Charters and contracts for public works rewarded his allies among businessmen and bankers regardless of whether they were Republican or Democrat. All was financed through the sale of city bonds, negotiated by the city’s bankers. The city was a vast corrupt bargain that, until the early 1870s, brought profits and low taxes to business, and plunder to Tammany Hall, which ensured its power by distributing some of the take to its members through contracts, jobs, and charity.
