"Very truly yours,
"(Signed) S. J. Tilden."
TILDEN TO JOHN GILL, JR., CHAIRMAN
"New York, September 27, 1879.
"Gentlemen,—I have received the letter of the Democratic executive committee in the city of Baltimore inviting me to attend a mass-meeting at the Maryland Institute on the 29th inst.
"It would give me great pleasure to meet so respectable a representation of the Democracy of Maryland, but my engagements will deprive me of that gratification.
"I concur with you in regarding the issue created by the subversion of the election of 1876 as the most transcendent in our history. The example of a reversal of the votes of the people after they have been deposited in the ballot-box, if successful and followed by prosperity to the wrong, would be fatal to the system of elective government. The hierarchy of office-holders would maintain their possession indefinitely, and every effort of the people to change the administration would be nullified. The government, elective in form, would become imperial in substance precisely as did that of Rome.[24] Such an issue, involving the very existence of our free government, is not to be belittled into a personal grievance. It is to be dealt with as a great public cause.
"With assurances of my cordial esteem for yourself personally,
"I remain, very truly yours,
"(Signed) Samuel J. Tilden."
S. J. TILDEN—INTERVIEW WITH "SUN" REPORTER
(Draft.)