ABSTRACT
TWEED's career in Congress was colorless. It was not his field. At the beginning of his second and last year he decided that he would not be a candidate to succeed himself. Tweed, who had now determined on a political career, and whose advice was sought in all the party councils, after taking counsel with older heads, decided that it was a bad year for a candidate in a debatable district. A nomination for local office on either the Whig or Democratic ticket almost anywhere in the North was of questionable value in the year 1854. The ranks of both parties were once more being thinned by the Native American Party, which was assuming national proportions. The South alone was comparatively free from the racial and religious bigotry fostered by the Native Americans.
