THE NEW YORK TAILORS' STRIKE OF I836

(a) NOTICE TO TAILORS OF THE UNITED STATES
Evening Post, Feb. 8, 1836

To JOURNEYMEN TATLORS–This is to inform Journeymen Tailors throughout the United States, that the regular men in the City of New York are on the strike against the employers, who have attempted to reduce their wages, more than a dollar on a Coat. The purport of this advertisement is to counteract the effects of the one published by the Merchant Tailors, who wish to bring men from distant places to render them subservient to their purposes. . . .

(b) RESOLUTIONS OF THE MASTER TAILORS
Morning Courier and New York Enquirer, March 9, 1836

The Society of Master Tailors in the city of New York having understood that some misapprehension exists in relation to their resolutions of the 9th inst., have deemed it necessary to set forth the grounds upon which said resolutions were adopted, and have accordingly unanimously passed the following preamble to said resolutions:

Whereas within the last two years a Society has been established in the city of New York, consisting of Journeymen Tailors, called the Union Trade Society of Journeymen Tailors, for the avowed purpose of regulating the trade for the city of New York: and

Whereas certain of the regulations of said Society are subversive of the rights of individuals, detrimental to the public good, injurious to business, restrictive of our freedom of action, and unjust, and oppressive towards industrious journeymen, who are not members of the said society: therefore,

RESOLVED, that the members of this Society will not receive into their employ any man who is a member of the "Union Trades Society of Journeymen Tailors in the city of New York" and furthermore,

RESOLVED, that we will protect all men that are now, or may be hereafter in our employ. . . .

(c) THE TRIAL FOR CONSPIRACY

(1) Appeal for Aid.
National Laborer, April 23, I836

To the PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS of the Journeymen Tailors' Society of the City of Philadelphia.

Gentlemen: The circumstances under which we labor, render it imperatively necessary to make an appeal to our fellow tradesmen in particular, and mechanics in general, and make known to them the peculiar situation in which we are placed.

We have been on a stand out against a reduction of wages since the 23d of January last; the attempt by our would-be "Masters" to reduce our wages, commenced in the middle of an inclement and unusually tedious winter, when provisions, fuel, and every domestic requisite, rose to an unprecedented price hitherto unknown in the city of New York, and rents not only already high, but raising the coming year to an average of 20 per cent!

Such was the period chosen by our tyrant employers to attempt to crush us. Not satisfied with thinking to starve us into a compliance, they have brought to the aid of their unhallowed purpose, the petty minions of the law. Those minions, clothed with authority, have insulted and knocked down some of our members in the public streets, and dragged them like common felons to the police office.

To be brief--five and twenty of our members are arraigned and are to be tried on Friday next, for combination, conspiracy, and God knows what else!!

During our present struggle, our finances have been munificently enriched by the liberal donations of the various trades of this city, as likewise by you, which we gratefully acknowledge. But, owing to the inclement season, the demand on our treasurer by our members, the price of innumerable advertisements and circulars to repel the foul misrepresentations of our tyrant "Masters," the fees of lawyers, &c. have drained our treasury so low as needs this present appeal. We wish it to be understood, that almost every trade in this city are on the strike for an advance of wages (while we are only resisting a reduction) and although it is their wish to help us through our present difficulty, yet such is the demand on their own funds, that it cannot be reasonably expected they can assist farther than they have done, as yet. Fellow tradesmen, we are compelled again to appeal to you, and solicit contributions from you to enable us to meet our tyrant "masters" boldly at the coming trial, and, aware that you feel that our cause is your cause, we sanguinely submit it to your well known generous consideration.

In order that we might be the more substantially assisted, the committee have been directed by the society to respectfully request you to submit our cause to the different Mechanics' Societies convenient to you, and to send your remittances as soon as possible.

Signed in behalf of the Society, M. FITZPATRICK, C. MICAIN, J. H. FARGIE, Corresponding Committee.

P.S. The Journeymen Tailors bill of indictment against the employers for combination, conspiracy, &c., was presented to the Grand Jury on Friday 8th inst., and, as was expected, ignored; consequently, rendering the Savage decision null and void!

(2) The "Coffin Handbill," from the Morning Courier and New York Enquirer, June 8, I836; quoted from the Commercial Advertiser, June 7, I836.

JOURNEYMEN TAILORS. A placard was seen in various parts of the city on Sunday, which contained within the representation of a coffin, the following words:

"The Rich against the Poor! Judge Edwards, the tool of the Aristocracy, against the People! Mechanics and workingmen! a deadly blow has been struck at your Liberty! The prize for which your fathers fought has been robbed from you! The Freemen of the North are now on a level with the slaves of the South! with no other privileges than laboring that drones may fatten on your life-blood! Twenty of your brethren have been found guilty for presuming to resist a reduction of their wagesl and Judge Edwards has charged an American jury, and agreeably to that charge, they have established the precedent, that workingmen have no right to regulate the price of labor! or, in other words, the Rich are the only judges of the wants of the Poor Manl On Monday, June 6, 1836, these Freemen are to receive their sentence, to gratify the hellish appetites of the Aristocracy! On Monday, the Liberty of the Workingmen will be interred! Judge Edwards is to chant the Requiem! Gol Gol Gol every Freeman, every Workingman, and hear the hollow and the melancholy sound of the earth on the Coffin of Equality! Let the Court-room, the City-hall --yea, the whole Park, be filled with Mourners! But, remember, offer no violence to Judge Edwards! Bend meekly, and receive the chains wherewith you are to be bound! Keep the peace! Above all things keep the peace! . . ."

(3) Great Meeting in the Park.
National Laborer, June 18, 1836,; quoted from the New York Union.

A VOICE FROM THE PEOPLE! Great Meeting in the Park!! New York.

Agreeably to public notice, the Mechanics and Working Men assembled in immense numbers in the Park, fronting the City Hall, on Monday afternoon, for the purpose of expressing their opinions of the high-handed measures taken by Judge Edwards to destroy the Rights of the producing classes.

…

The following preamble and resolutions were then read by Mr. John H. Bowie, prefaced by some pertinent and eloquent remarks. The meeting was also eloquently addressed by Alexander Ming, Jr., and William Murphy, at considerable length, which was received with loud and reiterated cheerings from the vast assemblage.

The resolutions were then adopted by acclamation, as follows:

Whereas the Mechanics and Workingmen of this city, cannot view the late attacks made upon their rights, by men in whose hands has been entrusted the administration of the laws, but with feelings of deep and heartfelt indignation; being fully of opinion that it is a concerted plan of the aristocracy to take from them that Liberty which was bequeathed to them, as a sacred inheritance by their revolutionary sires-- an inheritance purchased by their blood, and consumated by their patriotism and wisdom; and, whereas, the recent conduct of Ogden Edwards, presiding judge at the trial of the Journeymen Tailors for Conspiracy (?) in the court of Oyer and Terminer, was manifestly partial and unjust, inasmuch as he would admit of no evidence on the part of the Workingmen to prove that the employing tailors, not them, were culpable--that they, if any, were the conspirators--that they, in a season noticed for its inclemency, conspired to reduce the wages of their workmen--and that such conspiracy was the cause of the stand out of the journeymen: thus, manifesting his well-known partiality for the Rich, and his notorious injustice to the Poor; and whereas, the charge as delivered to the jury, and the sentence as pronounced by him, to the convicted laborers, embodied distinctions and principles utterly at variance with the spirit and genius of our Republican government, assertions not justified by the evidence, and constructions of the laws distorted and tortured into such hideous form that they threaten tyranny to the people, and destruction to the State; thus grasping at authority that was never intended to be given him--making laws instead of declaring them-- and claiming to unite in his imbecile personage, not only judicial but legislative power! and whereas, when such innovations upon the Rights of the People are openly proclaimed from the bench-adopted by the aristocracy--swallowed by an "impartial jury!"--and hung o'er our heads as a "grim skeleton" to frighten us into a still deeper vortex of degradation, that we may become but mere tools to build up princely fortunes for men who grasp at all and produce nothing--it becomes us at such a time to speak in a voice that will admit of no doubt, no misgivings as to the course we are determined to pursue. We have before us an example worthy of imitation, that holy combination of that immortal band of Mechanics, who despite the injury inflicted upon "trade and commerce," "conspired, confederated, and agreed," and by overt acts did throw into Boston harbor the Tea that had branded upon it "Taxation without Representation." This now is the substance of our grievances. We are taxed but not represented, our legislators, our judges, are men, whose situation in life, will not admit of sympathizing with the "back bone of the body politic." Legislative combinations are yearly created that draw from the poor their very life blood; and when the producers of all the necessaries and luxuries of life, are by combinations of Bankers, of Merchants, and dealers in all exchangeable commodities who operate upon the currency, and the prices of articles requisite for our very subsistence--compelled by actual want to act in defence, the hideous yells of wolves, "learned in legal lore," are immediately heard; and the strong arm of tyranny and injustice is interposed to crush the toil worn laborer. And as our laws, by an insidious aristocracy, are so mystified that men of common understandings, cannot unravel them--construction is forced upon construction--mystification is heaped upon mystification, and precedent furnished upon precedent, to show that what the people thought was liberty, bore not a semblance to its name. Therefore, in the name of liberty and equality, be it

RESOLVED, that to all acts of tyranny and injustice, resistance is just, and therefore necessary; and the vain declarations of the omnipotence of the decisions of Savage and Edwards, and the imperious doctrines of the necessity of absolute submission, is indeed impotent to men who feel that such acts are equally intolerable, whether they be exercised by domestic traitors or foreign foes!

RESOLVED, that the construction given to the law, in the case of the Journeymen Tailors, is not only ridiculous and weak in practice, but unjust in principle, and subversive of the rights and liberties of American citizens; and he who would so far forget his oath to administer the laws faithfully, as did Judge (?) Edwards in his charge to the jury, is no longer entitled to the confidence of the people, and as such should no longer be allowed to disgrace that bench, from which nought should emanate but common sense, honesty, and equal and impartial justice, as well to the murderer as to the honest citizen.

RESOLVED, that from the close alliance which we have witnessed between the leaders of the two great political parties of this State, to crush the laboring men, we are led to believe that our rights can at all times be best advanced and defended by such men as have shown by their acts that they have some sympathy for the rights and happiness of their more humble and oppressed fellow citizens. Therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that viewing as we do our present grievances flowing from a partial administration of the laws engendered by unequal legislation, it becomes us to arrest the evils proceeding therefrom, by the constitutional and safe antidote of the ballot box. Therefore,

RESOLVED, that this meeting recommend to our fellow mechanics and working men throughout the State, that a Convention be held at Utica, on the 15th day of September next, to take into consideration the propriety of forming a separate and distinct party, around which the laboring classes and their friends, can rally with confidence….