But though he thus blazed forth with unexpected brilliancy, his whole life had in fact been a school of preparation. His public career in official position had it is true been limited. He served in the Legislature of 1846 and in the Constitutional Conventions of 1846 and 1867. In both he bestowed especial attention upon the canal policy of the States. He bore a prominent part with Mr. Van Buren in the Barnburners' Revolt of 1848, in which he and some of his associates departed for a brief period from a lifelong pro-slavery record, and rode Free-soil as the stalking-horse of personal resentments and factional designs. He professed devotion to the Wilmot Proviso as earnestly as one of the old Abolitionists, and turned from it as if its advocacy had been the amusement of a summer vacation. He occasionally appeared in National Conventions, and he acted for some years as chairman of the Democratic State Committee of New York. This was the total of his public service until he set forth upon what was the immediate preliminary movement to his Presidential campaign.
But from his earliest manhood he had been a close student of political affairs. He was a devotee of Jackson in his youth, and became one of the ardent disciples of Van Buren, whom he adopted as mentor and model. His earlier political papers are dignified and elevated in tone beyond his years, and show a strong intellect and careful reflection; but they are in the stately and turgid style of the period and lack the decisive and original force of his later productions.
Even when he followed the vigorous Dean Richmond as chairman of the Democratic State Committee, he did not suggest the creative political power which he afterwards revealed. He was regarded rather as a respectable figure-head. It was on this assumption that he escaped completely in the notorious election frauds of New York in 1868. His name was appended to the private call for the earliest possible approximate returns from the interior, a call which meant that the authors only wanted a clue to determine how large a majority must be counted in the metropolis to secure the State. Mr. Tilden denied all knowledge of the letter. Without even consulting him, his authority had been appropriated by the "Tweed Ring," just then rising to its colossal power. During the entire period of its profligate ascendency, Mr. Tilden continued as chairman of the State Committee, but he did not share its corrupt counsels or sanction its audacious schemes. The worst reproach which lies against him is that of remaining too long a passive witness. There was no bond of affiliation between him and the vulgar adventurers who had taken the Democratic party and the city of New York by the throat. He had no sympathy with their coarse and reckless measures. Aside from his abhorrence of their riotous corruption every instinct of self-preservation impelled him to desire their overthrow, for while they ruled he had little hope of influence or preferment. When the exposure of their monstrous robberies had opened the way to their downfall, Mr. Tilden grappled with the menaced Ring and helped to complete its destruction. He labored to capture its intrenchments in the Legislature, fought the conspiracy with a non-partisan combination, went to the Assembly himself, co-operated in the legal prosecution, promoted the impeachment of the corrupt judges, and proved a powerful and capable ally in rescuing the State from this shameful domination.
The extermination of the "Tweed Ring" was Mr. Tilden's opportunity. His hour had come; he promptly grasped the party leadership thus left open. Starting out deliberately for the Presidential nomination, his plan embraced three leading features: his stepping stone was the governorship, his shibboleth was administrative reform, his method was organization to a degree which has never been surpassed. He was swept into the Governor's chair on the crest of the Democratic tidal wave in 1874, and once there every effort was directed to the Presidential succession. He had the sagacity to perceive that in order to gain any solid foothold in the country the Democratic party needed to cut loose from its discredited past and secure a new rallying-cry. It was loaded down with its odious war record; it was divided on fiscal questions; it had fought a losing battle for twelve years on the defensive; and if it was to struggle with any hope it must discover a line on which it could boldly take the aggressive.
Mr. Tilden fancied that he found this pathway to a new career in the resounding demand for a radical reform of administrative methods, and from the hour of his accession to the governorship he sought to give it effect in reality or in semblance. He had received applause and secured promotion from his aid in the overthrow of the "Tweed Ring," and he now declared war against the affiliated "Canal Ring," whose destruction had already been made sure. The circumstances were peculiarly propitious for his whole movement. The extinguishment of the war debt of the State, already nearly accomplished, would bring an immediate and large reduction of taxes. The amendment to the State Constitution (already passed and just producing its effect) prohibiting any taxation or any appropriation for expenditures on the canals, beyond their revenues, would starve the Canal Ring by cutting off its supply. Mr. Tilden became Governor at the right hour to reap the harvest which others had sown. It is seldom that any administration is signalized by two events so impressive and far-reaching as the crumbling of a formidable and long-intrenched foe to honest administration like the Tweed Ring, and a decrease of the tax budge by nearly one-half. It was Mr. Tilden's rare fortune that his Governorship was coincident with these predetermined and assured results. It would be unjust to deny to him the merit of resisting the canal extortionists and hastening their extinction, but it would be equally untrue not to say that in the work of the reformer he did not forget the shrewd calculations of the partisan. He understood better than any other man the art of appropriating to himself the credit of events which would have come to pass without his agency, and of reforms already planned by his political opponents.
By a fortunate concurrence of conditions which he partly made, and which with signal ability he wholly turned to account, Mr. Tilden thus gained the one commanding position in the Democratic party. He held the most vital State of the North in his grasp. He embodied the one thought which expressed the discontent with Republicanism and the hope of the Democracy. He evinced a power of leadership which no man in his party could rival. The Democracy before his day could count but four chiefs of the first rank—Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, and Van Buren. Mr. Tilden was not indeed a leader of the same class with these masters who so long a period shaped the whole thought and policy of their party, but he displayed political capacity of a very high order. He was trained in the school of the famous Albany Regency, and had exhibited much of its ingenuity and power. He placed his reliance both upon ideas and organization. He sought to captivate the popular imagination with a striking thought, and he supported it with the most minute and systematic work. In his own State he discarded all leaders of equal rank with himself, and selected active young men or mere personal followers as his lieutenants. He bore no brother near the throne. In other States he secured strong alliances to promote his interests, and called into existence a National force which was as potent as it was compact.
His political observations covered nearly half a century, and spanned the successive epoches which stretched from the struggle over Nullification to the war of secession and the work of Reconstruction. But through most of this long and stirring era he was engaged in the practice of his profession and the acquisition of wealth. In this work he was peculiarly successful. To the subtlety of an acute legal mind he added the sagacity of a keen business man. He attained especial, indeed almost unrivaled eminence as a corporation lawyer, and thus gained a practice which leads to larger rewards than can be found in other legal fields. While acquiring great reputation he amassed a great fortune, and when at last he entered upon his political career he combined the resources of a full treasury with the arts of an unrivalled manager.
Mr. Tilden has been the subject of vehement and contradictory judgments. His friends have well-nigh canonized him as representing the highest type of public virtue; his foes have painted him as an adept in craft and intrigue. His partisans have held him up as the evangel of a new and purer dispensation; his opponents declare that his ability is marred by selfishness and characterized by cunning. His followers have exalted him as the ablest and most high-minded statesman of the times; his critics have described him as a most artful, astute, and unscrupulous politician. The truth doubtless lies between the two extremes. Adroit, ingenious and wary, skillful to plan and strong to execute, cautious in judgment and vigorous in action, taciturn and mysterious as a rule and yet singularly open and frank on occasions, resting on the old traditions yet leading in new pathways, surprising in the force of his blows and yet leaving a sense of reserved power, Mr. Tilden unquestionably ranks among the greatest masters of political management that our day has seen. Certain it is that his extraordinary success and his exceptional position had inspired the Democratic party with the conviction that he was the one man to command victory, and he moved forward to the Presidential nomination with a confidence which discouraged his opponents and inspired his supporters with a sense of irresistible strength.
When the Convention assembled a futile attempt was made to organize a movement against Mr. Tilden. His undisguised autocracy in New York had provoked jealousies and enmities which were more imposing in name than in numbers. John Kelly, now the master-spirit of reconstructed Tammany, and esteemed as a man of personal integrity, led an implacable warfare, openly proclaiming that Mr. Tilden's nomination would prove fatal to Democratic success in New York. In this pronounced hostility Mr. Kelly had the avowed approval or the secret sanction of conspicuous Democrats whom Mr. Tilden's absorption of power had thrust into the background. Augustus Schell, chairman of the National committee, encouraged the opposition; Erastus Corning was on the ground sustaining it; Chief Justice Church and his friends were known to be in sympathy with it. Attempts were made to secure support for Governor Allen of Ohio, for Governor Hendricks of Indiana, and for General Hancock; but no one of these demonstrations, nor all of them combined, could resist the steady set of the current towards Mr. Tilden, and the organization and all the action of the Convention were clearly in the hands of his friends.
The interests of Mr. Tilden were committed to the care of Mr. Dorsheimer, who had left the Republican ranks but four years before. His chief associate was Senator Kernan. The most prominent delegates from other States were William A. Wallace and Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania, James R. Doolittle and William F. Vilas of Wisconsin, Judge Abbott of Massachusetts, Daniel W. Voorhees and Governor Williams of Indiana, Leon Abbott of New Jersey, General Thomas Ewing of Ohio, Robert M. McLane of Maryland, John A. McClernand of Illinois, and Henry Watterson of Kentucky. The opening speech of Mr. Augustus Schell, as chairman of the National Committee, was notable only in demanding the repeal of the Resumption Act, a demand which expressed the prevailing Democratic sentiment, and which was the more significant as coming from one of the most conservative of the Democratic leaders—one who had large financial interest in New York. Mr. Henry Watterson was made temporary chairman, and General John A. McClernand of Illinois permanent president of the Convention.