least eight and in Philadelphia seven. In Philadelphia, at the
initiative of the master carpenters and cordwainers, there came to exist
an informal federation of the masters' associations in the several
trades.

From 1829 to 1842 there were eight recorded prosecutions of labor
organizations for conspiracy. The workingmen were convicted in two
cases; in two other cases the courts sustained demurrers to the
indictments; in three cases the defendants were acquitted after jury
trials; and the outcome of one case is unknown. Finally, in 1842, long
after the offending societies had gone out of existence under the stress
of unemployment and depressions, the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts handed down a decision, which for forty years laid to
rest the doctrine of conspiracy as applied to labor unions.[7]

The unity of action of the several trades displayed in the city trades'
unions engendered before long a still wider solidarity in the form of a
National Trades' Union. It came together in August 1834, in New York
City upon the invitation of the General Trades' Union of New York. The
delegates were from the trades' unions of New York, Philadelphia,
Boston, Brooklyn, Poughkeepsie, and Newark. Ely Moore, then labor
candidate for Congress, was elected president. An attempt by the only
"intellectual" present, a Doctor Charles Douglass, representing the
Boston Trades' Union, to strike a political note was immediately
squelched. A second convention was held in 1835 and a third one in 1837.

The National Trades' Union played a conspicuous part in securing the
ten-hour day for government employes. The victory of the ten-hour
principle in private employment in 1835 generally led to its adoption by
states and municipalities. However, the Federal government was slow to