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

by Samuel J. Tilden

(DECLINING A RENOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY)

"New York, June 10th, 1884.

"To Daniel Manning,
"Chairman of the Democratic State Committee of New York.

"In my letter of June 18th, 1880, addressed to the delegates from the State of New York to the Democratic national convention, I said:

"'Having now borne faithfully my full share of labor and care in the public service, and wearing the marks of its burdens, I desire nothing so much as an honorable discharge. I wish to lay down the honors and toils of even quasi party leadership, and to seek the repose of private life.

"'In renouncing renomination for the Presidency, I do so with no doubt in my mind as to the veto of the State of New York, or of the United States, but because I believe that it is a renunciation of re-election to the Presidency.

"'To those who think my renomination and re-election indispensable to an effectual vindication of the right of the people to elect their rulers—violated in my person—I have accorded as long a reserve of my decision as possible, but I cannot overcome my repugnance to enter into a new engagement which involves four years of ceaseless toil.

"'The dignity of the Presidential office is above a merely personal ambition, but it creates in me no illusion. Its value is as a great power for good to the country. I said four years ago in accepting nomination:

"'" Knowing as I do, therefore, from fresh experience, how great the difference is between gliding through an official routine and working out a reform of systems and policies, it is impossible for me to contemplate what needs to be done in the Federal administration without an anxious sense of the difficulties of the undertaking. If summoned by the suffrages of my countrymen to attempt this work, I shall endeavor, with God's help, to be the efficient instrument of their will."

"'Such a work of renovation after many years of misrule, such a reform of systems and policies, to which I would cheerfully have sacrificed all that remained to me of health and life, is now, I fear, beyond my strength.'

"My purpose to withdraw from further public service, and the grounds of it, were at that time well known to you and to others; and when, at Cincinnati, though respecting my wishes yourself, you communicated to me an appeal from many valued friends, to relinquish that purpose, I reiterated my determination unconditionally.

"In the four years which have since elapsed, nothing has occurred to weaken, but everything to strengthen, the considerations which induced my withdrawal from public life. To all who have addressed me on the subject, my intention has been frankly communicated. Several of my most confidential friends, under the sanction of their own names, have publicly stated my determination to be irreversible. That I have occasion now to consider the question is an event for which I have no responsibility. The appeal made to me by the Democratic masses, with apparent unanimity, to serve them once more, is entitled to the most deferential consideration, and would inspire a disposition to do anything desired of me, if it were consistent with my judgment of duty.

"I believe that there is no instrumentality in human society so potential in its influence upon mankind for good or evil, as the governmental machinery for administering justice, and for making and executing laws. Not all the eleemosynary institutions of private benevolence to which philanthropists may devote their lives are so fruitful in benefits as the rescue and preservation of this machinery from the perversions that make it the instrument of conspiracy and crime, against the most sacred rights and interests of the people.

"For fifty years, as a private citizen, never contemplating an official career, I have devoted at least as much thought and effort to the duty of influencing aright the action of the governmental institutions of my country, as to all other objects. I have never accepted official service except for a brief period, for a special purpose, and only when the occasion seemed to require from me that sacrifice of private preferences to the public welfare.

"I undertook the State administration of New York because it was supposed that in that way only could the executive power be arrayed on the side of the reforms to which, as a private citizen, I had given three years of my life.

"I accepted the nomination for the Presidency in 1876 because of the general conviction that my candidacy would best present the issue of reform which the Democratic majority of the people desired to have worked out in the Federal government as it had been in that of the State of New York. I believed that I had strength enough then to renovate the administration of the government of the United States, and at the close of my term to hand over the great trust to a successor faithful to the same policy.

"Though anxious to seek the repose of private life, I nevertheless acted upon the idea that every power is a trust, and involves a duty. In reply to the address of the committee communicating my nomination, I depicted the difficulties of the undertaking, and likened my feelings in engaging in it to those of a soldier entering battle; but I did not withhold the entire consecration of my powers to the public service.

"Twenty years of continuous maladministration, under the demoralizing influences of intestine war, and of bad finance, have infected the whole governmental system of the United States with the cancerous growths of false constructions and corrupt practices. Powerful classes have acquired pecuniary interests in official abuses, and the moral standards of the people have been impaired. To redress these evils is a work of great difficulty and labor, and cannot be accomplished without the most energetic and efficient personal action on the part of the Chief Executive of the Republic.

"The canvass and administration which it is desired that I should undertake would embrace a period of nearly five years. Nor can I admit any illusion as to their burdens. Three years of experience in the endeavor to reform the municipal government of the city of New York, and two years of experience in renovating the administration of the State of New York, have made me familiar with the requirements of such a work.

"At the present time, the considerations which induced my action in 1880 having become imperative, I ought not to assume a task which I have not the physical strength to carry through. To reform the administration of the Federal government; to realize my own ideal, and to fulfil the just expectations of the people, would indeed warrant, as they could alone compensate, the sacrifices which the undertaking would involve. But, in my condition of advancing years and declining strength, I feel no assurance of my ability to accomplish those objects. I am, therefore, constrained to say, definitely, that I cannot now assume the labors of an administration or of a canvass.

"Undervaluing in nowise that best gift of Heaven—the occasion and the power sometimes bestowed upon a mere individual to communicate an impulse for good; grateful beyond all words to my fellow-countryman who would assign such a beneficent function to me, I am consoled by the reflection that neither the Democratic party, nor the Republic for whose future that party is the best guarantee, is now, or ever can be, dependent upon any one man for their successful progress in the path of a noble destiny.

"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.

"Samuel J. Tilden."

This letter of Mr. Tilden insured the nomination of Grover Cleveland for the Presidency, and the adoption of the following resolutions by the convention:

Resolved, That this convention has read with profound regret and intense admiration the statesmanlike and patriotic letter of Samuel J. Tilden expressing the overpowering and providential necessity which constrains him to decline a nomination for the highest office in the gift of the American people.

Resolved, That, though fraud, force, and violence deprived Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A. Hendricks of the offices conferred upon them by the Democratic party of the nation in 1876, they yet live, and ever will, first in the hearts of the Democracy of the country.

Resolved, That this convention expresses a nation's regret that this same lofty patriotism and splendid executive and administrative ability which cleansed and purified the city and State governments of the great Empire State, cannot now be turned upon the Augean stable of national fraud and corruption so long and successfully maintained by the Republican party at the national capital.

Resolved, That copies of these resolutions be suitably engrossed, and that the chairman of the convention appoint a committee whose duty it shall be in the name of the convention to forward or present the same to the Hon. Samuel J. Tilden and the Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks.

When these resolutions were presented to Mr. Tilden by the committee named for that purpose by the convention, Mr. Tilden sent them the following reply:

"Greystone, Oct. 6, 1884.

"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee:

"I thank you for the kind terms in which you have communicated the resolutions concerning me adopted by the late Democratic national convention.

"I share your conviction that the reform in the administration of the Federal government, which is our great national want, and is indeed essential to the restoration and preservation of the government itself, can only be achieved through the agency of the Democratic party, and by installing its representative in the Chief Magistracy of the United States.

"The noble historical traditions of the Democratic party, the principles in which it was educated, and to which it has ever been in the main faithful; its freedom from the corrupt influences which grow up in the prolonged possession of power, and the nature of the elements which constitute it, all contribute to qualify it for that mission.

"The opposite characteristics and conditions which attach to the Republican party make it hopeless to expect that that party will be able to give better government than the debasing system of abuses which, during its ascendancy, has infected official and political life in this country.

"The Democratic party had its origin in the efforts of the more advanced patriots of the Revolution to resist the perversion of our government from the ideal contemplated by the people. Among its conspicuous founders are Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson; Samuel Adams and John Hancock, of Massachusetts; George Clinton and Robert R. Livingston, of New York; and George Wythe and James Madison, of Virginia. From the election of Mr. Jefferson as President, in 1800, for sixty years the Democratic party mainly directed our national policy. It extended the boundaries of the Republic, and laid the foundations of all our national greatness, while it preserved the limitations imposed by the Constitution and maintained a simple and pure system of domestic administration.

"On the other hand, the Republican party has always been dominated by principles which favor legislation for the benefit of particular classes at the expense of the body of the people. It has become deeply tainted with the abuses which naturally grow up during a long possession of unchecked power, especially in a period of civil war and false finance. The patriotic and virtuous elements in it are now unable to emancipate it from the sway of selfish interests which subordinate public duty to personal greed. The most hopeful of the best citizens it contains despair of its amendment except through its temporary expulsion from power.

"It has been boastingly asserted by a modern Massachusetts statesman, struggling to reconcile himself and his followers to their Presidential candidate, that the Republican party contains a disproportionate share of the wealth, the culture, and the intelligence of the country. The unprincipled Grafton, when taunted by James the Second with his personal want of conscience, answered: 'That is true, but I belong to a party that has a great deal of conscience.'

"Such reasoners forget that the same claim has been made in all ages and countries by the defenders of old wrongs against new reforms. It was alleged by the Tories of the American Revolution against the patriots of that day. It was repeated against Jefferson and afterwards against Jackson. It is alleged by the conservatives against those who, in England, are now endeavoring to enlarge the popular suffrage.

"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. Even the divine Author of our religion found His followers not among the self-complacent Pharisees, but among lowly minded fishermen.

"The Republican party is largely made up of those who live by their wits, and who aspire in politics to advantages over the rest of mankind, similar to those which their daily lives are devoted to securing in private business.

"The Democratic party consists largely of those who live by the work of their hands, and whose political action is governed by their sentiments or imagination.

"It results that the Democratic party, more readily than the Republican party, can be molded to the support of reform measures which involve a sacrifice of selfish interests.

"The indispensable necessity of our times is a change of administration in the great executive offices of the country. This, in my judgment, can only be accomplished by the election of the Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President.

"Samuel J. Tilden.

"To R. H. Henry, Chairman; B. B. Smalley, and others,
of the Special Committee of the Democratic National
Convention."