• Source: 1859 New York City mayoral election

    • An election for Mayor of New York City was held on December 6, 1859.
    Incumbent mayor Daniel F. Tiemann was not a candidate for re-election. Former mayor Fernando Wood, running on a "Mozart Hall" Democratic ticket in opposition to his former Tammany Hall allies, won a three-way race to succeed him, defeating William F. Havemeyer and Republican George Opdyke.


    Background


    Following his defeat in the 1857 election, which saw him defeated by an alliance of Republicans, Know-Nothings, and former Tammany Hall supporters, Fernando Wood was declared politically dead.
    In 1857, Wood purchased the New York Daily News for $5,600 and later installed his brother, Benjamin, as editor. He used the paper as his personal bulletin, boosting his own populist platform and haranguing opponents and enemies.


    Democratic nominations




    = Background

    =
    In the April 1857 Tammany elections, Wood campaigned for control of the organization but lost by a margin of two to one; his supporters blamed the enrollment of secret "Black Republicans" and Wood left Tammany Hall. He founded a "Democratic Society of Regulators" with membership open to any New York City Democrat. Wood's organization came to be called the "Mozart Hall Democrats", after the hotel where they met at the corner of Bond Street and Broadway. The society was composed largely of immigrants, workers, and the poor.
    Wood spent much of 1858 and 1859 trying to play various presidential candidates off of each other to elevate his friend Henry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia, as a compromise candidate. At the 1858 state convention, Wood's manipulation was revealed, and Daniel Sickles succeeded in having Mozart delegates barred. In return, Wood unsuccessfully opposed Sickles's re-election to Congress. The split between Tammany and Mozart allowed Republicans to pick up several offices in the city in the 1858 election. In December 1858, President Buchanan responded by granting all patronage at the Port of New York to Tammany, further isolating Wood. Tammany offered him re-admittance, but he declined.


    = Results

    =
    At the 1859 city convention, Wood's Mozart delegates enlisted armed force to seize the convention, beginning proceedings without the Tammany delegates (a traditional Tammany strategy) and using violence to prevent any challenge to their proceedings. Wood's tactics at the 1859 convention drew backlash and forever alienated him from respectable politics.
    As a result, two Democratic tickets were nominated in the city, with Wood heading the Mozart Hall slate while the Fifth Avenue Democrats, a group of wealthy, conservative men including August Belmont and Samuel J. Tilden, forced the nomination of William Frederick Havemeyer on a Tammany ticket.


    General election




    = Candidates

    =
    William Frederick Havemayer, former mayor (Tammany Hall)
    George Opdyke, Assemblyman and banker (Republican)
    Fernando Wood, former mayor (Mozart Hall)


    = Campaign

    =
    Primarily through the Daily News, Wood attacked the Tammany–Fifth Avenue fusion as "kid-glove, scented, silk stocking, poodle-headed, degenerate aristocracy" who were out of touch with real Democrats. Wood also delivered a series of pro-slavery and pro-Southern speeches, decrying John Brown and abolitionism as a threat to the Union. Privately, he advised Governor Wise not to execute Brown in fears of stirring sympathy for abolition.
    Both Democrats and Republicans attacked Wood for his past corruption and his "imperial" ambition.


    = Results

    =
    In an election with 88.1% turnout, Wood pulled off a narrow three way victory. He received 38.3% of the vote against 34.6% for Havemeyer and 27.4% for Opdyke.


    References




    = Bibliography

    =
    Allen, Oliver E. (1993). The Tiger: The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. p. 52-53,63,67-76. ISBN 0-201-62463-X.
    MacLeod, Donald (1859). Biography of Hon. Fernando Wood, Mayor of the City of New York. New York: O.F. Parsons.
    Mushkat, Jerome (1990). Fernando Wood: A Political Biography. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 087338413X.

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