Albany Regency

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

• 1. ^ 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