"_Private and personal._
"WASHINGTON CITY, _June 11th, 1880_.
"MY DEAR MR. TILDEN,--It may be desirable that you should
know something of what transpired at the Maryland convention, in
order to determine correctly the character and sentiments of those
by whom its proceedings were directed.
"Maryland is, as you are aware, the theatre for the operations of a
ring not unlike that which you hate in New York.
"This ring is under the control of Gorman, Colton, and two or three
others, with Governor Carroll as a subordinate but confidential
copartner.
"Carroll is violent in his hostility to you, and equally violent and
unreasoning in his devotion to Bayard.
"These gentlemen, though at one time committed to you, came over to
this city last winter and 'pledged' the State to Bayard.
"Bayard himself, I have occasion to know, designated some of the
delegates and advised the defeat of others. Five days before the
convention assembled he visited the residence of Governor Carroll,
where about a hundred and fifty men of that particular Congressional
district were invited to meet him.
"Carroll resides in the same county in which I reside--viz., Howard.
"I was a candidate in that district for the position of delegate
against a ring ticket. I carried the district and secured, of
my friends in the convention and others not known to me, but
_instructed_ to vote for me by the conventions that appointed them,
more than enough to elect me.
"But Carroll and his associates induced a sufficient number of those
who had been instructed openly to violate their obligation of good
faith and personal honor to defeat me. I confidently believe that of
the _people_ of the district I had two to one in my favor as against
the _Bayard ring ticket_.
"Bayard and his friends seem to cherish a personal bitterness to
you and those interested in having justice done to you, which is as
blind as it is stupid.
"There are some few good men in the delegation, but it is completely
under Gorman's control, who will do everything he can to secure
Bayard's nomination, but directs his efforts _principally_ to
_appear_ on the successful side. I beg leave to suggest that you
intimate to such of your friends at Cincinnati as may have your
confidence, and be in possession of your views and wishes, to be on
their guard in any consultation or interview they may have with this
gentleman or the members of this delegation.
"I presume Mr. Blair has written--he carried his county, though not
his district, and for reasons similar to those indicated above is
not a member of the delegation.
"With most profound respect,
"Sincerely your friend,
"R. T. MERRICK."
* * * * *
As introductory to the following letter, I quote the following from
my diary under date of May 12, 1880:
"Mr. Tilden has finally determined, I believe, to be a candidate
for the Presidency before the Cincinnati convention.
"I have no responsibility for advising him to expose himself to
such an ordeal in his present state of health, though I rather
congratulate myself that he has taken that responsibility for
himself. He has been so abominably calumniated that nothing but
a renomination and re-election can fully vindicate him and his
friends. Should the exposure cost him his life, could it be
spent in a better cause for him? As long as he can make himself
heard, he is capable of making a better President than any man
besides him that either party is likely to nominate.
"While the Terre Haute and Alton suit was pending against him,
I think he was fully determined to withhold his name from the
convention. He complained to me, as we were riding one day,
of his want of the requisite strength to prepare his defence,
though sure of winning if the case were promptly presented. He
then added, 'If I have not strength enough to prepare a case for
trial I am not fit to be President.' In saying this he turned to
me as if it were in answer or as a remonstrance against pressure
to run. I said to him: 'Governor, I am the last one to ask you
or to urge you to run. No one has a right to ask you to accept
a burden like that at the risk of your life, and there is no
disguising the fact that there is nothing from which you have so
much to apprehend as from excitement of any kind, and especially
of the kind and degree to which a canvass for the Presidency,
and the first six months' service in that position, would
inevitably expose you.' It was on that ground that I advised him
to settle the Terre Haute and Alton suit without reference to
the cost in money. It was fretting the life out of him.
"Then just before the State convention for the election of
delegates to Cincinnati the income tax suit was noticed for
trial. This completely unsettled him for several weeks, so
completely that I was again confirmed in the conviction that any
increase, or even continuance, of excitement like that under
which he was laboring would soon destroy him."
Mr. Tilden's brother Henry took with him to Cincinnati Mr. Tilden's
letter to the Democratic national convention in 1880 declining
a renomination to the Presidency, and this letter pictures the
confusion into which the convention was thrown by it.