Part 2

This was well illustrated in his defence, in 1856, of the title of Azariah C. Flagg to the office of comptroller of the city of New York, against the claim of John S. Giles. Flagg had been declared elected by the Board of County Canvassers. He was a man of resolute integrity, had held the office before this election, and, by his obstinate defence of the city treasury against unjust and fraudulent claims, had drawn upon himself the hatred of the municipal plunderers, and earned from them the title of "Old Skinflint." His enemies had made a combined and desperate effort to defeat his re-election, and, having failed by a few votes only, they determined, upon the pretence of an erroneous return, to make an attempt to oust him from his office by a judicial proceeding and install Giles in his place. For this purpose they fixed upon the vote of the first district of the Nineteenth Ward, the majority of the election officers of which were bitter enemies of Flagg. Their pretence was that the return of the district election officers giving 316 votes for Flagg and 186 for Giles was a clerical error, by which Giles' vote was awarded to Flagg and Flagg's vote to Giles. Three of the election officers who signed and filed this return were sworn as witnesses for Giles, and positively testified that the vote as actually counted was just the reverse of the return; that Giles had 316 votes, and Flagg 186. The original tally-list of the regular tickets, which would have shown the truth, had been conveniently lost, but these witnesses produced what they swore was the original tally-list of the split tickets, and upon which was a pretended transfer of the votes on regular tickets, which they swore was correct, and this fully supported their statements. Other witnesses on the same side testified that they were present at the close of the counting on the day of the election, and heard the result proclaimed, and that it gave 316 to Giles and only 186 to Flagg. This formidable case could be overthrown only by showing that these witnesses were perjurers, and this pretended split tally-list a forgery. Tilden had no doubt that this was the fact, but he had no direct evidence to prove it. He was a determined enemy of these base conspirators and a close friend and ardent admirer of Flagg, and he was resolved that the fraudulent scheme should not succeed. Acting upon the assumption that a lie has no place in the regular order of nature, but is something violently thrust into that order and will not fit the surrounding and attendant facts, he laboriously endeavored to bring into light, so far as possible, all those surrounding and attending facts. It so happened that this election was a contest between numerous factions, and that there were seven regular tickets voted; that is, tickets having uniformly the same names and for the same offices; and there were twelve candidates for the various city offices on each ticket. There were also many split tickets, created by erasure of one or more names from a regular ticket, or otherwise. Here was fruitful material for the exercise of Tilden's powers of investigation. He demonstrated, and with mathematical certainty, by an analysis and comparison of the actual returns of votes for all the candidates on these tickets, that the pretence of Giles was a pure fabrication. At the close of his argument he threw his demonstration into a dramatic form, which created such an impression that, as Mr. Charles O'Connor, who was associated with Mr. Tilden, once told me, the case of the plaintiff Giles was utterly defeated before the defendant had called a witness. It was, of course, difficult for the jurors to carry in their minds the numerous figures which made up the demonstration. Something was needed to impress upon them the result. For this Tilden pitched upon the lost original tally-sheet of the regular vote. It was upon the amount of Flagg's _regular_ vote that the whole controversy turned. If the contents of that lost tally could be shown, all doubt would be dispelled. Said he, "I propose now, gentlemen, to submit this case to a process as certain as a geometrical demonstration. _I propose to evoke from the grave that lost tally_; to reproduce it here, to confront and confound these witnesses who have been upon the stand swearing to what is not true. It is an honest ghost. It will disturb no true man." And he did it triumphantly. Handing to the jurors sheets containing copies of the regular tickets, and selecting a name which was found on only one of these tickets, that of Samuel Allen for street commissioner, he called off from the actual return to the Board of County Canvassers, and the jurors set down Allen's vote, which was 215. It necessarily followed that every other name on that ticket must have received the same number, or the ticket would not be regular. Proceeding in the same way with all the names on all the tickets, and then deducting the regular vote from the whole vote as shown by the actual return, and thus obtaining the split votes for each candidate, and comparing these results, except as to Flagg and Giles, with the tally-sheet of the splits which had been produced by the witnesses for Giles, and which was presumably correct, except in respect to the vote for Flagg and Giles, he slowly, step by step, re-created an original tally of the regular ticket, which, when increased by the split votes shown on the split tally-list, corresponded in every particular with the actual return to the county canvassers except as to three unimportant names, and as to these it was manifest that the actual return was erroneous. Each juror found, at the close of the calling, that he held in his hands what he could not but believe was an absolutely accurate count of the votes in the first district of the Nineteenth Ward for all the candidates voted upon, for whatever office, at the election under investigation. The hideous monstrosity of the figures assigned to Flagg and Giles in the split tally-list became so palpable that none could doubt. It is needless to add that when the case was finally submitted to the jury they immediately returned with a verdict for "Old Skinflint."

He employed a similar method in the case of what was called the Six Million Audit fraud of Tweed and his accomplices. That the payment of this enormous sum was a gigantic fraud no one could doubt; but there was no proof showing _how much_ of the payments was in excess of what was due to the claimants, or among whom the excess was divided, and how much to one and how much to another. Mr. Tilden unlocked this mystery. He went to the banks in which the conspirators kept their accounts, and by a patient decomposition of the credits into the original items, as shown by the deposit tickets, evolved the plunderers' rule of division. Applying this rule to any one of the hundreds of paid city warrants embraced in this series of frauds, and without going beyond the face of the warrant, it could be determined how much each of the conspirators received; and the determination would be verified by finding, upon examining the bank accounts and deposit tickets of the same parties, that they had received on the day of the payment of the warrants the same sums which, according to the rule applied, they ought to have received. It vexed Mr. Tilden very much that the shares of the conspirators, as thus computed, did not correspond with perfect exactitude to the amounts deposited to their credit. The difference, being trifling in amount, hardly affected the conclusiveness of the demonstration; but it showed that there was some element in the rule of division which he had not discovered. The missing link was subsequently found, and then the conformity between the computed and the actual shares was in every instance exact to a penny. This division and conformity, appearing upon the face of the accounts themselves, proved with absolute certainty the conspiracy to defraud, the amounts of the embezzlements, and the precise shares received by each. Had Mr. Tilden been present at the meetings of the conspirators and witnessed their division of the spoils, he could not have given evidence so conclusive of the fraud as that which he thus drew from written memoranda which the conspirators had thoughtlessly allowed to be made.

It was indeed wonderful to observe how a man who could study these dry details with such patience, and even with pleasure, could pass at once into the fields of political science and compel a wholly different class of facts to yield to him the loftiest generalizations. But in truth the process was the same in both instances. It was the original investigation of facts for the purpose of framing a just theory. It is a common practice, even with able men, to disparage the conclusions founded upon the employment of the reasoning powers as being _mere theory_; as if their own conclusions, so far as they have any value, were reached in any other way. These are the criticisms of men who are too indolent to engage in the work of patient investigation, or not sufficiently instructed in the methods by which it should be pursued. Undoubtedly there are many minds that undertake the task of evolving the laws underlying some subject matter and reach conclusions which are confidently believed and asserted to be true, but that turn out when adopted in practice to be erroneous. It is in this way that the results of investigation and reasoning are brought into discredit. But the fault in such cases is not that the conclusions are those of mere theory, but of erroneous theory. The reasoner lacks the patience, or the skill, to embrace in his investigation all the material facts, and to exclude all others. These are, indeed, the rarest of qualities. They are possessed in an eminent degree by a few men only in each generation, and the value of such men to society is inestimable. Governor Tilden's pre-eminence was especially manifest here. His educated intelligence was able to pronounce, as if by instinct, whether the conclusion he had reached was sufficiently certain to be made the basis of action, or was so encumbered with doubt as to call for further scrutiny into the facts. He knew how--to use his own happy phrase--"to limit theory by practice and enlighten practice by theory."

The mere pursuit of truth, the pleasure which comes from the actual exercise of superior powers, the sense of satisfaction which arises from the overcoming of difficulties, would have been a sufficient reward and stimulus to a mind like his; but this was not his principal motive. His chief aim was to convince others; and he knew that this could be done only by the effective use of language. He recognized the importance of the art of rhetoric, and labored upon the composition of his papers with the same care which the purely literary man employs; not for the purpose of making up a piece of what is called fine writing, but to engage and hold the attention by imparting life and interest to his treatment, and, by an easy and natural development of his subject, to carry the mind gratefully along towards his conclusions. It would be hard to find better examples of the way in which subjects apt to be regarded as dull may be made lively and interesting, and yet without departing in the slightest degree from a rigid and logical development, than are found in his report, while a member of the legislature of New York, upon the causes of the anti-rent disorders and the proper remedy for them; or his speech in the constitutional convention of that State in 1867, unfolding the true policy to be pursued in relation to the canals; or his second annual message when Governor in 1876. I find, on the page at which I open a volume of his speeches and writings, the following sentence, which well illustrates the ease and power with which he could clothe weighty truths in their appropriate language: "Generations, like individuals, do not completely understand inherited wisdom until they have reproduced it in their own experience."

These high intellectual traits would have made him a man of mark had he been a philosophical recluse holding himself aloof from the busy activities of life; but the extraordinary thing was that he was at all times emphatically a man of action. Whether engaged in the conduct of some great lawsuit or of some important business enterprise, or managing a political campaign, he was equally at home. The schemes of small party chieftains and the power of local bosses gave way before his masterful leadership. He did not despise the aid of partisan machinery or of official patronage; but he fully perceived that the scope and influence of these instrumentalities were narrow, and that, unless held rigidly secondary and subordinate, they would obstruct, rather than aid, the march of a political party. Profoundly convinced of the truth of the political creed which he avowed, he engaged in political warfare only to secure its permanent establishment. Any victory won by shifty expedients he knew would be but temporary, and would not fail to retard a lasting success. At the same time he recognized the fact that no main purpose of a political party could ever be carried except by the permanent union of men differing from each other upon a multitude of minor points, and exhibiting every grade of culture, character, and conduct. Compromise and concession be recognized as the daily duties of the statesman. He had little regard for those impracticable natures which refuse to join any party because they find something to object to in all parties. He was the last man to yield to self-conceit and obstinacy the titles of conscience and wisdom. Such men, he once declared, forget "that without concession there can be no common action for a common object, and that without the capability of such action a man is fit, not for society, not even for a state of nature, but only for absolute solitude." I wonder that the mugwump-haters have not borrowed his description of some non-partisans of his day: "I know there is a class of no-party men who vindicate their claim to that character by doing injustice to all, even without the excuse of bias."

But _how far_ should you carry the spirit of compromise and concession--_how far_ tolerate what you believe to be error in order to obtain an over-balancing good? This is the puzzle of statesmen, and indeed of every man, so far as he undertakes any part, even though only as a private citizen, in public concerns. There are two ways of dealing with it. One is to shirk it by an indolent abandonment of the important offices of social and public life. The other is to meet it with the best solution we can find. Tilden had little regard for the first of these methods. He accepted the second; and with his matchless ability for drawing a line up to which we must, but beyond which we must not go, he would have had little excuse for the other choice. There were several occasions when he felt obliged to draw this line and rigidly observe it, although the result might be immediately disastrous to the party to which he was attached and to his own personal ambitions. His opposition, in 1871, to Tammany Hall, already noticed, is an instance. Occupying, as he then did, the important post of chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, he could not step out of the local organization in the metropolis and make war upon its leaders without seeming disloyalty to his party, nor without endangering its success in the next State election. But he determined, against combined solicitations and threats, to take this course, and the result showed the wisdom of his choice, even as a measure of party policy. And again, when the irredeemable paper-money delusion had to a far greater degree than the free silver coinage craze gained possession of the popular mind throughout the West and South, and in the view of many ardent politicians promised a victory to the Democratic party if that party would extend some favor to it, he compelled from the national convention of the party a repudiation of the heresy. No temporary advantage which his party might gain would in his view be worth acceptance, if purchased at the price of such a sacrifice of fundamental principle.

It is not to be wondered at that with his profound knowledge of the causes by which human affairs were controlled, combined with such capacities for skilful action, he should have accumulated a large fortune. Aside from what he received for professional services, his large gains were, I imagine, rather easily acquired. Among the mischiefs of an unstable currency is the facility with which men who have the power of dealing skilfully with exceptional conditions may amass large fortunes. Few men understood such things better than Mr. Tilden. He had striven to prevent, as well as a man in opposition could, the issue, during the war, of an irredeemable government currency; but I remember his saying to me after the policy was adopted, in substance: "Now is the time to make yourself rich. Buy all that you can pay for, or run in debt for. Every day it will be easier and easier for you to pay, and your property will correspondingly rise in value, or rather in price." And at the close of the war he advised the opposite course. I do not know, but I have little doubt that he acted extensively on this policy. If there were a question as to the propriety of such action, he certainly was excusable. Had his counsels been regarded, no such measure would have been adopted.

The malice of political opponents was wont to ascribe his success in money-getting to schemes for obtaining interests in the property of insolvent railway companies at less than their value. They stigmatized him as a "railroad-wrecker." Never was there less foundation for a charge. He was a railroad-preserver. His skill in the management of difficult and complicated affairs, combined with his profound knowledge of the fundamental principles of equity, made his services invaluable to parties interested in the property and securities of railroad companies which by bad management, or in consequence of over-sanguine expectations, had fallen into difficulties. His capacious mind was just fitted for the survey of such situations. He was among the first, if not the first, to perceive that a ruthless attempt to foreclose a first mortgage and thus to crush out all subordinate liens and interests was ill-suited to such cases; that the just and true method was to ascertain the real capacities of the business, and to reorganize the enterprise upon a scheme which would indulge the hope of saving to the junior securities a large part of their supposed original value. More than one of the great railroads of the country have, at his skilful touch, risen from absolute bankruptcy into prosperity, and repaid all or the larger part of the original investment.

With all his capacity for making sober estimates, and escaping the illusions by which many minds are carried away, he was yet an enthusiast, especially in respect to the plans and enterprises which were the offspring of his own fruitful brain. This came partly from personal vanity, of which he had a plentiful supply, and partly from the exhilaration which attends the exercise of high intellectual powers and rewards the conquest of difficulties. I remember a display of this tendency which greatly impressed me.

In the performance of a professional service for him while he was Governor, in connection with a lawsuit to which he was a party, it became necessary that I should tarry several days at his house in Albany in order to secure his attention during the intervals between his official duties. It was while the St. Louis Convention was in session at which he was nominated for the Presidency. One would suppose that under such circumstances he could have given his mind to little else than the business in which his personal fortunes were so deeply concerned. But he could not have devoted himself more ardently to recalling and arranging the facts of the complicated transactions out of which this lawsuit grew than he did on the very day when he was nominated. Late in the afternoon of that day, after protracted work, he took me upon a long drive with him. In the course of it he did not even allude to the convention, or its doings, although a flight of telegrams had been coming to him. His conversation, animated and incessant, was upon false policies in government, the mischiefs and burdens of over-expenditure, the true principles of taxation, the errors of protective tariffs, etc. One could see that the mere matter of holding the Presidential office was little to him; but that the chance of laying his reforming hand upon the multitude of abuses with which, as he supposed, the whole administration of the general government was infested aroused his enthusiasm, as the prospect of a season of sport would that of a boy. Becoming animated with his theme, eloquent and intense in his language, he failed in attention to the high-spirited horse he was driving, and I was in constant fear of a catastrophe. Indeed, on a similar drive the succeeding day we met with one from the same cause. The injury was inflicted instead of received, and cost the Governor several thousand dollars by way of damages. When, on our return, on the day first mentioned, we were near home, I observed to him that he would perhaps find at the house a telegram announcing his nomination. "No," said he, unconcernedly, "not until about half-past nine." It came not many moments from that time. Impressed upon this occasion with his profound and extensive knowledge of everything relating to the science of government, and thinking his views not substantially at variance with those held by leading Republicans--for at that time the Republican party had not become committed to its present dogmas on the subject of protective tariffs--I ventured to express to him the surprise I felt that he had not allied himself with that party; saying that it seemed to me that, considering the greatly superior number of men of education and public spirit to be found in its ranks, he could much more easily procure a general acceptance of his opinions by acting in alliance with them. He answered that he thought that I was mistaken; that, while it was true that a large majority of the men of culture, wealth, and force were to be found in the Republican party, the trouble was that, to use his language, "it was a party of self-seekers." He explained that he did not mean this in any offensive sense; that what he meant was that the controlling men of that party were men of large pecuniary interests, seeking to build up fortunes and families; that these personal interests were so large as necessarily to engross their thoughts and control their opinions, leading them to use their powerful influence so as to shape the legislation of the country in a form which would favor those interests; that it was difficult to lead such men along the pathway of those fundamental principles of democratic government by which alone equal justice could be done to the masses of men; that the Democratic party held within its ranks a far less number of men of this description--not enough to control its action--and consequently the opinions of its great masses could be more easily shaped and molded by the mere force of ideas; that this was the distinction between the former Democratic and Whig parties, and that the Republican party would, as the patriotic inspirations caught from the opposition to slavery and the defence of the Union died away, become the mere successor to the spirit and policy of the Whig party.