The organization’s first object was to gain a majority of the local offices in the Spring election of 1831 on the Jackson issue. The National Republican party, recently organized in New York City on the same general lines as Tammany Hall, and headed by Clarkson Crolius, a former Grand Sachem, set out to crush the Jackson movement. If a defeat could be administered to it at this time, the practical effect would be great; New York would possibly influence the entire Union. To accomplish this, the National Republicans tried to divert the issue to local lines and agitated for the election of the Mayor by the people. The Tammany men joined issue at once, and in February, 1831, the Common Council committee on application, composed chiefly of Tammany men, reported adversely on a motion to suggest to the Legislature a revision of the charter. The time was declared to be inexpedient for such an innovation, one Tammany Alderman, Thomas T. Woodruff, declaring, when the matter again came up, on April 8, that the people could not be trusted with the choice of that important official. The National Republicans replied by denouncing the Common Council for its lavish expenditures of public money, its distribution of favors in the shape of “jobs” and contracts among a few retainers whose sole merits lay in their close relationship to certain managing members of the board, and for its efforts to prevent the people from having the right to elect their own Mayor.[2] The opposition to Tammany was ineffectual. In the ensuing election, not less than 22 of the 28 members chosen for the new double-chamber Common Council were Tammany men, elected solely upon their pledge of allegiance to the national and State administrations. The first trial of the new charter, therefore, showed that the separation of municipal from general elections did not prevent the division of the voters on national party lines. The extent of this preliminary Jackson victory made a sensation throughout the Union and caused gloom among the United States Bank supporters.