entered the Whig party and
the mayoralty campaign with high hopes of success. He led the
merchants and business men, while his opponent, Cornelius V.R.
Lawrence, also a popular member of Tammany, rallied the mechanics and
labouring classes. The spirited contest, characterised by rifled
ballot-boxes and broken heads, revealed at once its national
importance. If the new party could show a change in public sentiment
in the foremost city in the Union, it would be helpful in reversing
Jackson's financial policy. So the great issue became a cry of "panic"
and a threat of "hard times." Like the strokes of a fire bell at
night, it alarmed the people, whose confidence began to waver and
finally to give way.

The evident purpose of the United States Bank was to create, if
possible, the fear of a panic. By suddenly curtailing its loans,
ostensibly because of the removal of the deposits, it brought such
pressure upon the state banks that a suspension of specie payment
seemed inevitable. To relieve this situation, Governor Marcy and the
Legislature, acting with great promptness, pledged the State's credit
to the banks, should the exigency require such aid, to the amount of
six million dollars. This was called "Marcy's mortgage." The Whigs
stigmatised it as a pledge of the people's property for the benefit of
money corporations, denouncing the project as little better than a
vulgar swindle in the interest of the Democratic party. Whether
Marcy's scheme really averted the threatened calamity, or whether the
United States Bank had already carried its contraction as far as it
intended, it is certain that the fear of a panic served its purpose in
the campaign. The Whigs became enthusiastic, and, as the United States
Bank now began relieving the commercial embarrassment by extending its
loans and giving its friends in New York special advantages, the party
felt certain of victory. When the polls closed the result did not
fully realise Whig anticipations; yet it disclosed a Democratic
majority, cut down from five thousand to two hundred, with a loss of
the Council. Verplanck had, indeed, been beaten by one hundred and
eighty-one votes; but the Common Council, carrying with it the
patronage of the city, amounting to more than one million dollars a
year, had been easily won. The Democrats had the shadow, it was said,
and the Whigs the substance.

This election, and other successes in many towns throughout the State,
greatly encouraged th