Albany Regency

 

name given, after 1820, to the leaders of the first political machine, which was developed in New York state by Martin Van Buren. The name derived from the charge that Van Buren's principal supporters, residing in Albany, managed the machine for him while he served in the U.S. Senate. During the Jacksonian period the Regency controlled the Democratic party in New York. It was one of the first effective political machines, using the spoils system and rigid party discipline to maintain its control. Notable figures in the Regency were William L. Marcy, Silas Wright, Azariah C. Flagg, and the elder Benjamin F. Butler. After 1842 it split into factions (Barnburners and Hunkers) over issues of internal improvements and slavery, thereby losing its power.

Bibliography

See J. D. Hammond, The History of Political Parties in the State of New York (3 vol., 1852); R. Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (1959).

The Albany Regency was a group of politicians who controlled the New York state government between 1822 and 1838. The group was among the first American political machines. In the beginning they were the leading figures of the Bucktails faction of the Democratic-Republican Party, later the Jacksonian Democrats and finally became the Hunkers faction of the Democratic Party.

The Albany Regency was a loosely organized group of politicians with similar views and goals who resided in or near Albany, New York, the state capital. Its leading figure was Martin Van Buren. Upon Van Buren's election to the United States Senate in 1821, several of his friends and aides, including Benjamin F. Butler, Samuel A. Talcott, Silas Wright, William L. Marcy, and Azariah C. Flagg, took over the day-to-day management of the political organization that had been developed under Van Buren. Roger Skinner, state printer Edwin Croswell, Benjamin Knower, John Adams Dix, and Charles E. Dudley also became members of the Regency.

The Regency developed party discipline and originated the control of party conventions through officeholders and others subservient to it. Its leaders were pioneers of a dubious sort, creating the kind of spoils system that would dominate late-19th-century American politics, but in the beginning observed the technical qualifications of the candidates for office they nominated. Thurlow Weed who coined the name "Albany Regency", wrote he "had never known a body of men who possessed so much power and used it so well". ^[1]

The Regency ended when Marcy was defeated in the election for Governor of New York by the opposing Whig's candidate William H. Seward in 1838, which led to a radical change in state politics.

Notes

• ^ Thurlow Weed Barnes: Life of Thurlow Weed Vol. II, p. 36

Sources

• Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Age of Jackson. Boston : Little, Brown, 1953 [1945].
• [1] NY History
• [2] NY History

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