Letters and Literary Memorials of Samuel J. Tilden, v. 2

by Samuel J. Tilden

A TALK WITH MR. TILDEN

[From a Special Correspondent of the "World," July 17, 18—]

"Sea Girt, N. J., July 16.

"Governor Tilden, as some time ago announced in the World, will sail in the Cunard steamer Scythia Wednesday, and is to be accompanied by Secretary of State Bigelow. The trip is purely for recreation, and the travellers will not return until the middle of October. Mr. Tilden, therefore, will be absent from the country and State during what is expected to be the interesting fall campaign. The fact that Mr. Bigelow is to accompany him will perhaps satisfy the politicians and set at rest the question of his renomination as Secretary of State. I have learned while here, authoritatively, that Mr. Bigelow is not and will not be a candidate before the approaching State convention of New York for a renomination.

"Mr. Tilden is looking remarkably well, and declares himself to be very much improved in health by his sojourn at this pleasant resort. He said to me that his trip has no connection whatever with any business enterprise or railroad scheme, as has been announced without authority in some of the papers. As to the events which have happened since the Presidential election and the numerous wild rumors circulated in reference to his political intentions, Mr. Tilden talked very freely. In regard to the electoral commission, he said that he had never had any real confidence in the arbitration of a question where there was so much at stake by a body of that kind. That settlement, he said, involved not only the Presidency, but all the patronage and power of the Federal administration, together with all the schemes, plans, and jobs connected with it. The Republican party and the men who had managed it in the past were too anxious to retain the administration to yield any point in an arbitration. The result of the electoral commission, therefore, was what might have been expected considering the power and influence brought to bear upon the political majority of that body as finally constituted.

He furthermore never liked the scheme as a matter of principle, believing that the true direction of a Democratic appeal was not away from 369 representatives of the people towards fifteen individuals, and still less from fifteen individuals towards one to be selected necessarily with a large element of chance, not to say of trick and device. He thought there should rather have been an appeal from the 369 representatives to the 8,000,000 of voters through a new election. He was distrustful of the secrecy, celerity, and improvidence with which the arrangement was carried through and ushered into being. But the proposition appealed to the hopes of the business classes, which were anxious above all things for a settlement of almost any kind, at almost any price, and as it was presented by the unanimous report of the joint committee, it become the representative, and the only representative, of the public desire for peace.

"The events which are now attracting so much public attention in New Orleans and the disclosures which, perhaps, may follow, Mr. Tilden seemed to consider only as the logical outcome of the revolutionary acts of last fall and winter. 'In a government like ours,' he said, 'such fraudulent practices as were reported from New Orleans last November sooner or later must come to the light, and the guilty parties with their practices must be made known. It was so with the ring frauds in New York; it has been the case to a certain extent in Washington, and a like result will follow in New Orleans. It is against the natural course of events that deeds of this kind should ultimately fail of being brought to light in all their enormities.' All this was said with philosophic calmness and without any heat whatever.

"In regard to his own political future, Mr. Tilden had nothing to say except that he could not see any possible contingency which could induce him to be a candidate for or to seek an election to a seat in the United States Senate. He felt entirely confident of the success of the Democratic party this fall in all the large central States, and especially in New York, by a very large majority, believing that events were all pointing in that direction. To the charge that he has been seeking to control the nominations of the next Democratic State convention of New York, he gave a direct denial, and added that he thought it unwise to interfere in any way as between the numerous friends who are seeking position on the State ticket. His absence abroad during the time for holding the convention and selecting the delegates would, he said, preclude any interference on his part. He thought, however, that the drift of public sentiment was towards a new ticket altogether, with none of the present incumbents upon it. He hoped that the ticket would be so made up as to be recognized as thoroughly able, strong, and upright. He appeared to be specially anxious that the Democracy should secure a majority in the next State Senate, in order that the evils which have been brought about by Republican control of that body might be corrected.

H. C."

Mr. Tilden spent the summer of 1877 in Europe. On his return he was serenaded by the Young Men's Democratic Club, on which occasion he made a brief speech, in the course of which he said, according to the New York Tribune of October 26, 1877:

"The increase of power in the Federal government during the last twenty years, the creation of a vast office-holding class, with its numerous dependents, and the growth of the means of corrupt influence, have well nigh destroyed the balance of our complex system. It was my judgment in 1876 that public opinion, demanding a change of administration, needed to embrace two-thirds of the people at the beginning of the canvass, in order to cast a majority of the votes at the election. If this tendency is not arrested its inevitable result will be the practical destruction of our system. Let the Federal government grasp power over the great corporations of our country and acquire the means of addressing their interests and their fears; let it take jurisdiction of riots which it is the duty of the State to suppress; let it find pretexts for increasing the army, and soon those in possession of the government will have a power with which no opposition can successfully compete. The experience of France under the Third Napoleon shows that, with elective forms and universal suffrage, despotism can be established and maintained. In the canvass of 1876 the Federal government embarked in the contest with unscrupulous activity. A member of the Cabinet was the head of a partisan committee. Agents stood at the doors of the pay offices to exact contributions from official subordinates. The whole office-holding class were made to exhaust their power. Even the army, for the first time, to the disgust of the soldiers and many of the officers, was moved about the country as an electioneering instrument. All this was done under the eye of the beneficiary of it, who was making the air vocal with professions of civil service reform, to be begun after he had himself exhausted all the immoral advantages of civil service abuses. Public opinion in some States was overdone by corrupt influences and by fraud. But so strong was the desire for reform that the Democratic candidates received 4,300,000 suffrages. This was a majority of the popular vote of about 300,000, and of 1,250,000 of the white citizens. It was a vote of 700,000 larger than General Grant received in 1872, and 1,300,000 larger than he received in 1868. For all that, the rightfully elected candidates of the Democratic party were counted out, and a great fraud triumphed, which the American people have not condoned and will never condone. [Prolonged applause and cheers.] Yes, the crime will never be condoned, and it never should be. I do not denounce the fraud as affecting my personal interests, but because it stabbed the very foundations of free government. [Loud cheers.] I swear in the presence of you all, and I call upon you to bear witness to the oath, to watch, during the remainder of my life, over the rights of the citizens of our country with a jealous care. Such a usurpation must never occur again, and I call upon you to unite with me in the defence of our sacred and precious inheritance. The government of the people must not be suffered to become only an empty name." [Loud applause.]

The remainder of Mr. Tilden's address was as follows:

"The step, from an extreme degree of corrupt abuses in the elections to a subversion of the elective system itself, is natural. No sooner was the election over than the whole power of the office-holding class, led by a Cabinet minister, was exhorted to procure, and did procure, from the State canvassers of two States, illegal and fraudulent certificates, which were made a pretext for a false count of the electoral votes. To enable these officers to exercise the immoral courage necessary to the parts assigned to them, and to relieve them from the timidity which God has implanted in the human bosom as a limit to criminal audacity, detachments of the army were sent to afford them shelter. The expedients by which the votes of the electors chosen by the people of these two States were rejected, and the votes of the electors having the illegal and fraudulent certificates were counted, and the menace of usurpation by the President of the Senate of dictatorial power over all the questions in controversy, and the menace of the enforcement of his pretended authority by the army and navy, the terrorism of the business classes and the kindred measures by which the false count was consummated, are known. The result is the establishment of a precedent destructive of our whole elective system. [Applause.] The temptation to those in possession of the government to perpetuate their own power by similar methods will always exist, and if the example shall be sanctioned by success, the succession of government in this country will come to be determined by fraud or force, as it has been in almost every other country; and the experience will be reproduced here which has led to the general adoption of the hereditary system in order to avoid confusion and civil war. The magnitude of a political crime must be measured by its natural and necessary consequences. Our great Republic has been the only example in the world of a regular and orderly transfer of governmental succession by the elective system. To destroy the habit of traditionary respect for the will of the people, as declared through the electoral forms, and to exhibit our institutions as a failure, is the greatest possible wrong to our own country. It is also a heavy blow to the hopes of patriots struggling to establish self-government in other countries. It is a greater crime against mankind than the usurpation of December 2, 1851, depicted by the illustrious pen of Victor Hugo. The American people will not condone it under any pretext or for any purpose. [Cheers.] Young men! in the order of nature, we who have guarded the sacred traditions of our free government will soon leave that work to you. Within the life of most who hear me, the Republic will embrace 100,000,000 of people. Whether its institutions shall be preserved in substance and in spirit, as well as in barren forms, and will continue to be a blessing to the toiling millions here and a good example to mankind, now everywhere seeking a larger share in the management of their own affairs, will depend on you. Will you accomplish that duty and mark these wrong-doers of 1876, with the indignation of a betrayed, wronged, and sacrificed people? [A voice—'You bet we will.' Laughter.] I have no personal feeling, but thinking how surely that example will be followed if condoned, I can do no better than to stand among you, and do battle for the maintenance of free government. I avail myself of the occasion to thank you, and to thank all in our State and country who have accorded to me their support, not personal to myself, but for the cause I have represented, and which has embraced the largest and holiest interests of humanity." [Continued applause.]