Yet there were many and serious handicaps. The light and leading of
the historic Democratic party which had issued from the South were in
obscurity and abeyance, while most of those surviving who had been
distinguished in the party conduct and counsels were disabled by act
of Congress. Of the few prominent Democrats left at the North, many
were tainted by what was called Copperheadism (sympathy with the
Confederacy). To find a chieftain wholly free from this contamination,
Democracy, having failed of success in presidential campaigns not
only with Greeley but with McClellan and Seymour, was turning to such
disaffected Republicans as Chase, Field, and Davis of the Supreme
Court. At last Heaven seemed to smile from the clouds upon the
disordered ranks and to summon thence a man meeting the requirements of
the time. This was Samuel Jones Tilden.
[Illustration: From a photograph owned by F. H. Meserve