INTRODUCTORY1 I HE Manhattan Club, at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, is the home of the swallowtail Democracy. To the Democratic Party it is what the Union League Club is to the Republican Party. The members wear fine linen, have many changes of raiment, are partial to patent-leathers and silk-woven goloshes. There are brains and culture in the Club. The Club building is the marble house erected by the late Alexander T. Stewart. It cost $1,000,000. It is marble throughout. It is just as solidly marble inside as outside. The Club has a twenty-one years' lease on the building$35,000 a year for the first five years, $37,500 a year for the next five years, and $40,000 a year for the remaining eleven years. The house is still owned by the Stewart estate. In 1864, when the idea of such a club was first promulgated, the present splendor of the Club would have been a fatuous dream. The Democracy was at its lowest point in the history of the nation. It was not fashionable to be a Democrat. The glory of Lincoln and the Republican Party was shining like a midday sun. A Democrat was nothing 1 Edward G. Riggs in the New York "Sun," April 23, 1892. 1 but a copperhead. He was considered little less than a traitor. Innumerable instances are on record where he was shunned as a most unwholesome person. The bitterness was intense. The memories of those days are still fresh in the minds of some of the old members of the Club, including Douglas Taylor, who, more than any other man, must be considered the original founder of the Club; Manton Marble, John T. Agnew, George Ticknor Curtis, Andrew H. Green, Henry Hilton, and Edward Cooper. It may be said truthfully that but for the Union League Club, the Manhattan Club would perhaps never have been organized. The Union League Club was fairly on its way to prosperity when the Democratic Party nominated McClellan and Pendleton to oppose Lincoln and Johnson. The Union League Club was Republican in every fibre. The applications of Democrats to join it were distastefully received. It is true that in a spasm of generosity it accepted James T. Brady, Charles P. Daly, and William Butler Duncan. Judge Daly, however, quickly retired from the Union League. The atmosphere was not pleasant to him. He and Mr. Brady and Mr. Duncan were as loyal as any three men on earth. The Union Leaguers, though, were shy of such company. The three leading clubs of New York at the time-the Union, the Union League, and the Century-had for presidents pronounced Republicans like William M. Evarts, Hamilton Fish, and William H. Seward. The famous Century Club was opposed even to Gulian C. Verplanck. Radical notions abounded. Sturdy old Democrats resented the harsh sentiments of the Republicans. An abortive attempt to organize a Democratic club similar to the Union League was made in 1864, just prior to the McClellan-Pendleton campaign. General McClellan and his associate on the ticket were greatly interested in the project. Their headquarters were at the New York Hotel. The McClellan Executive Committee occasionally met at Delmonico's, and it was there, in the |