When the body of the Tammany men learned of the arrangement they were aroused. The Sachems drew off, and the Tammany Society continued to revile Clinton and to be reviled in return. It was just before this that the Tammany Hall political organization, as apparently distinct from the Tammany Society, was created. In 1805 the society made application for, and obtained from the Legislature, the charter, which still remains in force, incorporating it as a benevolent and charitable body “for the purpose of affording relief to the indigent and distressed members of said association, their widows and orphans and others who may be proper objects of their charity.” The wording of the charter deluded only the simple. Everybody knew that the society was the center around which the Republican politics of the city revolved. It had its public and its secret aspects. “This society,” says _Longworth’s American Almanac, New York Register and City Directory_ for 1807-1808, in a description of Tammany, “has a constitution in two parts--public and private--the public relates to all external or public matters; and the private, to the arcana and all transactions which do not meet the public eye, and on which its code of laws are founded.” The Sachems knew that to continue appearing as a political club would be most impolitic. Year after year since 1798 the criticisms directed at the self-appointed task of providing candidates for the popular suffrage grew louder. In 1806 these murmurings extended to Tammany’s own voters. Honest Republicans began to voice their suspicions of caucuses which never met and public meetings called by nobody knew whom. The Sachems, though perfectly satisfied with the established forms which gave them such direct authority, wisely recognized the need of a change. It was agreed that the Republicans should assemble in each ward to choose a ward committee of three and that these ward committees should constitute a general committee, which should have the power of convening all public meetings of the party and of making preparatory arrangements for approaching elections. This was the origin of the Tammany Hall General Committee, which, consisting then of thirty members, has been expanded in present times to over five thousand members. At about the same time each of the ten wards began sending seven delegates to Martling’s, the seventy forming a nominating committee, which alone had the right to nominate candidates. The seventy met in open convention. At times each member would have a candidate for the Assembly, to which the city then sent eleven members. These improvements on the old method gave, naturally, an air of real democracy to the proceedings of the Tammany faction in the city and had the effect of softening public criticism. Yet behind the scenes the former leaders contrived to bring things about pretty much as they planned.