1834, Chapter Four - Five Summary

Verplanck, the Whig candidate, loses the election for Mayor by one hundred seventy-nine votes out of thirty-five thousand votes altogether cast. Tammany Hall is the winner; however, the Whigs have taken the city's common council. Burr explains to Charlie how the Whigs, who stood for American Independence and Tories, who supported British rule subdivided over basic constitutional issues. Some Whigs want a weaker federal government, more personal rights and are anti-Federalist, while other Whigs support a strong federal government and become Federalists, like Alexander Hamilton. The Tory-Federalists became republican and call themselves Whigs. The Anti-Federalist republicans are now Jacksonian democrats. After his discourse on the names of the changing political parties, Charlie asks if Burr favors van Buren, which he does. Burr feels that Henry Clay is corrupt.

Charlie takes his prostitute, Helen Jewett, out to the...