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

by Samuel J. Tilden

"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.