Fernando Wood [ 9 ] Isaac Fowler meanwhile disdained any dealings with Schell despite an earlier understanding to distribute the patronage equitably among the city's Democrats. But President Buchanan saw no way to end the factionalism and retained Schell at the Custom House.5 The conflict over patronage was reflected in a struggle to control Tammany Hall's General Committee. In December of 1856, delegates pledged to Wood had gained a majority of the seats in the General Committee, but an accusation of fraud marred the victory. John Y. Savage, a Fifth Ward politician whose delegates had been defeated, charged that dishonest methods accounted for the result. Since Tammany's elections had never been renowned for honesty, the complaint ordinarily would have been scorned. But the Tammany Society sachems, partisans of the New York Hotel group, saw an opportunity to strike at the Mayor. They invalidated the election because of "gross frauds" and closed Tammany Hall until further notice. In their defense the sachems invoked a standard argument: "Tammany Hall belongs to the Tammany Society, and to it alone; and ... the ancient principles of law, which gives [sic] the owner the control of his own house, have not yet lost their validity!'8 Wood's hope of reversing this edict lay in the annual election of the council of sachems. This contest ordinarily stirred little interest, a nomination to the council being tantamount to election. In 1857, however, two sets of candidates—the Isaac Fowler slate, representing the outgoing sachems, and the Fernando Wood slate—competed for the thirteen seats. The Fowler men published a broadside that promised "reform and purification of the party!' but the tactics they employed contradicted their words. Entering the Wigwam before the scheduled time for the election, the anti-Wood sachems enrolled sixty new members. The initiates furnished just enough votes to elect Fowler's candi- 6 Sickles to Cobb, July 23, 1857, Cobb MSS, University of Georgia Library; George Sanders to James Buchanan, July 26, 1857, Buchanan Papers, HSP; Phillip S. Klein, President James Buchanan (University Park, Pa.: 1962), 280. 6The Leader, February 28, 1857, dismissed Savage's allegations: "The fight is simply ... to control the organization so as to exert its influence at Washington for the distribution of the spoils!' See also the Herald, February 6, 22, 1857; New York Daily Tribune, February 23,1857; Statement of the Majority of the Grand Council of the Tammany Society, or Columbian Order, in Reply to a Protest of the Minority; Also the Addresses and Resolutions of the Grand Council, Adopted February 14, 1857, Relative to the Political Use of Tammany Hall (New York: 1857), 5-8.