LOCO-FOCO (from Lat. locus, place focus, hearth, fire; formed on the analogy of /ocomotice, ignorantly supposed to mean 'self-moving'). In American political history, the name applied originally to the radical or Equal Rights faction of the Democratic l'arty in New York State, in 1835-37, but afterwards used by the Whigs to designate the Democratic Party generally, throughout the nation. The system of granting bank charters in New York by special legislation for each ease had given rise not only to favorit ism and partisanship, but to bribery, purchase, and open fraud. The activity in chartering new hanks in 1834-35, caused by the certainty that the United States Bank would not be rechartered, increased the scandal, and last aroused some of the New York City Democrats to action. Dur ing, the summer of 1535 several meetings were held for the purpose of effecting an organization, which, at the approaching election, should sup port only candidates declaring their opposition to special bank legislation and its attendant evils. A mass meeting of this faction was held at Tam many Hall on October 29, 18:35, to act upon the report of a special nominating committee. The regular or Tammany Democrats, entering by the back stairs, attempted to control the meeting, but, finding the opposition too strong, turned out the gas and retired, leaving the reformers in darkness. The victors, however, were well pro vided with candles, which they lighted with loco-foco, or friction matches, and proceeded to act on the nominations. The incident of the lights was seized upon by the Democratic press, which derisively dubbed the anti-monopolists 'Loeo-Focos.' In January, 1836, a county con vention was held at which the new party took the name of the Equal Rights Party, and adopted a statement of rights, in which it declared among other things that no legislature had the right to exempt corporations by special charters from the operation of any law, or to grant them special privileges, and that paper money was a vicious circulating medium and gold and silver the only safe and constitutional currency. In the spring
elections of 1836 the party nominated candidates for mayor and aldermen, who polled over 3000 votes. On September 15th following a State con vention was held at Utica which nominated ea n didates for Governor and Lieutenant-Governo•. In New York City, Congressional, Senatorial, and Assembly nominations were made. The Whigs indorsed four of the nominees and they were elected. In the spring city elections of 1837 the party held the balance of power, the vote east for their mayoralty candidate throwing the city government into Whig hands. A second State convention held at Utica in September, 1837, framed a new State constitution, one of the fea tures of which was the provision for an elective judiciary. President Van Buren's message to the special session of Congress that met in that same month, by adopting almost the identical grounds on financial matters held by the Equal Rights Party, did much to bring the mass of the reform ers back into the Democratic ranks, a result which was further hastened by the refusal of some of the Whig-Loco-Foco fusion candidates to live up to their pledges. The party made no more nominations, although the name 'Loco Foco' continued to be applied to the whole Democratic Party for ten years longer. The influence of the movement, however, was felt in New York State politics in the passage of the safety-fund banking law in 1838, in the prohibi tion of special legislation for banks, and in the provision for an elective judiciary in the new Constitution of 1S46. Consult: Bgrdsa]1, His tory of the Loeo-Foco or Equal Rights Party (New York, 1S42) ; Hammond. History of Po litical Parties in the State of New York (Syra cuse, 1852).