Tammany Society

a political organization in New York City. The society was organized in 1789 about a fortnight after Washington's first inauguration. It has been a political factor ever since. Very possibly it may have been intended as a non-partisan society. The original plan was expressed in the clause: "That the constitution of this society should consist of two parts, the external or public, and the internal or private; the latter shall ever be subordinate to the former." It was intended that a committee should carry out the wishes of the society, but, in practice, the society has carried out the wishes of an internal committee.

The origin of the name is as follows: Tammany was a wise old Delaware chieftain during the Revolutionary War. A sort of Tammany celebration sprang up. The object was simple festivity. A wigwam was erected, a pole was crowned with a liberty cap, a tomahawk, wampum, and other Indian articles were planted in the earth. A comrade, dressed up to represent the great Tammany, made his fellow soldiers a talk full of exhortation in favor of liberty and military courage; after which the soldiers danced around the post with feathers in their caps and bucks' tails hanging down behind. The celebration was not confined to the army. Throughout the central colonies, it took on a form somewhat like our Fourth of July picnics.

The organization of Tammany Society is credited to Aaron Burr, who desired to build up a machine against Alexander Hamilton. The society was to be governed by a grand sachem and thirteen sachems, designed to typify the president and the thirteen original colonies. William Mooney, an upholsterer, an Irish-American, was the first grand sachem. Tammany has a reputation of governing New York corruptly by a double method of levying on the public purse and by pleasing the lower classes of society. Tammany Hall was built in 1868. See Tweed

Tam o' Shanter, a poem by Robert Burns. It is written in rhymed couplets, and recounts the adventures of

The following account of the way in which the poem came to be written is taken from James A. Manson's edition of Burns' poems:

Burns' masterpiece was first published in Grose's Antiquities of Scotland, which appeared in April, 1791. Captain Grose was an antiquary of some note, and while on a tour through Scotland for the purposes of his book, Burns met him at Captain Riddel's. The poet advised him to make a drawing of Alloway Kirk, adding that it had been the scene of many witch stories and apparitions. Grose consented provided that Burns would write a witch story to be printed along with it. Tam o' Shanter was the result. It is said that a Carrick farmer, named Douglas Graham, and his shrewish wife, Helen MacTaggart, who occupied a small farm at Shanter, near Kirkoswald, when Burns lived there, were the prototypes of Tam and his "ain wife Kate."