816 



TILDEN, SAMUEL JONES. 



had been Lieutenant-Governor of Connecticut 

 under the crown. The son grew up with a 

 strong interest in politics, and an intimate 

 knowledge of party affairs, through the father's 

 acquaintance with the Democratic leaders com- 

 posing the famous Albany Eegency. Mr. Til- 

 den entered Yale College in the autumn of 

 1832, but he was, as he afterward said of 

 himself, "a sickly youth and meditative," and 

 after a time his health broke down, and he 

 returned home. In 1834 he entered the Uni- 

 versity of New York, where he completed his 

 academic education. The papers preserved in 

 the authorized collection of his writings show 

 that he was active in politics while still a 

 school-boy. In the Kinclerhook " Sentinel," 

 early in 1833, he published an article on " Nul- 

 lification and the Opposition," sustaining Presi- 

 dent Jackson's course in his celebrated proc- 

 lamation of Dec. 11, 1832, to the people of 

 South Carolina; in the "Columbia Sentinel" 

 of April 11, 1833, he published an article on 



SAMUEL JONES TILDEN. 



the compromise tariff act of Henry Clay, under 

 cover of which the nullifiers retreated from 

 their untenable position. These papers were 

 widely copied, and carried great weight, from 

 the fact that Van Buren lived at Kinderhook, 

 and they seemed to bear the stamp of his ap- 

 proval. In the "Columbia Sentinel" of Sept. 

 12, 1833, Mr. Tilden published a strong de- 

 fense of Van Buren; and Washington Irving, 

 then a guest at that statesman's house, was so 

 impressed by it that he asked to have the au- 

 thor introduced to him. In the New York 

 " Standard and Statesman " of Feb. 14, 1834, 

 Mr. Tilden argued in justification of President 

 Jackson's suppression of the United States 

 Bunk. In the New York "Times" of March 

 23 and 25 and April 4, 1837, be engaged in a 

 controversy with William Leggett, editor of 

 "The Plaindealer," who had attacked Van 

 Buren for the declaration in his inaugural ad- 

 dress of March 4, 1837, that he would veto a 



bill abolishing slavery in the District of Co- 

 lumbia, it' passed by Congress. In the Albany 

 "Argus " of September 28 and October 20 of the 

 same year, he defended the financial policy ad- 

 vocated in Van Buren's first message, addressed 

 to the extra session of Congress called in 1837. 

 The President opposed a National bank and 

 any renewal of connection between the State 

 banks and the Federal treasury ; and Mr. Til- 

 den argued for a divorce of business and poli- 

 tics as "indispensable to the safety of the one 

 and the purity of the other." The measure 

 introduced by Silas Wright to carry out Van 

 Buren's recommendations, known as the "In- 

 dependent Treasury Bill," was defeated in the 

 House of Representatives at the extra session 

 of Congress and at the regular session, but 

 passed the succeeding Congress. It was the 

 great issue of that day ; and Mr. Tilden, though 

 still a student, took a prominent part in the agi- 

 tation in favor of the measure. He prepared 

 the resolutions in favor of free banking adopted 

 at a meeting of the mechanics and workingrnen 

 of New York, held Feb. 6, 1838 ; and he pre- 

 pared the address to the farmers, mechanics, 

 and workingmen of New York on the divorce 

 of bank and state, adopted at a meeting held in 

 Tammany Hall, Feb. 26, 1838. In the follow- 

 ing year, Mr. Tilden published at Albany a 

 pamphlet in opposition to a bill introduced in 

 the Legislature to exempt the Shakers from 

 the operation of the general law relating to 

 trusts. In 1837-'38 and '39 he made political 

 speeches, and in the presidential canvass of 

 1840 he was an active advocate of Van Buren's 

 re-election, and delivered at New Lebanon, Oc- 

 tober 3, an address on " Currency, Prices, and 

 Wages," a clear, original, and elaborate discus- 

 sion of an intricate subject, containing the 

 germs of the opinions that he formulated in 

 after-years. He spoke for free finance and 

 free industry; but the financial distress that 

 had fallen upon the country was too much for 

 any logic, and Van Buren was defeated. In 

 1841, Mr. Tilden was admitted to the bar. He 

 opened an office in Pine Street, and built up a 

 good practice. In 1844 he founded the "Morn- 

 ing News," in connection with John L. O'Sul- 

 livan; but after the presidential election of 

 that year he gave his interest in the paper to 

 his associate, declined the Naval Office, tend- 

 ered him by the Administration, and resumed 

 law practice. 



In 1845 he was chosen a member of the As- 

 sembly. His most important declaration dur- 

 ing the canvass was a brief letter, dated October 

 27, on the true policy in regard to the public 

 lands. He held that they should not be made 

 a source of profit to the treasury, or disposed 

 of in such a way as to become a means of pri- 

 vate speculation, but granted, for the cost of 

 survey and occupation, " in suitable quantities, 

 to actual settlers, restricted to their use and 

 not for speculative transfer." In the Legisla- 

 ture of 5846 Mr. Tilden was chairman of the 

 special committee to consider that part of Gov. 



