If our experiment shall finally prove a failure, we verily believe it will
be owing to the extension of the political franchise to whites and blacks
who were unfit to use it, and cared for it not because of its honor, or
the good use to which it might be put, but as a piece of merchandise to be
sold to the highest bidder or used as a weapon of assault against good
order and righteous laws.

Of course, the first pernicious effect of this transfer of power to
ignorant, reckless men would be felt at the polls in New York City, where
this class was in the greatest number. The elections here soon became a
farce, and the boasted glory of a free ballot-box a taunt and a by-word.
That gross corruption and villany practised here should eventually result
in the open violation of law, as it did in the charter election of 1834,
was natural.

Political animosity was probably more bitter between the Democrats, under
Jackson's administration, and the Whigs, than between any two political
parties since the time of Federalists and Democrats, in the days of the
elder Adams.

In the spring of 1834 especially, party spirit ran very high in the city.
As usual, for a month or more before the election, which took place on the
second Tuesday in April, all kinds of accusations and rumors were afloat.
There was no registry law, and comparatively few places for the polls, so
that there could be little check on voting, no end to repeating, while the
gathering of an immense crowd around each place of voting became
inevitable. At this election, there was a split in the Democratic party,
Mr. Verplanck being the candidate of the Independent Democrats, and Mr.
Lawrence of the "Tammany."