ABSTRACT

On April 9, 1844, six days after Tweed celebrated his twenty-first birthday, he cast his first vote in protest against religious and racial bigotry. Neither his race nor his religion was attacked. But intolerance was not in his faith. It was not until a few years later that municipal elections were held in November. The Native American Party, just coming into power, had nominated Fletcher Harper, one of the founders of the noted publishing house, as their candidate for Mayor. The Democrats and the Whigs nominated, as usual, their candidates for Mayor, but the Native American orators paid more heed to the Roman Catholic Bishop, the Right Reverend John Hughes, than to the Whig and Democratic mayoralty nominees. In a biography of the bishop by the Reverend Henry A. Brann, D.D., this campaign is thus treated: