High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Locofocos were a radical faction of the Democratic Party that existed from 1835 until the mid-1840s. The faction was originally named the Equal Rights Party, and was created in New York City as a protest against that city’s regular Democratic organization (“Tammany Hall”). It contained a mixture of anti-Tammany Democrats and labor union veterans of the Working Men`s Party. They were vigorous advocates of laissez-faire and opponents of monopoly. Their leading intellectual was libertarian editorial writer William Leggett.