The Equal Rights party could not be bought out or snuffed out. To deprive it of its best leaders Tammany Hall resorted to petty persecution. Jacques and Slamm had headed a petition to the Legislature protesting against the appointment of a certain suspicious bank investigating committee. The Wigwam men in the Legislature immediately secured the passage of a resolution for the appointment of a committee to investigate this petition, and this committee instantly haled Jacques and Slamm to appear at Albany and give testimony.[32] The purpose was plain. The Tammany men sought to have the Equal Rights leaders at Albany, which was not as accessible from the city as now, and there keep them under various pretexts while the Spring campaign for Mayor was going on. Jacques and Slamm did not appear and were adjudged guilty of contempt. When they were most needed in New York City they were arrested and arraigned before the Legislature. William Leggett also was threatened, but escaped arrest. The Equal Rights party, however, was soon to demonstrate its capacity to do harm to Tammany. The organization nominated John J. Morgan for Mayor; the Whigs named Aaron Clark, and the Equal Rights party opposed them with Jacques. The 3,911 votes Jacques received were enough to defeat Morgan, with his 12,974 votes, against Clark’s 16,140. Worst blow of all, Tammany Hall lost the Common Council. When the new body came in it removed all of the Wigwam’s office-holders that it could. The spoils in the form of annual salaries paid by the city, amounting to $468,000; the perquisites and contracts--such as that for the Croton Aqueduct, in favor of which the people had voted some years before--and other improvements, all went to the Whigs. The Tammany men, regarding the Equal Rights men responsible for this loss of power, were now disposed to treat with them and willing enough to throw over the banker-corporation element. FOOTNOTES [1] The minutes of the Common Council covering these years show continuous records of petitions from imprisoned debtors, praying for fuel and the patching up of windows in the dead of Winter. Charitable societies were in existence to supply the jailed debtors with food. [2] This singular provision, by which non-residents were liable to imprisonment for debt, while the natives of the city were exempted, was erased in 1840. [3] _Journal of the Senate and Assembly_, 1805, pp. 351 and 399. [4] _Ibid._, 1812, p. 134. [5] _Journal of the Senate and Assembly_, 1812, pp. 259-60. [6] Stock given at par value meant an almost immediate rise in value to the legislator. Most stocks went upward from 10 to 15 per cent. on the passage of the charter, and in the case of the more profitable and exploitative corporations, far higher advances were scored in a short time. [7] _Journal of the Senate_, 1824, pp. 498-532.