TILDEN, SAMUEL JONES. 



819 



his speech accepting the nomination, he gave 

 the key-note of the canvass as administrative 

 reform. He carried the State by a plurality of 

 50,317 over Gov. Dix. His first annual mes- 

 sage was characterized by an able discussion 

 of the national finances and by an exhaustive 

 study of the canal question ; the second, writ- 

 ten at the worst period of prolonged financial 

 distress, was remarkable for its consideration 

 of the causes and remedies of the disaster. 

 His special canal message was a masterly state- 

 ment of the mismanagement in the building 

 and repairs of the State water-ways. In pur- 

 suance of its recommendations, a Canal Com- 

 mission was appointed, whose investigations of 

 the " unbalanced bid " frauds led to the over- 

 throw of the canal ring and the contract sys- 

 tem of repairs. His special message on mu- 

 nicipal reform, recommending the appointment 

 of a commission on the subject, was a discus- 

 sion of one of the most important problems of 

 our day, the proper system of city government. 

 Whether from a sense of public duty, or from 

 a deliberate purpose to serve his own ambition 

 through. a policy of honesty, he made his office 

 a public trust, and administered it for the ben- 

 efit of the people of the State. If one thing 

 more than another distinguished him as a party 

 manager, it was his custom of gathering about 

 him bright young men, more loyal to his per- 

 sonal fortunes than to any party obligation. 



The Democratic National Convention of 1876 

 met in St. Louis, June 27; Gen. John A. Mc- 

 Clernand was made chairman, and Francis Ker- 

 nan presented the name of Gov. Tilden as a 

 candidate for the presidential nomination. His 

 leading opponents were Hendricks, of Indiana, 

 Allen, of Ohio, and Hancock, of Pennsylvania ; 

 but he was nominated on the second ballot by 

 a vote of 535 out of 738 delegates. The most 

 dangerous source of antagonism to him lay 

 among that curious class of Democrats who 

 advocated an inflated paper currency ; but the 

 bitterest demonstration of hostility was made 

 by the Tammany members of the New York 

 delegation under the lead of John Kelly, who 

 had been induced to re-enter politics by Mr. 

 Tilden after the fall of Tweed. Thomas A. 

 Hendricks was nominated for the vice-presi- 

 dency. The platform was skillfully drawn, 

 and fitted the leading candidate. In his letter 

 of acceptance, dated " Albany, July 31, 1876," 

 Gov. Tilden affirmed the necessity of reform, 

 and especially reform in the civil service, and 

 discussed carefully the preparation for resump- 

 tion of specie payments. He dwelt upon the 

 fact that public offices are not " a private per- 

 quisite, but a public trust," yet he declared 

 complete reform unattainable so long as the 

 President remained open to the temptations of 

 a renomination, and suggested the advisability 

 of a constitutional amendment making the 

 Chief Magistrate ineligible to re-election. One 

 of the incidents of the canvass was the charge 

 made by the Republicans that, in case of Gov. 

 Tilden's election, the South would demand the 



payment of war-claims and the rebel debt. 

 In a letter to Abram S. Hewitt, dated Oct. 24, 

 1876, Gov. Tilden said that he would veto 

 every bill providing for the payment of rebel 

 war-claims, and declared the thirteenth, four- 

 teenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Con- 

 stitution binding on the South. Another inci- 

 dent was the charge that he had cheated the 

 Government while the income-tax law was in 

 operation, by refusing to make returns. The 

 defense was that his income at the time was 

 uncertain, and, as he could not make accurate 

 returns, he chose to let the internal-revenue 

 collectors fix an amount and exact the penalty 

 provided by law. On the theory that the Gov- 

 ernment officials had not got out of him all 

 that the Government was entitled to, a prose- 

 cution for back taxes was instituted, which 

 was abandoned after it had served the political 

 purposes for which it was designed. 



Tilden and Hendricks received a popular 

 vote of 4,285,992, to 4,033,768 for Hayes and 

 Wheeler, the Republican candidates. There 

 were 184 uncontested electoral votes cast for 

 the former, and 165 uncontested electoral votes 

 cast for the latter, 20 being in dispute 4 from 

 Florida, 7 from South Carolina, 8 from Louisi- 

 ana, and 1 from Oregon. To the Republican 

 candidates every contested vote was essential 

 to an election, and in their behalf it was neces- 

 sary to claim that every one of these votes 

 should not only be counted, but counted for 

 Hayes and Wheeler. The canvassing boards 

 in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina de- 

 clared the Republican electors chosen ; but 

 their action was challenged as fraudulent, and 

 two sets of electors in each of these States 

 cast their votes, and sent their electoral cer- 

 tificates to Washington. In Oregon there were 

 also double certificates, as the Governor of that 

 State held one of the Republican electors to 

 be ineligible, and regarded one of the Demo- 

 cratic electors chosen. It was also claimed, in 

 behalf of the Republicans, that in several of 

 the Southern States, that were given without 

 legal contest to Mr. Tilden, there had really 

 been no fair election. Popular excitement 

 rose to fever-heat, and the country seemed on 

 the brink of revolution. The majority of Re- 

 publican politicians claimed that the right of 

 counting the electoral votes lay with the Presi- 

 dent of the Senate, and that his duty was mere- 

 ly to open the electoral certificates and count 

 up the votes cast. The Democrats asserted that 

 the counting of the electoral votes was the 

 function of Congress, and that with Congress 

 lay the right to scrutinize the true character 

 of the electoral certificates. It was taken for 

 granted that, as the Senate was Republican 

 and the House Democratic, they would dis- 

 agree in the contested cases when acting sepa- 

 rately on them, and that the votes in dispute, 

 through such disagreement, would fail to be 

 counted. Mr. Tilden had prepared and pub- 

 lished a pamphlet called "The Presidential 

 Counts," which gave the official record of pro- 



