Ely Moore

Ely Moore (July 4, 1798 – January 27, 1860) was an American newspaperman and labor leader who served two terms as a Jacksonian U.S. Representative from New York from 1835 to 1839. He was dubbed "labor's first congressman."

Biography

Moore was born near Belvidere, New Jersey. He attended public schools, and then moved to New York and studied medicine. He became a printer and an editor of a New York City labor paper. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. characterized him as:

Union leader

Moore headed and established the General Trades Union of New York. The GTU was the first Union containing multiple trades. He then was elected the first president of
New York City’s Federation of Craft Unions in 1833. In 1834 he became the first President of the National Trades’ Union. The NTU spanned from Boston to St. Louis. The NTU helped to establish the 10 hour work day in many states. New York had already established the 10 hour work day.

In 1836, Moore performed one of his last speeches. It was a stunning defense of Workers, Unions, and the Free Labor System. His stunning oration was in reply to an insulting speech by Waddy Thompson, Jr. of South Carolina that called northern laborers "thieves who would raise wages through insurrection or by the equally terrible process of the ballot-box." Moore's speech contained stirring aggravation at the unjust moneyed aristocracy, Nicholas Biddle ( second US Bank), and the lack of equality of the wage earning worker. During his most heated rhetoric he collapsed onto the podium.

Political career

Moore's first interest in national politics was to endorse Richard Mentor Johnson, on March 13, 1833, for Vice President, because he opposed the Sabbatarian Movement (contrary to the freedom of religion), and supported replacing imprisonment for debt with a bankruptcy law.

Moore was a Tammany Hall candidate for Congress in 1834 and 1836; in the latter year, he and Churchill C. Cambreleng, the other successful Tammany candidate, were also supported by the Locofocos. In his first speech to Congress, delivered in 1836, Moore defended trade unions as follows:

Moore was defeated in 1838; his district, which returned four Congressmen, went largely Whig. Shortly after, President Martin Van Buren appointed him Surveyor of the Port of New York, where he served from 1839 to 1845. Moore supported Van Buren for re-election in 1840, although he lost to William Henry Harrison. Moore was one of the radical leaders to support the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island in 1842.

Moore was one of the radicals who criticized the early abolitionists in the interest of labor, seeing a Whig plot to introduce the Negro as cheap competition in the labor market, and keep wages low.

Moore was appointed by President James K. Polk United States marshal for the southern district of New York in 1845, serving until 1850. He became owner and editor of the ''Warren Journal'' of his hometown, Belvidere, New Jersey. He was appointed agent for the Miami and other tribes of Indians in the Kansas Territory in 1853. He was appointed register of the United States land office in Lecompton, Kansas, in 1855 and served until 1860.

Death and family

Moore died in Lecompton, Douglas County, Kansas, on January 27, 1860, at the age of 61 and is interred on his farm near Lecompton.

Moore married Emma Coutant, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, in 1824. They had six children. After Emma's death in 1846, Moore remarried Clara Baker (née Vandewater), a widow, in 1847.

Moore's son Ely Jr. worked alongside his father at the Indian Bureau in the Kansas Territory, during which he encountered and feuded with abolitionist John Brown.

Speeches and works

Reply to a pamphlet entitled "A statement of facts in relation to the origin progress and prospects of the New-York and Harlem Rail Road Company."
(February 21, 1833)

"Address to the General Trades' Union"
(December 2, 1833)

"The Laboring Classes"
(May 5, 1836)

"On presenting a remonstrance from citizens of the District of Columbia against the reception of abolition petitions, &c"
(February 4, 1839)

"Proceedings of a meeting in favor of municipal reform held at Tammany Hall"
(March 22, 1844)

References

Sources

* Sean Wilentz. ''The Rise of American Democracy''. W.W. Norton. New York and London. 2005.
* Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ''The Age of Jackson'', Little Brown, 1945.
* Joshua R. Greenberg. ''Advocating the Man: Masculinity, Organized Labor, and the Household in New York, 1800–1840'', Columbia University Press. New York. 2009.

External links

*

Ely Moore entry
at The Political Graveyard

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moore, Ely
1798 births
1860 deaths
Law enforcement officials from New York (state)
People from Lecompton, Kansas
People from Warren County, New Jersey
19th-century United States Marshals
Jacksonian members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state)
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state)
American trade union leaders
19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives