Fernando Wood [ 11 ] not warrant more than a token representation. As matters now stood, the Savage votes added to those of the sachems' delegates would produce an anti-Wood majority on the General Committee.8 Not surprisingly, the transformation from a majority to a minority position on the General Committee did not appeal to the pro-Wood element. Likening the sachems to oriental despots, they saw the issue as: "Shall the sachems rule the people, or shall the people rule themselves? Shall the sachems of this close corporation, to procure offices and spoils for themselves and friends, be permitted... to exercise this omnipotent, dictatorial, supervisory power over the great democratic party?"9 These words were not intended to be final, for Wood consented to the sachems' terms on one condition—that he be allowed to furnish the voting lists for all future primary elections. The possibilities that such an arrangement offered to an unscrupulous politician were obvious to the cynical veterans at Tammany Hall. With the aid of padded lists, Wood could regain control of the General Committee and the party conventions. The sachems and the Savage element therefore rejected the offer.10 The friction at Tammany Hall and the absence of political meetings there perturbed the "Albany Regency" (the upstate Democratic organization) and President Buchanan. Their moods could not have been lightened by an article in The Irish American: "The Democratic party in this city presents a singular picture of division and strife.... The leaders have split up into antagonistic factions, each claiming supremacy . . . each working . . . for the annihilation of the others!' Hoping to reconcile the dissidents, ex-Governor Horatio Seymour and Dean Richmond, the Democratic leader in Buffalo and a future chairman of the Albany Regency, journeyed to New York, but their mission failed. President Buchanan believed that the administration's powers might be used to terminate the quarrel. Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb, Schell's superior, enjoined the Collector from making any changes in personnel, particularly among Sickles' adherentsShen Schell was ordered to Washington, where Buchanan and Cobb pre- 8 Leader, April 11,1857; Times, June 10, July 27, September 8,1857. 9 The [New York] Evening Post, May 7, 1857. 10 Times, July 21, 27, September 8, 1857; Herald, July 25, 1857; Tribune, July 30, 1857.