Mr. Tilden spent the summer of 1877 in Europe. On his return he was
serenaded by the Young Men's Democratic Club, on which occasion he
made a brief speech, in the course of which he said, according to
the New York _Tribune_ of October 26, 1877:
"The increase of power in the Federal government during the
last twenty years, the creation of a vast office-holding class,
with its numerous dependents, and the growth of the means of
corrupt influence, have well nigh destroyed the balance of
our complex system. It was my judgment in 1876 that public
opinion, demanding a change of administration, needed to embrace
two-thirds of the people at the beginning of the canvass, in
order to cast a majority of the votes at the election. If this
tendency is not arrested its inevitable result will be the
practical destruction of our system. Let the Federal government
grasp power over the great corporations of our country and
acquire the means of addressing their interests and their
fears; let it take jurisdiction of riots which it is the duty
of the State to suppress; let it find pretexts for increasing
the army, and soon those in possession of the government will
have a power with which no opposition can successfully compete.
The experience of France under the Third Napoleon shows that,
with elective forms and universal suffrage, despotism can
be established and maintained. In the canvass of 1876 the
Federal government embarked in the contest with unscrupulous
activity. A member of the Cabinet was the head of a partisan
committee. Agents stood at the doors of the pay offices to
exact contributions from official subordinates. The whole
office-holding class were made to exhaust their power. Even
the army, for the first time, to the disgust of the soldiers
and many of the officers, was moved about the country as an
electioneering instrument. All this was done under the eye
of the beneficiary of it, who was making the air vocal with
professions of civil service reform, to be begun after he had
himself exhausted all the immoral advantages of civil service
abuses. Public opinion in some States was overdone by corrupt
influences and by fraud. But so strong was the desire for reform
that the Democratic candidates received 4,300,000 suffrages.
This was a majority of the popular vote of about 300,000, and
of 1,250,000 of the white citizens. It was a vote of 700,000
larger than General Grant received in 1872, and 1,300,000 larger
than he received in 1868. For all that, the rightfully elected
candidates of the Democratic party were counted out, and a great
fraud triumphed, which the American people have not condoned
and will never condone. [Prolonged applause and cheers.] Yes,
the crime will never be condoned, and it never should be. I do
not denounce the fraud as affecting my personal interests, but
because it stabbed the very foundations of free government.
[Loud cheers.] I swear in the presence of you all, and I call
upon you to bear witness to the oath, to watch, during the
remainder of my life, over the rights of the citizens of our
country with a jealous care. Such a usurpation must never occur
again, and I call upon you to unite with me in the defence of
our sacred and precious inheritance. The government of the
people must not be suffered to become only an empty name." [Loud
applause.]
The remainder of Mr. Tilden's address was as follows:
"The step, from an extreme degree of corrupt abuses in the
elections to a subversion of the elective system itself, is
natural. No sooner was the election over than the whole power
of the office-holding class, led by a Cabinet minister, was
exhorted to procure, and did procure, from the State canvassers
of two States, illegal and fraudulent certificates, which were
made a pretext for a false count of the electoral votes. To
enable these officers to exercise the immoral courage necessary
to the parts assigned to them, and to relieve them from the
timidity which God has implanted in the human bosom as a limit
to criminal audacity, detachments of the army were sent to
afford them shelter. The expedients by which the votes of the
electors chosen by the people of these two States were rejected,
and the votes of the electors having the illegal and fraudulent
certificates were counted, and the menace of usurpation by
the President of the Senate of dictatorial power over all the
questions in controversy, and the menace of the enforcement of
his pretended authority by the army and navy, the terrorism
of the business classes and the kindred measures by which the
false count was consummated, are known. The result is the
establishment of a precedent destructive of our whole elective
system. [Applause.] The temptation to those in possession of
the government to perpetuate their own power by similar methods
will always exist, and if the example shall be sanctioned by
success, the succession of government in this country will come
to be determined by fraud or force, as it has been in almost
every other country; and the experience will be reproduced here
which has led to the general adoption of the hereditary system
in order to avoid confusion and civil war. The magnitude of a
political crime must be measured by its natural and necessary
consequences. Our great Republic has been the only example in
the world of a regular and orderly transfer of governmental
succession by the elective system. To destroy the habit of
traditionary respect for the will of the people, as declared
through the electoral forms, and to exhibit our institutions as
a failure, is the greatest possible wrong to our own country.
It is also a heavy blow to the hopes of patriots struggling to
establish self-government in other countries. It is a greater
crime against mankind than the usurpation of December 2, 1851,
depicted by the illustrious pen of Victor Hugo. The American
people will not condone it under any pretext or for any purpose.
[Cheers.] Young men! in the order of nature, we who have
guarded the sacred traditions of our free government will soon
leave that work to you. Within the life of most who hear me,
the Republic will embrace 100,000,000 of people. Whether its
institutions shall be preserved in substance and in spirit, as
well as in barren forms, and will continue to be a blessing to
the toiling millions here and a good example to mankind, now
everywhere seeking a larger share in the management of their
own affairs, will depend on you. Will you accomplish that duty
and mark these wrong-doers of 1876, with the indignation of a
betrayed, wronged, and sacrificed people? [A voice--'You bet
we will.' Laughter.] I have no personal feeling, but thinking
how surely that example will be followed if condoned, I can
do no better than to stand among you, and do battle for the
maintenance of free government. I avail myself of the occasion
to thank you, and to thank all in our State and country who have
accorded to me their support, not personal to myself, but for
the cause I have represented, and which has embraced the largest
and holiest interests of humanity." [Continued applause.]
SOME OF THE SPECIFIC TEMPTATIONS BY WHICH THE ELECTORS OF LOUISIANA
AND FLORIDA WERE DEBAUCHED
[_From the New York "Sun."_]