TILDEN TO CHARLES P. DALY, CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE ON INVITATIONS TO THE MEETING, TO BE HELD IN UNION SQUARE, TO CELEBRATE RECENT NATIONAL VICTORIES, ON MARCH 4, 1865
"2 Union Place, March 3rd, 1865.
"Gentlemen,—Your letter, inviting me to 'address the great meeting, to be held at Union Square to-morrow, to celebrate the recent national victories,' reaches me while I am confined by illness, and expect to be, at the time of the meeting, totally disabled from speaking. I shall, however, none the less, join in rendering the most grateful homage to the achievements of our gallant soldiers and sailors and their skilful commanders, and the most cordial appreciation of the value of these achievements towards preserving the unity of our Federal Republic, and the nationality of the great people which has been formed under the shelter of its rightful and beneficent sway.
"These sentiments have never been weakened, even when it has sometimes seemed to me that this great object of our efforts and sacrifices was imperilled, and those efforts and sacrifices made more costly, if not fruitless, by errors of civil policy or of military or financial administration. Nor, amid such errors, and all errors tolerated during the 'throes and convulsions' of civil war, by the people, who were in so unaccustomed a situation, and were intensely occupied by the great struggle in which they were involved, have I ever lost faith that, when the struggle should be once successfully over, they would completely re-establish the great traditions of constitutional government, founded on local self-control and on individual liberty and personal rights.
"Let me add that, in the present posture of our public affairs, it is better to look forward than to look behind—to think of battles to be fought rather than of victories already won, and in preparing that wise and liberal statesmanship by which alone a complete pacification of the country is to be attained, to remember that 'peace hath its victories, not less renowned than war.'
"To co-operate, candidly and cordially, with the existing public agents in all measures for bringing the war to a successful close, and to remove the evils it will have engendered in our civil and social systems seems to me as plain a duty as it is at every election to promote the choice of such public agents as will, in our judgment, best attain these ends.
"With much respect, I remain,
"Truly yours,
"S. J. Tilden."