As in the preceding period, the aggressiveness of the trade societies eventually gave rise to combative masters’ associations.  These, goaded by restrictive union practices, notably the closed shop, appealed to the courts for relief.  By 1836 employers’ associations appeared in nearly every trade in which labor was aggressive; in New York there were at least eight and in Philadelphia seven.  In Philadelphia, at the initiative of the master carpenters and cordwainers, there came to exist an informal federation of the masters’ associations in the several trades.

From 1829 to 1842 there were eight recorded prosecutions of labor organizations for conspiracy.  The workingmen were convicted in two cases; in two other cases the courts sustained demurrers to the indictments; in three cases the defendants were acquitted after jury trials; and the outcome of one case is unknown.  Finally, in 1842, long after the offending societies had gone out of existence under the stress of unemployment and depressions, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts handed down a decision, which for forty years laid to rest the doctrine of conspiracy as applied to labor unions.[7]

The unity of action of the several trades displayed in the city trades’ unions engendered before long a still wider solidarity in the form of a National Trades’ Union.  It came together in August 1834, in New York City upon the invitation of the General Trades’ Union of New York.  The delegates were from the trades’ unions of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Brooklyn, Poughkeepsie, and Newark.  Ely Moore, then labor candidate for Congress, was elected president.  An attempt by the only “intellectual” present, a Doctor Charles Douglass, representing the Boston Trades’ Union, to strike a political note was immediately squelched.  A second convention was held in 1835 and a third one in 1837.

The National Trades’ Union played a conspicuous part in securing the ten-hour day for government employes.  The victory of the ten-hour principle in private employment in 1835 generally led to its adoption by states and municipalities.  However, the Federal government was slow to follow the example, since Federal officials were immune from the direct political pressure which the workingmen were able to use with advantage upon locally elected office holders.

In October 1835, the mechanics employed in the New York and Brooklyn Navy Yards petitioned the Secretary of the Navy for a reduction of the hours of labor to ten.  The latter referred the petition to the Board of Navy Commissioners, who returned the petition with the opinion that it would be detrimental to the government to accede to their request.  This forced the matter into the attention of the National Trades’ Union.  At its second convention in 1835 it decided to petition Congress for a ten-hour day for employes on government works.  The petition was introduced by the labor Congressman from New York, Ely Moore.  Congress curtly replied, however, that it was not a matter for legislation but “that the persons employed should redress their own grievances.”  With Congress in such a mood, the hopes of the workingmen turned to the President.