Samuel J. Tilden

“ For one, I was not disposed to concede much to such an objection. I never said anything about Mr. Kernan's religion except to defend him. I should have been as much in favor of his nomination if he had been of a different creed. Mr. Kernan is totally free from bigotry. His liberal views on every subject of sectarian controversy are on record in his speeches and in his conduct. In exercising the powers of an official trust his just and equitable character would be an impassible barrier against partiality towards any class to which he should himself belong. ”

“ Slavery questions have from the beginning had more or less to do with our political contests, but have never before had the effect of dissolving old party connections and sympathies, and the balance-wheel has thus been preserved. Now, for the first time in our history, one side, and that the one in which we reside, has undertaken to carry an election, including the control of the Federal government, and against the united wishes of the other. It has placed itself in a position which, for the first time cuts itself loose from all hope, if not desire, of assistance in the slave States. ”

“ My dear Tilden,—There is a rumor here that O'Conor is willing to accept the nomination of Blanton Duncan's Louisville convention. If you have any influence with him I pray you to exert it to prevent his doing so. It is as hard for me to support Greeley as it is for any man I know. But, being compelled to choose between him and Grant, I am satisfied that we ought to support him—not for his own sake, but because it is the only mode left to us to break the radical organization. ”

“ Let us in a generous spirit train up as many new men as we can and fit them for places of honor and trust, but do not suffer those who come in sunshine and leave us in storms to walk into our councils and shape our policy with a view to their own gain. We who have held to the cause of constitutional liberty have not always agreed in our views. At times there may have been irritation. But surely past trials have made a groundwork of an attachment and confidence which cannot be felt towards those who turned against us or who shrank away in our times of trouble. ”

“ Dear Sir,—No single incident of the war against the machine has given the people everywhere so much joy as the announcement yesterday by telegraph that Charles O'Conor had been tendered an Assembly nomination and had not declined, but justified the hope of his acceptance. The acceptance and election to the Assembly of O'Conor would, in my judgment, aside from what he might be able to accomplish by official action, be productive of a good moral effect that is incalculable. He occupies a position to-day prouder than that of any President or crowned head. ”

“ I would rather see it stronger than it is in men like these, who would never seek to create any class influence, and would never abuse any influence, but rather exercise every power as a trust for the public good. I had occasion, after the election last year, in frequent addresses on municipal reform, to lament the apathy of many of our citizens whose reproach it is that while by pecuniary independence and leisure and all the legitimate elements of a just and honorable public influence they selfishly abdicate their power of leadership in the affairs of our great metropolis. ”

“ If among their classes, or among Americans descended from them, spring up citizens foremost in all the community for talents and virtues and devotion to our American ideas of government and society, I would not challenge the honorable pride they awaken in those of common origin. I share that pride in such men as Kernan and O'Conor. I would not weaken any power of leadership which the natural sentiments of humanity may give them in these numerous classes. ”

“ If the bar is to be merely an institution that seeks to win causes, and to win them by back-door access to the judiciary, then it is not only degraded, but it is CORRUPT.'
"Sir, I believe that this country is to-night at about the lowest point in the great cycle which we have occasionally to traverse. I believe that there will come a sounder and a better public sentiment, in which speculation and gambling and jobbing and corruption will lose their power, and in which free government will vindicate its rights to the confidence of mankind. ”

“ To surrender your office into the hands of a confederate would be a fresh betrayal of your trust; and, while it might damage yourself, would fail of doing justice to the community. You practically make your own successor. As the law now stands, he can assume your office only by an arrangement to which you are a party to create a vacancy for him. The man you give place to ought not to be the tool of those implicated in the transactions which excite the public distrust and alarm. He should be the nominee of the citizens now seeking to protect the people. ”

“ This is not democratic government, but the rule of the conquered by the conqueror. The evil is bad enough; and the remedy will probably be worse. We begin to see that the real danger which has at all times menaced us is the presence on our soil of a different race, unequal, for the present, at least, to the great office of self-government. Slavery was not itself the evil, but only one of the methods of dealing with it. Is our substitute, the bestowal upon the race of universal suffrage, a successful device? ”

“ What can I do but turn away my thoughts from a man—this affair, which has cost me more anxiety, trouble, hazard of my own affairs and of health than everybody and everything in life—who grabs anything of mine he can lay his hands on without asking me, never consults me about restoring it, and thinks it right to do just as he pleases about incurring new expenditures and operations in preference to paying his creditors, whom he does not think it necessary to consult, or, indeed, to have any rights but to submit to what he, in his supreme good pleasure, chooses to do. ”

“ The masses of the Republicans, like the masses of all parties, are honest. No doubt some allowance ought to be made for the effect of a great war. But the system of false finance which has corrupted us into a nation of gamblers was as unnecessary as corrupting. And the principle and measures of the Republican party, their centralism, tariffs not for revenue but to control the labor and capital of the people, legislative grants and jobs of all kinds tend to corruption. And the ideal standard of their statesmen is lower than any ever held by the followers of Jefferson and Jackson. ”

“ In 1846, twenty-five years ago, I went to the Assembly to sustain the administration of Silas Wright. Not a man in either House was even suspected of corruption. The Democracy under Martin Van Buren, Silas Wright, William L. Marcy, and Azariah C. Flagg had ruled the State during the life of the old Constitution from 1821 to 1846. They were all men not only of transcendent ability, but of personal purity. They gathered around them men of like character in all the counties. They wielded party power not only in favor of good measures, but in favor of good men. ”

“ We are not only right, but the crisis is, in my judgment, the most imminent and critical of any we have ever experienced. That union should so long have been preserved in a confederacy which contains an element of discord of such magnitude and of so disturbing a nature as that of slavery, is a wonder—more surprising than its dissolution would be. This has been owing to the fact, I firmly believe, the single fact that there have always been neutralizing considerations of sufficient force to maintain party cohesions between men of the free and slave States. ”

“ If you vest the most powerful and influential trust in the State of New York in a politician of the most vulgar sort—or narrow views, prospective in all save the promise by which that trust is secured, a schemer for personal ends by desperate and fraudulent means, that almost revolted the party at the last election—nay, if you fail to take most ample and certain guaranty against the predominance of any such influence, in the known, tried, and elevated character of the man you select, your appointment cannot fail to be discreditable and disastrous in its results. ”

“ And now that peace has once more happily returned, it claims that constitutional rights shall be restored throughout our whole country; that every State shall be replaced in its constitutional orbit; that we shall once more present to the world a continental system of States, bound together by a constitutional union—founded on the twin principles of local self-government and industrial liberty, and sustained by the voluntary action of a people among whom government is everywhere carried on by the consent of the governed. ”

“ In assigning to Governor Tilden capacities for public usefulness superior to those of other men of his generation, one qualification should perhaps be made. He could not have led, or rather guided, as Lincoln did, the storm of patriotic passion which the Southern insurrection aroused. There are resistless currents in human affairs which disdain the feeble control of mere reason, and insist upon working their way by force alone. War is a conflict of the passions, and, when it becomes necessary or preferable to peace, those passions should be inflamed rather than checked. ”

“ Without a prompt, firm, and decisive course in this respect, we shall have nothing—from cabinet minister down to tide-waiter—but discussions of past dissensions, which it is the policy and duty of Genl. Pierce, with all his power as the head of the party, to bury. It is a case in which boldness is the highest prudence. If the party cannot be kept large enough to contain all the great divisions of it which have predominated in powerful States or sections of the Union, it cannot be kept in the majority. ”

“ My health requires an exemption for a time of more or less duration, from the cares which would attend any new engagements, or, indeed, the thought whether or not business is to continue. Everything that I could endeavor to foresee, whether personal, as health, taste, my remaining here or travelling to Europe or to the far West, or whether public, as financial or political events amid the civil commotions of our country—everything, in a word, which could ordinarily form the subject of calculation, seems to be more uncertain than ever before. ”

“ Protective duties, Civil War, and excessive issues of paper money have done much to demoralize the character of our people and waft the country towards the brink of ruin! It is high time to bring these destructive measures to an end; and to the Democratic party, rightly directed, is reserved the noble and patriotic mission of effecting this incalculable benefit to the United States, which would bring back the party itself to the enjoyment of all of its pristine power and the warm affection of an overwhelming majority of the people. ”

“ It seems to me that every honest man must be sincerely desirous of a thorough investigation; for, independently of the wrong to the taxpayers, it must be evident that popular government cannot be maintained unless the authors and sharers of the plunder, of which we have unquestionable evidence, can be discovered and disgraced. I earnestly hope that you, who stand before the community with as enviable a reputation for integrity as any man in it, and who can do so much to effect the object in view, will take an active part in the movement which is in progress. ”

“ I know I speak the sentiments of the strong men among the radicals when I say that the personal interests, desires, or gratification of Gen. Dix, or any other man whom they have honored, are as dust in the balance in the true gravity of this question. I believe Gen. Dix is the last man who would dissent from this opinion. At any rate, I take the responsibility of expressing it in the name of all his supporters. ”

“ Whether in personal judgment or action in politics, in administrative council, in a deliberative assembly, or in leading or aiding to lead a party of a nation or a ward, his destiny is to illustrate how little fitted to such purposes may be talents conceded to be eminent in a peculiar sphere. This opinion is the result of many years' observation. It was confirmed when I was associated with him in the convention that formed the present Constitution of this State, and, in an intercourse constant and never unfriendly, was a daily witness of the development of his characteristics. ”

“ You judge rightly as to my sympathy with your sentiments and action in regard to the veto. Our line of duty is plain. While we render to Tyler liberal credit for every good act he does, and sustain every right measure which he proposes, and defend him against the unjust and unconstitutional attacks of the Whigs, we cannot give his administration an unqualified support, or commit ourselves in favor of his re-election. ”

“ A man on one side of a question cannot easily turn out the set of ideas which fill his mind and admit the opposite set, even for an experiment. Nothing is so difficult in ordinary experience as to see both sides of a question. For us who have been educated with Northern ideas or in party controversies, we must be almost more than mortal to be able to take a perfectly candid and impartial view of the position of our adversaries. It is necessary to do more—to imagine ourselves in their position, in order to form a policy adapted to their case. ”

“ HORATIO SEYMOUR TO GOVERNOR TILDEN
"Utica, October 19, 1875.
"My dear Sir,—I am too ill and too old to do much at this election. [68] I have been kept in my house for some days by sickness. I shall be glad to help all I can, as I do not like the looks of the canvass. I fear the loss of some part, if not of the whole, of our ticket or of a majority so small that it will be counted a defeat. My fears may spring from the distrust which old men have of the future. Do not feel too sure. I know you are very confident, and so are the Republicans. ”

“ Will these good people of New York allow this old and influential journal of more than half a century's standing to go down for defending their cause against the destructive policy of the radicals, and when, if it go down, the conservatives will have to make greater sacrifices in establishing another in its stead which must be long in acquiring the same confidence and power of usefulness? ”

“ Respected Sir,—Under ordinary circumstances it would be out of place for such an humble individual as myself to address you, but I consider that a crisis has arrived in this country which calls for the untiring exertions of every good man to check the spread of slavery which threatens the very existence of the institutions of the country, and my apology may be found in the fact that I am identified with this proscribed class. You will recognize me as the conductor of a small newspaper in this city called the Ram's Horn, a few copies of which I have taken the liberty of mailing to your honor. ”