization, the Tammany Society of New York City became increasingly politicized during the mid-1790s, and its membership largely affiliated with the city’s Democratic Society and Republican Party. Jerome Mushkat, Tammany: The Evolution of a Political Machine, 1789–1865 (Syracuse, 1971), 8–26.