ii H-IS BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF 1891 A..j:jj..£...sr. P'Ayf^ DATE DUt P/^ APR2 6i34ote MAYi 194SI 1 MAY lOa^HI^^ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 924 092 890 908 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092890908 BUST OF SAMUEL JONES TILDBN. —By KlTSON Circa 1884 THE LIFE ' inuii OP SAMUEL J. TILDEN BY JOHN BIGELOW, LL.D. AnTH()& OF "LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN" "LIFE OP 'WILLIAM CrLLEN BRYANT " " FRANCE AND THE CONFEDERATE NAVY " EDITOR OF " WRITINGS AND SPEECHES OF SAMUEL J. TILDEN " ETC. Chacun de ses maUieurs semble une meprise ou une enigme jusqu'a ce qu'on prononce le nom de ses ennemis St. Mabc Gihaedin, j4rt. "Arnaud" IN TWO VOLUMES Volume II.—1877-1887 NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1895 ^ M, 1.S A- %\'bl% Copyright, 1895, by John Bigelq-w. All rights reserved. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Page Presidential canYass of 1876 — Assailable points of Grant's administra- tion — Popular majority for Tilden and Hendricks — Inception of the conspiracy to defeat the popular choice — Senator Barnum, JohnC. Reid, and the "New York Times " — William E. Chand- ler's break-of-day despatches — Troops ordered to Florida — Presi- dent Grant's despatch to General Sherman — Foul operations of conspirators in Florida — How rewarded by President Hayes — General Barlow 1-32 CHAPTER II The conspirators' operations in Louisiana — William Pitt Kellogg — Visiting statesmen in New Orleans — The composition and opera- tions of the Louisiana Returning Board — Garfield — Sherman — Anderson — Jewett — Eliza Pinkston — Fraudulent registration — The reward of the conspirators 33-56 CHAPTER III The electoral count of 1877 — Senator Morton's scheme — Tilden's history of the presidential counts — President Grant concedes Tilden's election — Electoral commission created — Disapproved of by Tilden — Refuses to raffle for the presidency — Horatio Sey- mour's speech before the New York electors — Dr. Franklin's advice to his son — The Florida case — The Louisiana case — The Oregon case — Conflicting decisions of the commission — The commission for sale — The forged certificates from Lou- isiana — Decision of the commission condemned by the House of Representatives — Letter of Charles Francis Adams — Tilden's reply — Protest of the Democratic minority of the electoral com- mission — Thurman and Bayard — James Russell Lowell . 57-118 CHAPTER IV Revisits Europe — Blarney Castle — St. Patrick's Cathedral — Tom Moore's birthplace — The cabman's criticism — Lord Houghton's iv CONTENTS Pago story — General Grant's reception in London — Tilden elected an honorary member of the Cobden Club — Visits the home of his ancestry — Arrives in Paris — Attends the funeral of Tliiers — Talk with Gambetta — Louis Blanc's account of his visit to Louis Napoleon when a prisoner at Ham, and of the loss and recovery of his voice in London — The story of General Cavaignac's brother and mother — Tilden's exposure in recrossing the channel — Re- turns to the United States — The " Indian Corn Speech" . 119-144 CHAPTER V The trials and temptations of a bachelor millionaire — Proposals of marriage in verse and prose 145-167 CHAPTER VI The cipher despatches — Tilden's address to the people of the United States in regard to them — His examination by a congressional committee — A calumnious report corrected — Letter to Senator Kernan 168-223 CHAPTER VII Income-tax returns — New persecutions by the administration — The capitulation of the administration — The ignominious end of seven years' persecution — Letters of Edwards Pierrepont, special coun- sel for the government ; S. L. Woodford, United States District Attorney ; Green B. Raum, United States Commissioner of Inter- nal Revenue ; Charles J. Folger, Secretary of the Treasury ; and Benjamin H. Brewster, Attorney-General of the United States, 224-260 CHAPTER VIII The purchase of Graystone — Dinner to J. S. Morgan — Mr. Tilden rebukes third-term candidates for the presidency — Withdraws from public life — Letter to Mr. Manning declining the presidential nomination in 1880 — The Cincinnati convention — Urged for a re- nomination in 1884 — Second letter of declension .... 261-288 CHAPTER IX Tilden's relations to the new President —Senator Garland a suitor — Let- ters to Manning — Tilden's and Jefferson's views of civil service — Harbor defences — Letter to Carlisle — Tilden's friends proscribed at Washington — Letter to Watterson — George W. Julian — Tilden discourages- his nephew and namesake from embarking in politics — R. B. Minturn — Manning's illness and retirement from the treasury — History of the Monroe Doctrine — The Broadway CONTENTS V Page railroad — Advice to Governor Hill against the proposed enlarge- ment of the Erie canal — Favors the hill for an international park and for the protection of the Adirondack forests .... 289-34 G CHAPTER X Tilden's last days — The hooks he read — His death — Whittier's ele- giac verses — The funeral — Mr. Tilden's will — The validity of the Tilden will contested — The trustees of the Tilden Trust pur- chase a half-interest in the estate — James C. Carter's argument — Provision made by the Legislature and afterwards withdrawn, for the Tilden Pree Library 347-371 CHAPTER XI Conclusion 372-394 APPENDIX A Address of the minority of the electoral commission of 1877 . 397-403 APPENDIX B Party sentiment in favor of Tilden's renomination for the presidency in 1884 404-410 APPENDIX C Miss Gould's list of the books read to Mr. Tilden during the last years of his life 411-419 APPENDIX D Last will and testament of Samuel Jones Tilden 420-431 APPENDIX E 432-433 Act to Incorporate the Tilden Trust *35 Index • • ILLUSTEATIONS BUST OF SAMUEL J. TILDEN . Frontispiece GRATSTONE . .... Facing p. 263 SAMUEL J. TILDBN ON THE PORCH AT GRATSTONE 310 " THE PROPOSED TILDBN TRUST LIBRARY . 368 THE LIFE OF SAMUEL J. TILDEN CHAPTER I Presidential canvass of 1876 — Assailable points of Grant's administration — ^ Popular majority for Tilden and Hendricks —^ Inception of the conspir- acy to defeat the popular choice — Senator Barnum, John C. Reid, and the " New York Times " — William E. Chandler's break-of-day de- spatches — Troops ordered to Florida — President Grant's despatch to General Sherman — Foul operations of conspirators in Florida — How rewarded by President Hayes — General Barlow. The presidential canvass of 1876 was one of exceptional bitterness. The public officers of the party in control of the federal government had been charged by the press and on the platform, by prominent and responsible Republicans as well as by the opposition, not only with gross neglect of official duty, but with official conduct for much of which the laws provided the most degrading penalties. They charged, among other things, that during the whole eight years of General Grant's administration the ordinary ex- penses of the government, exclusive of pensions and inter- est on the public debt, had been increased at the inordinate rate of $75,000,000 a year. That its influence had been exerted to procure its inser- tion in the bill that was to double the President's salary, and, as an inducement for its passage, a provision that the increase of pay which Congress had already awarded the members should date back to the beginning of their term, by which means they were to receive about $1,000,000 of back pay. That in a single month in 1874 one million gallons of Vol.. n. — 1 2 THE LIFE OF SAMUEL J. TILDEN whiskey were sold in St. Louis which had not paid the law- ful tax, amounting to $700,000, through the collusion of officials attached to the Treasury Department, who were tried and convicted of sharing in the plunder. As St. Louis was but one, and by no means the most considerable, of the cities in which large distilleries were in operation, it was estimated and charged that from these frauds alone, which had been going on for many years, the loss to the treasury had been not less than $15,000,000 a year. O. C. Babcock, the President's private secretary, and one Avery, the chief clerk of the treasury, were both indicted for participating in these robberies. Avery was convicted, but to save the President's private secretary from the State- prison, and for other reasons which it is too painful even to suggest, Mr. Henderson, the lawyer selected by the Attorney-General for the prosecution of these rogues, was displaced at the special instance of the President, as was publicly charged, and, so far as I know, never denied. That the financial agency of our government abroad was taken from the old and responsible banking-house of the Barings, of London, who had held it through a long suc- cession of administrations, and was given to the houser of Clews & Co., of which one partner was an Englishman, but then residing in New York, and the other a Swede, who at one time was Swedish consul in New York, from which position he had been relieved at the instance of our govern- ment for blockade-running during the war. To secure their appointment it was charged that Clews & Co. agreed, in writing, to give a quarter, or some other portion, of their profits to one Cheever, a notorious familiar at the White House ; another quarter to one James A. Van Buren, which name subsequently proved to be a pseudo- nym, and the appropriation to it was understood to repre- sent a gratification to some personage too important to be named ; and an eighth to a brother-in-law of the Presi- dent. It is not surprising that, with so many divisions, the GRANT'S ADMINISTRATION 3 dividends of Clews & Co.