UNITED STATES. 



jects, I have never accepted official service except for 

 brier periods for a special purpose, and only when the 

 occasion seemed to require of me that sacrifice of pri- 

 vate preferences to public interests. 



My life has been substantially that of a private citi- 

 zen. It was, I presume, the success of efforts in which, 

 as a private citizen, I had shared to overthrow a cor- 

 rupt combination then holding dominion in our me- 

 tropolis, and to purify the judiciary, which had become 

 its tool, that induced the Democracy of the State in 

 1874 to nominate me for Governor. This was done in 

 spite of the protest of a minority that the part I had 

 borne in those reforms had created antagonisms fatal 

 to me as a candidate. I felt constrained lo accept the 

 nomination as the most certain means of putting the 

 power of the gubernatorial office on the side of reform, 

 and of removing the impression, wherever it prevailed, 

 that the faithful discharge of one's duty as a citizen is 

 fatal to his usefulness as a public servant. 



The breaking up of the canal ring, the better man- 

 agement of our public works, the large reduction of 

 taxes, and other reforms accomplished during my ad- 

 ministration, doubtless occasioned my nomination for 

 the Presidency by the Democracy of the Union, in the 

 hope that similar processes would be applied to the 

 Federal Government. From the responsibilities of 

 such an undertaking, appalling as it seemed to me, 

 I did not feel at liberty to shrink. 



In the canvass which ensued, the Democratic party 

 represented reform in the administration of the Fed- 

 eral Government, and a restoration of our complex po- 

 litical system to the pure ideas of its founders. Upon 

 these issues the people of the United States, by a ma- 

 ority of more than a quarter of a million, chose a ma- 

 jority of the electors to cast their votes for the Demo- 

 cratic candidates for President and Vice- President. 

 It is my right and privilege here to say that I was 

 nominated and elected to the Presidency absolutely 

 free from any engagement in respect to the exercise of 

 its Bowers or the disposal of its patronage. Through 

 the whole period of my relation to the Presidency I 

 did everything in my power to elevate and nothing to 

 lower moral standards in the competition of parties. 



By what nefarious means the basis for a false count 

 was laid in several of the States I need not recite. 

 These are now matters of history about which, what- 

 ever diversity of opinion may have existed in either 

 of the great parties of the country at the time of their 

 consummation, has since practically disappeared. I 

 refused to ransom from the returning boards of 

 Southern States the documentary evidence by the sup- 

 pression of which and by the substitution of fraudu- 

 lent and forged papers a pretext was made for the per- 

 petration of a false count. The constitutional duty of 

 the two Houses of Congress to count the electoral votes 

 as cast, and to give effect to the will of the people as 

 expressed by their suffrages, was never fulfilled. An 

 electoral commission, for the existence of which I have 

 no responsibility, was formed, and to it the two Houses 

 of Congress abdicated their duty to make the count by 

 a law enacting that the count of the commission 

 should stand as final unless overruled by the concur- 

 rent action of the two Houses. Its false count Avas not 

 overruled, owing to the complicity of a Republican 

 Senate with the Republican majority of the commis- 

 sion. Controlled by its Republican majority of eight 

 to seven, the Electoral Commission counted out the 

 men elected by the people, and counted in the men 

 not elected by the people. 



That subversion of the election created a new issue 

 for the decision of the people of the United States, 

 transcending in importance all questions of adminis- 

 tration. It involved the vital principle of self-govern- 

 ment through elections by the people. The immense 

 growth of the means of corrupt influence over the 

 ballot-box which is at the disposal of the party having 

 possession of the executive administration, had already 

 become a present evil and a great danger, tending to 

 make elections irresponsible to public opinion, ham- 

 pering the power of the people to change rulers, and 



enabling the men holding the machinery of govern- 

 ment to continue and perpetuate their power. 



It was my opinion in 1876 that the opposition at- 

 tempting to change the administration needed to in- 

 clude at least two thirds of the voters at the opening 

 of the canvass in order to retain a majority at the elec- 

 tion. If, after such obstacles had been overcome, and 

 a majority of the people had voted to change the ad- 

 ministrations of their government, the men in office 

 could still procure a false count founded upon frauds, 

 perjury, and forgeries, furnishing a pretext of docu- 

 mentary evidence on which to base the false count, 

 and if such a transaction were not only successful, but 

 if^ after allotments of its benefits were made to its con- 

 trivers, abettors, and apologists, by the chief benefici- 

 ary of the transactions, it were condoned by the people, 

 a practical destruction of elections by the people would 

 have been accomplished. The failure to install the 

 candidates chosen by the people a contingency con- 

 sequent upon no act "of omission of mine, and beyond 

 my control has thus left me for the last three years 

 and until now, when the Democratic party, by its del- 

 egates in National Convention assembled, shall choose 

 a new leader, the involuntary but necessary represent- 

 ative of this momentous issue, as such denied the im- 

 munities of private life, without the powers conferred 

 by public station, subject to unceasing falsehoods and 

 calumnies from the partisans of an Administration 

 laboring in vain to j ustify its existence. 



I have, nevertheless, steadfastly endeavored to pre- 

 serve to the Democratic party of the United States 

 the supreme issue before the people for their decision 

 next November, whether this shall be a government 

 by the sovereign people through elections, or a gov- 

 ernment by discarded servants, holding over by force 

 and fraud, and I have withheld no sacrifice and neg- 

 lected no opportunity to uphold, organize, and consol- 

 idate against the enemies of republican institutions 

 the great party which alone, under God, can effectu- 

 ally resist their overthrow. 



Having now borne faithfully my full share of labor 

 and care in the public service, and wearing the marks 

 of its burdens, I desire nothing so much as an honor- 

 able discharge. I wish to lay down the honors and 

 toils of even quasi-party leadership, and to seek the 

 repose of private life. In renouncing renominatipn for 

 the Presidency, I do so with no doubt in my mind as 

 to the vote of the State of New York, or of the United 

 States, but because I believe it is a renunciation of re- 

 election of the Presidency. To those who think my 

 nomination and reelection indispensable to an effectual 

 vindication of the right of the people to elect their 

 rulers, violated in my person, I have accorded as long 

 a reserve of my decision as possible, but I can not 

 overcome my repugnance to enter into a new engage- 

 ment which involves four years of ceaseless toil. 



The dignity of the Presidential office is above a 

 merely personal ambition, but it creates in me no illu- 

 sion. Its value is as a great power for good to the 

 country. I said ftmr years ago, in accepting the nom- 

 ination : " Knowing as I do, therefore, from fresh ex- 

 perience, how great the difference is between gliding 

 through an official routine and working out a reform 

 of systems and policies, it is impossible for me to con- 

 template what needs to be done in the Federal Ad- 

 ministration without an anxious sense of the difficul- 

 ties of the undertaking. If summoned by the suf- 

 frages of my countrymen to attempt this work, I shall 

 endeavor, with God"'s help, to be the efficient instru- 

 ment of their will." 



Such a work of renovation after many years of mis- 

 rule, such a reform of systems and policies to which 

 I would cheerfully have sacrificed all that remained 

 to me of health and life, is now, I fear, beyond my 

 strength. With unfeigned thanks for the honors be- 

 stowed upon me. with a heart swelling with emotions 

 of gratitude to tne Democratic masses for the support 

 which they have given to the cause I represented, and 

 their confidence in every emergency, I remain, your 

 fellow-citizen, SAMUEL J. TILDEN. 



