Albany’s Daniel Manning: Newspaperman & Secretary of the Treasury

Daniel Manning was born in Albany, NY, on August 16, 1831, the second son of John and Eleanor Manning. The Mannings were of Irish, English, and Dutch descent.

Daniel was six at the time of the Panic of 1837 when his father died, causing financial strain on the politically connected family. When Daniel was ten he was appointed a page in the New York State Assembly where he served for two years. During the second year, he also got a job distributing the Albany Atlas newspaper.

State Librarian William Cassidy and James M. French formed the Albany Atlas in 1841. Cassidy had studied law in the Albany offices of James A. McKown and John Van Buren, who was the son of President Martin Van Buren. Martin Van Buren, who served as president from 1837-1841, was instrumental in appointing Cassidy as the State Librarian in 1842; French was married to Van Buren’s daughter.

There was never any question that the Atlas would be a Democratic paper and a voice for the Van Burens and their allies. Van Buren’s faction in the Democratic-Republican Party (1792–1834, a forerunner of the Democratic Party) were known as the Bucktails (1818–1826), a Democratic faction influenced by Tammany Hall that included John A. King (son of Federalist Rufus King), and William L. Marcy of Troy.

The leading figures of the Bucktails – Benjamin F. Butler, Samuel A. Talcott, Silas Wright, Azariah C. Flagg and Marcy – would evolve into what their political opponents called the “Holy Alliance” and later the “Albany Regency” (1822-1838).

Van Buren was disenchanted with the Albany Argus that had been largely controlled by Albany’s Ambrose Spencer (1765-1848), a Clintonian Democrat generally at odds with the Bucktails/Albany Regency.

The Atlas represented Van Buren’s more liberal, mostly anti-slavery, Democrat Party faction known as the Barnburners. The Albany Argus represented the conservative faction, the Hunkers. Both papers were covering the Anti-Rent Wars in New York State, and nationally the threat of war with England over the Oregon boundary and with Mexico over the annexation of Texas.

When a full-time position at the Atlas as a “boy-of-all-work” became available, the 11-year-old Daniel Manning left his formal education behind. After four years, he became a printer and in 1856, when the Atlas merged with the Argus, Daniel, now married to Mary Little, became a full-time reporter assigned to the city desk. The Argus was located on Broadway at the corner of Beaver Street in Albany.

Prominent stories Manning would have covered included a fiercely contested Albany mayor’s race between Eli Perry and Dr. John Quackenbush with both claiming victory; the Dudley Observatory, which was dedicated before the largest crowd ever seen in Albany; Susan B. Anthony leading an abolitionist convention; the first propeller driven canal boat arriving at Albany; and the arrival of the first official trans-Atlantic cable from Queen Victoria congratulating James Buchanan on August 16, 1858. That same year Daniel Manning began covering the State Capitol.

In the early 1800s, newspapers reporting in Albany, and throughout the country, made no pretense at being unbiased. Most were the voice-box of one political party, movement, faction or candidate.

As early as 1771, the first Albany newspaper, the Gazette, espoused its loyalty to Great Britain and printed stories with a negative attitude toward colonists who wanted to declare independence. This caused the paper to be short-lived when its publishers, Alexander and James Robertson, were forced to flee to the Loyalist colony of Nova Scotia due to threats from their Albany neighbors.

Manning’s Argus unrepentantly advertised itself as “The Cheapest and Most Widely-Circulated Democratic Newspaper in the United States.” It saw its “duty to organize, lead, reflect, and restrain its party clientele and to set an example to other members of the Democratic press in the State and often the Nation.”

The Argus’ counterpart in Albany was Thurlow Weed’s Albany Evening Journal, the voice of the Whig and later, the Republican Party.

The Argus and Albany Evening Journal were two of Albany’s 19 regularly newspapers published in the mid-1800s. Others included the Post, Daily Herald, Morning Express, Mirror, Daily Press and Knickerbocker, and also The Cultivator and Country Gentleman, Freie Blaetter (in German) and the Poultry Monthly published at 20 South Pearl Street and charging $1 per year.

Covering the Legislature was a job of high intensity in the 1850s and 1860s due to the growing conflict of the abolition of slavery which led to the formation of the new Republican Party, the nomination and election of Abraham Lincoln, and the resulting Civil War.

Manning would have covered the State efforts to raise and support troops during the Civil War, Lincoln’s visit to Albany and address at the State Capitol, and eventually, Lincoln’s lying in state in the Albany Capitol.

In 1863, during the war, Manning also covered the Legislature for the Associated Press (founded in 1846) and the Brooklyn Eagle (which operated from 1841 to 1955). Manning was named assistant to Calvert Comstock, William Cassidy’s new partner replacing James French.

Cassidy was now president of the Argus. Manning became business manager and partner himself in 1865. In 1873, upon the death of Cassidy, Manning was elected president of the Argus and also replaced Cassidy as a director on the board of the National Commercial Bank.

In the 1860s, Manning became more involved with Albany’s Democrat Party, which was very much under the influence of Erastus Corning Sr. (1794-1872), Albany’s Mayor who had been elected to Congress, serving 1857 until 1859, and 1861 to 1863.

Manning had been authoring articles supporting Democrat positions since joining the Argus, so it was no surprise that he began to exert influence within the Democrat Party in Albany. In 1868, upon the death of Peter Cagger, he was elected county chairman of the Democrat Party, a position he held for the rest of his life.

Manning became a close associate of Samuel Tilden and was a member of the Democrat convention in Syracuse in 1874 when Tilden was nominated for Governor, a position Tilden eventually won. Tilden, had been the main force behind the prosecution and eventual removal and imprisonment of William Marcy “Boss” Tweed in the city of New York.

Manning was appointed a Democrat state committee member in 1876, secretary in 1879-80 and chairman in 1881-84. He actually ran the state party starting in 1877 when he informally succeeded Tilden as leader of the delegation.

In 1876, Manning was part of the state delegation that nominated Tilden for President in St. Louis. In the election, Tilden carried the popular vote and it appeared that he had carried the electoral vote as well, but Republicans contested the elections in four states.

To resolve the matter, Congress appointed an electoral commission which along a party-line vote awarded the election to Rutherford B. Hayes, against the wishes of Tilden and many New York Democrats, in what became known as the Compromise of 1877, which awarded Hayes the Presidency in return for the end of Reconstruction.

In 1880 in Cincinnati, Daniel Manning was chairman of the Democrat National Convention that nominated General Winfield Scott Hancock and in 1884, he was chairman of the state delegation nominating Grover Cleveland for President. Cleveland became the first Democrat President in 24 years.

A few years earlier, Manning had also been the main influence behind nominating Cleveland for Governor of New York, a move that elevated Manning’s brother, John, to Mayor of Buffalo.

Cleveland was opposed in the election by Republican nominee James G. Blaine who had been nominated over incumbent Republican President Chester Arthur. The campaign became one of the most hotly contested of the time.

Manning was called upon frequently to defend Cleveland. Cleveland won with a plurality of the popular vote rather than a clear majority.

After the election, much controversy arose when Democratic leaders, hungry from 24 years absence from Washington, pushed hard to have constituents appointed to political office. Manning opposed the spoils system and frequently battled Tammany Hall to reduce its influence over patronage in the city of New York.

Throughout Manning’s political career he was known, not as a debater or a strong advocate of one platform or another, but rather as a harmonizer and effective political manager. In 1885, upon the election of Cleveland, Manning was appointed Secretary of the Treasury.

At the time, the Secretary of the Treasury was one of the most important political appointment in the country. The Secretary of the Treasury was responsible for all of the tax collections and thousands of jobs. At the time the Secretary of the Treasury was paid $12,000 while the Vice President received $10,000 and members of Congress were paid $7,500. The Secretary of the Treasury helped set the monetary policy of the United States.

Eastern bankers supported a currency backed by gold. They felt that the integrity of the currency and the ability to get foreigners to accept it, mandated gold. The problem was that there was not enough gold in the federal treasury and the country was suffering from a lack of dollars in circulation. Western businesses were demanding that silver be accepted to back dollar bills and that more money be minted. Manning advocated a compromise currency based on both gold and silver.

He opposed both compulsory coinage of silver and mandated federal purchase of silver, both positions supported by Cleveland. He also opposed efforts to reduce the federal budget surplus by paying additional premiums to bondholders, opposed extravagant appropriations and supported reducing tariffs which, at the time, were the chief source of federal revenue. These were all positions adopted by Cleveland. Some protected industries opposed the reduction of tariffs.

In 1886, President Cleveland and his cabinet, including Manning, attended the dedication of the Statue of Liberty and later that year Geronimo (1829-1909), a leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Ndendahe Apache people, surrendered ending the Geronimo’s attempt to leave the reservations and return his people to their former nomadic lifestyle.

In 1887, Manning resigned his position as Treasury Secretary due to ill health. In 1887, he also officially retired as president of the Argus. Manning left Washington to accept a position as president of the Bank of New York, but died later that year on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1887 at the age of 56.

At the time of his death, Manning was married to Mary Margaretta Fryer Manning, who he married in 1884 after the death of his first wife in 1882. He had two sons, James Hilton Manning, who succeeded him as managing editor of the Albany Argus, and Frederick Clinton Manning, a prominent engraver. He also had two daughters, Mary E. Manning Van der Oudermeulen and Anastasia Manning Delehanty.

Daniel Manning is interred on one of the impressive “six corners” of the Albany Rural Cemetery (Lot 5, Section 27) opposite Thurlow Weed, his longtime Republican opponent. Manning’s home was at 149 Lancaster Street and later 151 Washington Avenue in the city of Albany. Albany’s Manning Boulevard is named after Daniel Manning.

Illustrations, from above: A photograph of Daniel Manning during his time as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury; portrait of Martin Van Buren by Mathew Brady; Thurlow Weed ca 1865 photo by Matthew Brady from the National Portrait Gallery; Samuel Tilden portrait by Jose Maria Mora ca 1870; and Daniel Manning depicted on a Series 1886 silver certificate.