The United States Bank supporters did not surrender with Jackson’s reelection. They exerted themselves to influence Congress by means of a defeat for the anti-bank forces in New York City in the Fall election of 1833. Tammany Hall during the campaign sent out runners ordering every office-holder to his electioneering post. Vigorous meetings were held, and all the secret influences of the general committee were employed. On the other hand, merchants laid aside their ruffled shirts and broadcloth coats, put on their roundabouts and worked at the polls on the three election days for the Whig ticket. Tammany carried the city by between 2,000 and 3,000 majority. Touching this and previous elections a committee of Assistant Aldermen reported on February 10, 1834: “That frauds have been practised at the polls, the committee are convinced. At any rate, a universal and deep conviction prevails among our citizens that tricks have been resorted to for the purpose of defeating the election of one candidate and securing that of another.” It was further set forth that persons were brought up to vote who were not citizens of the United States nor qualified to vote in the State. Others voted in more than one ward. Voters also were transferred overnight from a sure to a doubtful ward.[8] No remedy followed the report.
The Spring election of 1834, though local, again turned upon national issues. For the first time in the history of the city, the Mayor was to be elected by the people. The growth of public opinion had been such that the Legislature was forced, in 1833, to grant this reform.
The contending hosts were swayed, first, by the question of the United States Bank, and second, by the spoils. The merchants shut their shops and sent their whole body of clerks and laboring men to surround the polls and influence voters against Tammany Hall. The United States Bank spread abroad the cry of “panic.” If its directors could show that public opinion in the foremost city in the Union had altered so as to favor the continuation of the bank charter, then they could use that as a good basis for influencing Congress. There was no concealment of coercion of voters; the weak, the timid, the fearful were overawed by the increasing clamor of paid newspapers that the destruction of the United States Bank meant “widespread revulsion of trade and everlasting injury to the poor.” In fact, a general depression of business was produced. A row began in the “bloody ould Sixth,” by the breaking of some ballot boxes. Both parties armed with stones and bludgeons, and turned the scene into one of violence. The riot became general. A crowd, composed chiefly of Whigs, ransacked gun-shops in Broadway and made for the State arsenal at Elm and Franklin streets. Rumors of their intentions spreading, a gathering of peaceably inclined citizens arrived before them and held the arsenal until the militia hastened there and restored order.[9]