Loco-Focos

Loco-Focos is a name given in derision to the members of a faction that split off from the Democratic party in New York in 1835. Tension had been growing between radical Democrats, who believed that Andrew Jackson's war against the national bank should be extended to state banks and other monopolies, and the regular Tammany Democrats in New York City. When the Tammany leaders expelled (Sept., 1835) William Leggett, the radical editor of the New York Evening Post, from the party, the radicals decided to act. At a Tammany Hall meeting held on Oct. 29, 1835, to ratify the Tammany nominations, the revolt began. The antibank men voted down the chairman selected by the organization; before the meeting could be reorganized, the gas was turned off and the hall plunged in darkness. The reformers, however, continued their work by the light of candles and of self-igniting “locofoco” matches, from which their nickname derived. In Jan., 1836, this group organized a new party, called the Friends of Equal Rights or the Equal Rights party.

By the glint of my computer screen, I again call upon all people who believe in the doctrine, from beginning to end, of equal rights—equal human rights to liberty and property. Today's electoral monarchies (who keep getting reelected with monies donated by their masters to which they are beholden) do not support equal rights, because such rights impair their privileged position. As a result, we THE PEOPLE are the less for it; Katrina has visibly demonstrated the chasm between the monarchs and the People.