Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [667]
The vehicle for achieving an upstate-downstate alliance was a new political formation, the Republican Party. A northern phenomenon, it came together in New York State in September 1855 when a mix of Seward Whigs, Free Soil Democrats, and disaffected Know-Nothings joined hands on a variety of national issues, chiefly resistance to the western expansion of southern slavery. In the fall of 1856 state voters elected a Republican governor, John Alsop King (son of Rufus King and brother of banker James Gore King), and a Republican majority in the Assembly. In short order, Republicans in Albany set out to wrest New York City from the Democrats. Some were driven by dreams of harvesting its rich fields of patronage and building up their new organization. Others were reformers determined to implement their program from the State level. All were convinced that as masters of the state they had the legal authority to become masters of the city.
A series of recent decisions by the New York Court of Appeals had put paid to Manhattan’s lingering claims to special status as a municipal corporation, with independent powers derived from colonial-era charters. City property, the judges ruled, was held entirely in trust for the public. The corporation as such had no inherent authority over even the city’s streets, and the state legislature could interfere at will in its affairs. The government of New York City—like that of even the smallest upstate village—existed only to the extent the state granted it governmental authority.
In ruling thus, the judges completed a legal revolution, begun back in the 1780s, that distinguished between public and private corporations. The two had long been considered kin in both having rights—rooted in charters—which in varying degree insulated them from central authorities. Now only private corporations (as fictive persons) were deemed to have rights against the state and immunities from legislative intervention. Municipal “corporations,” their name to the contrary notwithstanding, were declared mere agencies of the state, with no legal autonomy whatever. In 1857 the legislature underscored its awareness of the new legal situation by declaring itself free to intervene at will in the affairs of the municipality—and promptly proceeding to do so.
The legislature changed the city charter yet again—although this time, unlike earlier revisions, it was not submitted to the people of New York for their approval. Again, the Common Council was stripped of power, this time over finances, with authority to administer the city’s real estate, audit its accounts, oversee its disbursements, and collect its taxes being transferred to the comptroller. Again, ostensibly, the mayoralty was strengthened, this time by being given the power to appoint and remove most heads of departments, with consent of the aldermen. But in fact the legislature took dead aim at the office and its current occupant. Mayor Wood was required to stand for reelection in December 1857—his term slashed in half while the comptroller, a Republican, was allowed to finish out his second year. Then the legislature erected a series of state agencies to administer city affairs that were utterly free from control by municipal representatives (and the immigrant masses to whom they owed allegiance). When added to the already existing state boards that oversaw the almshouse, the asylums, and the Croton Aqueduct, these new institutions gave Albany control over three-fourths of New York City’s budget.
The new agencies spanned a wide spectrum of public affairs. The New York