"Enemies delight in publishing your unalterable determination not to be a candidate; your friends cannot even say that you will accept the position if nominated.
"In the past, as in the future, I will trust in your patriotism; and in your own due season, when the fruit be ripe, I trust and know that you will not fail to gather the harvest properly, honestly, and well.
"Your obt. servant,
"W. P. Scott."
TILDEN TO WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER
"Oct. 11/83.
"Dear Mr. Butler,—You are right in supposing that I do not fail to appreciate the motives of your suggestion in respect to the law school, but I am not prepared to say anything on the subject.
"Very truly yours,
"S. J. Tilden."
M. W. FULLER[29] TO W. H. BARNUM, CHAIRMAN OF NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE
"Chicago, December 23, 1883.
"My dear Sir,—It is clear to demonstration that Mr. Tilden should be our nominee, and if he would consent to run, that he would be again elected, this time by an overwhelming electoral as well as popular majority. From the moment of the nomination to the close of the polls, the canvass would be a triumphal progress. We should be obliged to do some hard fighting, but always under the influence of assured victory by fighting. The nomination and election would not simply vindicate Mr. Tilden, but the right of the people to elect their own officers. Nor is this all. If Mr. Tilden would accept the nomination, that would relieve the Democracy of all jealousy and heart-burning—all controversy between rival candidates, all difficulty in the convention or after the convention. Again, the platform could be carefully drawn before the meeting of the convention, and ought to be by Mr. Tilden himself. Since the days of Jefferson and Franklin, this country has not had a statesman whose pen could delineate so accurately and so simply a principle, a policy, or a line of conduct. What the people need is somebody who can tell them with accuracy and simplicity just what they themselves think. This is the secret of Mr. Tilden's great popularity with the masses, the existence of which eminent jackasses in our party have often denied, and do not seem to comprehend now that they are beginning to be driven to concede it. There are always political prophets (I don't mean to speak irreverently) looking for power in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, instead of the still, small voice. Now, the question of Mr. Tilden's health presents itself about which I know absolutely nothing. His age is no objection. Cato learned Greek at eighty, and Goethe completed 'Faust' after he had passed eighty. Taney and Shaw delivered judgments when nearly ninety. Look at John Quincy Adams and Gladstone and 'old Palm.' Why, Lord Palmerston at the age of eighty saved his administration by a masterly practical speech delivered without a note in the early hours of the morning. And, speaking of him, McCarthy, in his History of Our Own Times, commences the chapter on the death of Lord Palmerston with the quotation, 'Unarm, Eros, the long day's task is done and we must sleep.' Mr. Tilden's day has not been so long by eleven years. Is his task done? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower must not remain unfinished. The art of prolonging life lies in an object to be attained. I admit that various things are to be taken into consideration as assisting in sustaining health, and in that way prolonging mere existence; but all these, while mere adjuncts to vegetation, really amount to nothing if there be not a sufficient object for living outside of keeping one's self on this side of the river. I can conceive of no higher object than the attainment of the Chief Magistracy with the view of benefiting the people of this Republic. Here I do Mr. Tilden justice. He is now at an age when he doubtless feels that merely being President is in itself vanity. That doll is stuffed with saw-dust, just as all other dolls are found to be by all men, children of a larger growth. But if he can, by being President, benefit this people by saving their institutions, now in utmost peril, by reforming the methods of administration, by teaching both the great parties, and, in an especial degree, his own, that adherence to principle is as desirable in a party as in an individual, &c., &c., is that not an object worthy the attainment of any man? And is it not an object that would prolong life, and not bring it to termination? I am very much mistaken if renomination, and election, and administration would not do Mr. Tilden good. Of course, as the returns came pouring in, there might be some hours of excitement which possibly would lead to a reaction; but I think not, as what is to be done would still lie ahead. The election would simply give him the certificate, but his duty would commence after the 4th of March. And here consider that what hurried Harrison into his grave was probably office-seeking; but that a man who could lug Roman consuls into his inaugural address probably thought it necessary to listen to every tide-waiter—a kindly but fatal error. I have seen a suggestion in the papers which, by the way, might have come from Mr. Tilden himself, which assigned to others selected by the President the burden of administrative detail. Certainly, in such particulars, my opinion is that Mr. Tilden knows who to choose to carry out his ideas. The difference between one man and another lies a good deal in the ability to do work through others, and the sagacity to select them. So far as the canvass or the administration is concerned, Mr. Tilden would be benefited by both, and injured by neither. As to the second place on the ticket, I think it should be given Governor Hendricks. Napoleon said, 'Imagination rules the world,' and you may depend upon it that sentiment cuts no inconsiderable part in all elections. It must be taken in solution, it is true, but it is a necessary ingredient. Apart from the necessity of the 'old ticket,' it has great strength because it is the old ticket. There is a certain sense of justice that has gone unsatisfied since March, 1877, and you blunt its edge if you change the ticket. Undoubtedly Mr. Hendricks made a great mistake in 1880, but such mistakes are often inevitable, and ought never to be irretrievable. That he should now be in favor of the old ticket simply shows that he wishes to reattain his old position in politics. His error threw him out of the line, as everybody knew it would. That he should desire to get back again is natural enough. I thought yesterday you were entirely wrong in attributing another motive entirely foreign to his character. Assuming that the old ticket is to be nominated, and by acclamation, as it would be, this would as readily happen at Chicago as anywhere else. It is much better to have it done here than in any Eastern city. The only doubt is, would it not be better, partly as a matter of sentiment, to select St. Louis, and have the same temporary chairman, committees, and so on, as in 1876, and the same platform, corrected by Mr. Tilden so as to adapt it to the changes produced by lapse of time, and to shape it on the subject of the defeat of the people's will in 1876-7? So far as any other ticket is concerned, Chicago is the place, and so far as the old ticket is concerned, it is the place, except upon the ground above indicated.