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GIFT OF 
 
r ith the respects of 
 
 MR. STETSON 
 
 
 
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 THE TILDEN CENTENNIAL 
 
 CARNEGIE HALL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 SAMUEL J. TILDEN 
 
 THE GREAT DEMOCRAT 
 
 ADDRESS OF FRANCIS LYNDE STETSON 
 
 10 
 
 (Annotated) 
 
 i 
 
 
 1914 .. r; 1 
 
 FROM THE PRESIDENT S OFFICE 
 TO THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
SAMUEL J. TILDEN 
 
 THE GREAT DEMOCRAT 
 
 To appreciative sympathizers like James C. Carter and 
 the speakers of this evening, the name of Samuel J. Tilden 
 suggests a statesman in the highest sense ; to antipathetic 
 but fair-minded historians like Professor Burgess (Recon 
 struction p. 282) " a genuine American politician of the first 
 order ", and to some partisan detractors merely a political 
 trickster. Bat, however varying the views as to his rank 
 in the political world, all unite in recognizing him as " The 
 Great Democrat ". (New York Sun June 3, 1886.) To this 
 designation he was entitled as clearly as was his illustrious 
 predecessor Thomas Jefferson or James Madison, who was 
 still surviving at the time of Tilden s first vote, and whose 
 works and teachings constituted his highest political author 
 ity. (Life Vol. 1, p. 166.) 
 
 Born February 9, 1814, during the presidency of James 
 Madison, he died August 4, 1886, under that of Grover Cleve 
 land, having lived seventy-two years, of which more than 
 one-half had been during Democratic administrations 
 
 From first to last he devoted himself to the study and the 
 discussion of the tenets of the Democracy, for, as is well 
 said in the Bookman (March 1905) : 
 
 " Born with a body so frail that he never knew a day of 
 perfect health, he had no boyhood, but even as a child 
 his mind was given wholly up to the mastery of government 
 and politics. In his father s home he heard political dis- 
 * cussions between some of the most adroit and wily party 
 managers of that day. By the time when he was fifteen 
 1 years of age he was as well informed in American political 
 history as any one of those whose relevations he had list- 
 ened to so eagerly." 
 
 His precocious gravity was noted by his life long friend 
 William Allen Butler in a memorial prepared for the New 
 York City Bar Association in December, 1886 : 
 
 " To him the years which bring the philosophic mind 
 " came very early. In my acquaintance with him, dating 
 
 281115 
 
" from my boyhood and continuing through the friendship 
 " of nearly half a century, I found him unchanged, from first 
 " to last, in this absorbing interest in public affairs, specially 
 " directed to their right administration, according to the ideas 
 " which were, to him, the true embodiment of the principles 
 " of good government." 
 
 Among his early teachers was his wise father s friend and 
 neighbor Martin Yan Buren, soon to become President of 
 the United States, to whose cause and advocacy he devoted 
 himself for life, and Mr. Butler s father, Benjamin F. Butler, 
 Attorney-General of the United States. Before he was 
 twenty years of age he wrote the first three articles repro 
 duced by Mr. Bigelow (1 Public Writings 10-26), all of 
 these being published at the suggestion of Mr. Yan Buren 
 and the last with the approval of Washington Irving. In 
 their gravity and acumen they revealed the qualities which 
 distinguished the career of Mr. Tilden, and in its conclud 
 ing paragraph the last article foreshadowed his own bitter 
 experience, not unlike that of the maligned Gladstone who 
 was one of his admirations. (Life, Yol. 2, p. 338.) 
 
 " In every age the most important and glorious results of 
 " virtue and of talent have been attributed to the arts of in- 
 " trigue or the aid of magic." 
 
 After a short sojourn at Yale College, in 1836 he came to 
 the City of New York, of which he was destined for fifty 
 years to be a citizen and up to the time of his death, its 
 greatest benefactor. Graduating from the first class in the 
 law school of the New York University he was admitted to 
 the bar in May 1841 and immediately opened an office at 
 No. 11 Pine Street, continuing in that vicinity until he 
 retired from practice. Already, and as early as February 
 1838, he had attained recognition as a political writer for 
 the Democratic press, and as author of the resolutions and 
 political addresses issuing from Tammany Hall. In the 
 year 1838 he formed the acquaintance of John Bigelow, 
 his life long friend and biographer, who says that even 
 then Tilden s mind was wholly engrossed in practical 
 
politics about which he knew so much and talked so 
 well as often to weary Bigelow, who cared nothing for 
 them. Through Mr. Bigelow he became a friend of William 
 Cullen Bryant and of the Evening Post coterie. 
 
 His first important speech was deemed a masterly produc 
 tion, and as such it was justly accepted and published through 
 out the state Jby the Democratic Committee. It was delivered 
 at New Lebanon on October 3rd, 1840, when he was twenty- 
 six years old, upon the United States Bank and the cur 
 rency, a topic of perennial interest, to which he returned in 
 an important speech in the Constitutional Convention of 
 1846, and to which a further contribution from him at the 
 present day would be of vital interest. 
 
 The five years succeeding his admission to the bar were 
 devoted to the support of Martin Van Buren and Silas 
 Wright and to the development of his law practice though 
 as once he said to me, from the very beginning be never 
 had any small business. The Anti-rent wars in his na 
 tive county enlisted his attention and led to his elec 
 tion to the Assembly and to the Constitutional Conven 
 tion in 1846, where he principally contributed to the 
 final adjustment of these difficulties. During the same period 
 he had founded and given to his associate John L. O Sullivan 
 a Democratic daily " The Morning News " and had identified 
 himself with the free soil or * soft shell " Democrats, who 
 opposed the extension of slavery into the free territories. In 
 1848 he wrote the address to the Democrats of the State in 
 support of the Free Soil revolt which resulted in the defeat 
 of Lewis Cass for the presidency, the bolters in the State of 
 New York casting more votes than the regulars. In 1855 
 he was candidate of the " soft shell " Democrats for Attor 
 ney General, and in 1867 he was a member of the Constitu 
 tional Convention. He was delegate to the Democratic 
 National Conventions of 1844, 1848, 1860, 1864, 1868, con 
 tending invariably for freedom, for Union and for reform. 
 
Repeatedly baffled in his efforts to face the Democratic party 
 in a direction which he knew would lead to success, he 
 patiently accepted defeats within the organization and gave 
 himself unselfishly to its continuous service, recognizing and 
 insisting upon the necessity of maintaining in proper con 
 stitutional opposition, a party which even in the dark days 
 of 1864 cast forty-six per cent, of the vote in the Northern 
 States. He was consistently opposed to nullification, to 
 the extension of slavery and to secession audits supporters, 
 as shown in 1860 at the dinner at Mr. Aspinwall s, in 1861 
 at the meeting at the home of General Dix, in 1862 in his 
 interview with Secretary Stanton, and his declaration in 
 behalf of the Democratic party, and in 1866 at the Union 
 Square meeting, all set forth in Mr. Bigelow s Life 
 (Vol. 1, pp. 165-174). In 1862 he prepared a manifesto 
 for the New York Democracy with these words of inflexi 
 ble warning to Southern disunionists : 
 
 " We will give you everything that local self-government 
 demands ; everything that a common ancestry of glory, 
 everything that national fraternity or Christian fellowship 
 requires ; but to dissolve the federal bond between these 
 states to dismember our country, whoever else consents, we 
 will not. No ; never, never, never ! " ( l ) 
 
 In 1866 he took the chairmanship of the Democratic 
 State Committee which he held until nominated for 
 Governor in 1874 ; and, by his inflexible maintenance of 
 the public interests, he earned the bitter hatred and the 
 never failing opposition of the spoilsmen and corruptionists 
 in and out of his party. His attitude of uncompromising 
 warfare for the public welfare and of trust in the people was 
 exhibited in his speech before the Legislature of 1870 in 
 
 (*) Similarly courageous was his remarkable letter of October 24, 1876, 
 repelling a late campaign charge that if he became President he would 
 approve provisions for the payment of " the rebel debt and for losses of 
 slaves " (1 Public Writings, Vol. 2, p. 380 ; Life, Vol. 2, p. 6). As told to 
 me at the time by William C. Whitney, Mr. Whitelaw Reid said to him 
 that the Republicans were dumbfounded by this unexpected refutation 
 which he practically accepted as complete (See Tribune, Oct. 25, 1876). 
 
opposition to the Tweed Charter, about to be enacted by 
 a corrupt combination of Tweed democrats and Tweed 
 republicans. He said : 
 
 " I am not afraid of the stormy sea of popular liberty. I 
 " still trust the people. * * * It is in the stagnation 
 " of bureaus and commissions that evils and abuses gen- 
 " erate. The storms that disturb the atmosphere clear and 
 " purify it." 
 
 In all of his political activities an appeal to the people at 
 large was the predominant and prevalent note. By clarion 
 calls he reinvigorated and recruited the ranks of his party 
 in his own state, weakened by factional dissensions and 
 shattered by frauds. Without hesitation he invited and he in 
 curred the vicious animosity of the corruptionists, opposing 
 against them the awakened courage and will of a better ele 
 ment recently stifled, but now strengthened and reinforced 
 from without by youth of independent disposition. He knew 
 that the people, particularly the young men, love a leader 
 who fights, especially one who fights for the right. Most 
 sagaciously he declared that, "If once you can make your 
 " issue a moral issue, you are sure to win the people." 
 
 He was absolutely sincere and truthful when in his letter 
 to Mr. Wattersou (Life, Vol. 2, p. 312), referring to the prin 
 ciple on which he based his management of his party in 
 New York, he said : 
 
 " I depended on ideas as a political force more liberally 
 " and less on party machinery than any one else has done. 
 What is called patronage I never had to any appreciable 
 " extent and yet I held my ascendancy with the Democratic 
 " masses of this State * * *. I carried on politics on 
 " a plane which approached to the impracticable." 
 
 This statement finds confirmation in the " Random Recol 
 lections " of Henry B. Stanton : 
 
 When those animosities, rivalries, and prejudices that 
 spring from party strife have passed away, Samuel J. Tilden 
 will be classed among the eminent men of his era. In the 
 two rather incompatible qualities of calm, studious, and 
 philosophic statesmanship and the capacity to gather, 
 classify, and apply the statistics of a political campaign I 
 
do not remember to have met his equal. As the chairman 
 of the Democratic State Committee, he would deliver an 
 address that might have honored Thomas Jefferson." 
 
 Mr. Tilden s fight against Tweed and Tweedism was a 
 moral fight ; a fight to the finish ; and a fight without par 
 allel in its masterly method and overwhelming destructive- 
 ness. He had had no faith in the men who became known as 
 the Ring and with reason they feared him. He never con 
 ciliated them or turned to avoid a collision with them 
 even when they were strong in the party of which he was 
 manager (Public Writings, Vol. 1, p. 564). He assisted 
 powerfully in the organization and in the activities of the 
 Association of the Bar of the City of New York, as a most 
 effective agency for the rescue and restoration of the Courts 
 which then were under an eclipse, happily described by Mr. 
 Evarts as " an annular eclipse, in which only the ring is 
 visible." 
 
 At the organization of the Bar Association as stated by 
 one present (Mr. William Allen Butler) Mr. Tilden "made the 
 " most stirring speech of the hour, unpremeditated, but strik- 
 " ing the keynote of the effective denunciation which aroused 
 "and quickened public sentiment to the need of instant 
 " action " (Life, Vol. 1, p. 186). In the prosecution of his 
 campaign for purity of justice, Mr. Tilden went to the As 
 sembly of 1872 and secured the impeachment of the judges. 
 Respecting this, we have the testimony of Mr. O Conor 
 that it was "all Tilden s work and no one s else." 
 
 " Tilden went to the Legislature and forced the impeach 
 ment against every imaginable obstacle, open and covert, 
 political and personal " (Public Writings, Vol. 1, p. 473). 
 
 Defying and defeating the efforts of the corruptionists in 
 1869 to displace him from the chairmanship of the State 
 Committee, he gave his support to the independent De 
 mocracy in the City of New York not only in opposing the 
 Tweed charter of 1870, but again in the successful revolution 
 of 1871. Then it was that 1 had with him my first personal 
 
experience. On the afternoon of election day when as cor 
 rectly stated by him (Public Writings, Vol. 1, p. 597-8) 
 " general despondency prevailed " he was seated on a sofa 
 in the insurgent headquarters at Apollo Hall deprecating 
 the croakings of one hopeless of success ; a timid soul that 
 exaggerated the power of the abhorrent forces arrayed in a 
 life and death struggle under the truculent Tweed, even yet 
 a candidate and, as it proved, a successful candidate for 
 re-election to the Senate. A wail of despair such as this 
 was beyond endurance by a youth burning with righteous 
 zeal. My hot indignation blazed forth in the splendid verse, 
 that Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Henry VI. " Thrice 
 is he armed that hath his quarrel just." Mr. Tilden imme 
 diately turned and fixed on me his look of approval, and 
 thenceforth gave me his friendship, asking me to render the 
 service indicated in my letter to him dated November 22, 
 1871 (Letters, Vol. 1, p. 288), and appointing me secretary 
 when elected Governor in 1874. The incident is worth 
 relating only as indicating the principle that governed his 
 selection, his attraction and his retention of youthful 
 supporters. 
 
 The story of the fight against the Tweed ring, gloriously 
 inaugurated by the New York Times (whose present editor 
 most happily is member of this Centennial Committee) is part 
 of the history of this City from 1871 to 1874. The political 
 victories resulting from the Times disclosures, promoted 
 personally and financially by Mr. Tilden, were supplemented 
 by civil and criminal prosecutions made effectual exclusively 
 through his personal investigation, accumulation and pre 
 sentation of the proofs of fraud. If proofs be needed of Mr. 
 Tilclen s patriotic and professional superiority they will be 
 found in Mr. James 0. Carter s summary and authoritative 
 appreciation of these professional achievements without 
 precedent or parallel. (Atlantic Monthly October 1892 : 
 Letters, Vol. 1, p. xviii.) 
 
8 
 
 Public service of such commanding importance compelled 
 his nomination and his election to the highest executive 
 position in the State. On New Year s Day 1875 he took 
 the place of the veteran statesman, General John A. Dix, 
 his party associate of thirty years, whom he had desired for 
 Pierce s Cabinet in 1853 (Letters, Vol. 1, p. 84) for President 
 in 1864 and for Governor in 1862 (Letters, p. 167) and in 
 1866 (Letters, p. 204), but whom, upon the issue of admin 
 istrative reform, he had defeated for Governor in 1874. An 
 era was closing ; a new day was dawning. The clouds gen 
 erated by slavery, secession, civil war and reconstruction 
 slowly withdrawing, were to obscure the issues of only one 
 more political campaign, though unhappily that was to be the 
 contest of 1876 finally and fatefully involving Mr. Tilden s 
 political fortunes. 
 
 Mr. Tilden s brilliant achievements during his term as 
 Governor also are matters of history. His instantaneous and 
 complete rout of the canal ring ( l ) ; his fight for adminis 
 trative reform and for sound money, his second annual mes 
 sage regarded by Mr. Carter as a state paper unequalled 
 " in the power and ease in which it treats of the principles 
 
 immediateness of the success of his legislative attack upon 
 the canal ring so impressed the legislative barber of that day that he re 
 marked to the late Edgar K. Apgar What a wonderful fighter Governor 
 Tilden is. He would have finished the Civil War in six months." Mr. 
 Apgar on a winter night walking home with the Governor, repeated to 
 him the barber s remark. Immediately the Governor stopped and keeping 
 Apgar standing on the snow covered pavement, occupied large part of an 
 hour in justifying the statement, and in explaining how quickly he would 
 have accomplished what in fact it took four years to do ! His ideas as 
 to the art of war had been formed on a study of Napoleon, and he said to 
 Mr. Bigelow (Life, Vol. 2, p. 386) " that nothing would have suited him 
 so well as a military career." His keen insight into military conditions 
 was illustrated in his advice to Secretary Stanton (Life, Vol. 1, p. 169) 
 " You have no right to expect a great military genius to come to your 
 assistance. The whole human race have been able to furnish such men 
 only once in a century or two : you can only count on the average military 
 talent * * * In the probable absence of military genius you must rely 
 on overwhelming numbers wisely concentrated." Two years later Mr. 
 Stanton referred to this advice with approval. 
 
upon which government should be conducted or in the order 
 and perspicuity with which it arranges and sets forth the 
 details of public business " all these and other acts of that 
 gubernatorial term will be presented this evening by the 
 distinguished gentleman Mr. Fairchild who was associated 
 then as Attorney General with Governor Tilden and after 
 wards as Secretary of the Treasury with President Cleve 
 land. 
 
 His qualities as party manager and as party leader were 
 well summed up in the New York Sun of June 3, 1886 in an 
 article entitled " The Great Democrat. Samuel J. Tilden and 
 the Development of his Political Philosophy," quoting from 
 the Critic a review of his Public Writings. 
 
 " He leaves perhaps a more definitely crystalized system 
 of political philosophy than any American Statesman who 
 is or has been his contemporary. Those who agree with 
 him and those who dissent from his views of the fundamen 
 tal principle will be alike impressed with the 
 consistency of the man as here made up. He 
 has been for half a century one of the few 
 original thinkers in American politics one of the very 
 few who have succeeded throughout the vicissitudes of 
 party strife in making expediency bend always to philoso 
 phy. With all Mr. Tilden s consummate skill in the arts of 
 partisanship it is surprising how little of the partisan in 
 the narrow sense appears in his declarations. His calm 
 thought and wise fore-thought have illuminated every one 
 of the great questions of the List fifty years, and yet whose 
 recorded utterances considered as a whole, or in detail can 
 better stand the test in the light of present knowledge ? 
 * * # * # * 
 
 We think that the bitterest political enemy of Mr. Tilden 
 cannot study his life record as here presented in its en 
 tirety without reaching the conviction that he rose steadily 
 to commanding influence by virtue of the highest qualities 
 of statesmanship, nor without increased respect for the sin 
 cerity of his motives, the wisdom and unswerving loyalty, his 
 patriotism and the unselfishness of a career that ends with 
 dignity in the memorable letter declining for a second time 
 a nomination that meant election." 
 
 Mr. Tilden s system of political philosophy referred to by 
 the writer of the Critic s article anticipated by many years. 
 
10 
 
 much that strenuous reformers of the present day imagine 
 to have been born with them. 
 
 1. As already indicated by me, (and as recognized by 
 Mr. Choate: " The World" February 8, 1914), his funda 
 mental principle, was trust in the people. 
 
 2. Keforms must come from the plain people and not 
 from above. 
 
 " All history shows that reforms in government must not 
 " be expected from those who sit serenely on the social 
 " mountain tops enjoying the benefits of the existing order 
 " of things " (Life, Vol. I., p. 288). 
 
 In 1874 he said to a political committee, of which I was 
 a member, calling on him to tender our support : 
 
 " I appeal particularly to the poor man, whose home is 
 fixed and difficult of change. He is concerned in matters 
 of government more vitally than the rich man who, re 
 moving his residence with comparative ease, can escape 
 the oppressions of a government that he regards as intol 
 erable." 
 
 3. A higher standard of political conduct was essential. 
 In his letter to Eugene Casserly dated July 3, 1872 
 
 (Letters, Vol. 1, p. 310), a personal letter to a friend and 
 consequently free from suspicion as a play to the public, he 
 said : 
 
 " It is rarely if ever possible for a party in office to 
 " reform itself by the internal force of its best elements. 
 " We must have a better state of things in national, state 
 " and municipal government, and a higher standard in the 
 " public mind by which official men will be tried, and to 
 " which they will refer in their silent meditations and in 
 " their actions, if we would preserve anything of value in 
 " our political system." 
 
 4. Class legislation is vicious. Therefore he persistently 
 opposed the Republican party regarded by him as supporters 
 of class legislation. 
 
 In his last political letter dated October 6, 1884, and 
 addressed to a Committee of the Democratic National Con 
 vention he said (Life, Vol. 1, p. 287) : 
 
11 
 
 " The Republican party has always been dominated by 
 " principles which favor legislation for the benefit of par- 
 " ticular classes at the expense of the body of the people 
 *** rpi ie p a t r i ti c an( | virtuous elements in it are 
 " now unable to emancipate it from the sway of selfish in- 
 " terests which subordinate public duty to personal gain. 
 " The most hopeful of the best citizens it contains despair 
 " of its amendment except through its temporary expulsion 
 " from power." 
 
 In the year 1912 this view seems to have been adopted 
 by approximately four million former Republicans. 
 
 5. A reformed judiciary an essential of good government. 
 
 " A reform in the administration of justice * * * 
 was not only inimically the most important * * * but 
 was a measure without which every other reform would 
 prove nugatory " (Public Writings, Vol. I., p. 598). 
 
 Indeed on this point he went so far as to state in a 
 letter to the Times in January, 1873 (Public Writings, Vol. 
 1, p. 594), that, in case the Courts should fail in their duty 
 against the ring, he had resolved to open an issue in advance 
 of the election of the new legislature, a convention 
 to revise the judiciary. This would seem to come pretty 
 near to the judicial recall, though in practice he clearly 
 indicated the sufficiency of the process for impeachment " 
 (Public Writings, Vol. 1, p. 482). 
 
 6. Accountability of public officers practically enforce 
 able through the Courts. 
 
 The reform of legal procedure to this end was called for 
 in his first message as Governor (Public Writings, Vol. 2, 
 p. 34) and was accomplished by the acts, Chapters 23 and 
 49 of the laws of 1875, earnestly desired by Mr. O Conor 
 (Life, Vol. 1, p. 247). 
 
 7. Investigation of the causes of the growth and decay 
 of population, mortality, pauperism and crime ; in short, 
 the so-called sociological research of the present day. 
 
 All of these phenomena in his view, as stated in his 
 address in 1876 to the Saratoga Conference of Charities 
 
12 
 
 (Public Writings, Vol. 2, p. 374), were susceptible of scien 
 tific analysis. He said : 
 
 " A conference of charities. What a noble rivalry is 
 implied in these words. You are here * * * not even 
 to promote the well being of those communities which you 
 represent ; but to consider what can best be done to cure 
 the wounds and maladies of society. * * Even those 
 
 most uncertain things that depend on the human will are 
 capable of being studied, of being analyzed, of being classi 
 fied and their results stated. 
 
 Except for the limitation of time necessarily imposed 
 by the programme of the evening I could much extend my 
 scheme of his political propaganda. 
 
 My duty now is to hasten to a summary discussion of 
 the events connected with the election of Mr. Tilden as 
 President of the United States in 1876, the denial of his 
 right, and his patriotic submission to monumental injustice, 
 rather than subject his country to the possibility of civil 
 strife. 
 
 At midnight of Election Day, November 7, 1876, bearing 
 the latest news I went from the rooms of the Democratic 
 National Committee to the residence of Mr. Tilden on 
 Gramercy Park. The returns then indicated that he had 
 carried four Northern States, New York, New Jersey, Con 
 necticut and Indiana, and every Southern State excepting 
 possibly South Carolina, thus having at least 196 electoral 
 votes, a clear majority of the whole, with fair prospects in 
 California and Oregon, which, however, never materialized. 
 A brilliant assemblage of men and women of high social 
 position,, the usual associates of Mr. Tilden, was gathered 
 there in gay spirits to congratulate him, for already his 
 confident expectations were in course of realization. The 
 democratic city was hilarious, and the Republican centres 
 correspondingly depressed. Every newspaper claimed or 
 conceded Tilden s election except the Times and the Herald, 
 which reserved decision. Within twenty-four hours, how 
 ever, a new set of claims developed ; that in every one of 
 
13 
 
 the three Southern States under Republican Governors, 
 South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana, the vote though 
 cast for Tilden might be counted for Hayes. Within one 
 hundred days these claims were fulfilled to the dot. Tilden 
 votes were given to Hayes ; and he was declared to have 
 received 185 electoral votes as against 184 for Tilden. 
 
 The story of this great wrong has been told again and 
 again, and most recently in the Century Magazine, which, in 
 May, 1913, published Mr. Wattersoii s slashing attack upon 
 the republican procedure, and in June, Senator Edmunds 
 weighty answer, together with Mr. Watterson skeen rejoinder 
 which begins with the statement, 
 
 " If I may say so, without departing from the respect 
 " and regard in which I hold Senator Edmunds, he has 
 " made rather a case at law than a contribution to history. 
 " With the trained skill of an expert he emphasizes all that 
 " may be pleaded on his own side while either ignoring or 
 " belittling the strength of the other side." 
 
 This, also, is my view, of the venerable and beloved 
 Senator, distinguished alike for his character, and his ability 
 and not less for his unquenchable devotion to his party. 
 His party loyalty is sufficient to explain and perhaps to 
 excuse his Senatorial votes in 1868 to impeach Andrew 
 Johnson and in 1887 against the measure of his party 
 colleague Senator Hoar to repeal the " Tenure of Office 
 Act " passed originally to fetter Johnson. According to 
 Senator Hoar (Autobiography, Vol. 2, p. 143) Senator 
 Edmunds fought this repeal with all his might and main. 
 He bitterly characterized Grover Cleveland as " another 
 Charles the First " because in the exercise of his constitu 
 tional right he declined to communicate to the Senate his 
 reasons for removing a public officer. 
 
 Ingrained partisanship of course cannot yield an impartial 
 estimate, and it must be conceded that nearly all on 
 either side who either participated in the dispute over the 
 presidential election of 1876, or who have attempted to 
 write its history have been influenced if not controlled by 
 
14 
 
 party affiliations. The most reasonable Republican view is 
 presented by Professor Burgess (Reconstruction p. 295) 
 and, as usual, the fairest view is taken by Mr. James Ford 
 Rhodes (History of the U. S. Vol. VII, p. 282-285). 
 
 Time does not allow, nor does the present occasion 
 require, a re- examination of the facts ; but considering only 
 Florida and Louisiana, each necessary to Hayes I may be 
 permitted with intended moderation to state in summary 
 why, after examination of the evidence, the law and 
 the procedure, I believe that, unless the precedents and 
 the just principles of our system of elections were to be 
 overturned, Mr. Tilden was chosen President on Election 
 Day in 1876. 
 
 1. In the first place, the votes on that day actually de 
 posited in the ballot boxes were found, and in the due and 
 ordinary count by the local canvassing boards were deter 
 mined, to be such that in the aggregate they were sufficient 
 to elect Mr. Tilden. Never before or since has a presidential 
 election been determined in defiance of such a showing. 
 The national practice has been and should be to accept the 
 will of the people as exhibited by their votes in the several 
 localities independent one of the other, and not to permit 
 these to be overruled by a central authority tempted to 
 tamper with the result, because of a later knowledge of the 
 necessities of the general canvass. To-day in any part of 
 our country such an attempt to set aside the local determi 
 nations, except through the courts would be unthinkable. 
 
 2. The proceedings of the State Canvassers in Florida 
 and of the Returning Board in Louisiana overruling local 
 boards were not only without precedent or repetition in any 
 contested presidential election, but to say the least were 
 grossly partisan, with grave indications of corruption, and 
 apparently in unlawful usurpation of power. 
 
 3. In Florida the gallant and honorable Republican 
 watcher General Barlow reported that Tilden had carried 
 
15 
 
 the State, ( l ) and he urged such a declaration upon Dr. Cow- 
 gill one of the two Republican members of the State Can 
 vassers who had said to General Barlow that " he could not 
 conscientiously vote to give the State to the Hayes Elec 
 tors." [H. E. Misc. Doc. 31, 45th Cong. 3rd Sess. 1363.] 
 The third member of the Board, Attorney General Cocke a 
 Democrat, took the same view as that expressed by Dr. 
 Cowgill whose violation of conscience thus gave Florida 
 to Hayes. That the canvassers had no lawful power to do 
 as they did do was determined with reference to their sim 
 ultaneous proceedings in canvassing the vote for Governor. 
 The Republican Supreme Court adjudged that the Board 
 had usurped revisory power, and commanded it to re 
 convene and to re-canvass the vote for Governor according 
 to the local returns. This resulted in seating the Democratic 
 candidate for Governor. 
 
 Thereupon in quo warranto proceedings touching the 
 presidental vote the Circuit Court in Florida adjudged that 
 the Hayes Electors had not been, and that the Tilden 
 Electors had been, lawfully chosen, each having cast their 
 votes simultaneously on the day prescribed by Congress. ( 2 ) 
 
 (*) Dr. Haworth justly and highly appreciates the value of any state 
 ment from General Barlow, the hero of Gettysburg and of Cold Harbor, 
 as fearless in peace as in war. But, Dr. Haworth may be relieved of 
 his uncertainty (Disputed Elections, p. 75) "whether General Barlow s 
 opinion in the case was in any measure due to a tendency sometimes 
 noticeable in high minded persons to concede all doubtful points to an 
 opponent." General Barlow certainly was high minded, but equally he 
 was a born contestant and in controversy he never conceded any point that 
 he believed could be maintained in honor and logic. From personal 
 knowledge I state that in December, 1876, he left New York for Florida 
 persuaded that that State had gone for Hayes, and believing and desiring 
 that such result should be established by the canvass of the votes. 
 
 ( 2 ) The fact that the judgment was that of a lower court from which an 
 appeal was taken was immaterial in law, and also in view of the significant 
 fact that the Hayes counsel, General Wallace, had refused the Tilden coun 
 sel s offer and request for an immediate argument of his appeal, saying 
 that he would return to argue it as matter of law in the succeeding July ! ! 
 
16 
 
 These quo warranto proceedings were examined critically by 
 me in conference with Mr. Tilden, while he was preparing 
 the brief No. 2 submitted to the Electoral Commission (p. 
 745) and I was preparing the brief No. 3 submitted by 
 Mr. W. C. Whitney (p. 760). Ample reasons in support of 
 the effect of the quo warranto judgment are to be found in 
 those briefs, and in the convincing arguments of those 
 great lawyers Charles O Conor and Richard T. Merrick and 
 of Mr. Justice CLIFFORD. Both sides of the contention are 
 fully stated also in the majority and the minority reports of 
 the Sargent Senate Committee in January, 1877 (S. R. No. 
 611, pt. 4, 44th Congress, 2d Session). But the minority 
 report has the advantage of support from General Barlow s 
 letter (p. 12) and the judgment of the Florida Supreme 
 Court on the law of Florida. 
 
 Mr. Justice BRADLEY S rejection of this judgment of a 
 Florida Republican Court as to Florida law was determined 
 (as was that of the majority report above mentioned) 
 by the technicality, that the judgment was rendered too 
 late, though it was rendered and published for common 
 knowledge long before Congress was called upon to act. 
 If this judgment could have been rendered and had 
 been rendered as soon as the proceedings therefor 
 were instituted by the service of the original writ, 
 (upon December 6, 1876, before the usurping electors had 
 voted), (!) presumably it would have been upheld by Judge 
 BRADLEY, though still his hospitable mind might have opened 
 
 ( J ) It is true, (as observed by Mr. Dougherty), that in his argument Mr. 
 Justice Miller stated that it was not shown whether the writ was actually 
 served before the votes by the Hayes Electors or afterwards. In this par 
 ticular however the fact is stated accurately in the argument of Mr. 
 Justice Clifford, who found that the Tilden Electors by extreme diligence 
 caused the writ to be served on the Hayes Electors before they cast their 
 votes" 
 
 The apparent discrepancy is because Mr. Justice Clifford did, and Mr. 
 Justice Miller did not, regard the record in the quo warranto proceedings 
 
17 
 
 to some other suggestion of reasons for its rejection. Thus 
 the great decision of this greatest of controversies affecting 
 an entire nation went off upon a mere question of time and 
 not of right. Posturing as bowing to the State s exclusive 
 right to attest the validity of the choice of its own Electors, 
 the Commission reached its decision in utter disregard of 
 the State s own adjudication on this very point. No such 
 decision upon a technical point (which in any view could 
 
 as included within the Democratic offer to prove. Mr. Justice Miller re 
 ferred contemptuously as follows to these papers of critical importance : 
 
 "It is strongly urged upon us that a large pile of papers, a half 
 bushel, perhaps, in quantity, of the contents of which both the Com 
 mission and the two Houses of Congess (how did he know this ?) are pro- 
 foundly ignorant, has become legitimate evidence and must necessarily 
 be considered by us, because they are in a very general way referred to in 
 the objections to the Hayes- Wheeler certificates." 
 
 Of course, Mr. Justice Miller could correctly insist upon the observ 
 ance of the strictest technicality in the actual reception of the proofs ; 
 but upon the preliminary question as to an offer of proof, it would seem 
 that Mr. Justice Clifford was clearly correct in understanding the offer to 
 include all that the accompanying records indicated would be proved if 
 the offer were entertained by the Commission. However, in this instance 
 as elsewhere in his argument, evidence may be found that one of our 
 greatest constitutional lawyers was not disposed to disregard any point of 
 party advantage, even though it were purely technical. This feature is 
 due probably to the fact indicated in the official index of the report of the 
 Electoral Commission that none of the members were called "Justices" 
 but all "Commissioners" and that none of their utterances were called 
 "opinions" but all "arguments." Every Commissioner on each side 
 seems to have been doing his very best for his own party and had he failed 
 so to do probably like General Barlow would have been exposed to abuse 
 for treachery to his party. It is ever to be regretted that it was found 
 necessary to drag the Supreme Court into a controversy essentially partisan 
 in its nature. 
 
 Under the influence of such considerations it is not strange that Mr. 
 Justice Miller accepted as of ultimate and controlling importance not the 
 count of the ballots in the boxes but the revising certificate of the State 
 canvassers already denounced by the State Courts. The general rule to 
 the contrary is illustrated by the unanimous decision of the New York 
 Court of Appeals in the leading case of People against Cook (8 N. Y., 
 67-82), that: 
 
 " It is by the popular expression by the voters through the ballot box 
 that a title is derived to an elective office. The certificate of the Board of 
 Canvassers is mere evidence of the person to whom the majority of the 
 votes were given. * * * When this proceeding (quo warranto) is in 
 stituted in the name of the people, the certificate loses its conclusive char 
 acter and becomes only prima facie evidence of the right." 
 
18 
 
 have been obviated by a short and simple act of Congress) ( r ) 
 could be expected to command nor did it receive national 
 approval any more than that in the Dred Scott case. At 
 the time I had no doubt, and (notwithstanding the learned, 
 and in my estimation, the upright Justice BKADLEY, whose 
 printed argument begins with an acknowledgment of his 
 change of mind) I have no doubt now that in view of that 
 judgment in quo warranto the votes of the Hayes Electors 
 in the State of Florida should not have been accepted either 
 by the Commission or by the Congress. 
 
 The view which I have thus ventured to express is that 
 also of Mr. Justice Clifford which is quoted with high 
 appreciation by Mr. Dougherty (The Electoral System, 
 p. 158) as follows : 
 
 " The Democratic contention was well stated with great 
 impressiveness by Mr. Justice CLIFFORD, when he said : 
 Kepeated admissions have been made during the dis- 
 
 * cnssion that a state may determine what persons thaitjuali- 
 fied voters have chosen and appointed electors of Presi- 
 1 dent and Vice-President, but the proposition is advanced 
 
 * that the determination must J^e made before the electors 
 meet and cast their votes, and that it cannot be made at 
 
 * any subsequent time. Antecedent investigation cannot be 
 
 * made in this case before -he electors voted for the reason 
 
 * that the old board of state canvassers did not make their 
 report until the day when the votes were cast, nor were 
 the Hayes electors furnished with a certificate of the 
 
 * canvassers until that day. 
 
 ( 1 ) Adequate statutory provision for the future probably has been 
 made by the Act of February 3, 1887, largely the work of Senator Edmunds 
 at his best, unembarrassed by party necessities. This statute is the subject 
 of an acute and able discussion by Mr. Dougherty, which deserves high 
 consideration. 
 
 A difficulty in Florida was that the interval between Election (Novem 
 ber 7) and the day appointed for the Electors meeting (the first Wednes 
 day in December) was too short to allow for an official canvass and also 
 for a subsequent judicial review resulting in a judgment before the voting 
 by the electors. 
 
 This difficulty is met in the new statute by postponing until the second 
 Monday of January the meeting of the electors, and making conclusive any 
 determination judicial or otherwise announced six days (!) previously 
 according to State laws enacted prior to the preceding election. 
 
19 
 
 1 All that could be done by way of investigation before 
 that time was done, as appears by the certificate of the 
 Attorney General, which was also given to the Tilden 
 
 * Electors on the same 6th of December. Without a 
 
 * moment s delay the Tilden electors sued out a writ of quo 
 warranto against the usurpers, and by extreme diligence 
 
 * caused it to be served on them one hour before they cast 
 
 * their votes. 
 
 * Weighed in the light of these suggestions, the proposi- 
 tiou that subsequent investigation cannot be made is 
 monstrous, as it shows a mockery of justice. You may in- 
 vestigate before the votes are cast, when it is impossible 
 
 * for want of time, but you shall not after that, as you would 
 1 then have an opportunity to ascertain the truth. 
 
 Accepting unhesitatingly this view of Justice Clifford, I 
 concede that there are still some who differ from it as ap 
 plicable to the controversy of 1876, though it is not believ 
 able that to-day any responsible statesman would dream of 
 applying to any present controversy a ruling such as that 
 which took Florida away from Tilden and gave it to Hayes. 
 If there be any impartial being who now would justify such 
 a procedure at this time, I have been unable by careful and 
 repeated inquiry to discover him. 
 
 It is appalling to reflect that the destinies of Mr. 
 Tilden, of the Democratic party and of the Nation were 
 subject to determination, and actually were determined, 
 by an obscure even if honest-minded country physician, 
 acting contrary to what Florida Courts held to be Florida 
 law, and (as testified by General Barlow) in disregard of his 
 conscientious scruples as expressly stated by him. His 
 associate McLin in a craven letter (S. B. No. 611 above 
 cited, page 499) begged for reward by appointment as federal 
 judge, a position to which he was nominated by Mr. Hayes 
 though not confirmed by the Senate and, within two years he 
 publicly impeached the validity of the action taken by him 
 self in canvassing the votes for Hayes (H. E. Mis. Doc. 
 31 Pt. 2 : 45th Cong. pp. 98-99 : Life Vol. 2, pp. 22-29). 
 No wrong could be greater than the evils possible through 
 legislation or decisions investing such a body of three with 
 
20 
 
 power to reverse the will of thousands of voters as evidenced 
 by these ballots cast independently of each other at hun 
 dreds of polls. To this situation also may be applied the 
 words of Mr. Tilden with reference to a Congressional 
 Commission : 
 
 " So great a stake as the government of forty millions of 
 " people with immense civil expenditures and a hundred 
 " thousand office holders to be disposed of by a small body 
 " sitting in the capital would become the sport of intrigue 
 " or fraud " (Letters, Vol. 2, p. 532). 
 
 In this record, which I believe to be incontestibly true, 
 I, for one out of millions, am unable to discern how a meri 
 torious title for the Hayes electors in Florida can be dis 
 covered by any one whose vision is not distorted by partisan 
 bias. 
 
 5. In the State of Louisiana the conduct of the Returning 
 Board was nauseating. ( 1 ) It revolted fair-minded Repub 
 licans. Mr. Rhodes reviews its action at length (Vol. 7, 
 pp. 231-236), and says (p. 284), that Mr. Hayes " ought to 
 
 (*) " It is needless to say that the result announced by the returning 
 board had been attained by a series of grossly partisan and illegal acts. 
 The board had failed to obey the statute requiring them to fill the vacancy 
 in their membership. They had entertained protests which had been 
 irregularly made. * * * One or more of them it appears had even 
 altered and falsified the returns from Vernon and perhaps from other 
 parishes. For this offense they were all in the following year indicted : 
 and one of them, Anderson, was tried, convicted and sentenced to the 
 penitentiary for two years, though subsequently released on a point of 
 law (Haworth, " Disputed Presidential Election of 1876," p. 116). 
 
 This is the same board whose character was certified in the following 
 remarkable letter to Mr. Hayes from John Sherman (Recollections, VoK 1, 
 p. 558) : " That you would have received at a fair election a large majority 
 in Louisiana no honest man can question ; tJiat you did not receive a majority 
 is equally clear. But that intimidation of the very kind and nature pro 
 vided against by the Louisiana law did enter into and control the election, 
 in more election polls than would change the result I believe as firmly as 
 that I write this. * * * The whole case rests upon the action of the 
 returning board. I have carefully observed them, and have formed a 
 high opinion of Governor Wells and Colonel Anderson. They are firm, 
 judicious and, as far as I can judge, thoroughly honest and conscientious" 
 (23d November, 1876). 
 
21 
 
 have stopped the action in his favor of " the Louisiana 
 Returning Board." President Seely, Republican and highly 
 honored Representative from Massachusetts, declined to vote 
 to count this Louisiana return, giving his reasons upon the 
 floor of the House as follows : 
 
 " I find it therefore quite impossible to say which of the 
 " two sets of electors coming up here with their certificates 
 " voice the true will of the people of Louisiana in the late 
 " election and therefore equally beyond my power to assent 
 4f to the propriety of counting either. * * * Granted 
 " that the decision reached is fairly within the bond ; yet 
 11 what if the pound of flesh cannot be taken with out its 
 41 drop of blood." 
 
 6. This, as it seems to me was the true and sound doc 
 trine. Nothing short of a solution according to the merits 
 would have satisfied or ever will satisfy a great and in 
 telligent people. Patient and fair consideration would 
 have found legal grounds sufficient for decision according 
 to the merits. Such consideration conceivably might 
 have involved, as with President Seely it did involve, a 
 rejection of the entire vote of Louisiana as tainted 
 with Republican corruption and Democratic intimidation. 
 Such a rejection, however, would have fallen short of the 
 necessities of the Hayes canvass which required that not 
 one of the disputed votes should be rejected but that every 
 one of them should be counted, and be counted for Hayes. 
 This, as I have said, was done in defiance of both precedent 
 and principle. 
 
 In attempted justification of this violation of the rule of 
 government according to the ballots cast, it has been and is 
 said (following John Sherman s letter to Mr. Hayes) that 
 the colored people were not permitted to vote as then they 
 were entitled to vote, and therefore that the votes of Florida 
 and Louisiana were to be counted upon the basis of the 
 relative populations white and colored. 
 
 In reply it may fairly be observed that upon this theory 
 the holding of any election in those states was a work 
 
22 
 
 of supererogation, their vote for Hayes being foreor 
 dained. It may also be asked whether, in advance of 
 election day, the Hayes managers would have dared to 
 disclose a plan such as that by them subsequently 
 adopted ; whether in October 1876 they would have ven 
 tured to declare, as in December 1876 they did declare, that 
 whatever their vote, Florida and Louisiana would be counted 
 for Hayes, thus turning election day in those States into a 
 farce, and the campaign arid the process of election into 
 mere mockery ? 
 
 The answer to this question of course can only be 
 imagined, for as Mr. Tilden was accustomed to say, " You 
 " cannot state the consequences of what never hap- 
 " pened." It requires, however, no stretch of imagination 
 to assume that a seasonable and public announcement 
 before election day of a purpose so revolutionary (*) would 
 have affronted enough Northern voters to turn the scales in 
 at least one of four Northern doubtful states, which went 
 against Tilden by narrow margins ; Nevada and Oregon by- 
 less than 1,100 and California and New Hampshire by less 
 than 3,100. The tide was running for Tilden, not in the 
 South alone, but also in the North, where he received forty- 
 seven per cent, of the vote, coming within 7,500 votes of 
 
 (*) Though no such announcement may have been made before the 
 election, the contingency of a dispute was indicated by Murat Halstead 
 addressing a New York Republican meeting, October 26, 1876, in a speech 
 remarkable for its partisan foresight. He said : 
 
 " The October elections have not as in other days settled the question 
 of the presidency. What if the November election also should be incon 
 clusive ? What if the result of the question of Tilden or Hayes for Presi 
 dent rested upon a Southern State, upon Mississippi or South Carolina, 
 with a derringer in one hand and a bayonet in the other ; and the heated 
 politicians gathering at Washington and desperate, should fly at each 
 other s throats and let slip the dogs of war. A disputed presidential elec 
 tion would Mexicanize us. There is incalculable ruin in it. If the New 
 York vote is given to the Democratic candidate we are immediately 
 threatened with this degradation. If New York is Republican the danger 
 is over." 
 
 But New York refused to be stampeded and by the size of its majority 
 for Tilden emphasized its resentment of such attempted intimidation of 
 an entire State. 
 
23 
 
 Hayes in his own State of Ohio, a difference of only seven - 
 tenths of one per cent. 
 
 But here and now in a study of Mr. Tilden s character 
 the question is not how in fact, did Florida and Louisiana 
 go but what was the belief of Mr. Tilde n as to how they 
 went, and how did he act upon his belief ? 
 
 That Mr. Tilden believed sincerely that Hayes was not 
 entitled to those states cannot be doubted after reading Mr. 
 Bigelow s story of his life during these momentous 100 days. 
 
 Thus believing and believing also that he was about to be 
 defrauded of this greatest of public offices, he might have 
 resorted to fraud or to force, or he might submit patriotically, 
 as to his everlasting credit he did submit. To the proposition 
 that the judges should be selected by lot Mr. Tilden answered 
 that he might lose the presidency, but that he would not 
 raffle for it (Letters, Vol. 2, p. 531). 
 
 As to fraud, the outrageous charge denied by him under 
 oath was refuted by the very events themselves. As was 
 well said by the Bookman (March, 1905, p. 40) : 
 
 " The facts are very convincingly summed up by Mr. 
 Tilden s biographer, Mr. Bigelovv : 
 
 Only one vote was required to elect Mr. Tilden. The 
 votes of three States were in the market, and at a price 
 which Tildeu could easily have paid. Tilden did not get 
 that vote. Hayes needed the votes of three States. All 
 were for sale. Hayes got them all and was elected, and, 
 within six months after his inauguration every person known 
 to have been concerned in securing or giving those votes, 
 from the highest to the lowest, received an office or the offer 
 of one from Mr. Hayes. 
 
 And Mr. Rhodes justly observes (Vol. 7, p. 244) : 
 
 " Tilden s course in these matters was really above re 
 proach." 
 
 As to force, but a single word from Mr. Tilden was needed 
 and as shown by Mr. Watterson in his Century Article, the 
 countryside like the field of Jason would have brought forth 
 men and possibly (as suggested by Mr. Joseph Pulitzer) 
 
24 
 
 armed men in multitudes led by soldiers and generals 
 conspicuous for ability and for heroism in the Union 
 armies. No one having personal knowledge of the intense 
 strain in those four months preceding March 4th, 1877, can 
 doubt that upon a call from Mr. Tilden thousands upon 
 thousands of his supporters, representing a majority of his 
 countrymen, an enormous majority of his white countrymen 
 would have arisen in determined assertion of his rights. ( x ) 
 
 God s mercy and Mr. Tilden s forbearance alone saved 
 this country from an awful outbreak. 
 
 Like the philosopher and the lawyer that he was, he 
 devoted himself calmly to an examination of precedents, 
 to the preparation of arguments and to conferences with his 
 supporters. In his view only Congress acting in both Houses 
 jointly could count the vote. Mr. Hayes, writing to John 
 Sherman (Recollections, p. 56), stated that he believed that 
 the Vice-Pi esident alone had the constitutional power to 
 count the vote and to declare the result. This position was 
 rendered untenable by the unanswerable arguments of 
 
 ( ! ) It is difficult vividly to reproduce the sense of outrage then felt by 
 the Tilden supporters. Just now (Feby. 11, 1914) I have received from 
 one of the most eminent of the clergyman and theologians of this country? 
 himself a soldier in the Union army during the war between the States, a 
 letter from which I make the following extract: "I was one of Mr- 
 " Tilden s most ardent admirers and when his election was disputed and 
 " Dr. S remarked to me that peace or war depended on Mr. Tilden, I 
 u replied : If I were Mr. Tilden and were as clearly elected as he is I 
 ** would have the presidency if I had to make the country tremble from 
 " one end to the other. " 
 
 Intense bitterness of feeling had developed also among the supporters 
 of Hayes. Even George William Curtis who was destined in 1884 to con 
 tribute so powerfully to bring in Grover Cleveland and the Democratic 
 party, could hardly find words in 1876 adequate for his denunciation of the 
 Democrats. In a November issue of Harper s Weekly he contributed 
 these pleasant words of pacification: "It is not easy to express the 
 contempt which an intelligent American feels for those Democrats who 
 having always defended slavery and secession now talk of letting by-gones 
 be by-gones &c." 
 
 Surely the atmosphere was charged with explosives. 
 
25 
 
 Conkling and of Edmunds whose party spirit in this instance 
 yielded to his superior legal instinct about to discover a way 
 of happy escape through his invention of an Electoral 
 Commission which, however disappointing to us, still must 
 be placed principally to the credit of Senator Edmunds. 
 
 When finally for whatever reason both houses of Congress 
 had united in counting the votes for Hayes this procedure 
 was accepted by Mr. Tilden as final for reasons set forth 
 by John Bigelow in a letter dated May 2, 1880, and soon 
 afterwards published in the " Nashville Banner." 
 
 The denial of his right, resting on a popular majority of 
 more than 250,000, was no surprise to Mr. Tilden, who had 
 held the opinion 
 
 " that the opposition attempting to change the administra- 
 " tion needed to include at least two-thirds of the voters at 
 * the opening of the canvass in order to retain a majority at 
 " the election." (Life, Vol. II, p. 269.) 
 
 Contemplating this patriotic attitude of Mr. Tilden, that 
 wise statesman Senator Elihu Root, in his Yale Lecture on 
 the Duties and Responsibilities of Citizenship (N. Y. Sun 
 May 21, 1907), expressed himself as follows : 
 
 " It has always seemed to me that Mr. Tilden pursued a 
 very patriotic and commendable course when the election 
 to the Presidency was in question between him and Mr. 
 Hayes in 1876. * * * There was a question that in 
 evitably would have resulted in civil war in any country 
 where the personal idea was predominant in politics, and 
 there were in this country men of high character and 
 standing who urged that Mr. Tilden s title to the office 
 should be asserted by armed force, but he was decided and 
 immovable in the position that he would permit no breach 
 ol the peace of the country in his behalf, whether he got the 
 Presidency or not. The question was finally submitted to 
 a special court devised for the purpose, and the court by a 
 majority of one decided in favor of Mr. Hayes. So Mr. 
 Tilden lost the Presidency ; but he gained what was of far 
 greater value a title to the esteem and gratitude of all good 
 citizens. He probably rendered a greater and more per 
 manent public service than by anything he could have done 
 as President." 
 
26 
 
 Notwithstanding sharp diversities of opinion contem 
 porary and historical, the conduct of Mr. Tilden in the 
 winter of 1876-7, seems to me to have been perfectly con 
 sistent with the correct principles which had governed his 
 entire political life. As long before as in November, 1860, 
 with almost passionate earnestness he had declared to a 
 group of friends : 
 
 " I would not have the responsibility of William Cullen 
 " Bryant and John Bigelow for all the wealth in the sub- 
 " treasury. If you have your way civil war will divide this 
 " country, and vou will see blood running like water in the 
 " streets of this" city ". (Life, Vol. 1, p. 154.) 
 
 Responsibility for such a condition he could not assume 
 in 1877 any more than in 1860. Love of the Union and 
 horror of fratricidal strife dominated his entire nature, and 
 he had to obey the law of his being. His course was justi 
 fied by the results to the country. The Hayes Administra 
 tion comprising wise men of foresight, devoted itself to 
 conciliating the Tilden supporters who, as already ob 
 served, constituted a vast majority of the white voters of 
 the country. The Southern States were pacified and rein 
 vested with self government. The Northern Independents 
 were won back by the policies of civil service reform, finan 
 cial reform and administrative reform. Thus the objects 
 for which Mr. Tilden stood were gained in a considerable 
 degree, though he lost the Presidency for which he was 
 preferred by the people. 
 
 It is regrettable that the country and especially that the 
 Democratic party lost the benefits and the education that 
 would have come from the administration of an executive 
 officer whose service would have been prized by every large 
 corporation in the country, and of the most highly developed 
 political philosopher that our country had produced since 
 Thomas Jefferson. Nevertheless, the conciliatory course of 
 the Hayes Administration proved so acceptable as to justify 
 a remark made to me in 1880 at the Cincinnati Convention 
 
27 
 
 by a democratic leader : " The Hayes Administration has 
 " made it difficult and probably impossible for us to win." 
 
 Endeavoring justly to estimate the self-restraint and the 
 patriotic self-effacement of Mr. Tilden in this national 
 crisis, I have been led to wonder what would have been the 
 action and the consequences of the action of Mr. Elaine or 
 of Colonel lloosevelt had either of them been similarly cir 
 cumstanced. ( l ) 
 
 Thus ended the political activities of Mr. Tilden, for 
 though twice again, in 1880 and in 1884, he was sought by his 
 party as its candidate, he felt himself physically unfit to 
 meet the tremendous exactions of a campaign, and to 
 undertake the ceaseless toil, inseparable from the proper 
 discharge of the duties of public office as conceived by him. 
 In each year he wrote a letter declining to be considered in 
 connection with the nomination. 
 
 In the Cincinnati Convention in 1880 his letter (Life, 
 Vol. II, p. 266) produced a profound sensation, Mr. Abram 
 S. Hewitt stating in my hearing, that upon such a decla 
 ration the Democracy was bound to nominate Mr. Tilden, 
 and if he were to die during the campaign then to vote for 
 his memory, as was done in 1872 by some Georgia Electors 
 in the case of Horace Greeley after his death. 
 
 In anticipation of the Chicago Convention of 1884 Mr. 
 Tilden published a letter of final withdrawal (Life, Vol. II, 
 p. 282), a letter which, as justly observed by the New York 
 Times, was an act of unselfishness, of great moment and of 
 promise, for otherwise he would have been nominated with- 
 
 (*) To avoid any possible misconstruction of my position, if that be of 
 consequence, I may be permitted to state that, in my opinion, after the 
 declaration of the result accoiding to the vote of both Houses of Congress, 
 Mr. Hayes held the office of President by a title legally unimpeachable, 
 though based upon frauds beyond correction. I readily acknowledge that 
 had Mr. Tilden been seated, the supporters of Mr. Hayes generally would 
 have felt that the Presidency had been stolen by force. I desired and, 
 despite my disappointment, I still am satisfied with, the peaceable solu 
 tion of the difficulties. 
 
28 
 
 out dissent, and as his party believed with assurance of 
 success at the polls. 
 
 The closing paragraph of that letter was worthy of 
 Seneca or of any other classic sage : 
 
 " Having given to their welfare whatever of health and 
 " strength I possessed or could borrow from the future, and 
 " having reached the term of my capacity for such labors 
 " as their welfare now demands, I but submit to the will of 
 " God, in deeming my public career forever closed." 
 
 Once and only once again, in December, 1885, did he 
 address the general public through a letter to Speaker Car 
 lisle, making a powerful and effective plea for strengthen 
 ing our coast defences ; a plea afterwards reinforced by the 
 action of President Cleveland, and his Secretary of War, 
 Judge Endicott.* 
 
 But his interest in the public and in his beloved city of 
 New York were still to be manifested in a way and to an 
 extent amazing to those who had been accustomed to 
 regard him merely as a selfish accumulator of money for 
 his own selfish ends. During his years of retirement at 
 Greystone, his country home, he was planning how best to 
 confer upon the people of this city the benefits of a gift 
 larger than any up to that time made by any benefactor, 
 unless possibly Mr. James Lenox. His entire re 
 siduary estate amounting to about $4,000,000 was 
 destined for the public good. Unhappily his testa 
 mentary provision to thin effect was set aside by the 
 Courts, once more by a majority of one, and upon 
 grounds which in the judgment of learned lawyers like Dean 
 Ames of the Harvard Law School were deemed insufficient 
 (Lectures on Legal History, p. 283). However, thanks to 
 
 *The regrettable coolness that developed between Mr. Tilden and 
 President Cleveland is not a matter for surprise. One who has been 
 acknowledged leader does not readily welcome displacement or cordially 
 consider the one who seems to be in his place. A similar condition 
 marked the relations of Fremont to Lincoln and of Roosevelt to Taft. 
 Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan in the cordiality of their intercourse greatly 
 to their credit have established a precedent. 
 
29 
 
 the filial disposition of his great niece Mrs. Laura Pelton 
 Hazard an arrangement was effected whereby more than 
 $2,000,000 was provided out of her share for the Tilden 
 Trust, now forming part of the New York Public Library. 
 The practical benefit of that institution is indicated by the 
 statement of its director to me, that it is used by more 
 readers than any other public library in the world. 
 
 To the end as at the beginning Mr. Tilden was a phil 
 osopher, an idealist and in some sense a mystic. As acutely 
 observed by Mr. Watterson " He was a dreamer with a 
 genius for business, a philosopher, yet an organizer." His 
 inner soul and purpose was disclosed in his letter to the 
 Cincinnati Convention (Public Writing Vol. 2, 503) when 
 he wrote : 
 
 " Through the whole period of my relation to the presi- 
 " dency I did everything in my power to elevate, and noth- 
 4t ing to lower moral standards in the competition of the 
 " parties." 
 
 This was in accord with his standard of personal conduct. 
 Base and vulgar detractions of political adversaries in and 
 out of his own party ignored the fact that his associations 
 never were with the base and vulgar, but always with 
 men of the highest character. Noscitur a sociis. His trust 
 ing and trusted friends were Bryant and Bigelow and 
 O Conor, and Carter and Oswald Ottendorfer and Andrew 
 H. Green and William Allen Butler, from whose Memorial 
 delivered at the request]of the New York City Bar Associa 
 tion upon December 14th, 1886, I quote the following 
 testimonial of professional esteem : 
 
 " It is a duty as well as a privilege within our own circle 
 " to assert his claim to the respect and gratitude of his 
 " brethren of the bar and of the community at large, in 
 " those matters as to which we speak what we know and 
 " testify what we have seen. In the rush of events and 
 " especially in the ever recurring struggles with present 
 " wrong-doing, public and private, we are apt to be for- 
 " getful of past dangers and past deliverances, and of the 
 * work of those by whom the deliverances were wrought. 
 " It is in the retrospect of the great public peril which 
 " summoned Mr. Tilden to aid in the rescue of the State 
 
30 
 
 " and of the peculiar service which he gave with unselfish 
 " and untiring fidelity and with full success, that we find 
 " as in a focus, the converging force and radiance of his best 
 " faculties and gifts ; a cheering and guiding light, un- 
 " obscured and inextinguishable." 
 
 And, again, having reference to Mr. Tilden s conscien 
 tious thoroughness ; a trait and a habit indicating integrity 
 of character, Mr. Butler thus commented upon the harmo 
 nious consistency of Mr. Tilden s intellectual activities. 
 
 " The same habit he brought into his private affairs, 
 " his professional work and his political activities. Alike 
 " to all objects which engrossed him he gave the whole of 
 " his intellectual capacity, all the energy of his will and the 
 " full measure of his physical strength. He had a per- 
 " sistence which was more than perseverance, and a faculty 
 " of adhesion to the main purpose in view, and of reaching 
 " it by discussion, by investigation, and by all means of 
 " possible solution, which exhausted the powers and the 
 " patience of every one but himself." 
 
 William Cullen Bryant s high regard for Mr. Tilden is 
 shown in his letter of August 28, 1876, to Mr. Bigelow (Life 
 of Bryant, Yol. 2, p. 376), as follows : 
 
 " It gives me great pain to refuse anything to the friend 
 of a man whom I esteem and honor as I do Mr. Tilden, and 
 whom I know to be so highly accomplished for the most 
 eminent political station ; whose opinions of the proper 
 province and objects of legislation have been formed in the 
 same school as my own, and who, so far as his party will 
 not obstruct him, will I am sure act not only with ability 
 and integrity but with wisdom in any station to which the 
 voice of his countrymen may call him." 
 
 But for a comprehensive appreciation of his character by 
 one of the most commanding personalities of the American 
 bar distinguished alike for his virtues and his talents 
 nothing can be more instructive than the tribute by James 
 C. Carter published in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 
 1892, and republished by Mr. Bigelow in the Letters and 
 Literary Memorials (Vol. 1, p. xi.). I extract but a single 
 sentence from an extended article worthy of complete con 
 sideration. 
 
 " I cannot help thinking that Governor Tilden possessed 
 " on the whole greater capabilities for usefulness in public 
 
31 
 
 " life than any other man of his generation. I cannot find 
 " anywhere else such a union of the ability to discover true 
 " governmental policies with the firm and undeviating pur- 
 " pose to pursue them. * * * I do not tbink tbat any 
 " other public man of his time was more faithful to his 
 " conception of truth." 
 
 Again I observe : What a pity that the nation could not 
 have had the benefit of the public service of such a citizen ! 
 
 In his professional, and in his business life, his pre 
 eminence was not less pronounced than in his public career. 
 
 During the decade of the sixties and earlier Mr. 
 Tilden was a pioneer and a leader in the development 
 of the railways and of the resources of the Middle West 
 especially in Ohio, in Indiana, in Illinois and Upper 
 Michigan. " More than half of the great railways north 
 of the Ohio and between the Hudson and Missouri Kivers 
 were at some time his clients" (Life, Vol. 1, p. 143). His 
 legal acumen and foresight in matters of corporate reorganiza 
 tion then without precedents are indicated in his letters to 
 his friend Mr. Justice SWAYNE (Letters, Vol. 1, pp. 129-141 ; 
 Public Writings, Vol. 1, p. 592), with whom he was cooperat 
 ing, and in his association with John Sherman, who referr 
 ing to this period says (Recollections, Vol. 1, p. 551) : 
 
 " I knew Mr. Tilden personally and very favorably as we 
 were members of a board of railroad directors which fre 
 quently met." 
 
 The public value of such services is overlooked so fre 
 quently that it is fitting to quote from the appreciative 
 letter addressed to Mr. Tilden under date of November 27, 
 1880, by the venerable and Reverend Dr. A. T. McGill, the 
 Senior Professor of the Princeton Theological Seminary 
 (Letters, Vol. 2, p. 606) : 
 
 " I cannot refrain from writing to you as I often desired 
 to do in the past, to testify my respect and admiration 
 alike when you were covered with merited honors and per 
 secuted with unmerited obloquy * * * . I am indebted 
 to you for the surpassing ability and probity, with which in 
 connection with Lanier you saved my savings which I had 
 
32 
 
 invested in the Pennsylvania and Ohio now The Wayne 
 Railroad. It was therefore my duty when you were abused 
 by various lying papers on every occasion to tell ray own 
 personal knowledge of the rare integrity with which you 
 secured to a multitude of poor men what we thought was- 
 lost in the bankruptcy of that great road." 
 
 The personal side of Mr. Tilden often is touched upon by 
 Mr. Bigelow, in such wise to reveal him, as in truth he was, 
 a man of patience, bearing many burdens of which not all 
 originated outside of his own family (Letters, Vol. 1, p. 327 ; 
 Bigelow s Retrospections, Vol. 5, pp. 395-402). Though 
 often reviled, he reviled not again, and he refrained from 
 speaking ill of others (Life, Vol. L, pp. 389-390; Vol. II., 
 p. 389). He was capable of great tenderness as in his let 
 ters to his sister (Life, Vol. L, pp. 80-84), of romantic 
 friendship as suggested in his will (Article xxii., Life, 
 Vol. 2, p. 426), and of high idealism, as shown in his letter 
 to Mrs. Franklin Chase (Letters, Vol. 1, pp. 68-72) upon 
 which referring to the two volumes of the letters " The 
 Outlook" commented as follows (15 Aug., 1908) : 
 
 " For one thing, his disinterestedness stands plainly 
 revealed in his own correspondence and in that of his 
 friends. So, too, does his lofty earnestness, which is 
 nowhere better indicated than in a letter he wrote at the 
 age of thirty-six. My disposition, he observes, is not 
 to permit merely private business to engross me, nor 
 to be in any of an unprofessional nature which creates 
 anxiety. I have never been accustomed to surrender 
 to it my inner life, or to allow its cares to 
 fill those" little interstices between actual occupa 
 tion which are instinctively given to, and which 
 characterize, our ruling habits of thought and feeling. 
 There no doubt is danger, as the relations of business 
 multiply around us, and our enthusiasm for public objects 
 is qualified or weakened, and our sympathies often come 
 back upon us as the chilled blood returns from the extrem 
 ities to the heart, that what furnishes occupation to our 
 activity without the trouble of seeking it, and without 
 making us inquire whether we choose it, will grow too 
 much upon our attention. But I desire to reserve some 
 thing to better purposes something to friends and to^ my 
 self, and possibly, if hereafter I can recall the enthusiasm 
 
oo . , . 
 
 OO >,"" j , , , / J > 
 
 of early years, with a share of its former strength and stead 
 iness, something to consecrate life by a sense that it has 
 not been wholly given to objects so selfishly egotistical as 
 are most of those which we pursue. (To Mrs. Franklyn 
 Chase, 29 Nov. 50. 1 Letters, p. 71.) 
 
 " Read in the light of Tilden s after career of his work 
 as leader in the impeachment proceedings against Barnard 
 and Cardozo, in the Tweed prosecutions generally, in the 
 fight against the Canal Ring, arid in the manner of his ac 
 ceptance of the verdict of the Electoral Commission with 
 holding the Presidency from him the absolute sincerity 
 and vital significance of this letter are unmistakable. It 
 aids in the understanding both of Tilden s conduct of life 
 and of the seemingly extravagant esteem in which he was 
 held by his intimate friends." 
 
 His recreation was found chiefly in riding and driving 
 and in books. The list of the 800 volumes read to him in 
 his last four years (Life, Yol. 2, pp. 348 ; 410-419) is sur 
 prising in its range. Like Samuel Pepys, as observed by 
 Robert Louis Stevenson, he seems to have had " an insatiable 
 curiosity in the things of knowledge." Frugal and simple in 
 his habits and expenditures (Life, Vol. 2, p. 384) he gave 
 liberally to private charities, nearly as much as all others 
 to the fight against Tweed (Public Writings, Vol. 1, p. 595) 
 and generally more than anyone else to political causes ( l ) 
 (Life, Vol. 2, p. 392). 
 
 C 1 ) In a non-presidential canvass after 1876 (as I was told at the time 
 by Mr. W. C. Whitney) Mr. Tilden had given more than $150,000 to make 
 an effective canvass and to get out the voters and to bring them to the 
 polls in the 3,000 election districts of New York State. Such a sum could 
 be spent legitimately for these purposes. In a rural county one of the 
 "workers" of 1876, referring to that election, afterwards said to me 
 There was plenty of money then for early carriages, but little for late 
 ones." Such was his usual exaction of others. "Whenever you leave 
 to go anywhere for me, take the first train, not the second," were his in 
 structions to his business agents, as one of them told me. For himself 
 ne was a procrastinator on principle " I do to-day nothing that can just 
 " as well wait, for to-morrow may show that it were better left undone." 
 
 The latter day increase in the scale of political expenditures is shown 
 by the subscription (Letters, Vol. 1, p. 245) for the democratic presiden 
 tial canvass of 1868 when $80,000 was raised by contributions of $10,000 
 each by Mr. Tilden, Mr. O Couor and six others. 
 
34 
 
 His life covered the stormiest period in the history of our 
 republic. Born during one war he lived through two others, 
 and he participated in the struggles against nullification, 
 against slavery extension, against secession, against recon 
 struction, and against public frauds. No other man can be 
 recalled who during so long a period touched more import 
 antly or more variously the political activities of his native 
 State. Out of this long and active public life, he emerged 
 without any just cause of reproach upon his character with 
 a large fortune, accumulated mainly for the benefit of the 
 public, and with overwhelming right to the gratitude of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 His fellow citizens do well to gather in commemoration of 
 his great career and his great civic virtues ; and well may we 
 recall what Mr. Bigelow justly terms the noble lines of 
 Whittier. 
 
 " Once more O all adjusting Death 
 " The Nation s Pantheon opens wide 
 " Once more a common sorrow saith 
 " A strong wise man has died. 
 
 " Faults doubtless he had. Had we not 
 " Our own to question and asperse, 
 " The worth we doubted or forgot 
 " Until we stood beside his hearse ? 
 
 " Ambitious, cautious yet the man 
 
 " To strike down fraud with resolute hand ; 
 
 " A patriot, if a partisan 
 
 " He loved his native land. 
 
 " So let the mourning bells be rung 
 " The banner droop its folds half-way 
 " And let the public pen and tongue 
 " Their fitting tribute pay. 
 
 " Then let us vow above his bier 
 " To set our feet on party ties 
 " And wound no more a living ear 
 " With words that death denies." 
 
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