New York

"Old Kinderhook" Martin Van Buren was elected president in 1836, succeeding his fellow democrat Andrew Jackson. When economic panic resulting from the Jacksonian monetary policies hit in 1837, New York really became a hotbed of radicals. The price of flour quickly doubled, and in the "Great Flour Riot" the labor activist Loco-Focos attacked flour dealer Eli Hart’s store house on Dey Street and looted hundreds of barrels of flour.

During the 1840 campaign, the Loco-Focos rioted again, this time attacking the Whig headquarters. William M. Evarts, having inherited a profound distrust of Jackson and his followers from his father, started writing in support of the Whigs. Daniel Webster, to whom he had been introduced at Yale, was his hero. Following Webster’s lead, Evarts supported William Henry Harrison for President; Harrison copied Jackson's own successful strategy and campaigned as a war hero, Old Tippecanoe, with a log cabin heritage, while presenting Van Buren (he called him "Van Ruin") as a wealthy snob.

Harrison won an electoral landslide, and Evarts celebrated the Whig victory. Unfortunately, Harrison’s inaugural address lasted over two hours on a wet, cold March day. The new President, wearing neither a top-coat nor a hat, then rode through the streets of Washington in the parade; he caught a bad cold and died thirty-one days later. John Tyler became the first Vice-President to succeed to the Presidency, and immediately discarded the Whig agenda.

Evarts was unsparing in his criticism of Tyler. Evarts’ essay, “Mr. Tyler and the Whig Party”, in The New World, called him an “accidental president” with a “wrong-headed conscious” who was unfit for power. The article, with praise from Daniel Webster, started Evarts political career, just as his legal career was also starting to blossom.






Evarts was first noted by the public when he helped defend the Bernie Madoff of his day. Colonel Monroe Edwards had a real talent for forgery. He made enough from his illicit activities and the illegal slave trade in Texas to buy a plantation and become a leading citizen of his county, but one forgery too many landed him in jail.

When Edwards got out, he jumped bail and, to avenge his co-conspirators, lit out for London to inform the British about illegal activities in the Southwest. With forged letters of introduction he met statesmen such as Lord Palmerston and even borrowed money from the Earl of Spenser. However, his reputation soon caught up with him; he was forced to flee to Paris, and then back to Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia he assumed a new identity as a Louisiana planter and managed to borrow $25,000 from Brown Brothers, secured by bogus notes documenting cotton held by New Orleans brokers. When Brown Brothers discovered the forgery, Edwards tried fingering an old associate, but was found out and thrown in the Tombs.

Robert Emmett, son of the famous Irish lawyer, Senator John Crittenden and Representative Thomas Marshall, both of Kentucky, and young Evarts were retained as defense counsel. Colonel Edwards managed to retain this impressive team because he sent Emmett a letter from his prison cell documenting the substantial sums he still held in a New Orleans bank.

When Edwards was brought from the Tombs to the courtroom, he was smiling and dignified, fresh from the barber and the tailor. The prosecution proceeded to produce an unbroken chain of evidence, as well as an expert witness, Richard Vaux, who demonstrated that a stamp found in Edwards’ trunk exactly matched the forged documents, but not the genuine stamp of the New Orleans post office. On cross-examination, Emmett produced the New Orleans bank letter from Edwards which guaranteed his legal fees, and was extremely dismayed when Vaux demonstrated that it too was a forgery.

Evarts did his best. He pointed out the disadvantages a Westerner faced being tried in a Northern court, the big money behind the prosecution, the public prejudice against the defendant, “Give a dog a bad name, and anybody may kill him”, but despite his best efforts, Edwards got ten years in Sing-Sing, where he died violently insane several years later.

Evarts received no compensation as counsel, as Edwards, in truth, had no assets, but what Bill did gain, when fifty thousand pamphlets of the proceedings were published by the Herald, was a reputation as a young lawyer on the make .

“What is a retainer?
“A retainer is that which is retained”
- Wm M Evarts

~