WIDE AWAKE! the Woke Young Men of the Republican Party "We ought to have some good rousing meetings in this county. We should be wide awake in every town, so that when the leaves fall in November, the worn out Democracy (Democratic Party) may fall to and “sleep, the sleep that knows no ending.” at Danbury & Litchford CT Aug. 30,1860 Night time march of national gathering of Wide Awakes in NYC   July 1860 depicted in Harper's Weekly         Wide Awake clubs formed spontaneously all over the North to support Lincoln. Composed mainly of young men, they marched at midnight carrying oil lamps to make sure people were "wide awake" about what was going on in the country and what was at stake in the coming 1860 election.  Wide Awakes wore oil skin cloaks  for safety since there was so much oil splashing about from their lamps as well as for the effect of so many lights reflecting off the slick capes.          Wide Awake...

Gotham's First Crime Boss Defends  Himself     " The Captain," as Isaiah Rynders (1804-1885) was known, was a violent man and a violent racist.  He earned the captain's title for briefly captaining a sloop (one sail) packet boat along the Hudson River before becoming a gambler and knife fighter. Some time in the late 1830s he appeared in New York City and worked his way up in politics as the enforcing arm of the Tammy Hall Democrats.        Rynders owned a string of saloons in the city and gathered around him men who were young, violent, and looking for money.  He was head of the crime gang Dead Rabbits, a  thoroughly  criminal enterprise, and president of The Empire Club," which generally did the  rough  enforcement  for Tammy Hall.      "The Captain"  Rynders was a leader in what was called "The Astor Opera House Riot in May,1849.  (Worthy of its own future blog entry.)  In the 185...

  The Code Duello             Southern congressmen used the threat of dueling to bully Northern members into supporting—or, at least not opposing—pro slavery bills. It was one of several ways a wealthy minority could control the country’s governance against the clear sentiment of the majority. By the 1850s  a Southern congressman  refusing a duel   meant certain defeat at the next election. By contrast, a Northern member accepting a duel challenge could count of being defeated at the next election as the North’s repulsion against both slavery and duels grew. 25 Congressional Challenges New York Herald August 31, 1856             There have been 25 congressional challenges to fight duels since the organization of the First Congress, and the greater number of these originated in quarrels which, though political, had no reference to matters which occ...

        The Lincoln’s knew how to throw a party.  Abraham Lincoln’s second Inaugural Ball took place March 4, 1865, the evening after he had been sworn into office for a second term. (It was not until the 1930s that the inauguration of presidents was changed to January.) Counting the ticket sales and the formal invitations four thousand people attended the ball.  The event was a spectacular success and a spectacular mess.      The government patent office was the only building large enough for the event.  Now, you may wonder why the Patent Office had such a huge building.  Well, it’s because they had to store and display the thousands of models required of each patent filed. Don’t ask me what the Patent Office did with the models to make room for the ball.      Newspapers in the big cities, Washington, New York, and Philadelphia wrote similar reports of the event. I have chosen to reproduce the account from the Washin...