ar gone in destitution or liquor that they no
longer had manhood or principle. Along came the election funds of the
traders, landholders and bankers to corrupt these men still further by
the buying of their votes and the inciting of them to commit the crime
of repeating at the polls. Exalted society and the slums began to work
together; the money of the one purchased the votes of the other. Year
after year this corruption fund increased until in the fall of 1837 the
money raised in New York City by the bankers alone amounted to $60,000.
Although this sum was meager compared to the enormous corruption funds
which were employed in subsequent years, it was a sum which, at that
time, could do great execution. Ignorant immigrants were persuaded by
offerings of money to vote this way or that and to repeat their votes.
Presently the time came when batches of convicts were brought from the
prisons to do repeating, and overawe the polls in many precincts.[138]

As for that class of voters who could not be bribed and who voted
according to their conceptions of the issues involved, they were
influenced in many ways:--by the partisan arguments of newspapers and of
political speech-makers. These agencies of influencing the body politic
were indirectly controlled by the propertied interests in one form or
another. A virtual censorship was exercised by wealth; if a newspaper
dared advocate any issue not approved by the vested interests, it at
once felt the resentment of that class in the withdrawal of
advertisements and of those privileges which banks could use or abuse
with such ruinous effect.

POLITICAL SUBSERVIENCY.

Finally, both of the powerful political parties were under the
domination of wealth; not, to be sure, openly so, but insidiously.
Differences of issue there assuredly were, but these issues did not in
any way affect the basic structure of society, or threaten the overthrow
of any of the fundamental privileges held by the rich. The political
campaigns, except that later contest which decided the eventual fate of
chattel slavery, were, in actuality, sham battles. Never were the masses
so enthusiastic since the campaign of 1800 when Jefferson was elected,
as they were in 1832 when they sided with President Jackson in his fight
against the United States Bank. They considered this contest as one
between the people, on the one side, and, on the other, the monied
aristocracy of the country. The United States Bank was eff