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S
 J. T
.
In 1814 there was born at New Lebanon, New York, an infant son to Elam
Tilden, a prosperous farmer. His father, being a personal and political friend
of Mr. Van Buren and other members of the celebrated 'Albany Regency';
his home was made a kind of headquarters for various members of that
council to whose conversation the precocious child enjoyed to listen.
Mr. Tilden declared of himself that he had no youth. As a boy he was
diffident, and was studying and investigating when others were playing and
enjoying the pleasures of society. From the beginning he was a calculator.
Martin Van Buren, to whom he was greatly attached, often spoke of him as
'The sagacious Sammy.'
Thrown into contact with such men at his parent's home, he early evinced
a fondness for politics which first revealed itself in an essay on 'The
Political Aspect,' displaying ability far beyond one of his years, which was
printed in the 
Albany Argus
, and which was attributed to Mr. Van Buren, at
that time the leader of the Albany Regency.
At twenty he entered Yale College, but ill-health compelled his return
home. He, however, afterward resumed his studies at the University of New
York; graduating from that institution he began the practice of law. At the
bar he became known as a sound, but not especially brilliant pleader. In
1866 he was chosen Chairman of the State Committee of his party. In 1870-
1, he was largely instrumental in unearthing frauds perpetrated in the city of
New York, and in 1874 was elected the 'reform governor' of the great
Empire State. Although in political discord with Mr. Tilden, it is in no
disparaging sense that we speak of him. It is in the sense of a historian
bound and obligated to truth that we view him. We regard him as the
.

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His personal character was, to a great extent, shrouded from the public in
a veil of mystery, which had both its voluntary and involuntary elements. If
Mr. Tilden had desired to be otherwise than mysterious it would have
required much more self-control and ingenuity than would have been
necessary to thicken the veil to impenetrability.
His habit was to weigh both sides of every question, and therein he
resembled, though in other particulars entirely different, the late Henry J.
Raymond, the founder of the 
New York Times
; and the effect was to some
extent similar, for each of these men saw both sides of every question so
fully as to be under the power of both sides, which sometimes produced an
equilibrium, causing hesitation when the crisis required action.
Mr. Tilden had intellectual qualities of the very highest order. He could sit
down before a mass of incoherent statements, and figures that would drive
most men insane, and elucidate them by the most painstaking investigation,
and feel a pleasure in the work. Indeed, an intimate friend of his assures us
that his eye would gleam with delight when a task was set before him from
which most men would pay large sums to be relieved: Hence, his abilities
were of a kind that made him a most dangerous opponent.
Some persons supposed that Mr. Tilden was a poor speaker because, when
he was brought before the people as a candidate for President of the United
States, he was physically unable to speak with much force. But twenty
years ago, for clearness of statement, and for an easy and straightforward
method of speech he had few superiors. His language was excellent, his
manner that of a man who had something to say and was intent upon saying
it. He was at no time a tricky orator, nor did he aim at rousing the feelings,
but in the clearest possible manner he would make his points and no amount
of prejudice was sufficient to resist his conclusions. He was a great reader,
and reflected on all that he read.
No more extraordinary episode ever occurred than his break with William
M. Tweed, and his devoting himself to the overthrow of that gigantic ring. It
is not our purpose to treat the whole subject; yet, the manner of the break
was so tragic that it should be detailed. William M. Tweed had gone on
buying men and legislatures, and enriching himself until he had reached the

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state of mind in which he said to the public, "What are you going to do
about it?" He had gone further. He had applied it to the leading men of the
Democratic party. The time came when he sat in his gorgeously furnished
apartment in Albany, as Chairman of a certain committee of the Senate.
Samuel J. Tilden appeared before the committee to represent a certain
interest. On that occasion Mr. Tweed, who was either intoxicated with
liquor, or intoxicated with pride and vanity, grossly insulted Mr. Tilden,
spoke to him in the most disrespectful manner, and closed by saying: "Y
; 
, 
'
!"
Mr. Tilden turned pale, and then red, and finally livid. A spectator, a man
second to none in New York State for position, informed the writer that as
he gazed upon Mr. Tilden he was terrified. Not a word did he utter; he
folded up his books and papers and departed. As he went the spectator said
to himself, "This man means murder; there will never be any
accommodation of this difficulty." Back to the City of New York went Mr.
Tilden. He sat down with the patience and with the keen scent of a sleuth-
hound, and unravelled all the mystery of the iniquity which had cursed the
City of New York, and of which William M. Tweed was the master-spirit.
Judge Noah Davis said to an acquaintance that 'Mr. Tilden's preparation of
the cases against Tweed and his confederates was one of the most
remarkable things of which he had ever seen or heard. He said that Tilden
would take the mutilated stubbs of check-books, and construct a story from
them. He had restored the case of the city against the purloiners as an
anatomist, by the means of two or three bones, would draw you a picture of
the animal which had inhabited them in the palæontological age.' It will be
remembered that Judge Noah Davis tried the cases and sentenced Tweed.
It is not necessary for us to conjecture whether Mr. Tilden would have
appeared as the reformer if he had not been grossly insulted by Tweed. That
he had not so appeared until the occasion referred to, and that immediately
afterward he began the investigation and movements which ended in the
total overthrow of the ring and its leader, are beyond question. There came a
time when Tweed, trembling in his very soul, sent a communication to Mr.
Tilden offering anything if he would relax, but no bronze statue was ever

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more silent and immovable than Samuel J. Tilden at that time. It is
remarkable that a man so silent and mysterious, not to say repellent, in his
intercourse with his fellow-men could exert such a mighty influence as he
unquestionably did. He did it by controlling master-minds, and by an
apprehension rarely or never surpassed of the details to be wrought out by
other men.
Mr. Tilden was capable of covering his face with a mask, which none
could penetrate. The following scene occurred upon a train on the Hudson
River road. Mr. Tilden was engaged in a most animated conversation with a
leading member of the Republican party with whom he entertained personal
confidential relations. The conversation was one that brought all Mr.
Tilden's learning and logical forces into play. It was semi-literary, and not
more political than was sufficient to give piquancy to the interview. A
committee of the lower class of ward politicians approaching, Mr. Tilden
turned to receive him, and in the most expressionless manner held out his
hand. His eye lost every particle of lustre and seemed to sink back and
down. The chairman of the committee stated the point he had in view. Mr.
Tilden asked him to restate it once or twice; made curious and
inconsequential remarks, appeared like a man just going to sleep, and
finally said: "I will see you on the subject on a future occasion." The
committee withdrew. In one moment he resumed the conversation with the
brilliancy and vivacity of a boy. Subsequently the chairman of the
committee said to the leading Republican, whom he also knew: "Did you
ever see the old man so nearly gone as he was to-day? Does he often get so?
Had he been taking a drop too much?"
He was at no time in his career embarrassed in his intellectual operations
by his emotional nature; he was a man of immense brain-power, and his
intellect was trained up to the last possibility; every faculty was under his
control; until his health failed he knew no such other source of joy as
WORK.
Craft had a very important place in his composition, but it was not the
craft of the fox; it was a species of craft which at its worst was above mere
pettifogging, and at its best was unquestionably a high type of diplomacy.
Those mistake who considered him only as a cunning man. A person

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opposed to him in politics, but who made a study of his career, observed
that in power of intellect he had no superior at the bar of New York, nor
among the statesmen of the whole country. The supreme crisis of his life
was when he believed himself elected President of the United States. The
political aspect we will not revive, except to say that Mr. Tilden consented
to the peculiar method of determining the case. The departure of David
Davis from the supreme bench in all human probability determined the
result.
It is known that Abram S. Hewitt, David Dudley Field, and eminent
Democratic leaders, Hewitt being chairman of the National Democratic
committee at the time, did all in their power to induce Mr. Tilden to issue a
letter to the American people saying that he believed himself to be the
President elect, and that on the fourth day of March 1877, he would come to
Washington to be inaugurated. Had that been done God alone can tell what
would have been the result. In all probability a