Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1878 — GOV. TILDEN’S DISCLAIMER. [ARTICLE]

GOV. TILDEN’S DISCLAIMER.

Denial that He Either Sent, Received, or Authorised Those Cipher Telegrams—His Election Confessed by Self-Convicted Participants in the Fraud—A Fixed Purpose on His Part Never to Descend to an Ignominious Competition for Carpet-Bag Favors— His Nomination and His Triumph Unbought and Himself Untrammeled. I have read the publications in the New York Tribune of the Bth inst., purporting to be translations of cipher telegrams relating to the canvass of the votes in Florida, at the Presidential election of 1876, and have looked over those printed in the Tribune of this morning, relating to the canvass in South Carolina. I have no knowledge of the existence of these telegrams, nor any information about them, except what has been derived from or since the publications of the Tribune. So much for these telegrams generally. I shall speak yet more specifically as to some of them. 1. As to those which relate to the offer purporting to have been made in behalf of some member of the State Board of Canvassers of Florida, to give, for pecuniary compensation, certificates to the Democratic electors who had been actually chosen, none of these telegrams, nor any telegram communicating such offer, or relating to such offer, was seen by me, translated to me, or the contents of it in any manner made known to me. I had no knowledge of the existence or purport of any telegram relating to that subject. Nor did I learn the fact that such offer of the Florida certificates had been made until long after the 6th of December, at which time the certificates were delivered and the electoral votes cast, and when the information casually reached me, as of a past event, it was accompanied by the statement that the offer had been rejected. 2. As to the publications in the Tribune. of this morning purporting to be translations of cipher telegrams, relating to the canvass of the > votes in South Carolina in 1876, which I have seen since I wrote the foregoing, I can speak of thenwio loss definitely and positively. Not one such telegram, either in cipher or translated, was ever shown to or its contents made known to me. No offer or negotiation in behalf of the State Canvassers of South Carolina, or any of them, or any dealing with any of them in respect to certificates or to electors, was ever authorized or sanctioned in any manner by me directly or through any other person. I will add that no offer to give the certificates of any lieturning Board or State Canvassers of any State to the Democratic electors, in consideration of promises of office or money or property ; no negotiation of that nature in behalf of any member of such board or with any such member; no attempt to influence the action of any such member, or to influence the action'of anv elector of President and Vice President by’ such motives, was ever entertained, considered, or tolerated by me, or by anybody within my influence, by my consent, or with my knowledge or acquiescence. No such contemplated transaction could at any time have come within the range of my power without that power being instantly used to crush it out. A belief was doubtless current that the certificates from the State of Florida conforming to the actual vote of the people were in the market. “I have not the slightest doubt in the world,” said Mr. Saltonstall, who was in Florida at the time, in a recent interview with the Herald “that that (Florida) vote could have been bought, if Mr. Tilden had been dishonorable enough to desire it done, for a great deal less than $50,000 or $20,000.” It was known that either one of the two members who composed the majority of the Florida State Canvassers could control its action and give certificates to the Democrats. Either one of them could settle the Presidential controversy in favor of the Democratic candidates, who lacked but one vote. How accessible to venal inducements they were is shown by the testimony of McLin, Chairman of the Board of State Canvassers, in his examination before the Potter committee in June last. He admitted that the true vote of the people of Florida was in favor of the Democratic electors, and that fact even appeared on the face of the county returns, including among them the true return from Baker county, notwithstanding the great frauds against the Democrats in some county returns. He also confessed that in voting to give the certificates to the Republican electors he acted under the influence of promises that he should be rewarded in east} “Mr. Hayes became President,” adding that “certainlp ‘these promises must have had a strong control over my judgment and action. After the certificates of the Louisiana Returning Board had been repeatedly offered to Mr Hewitt and others for money, they were given in favor of the Republican electors, who had been rejected bp a large majority of voters, and : the members of this Returning Board now pos- ! sess the most important Federal offices in that State. The pregnant fact always remains that. none of these corrupt boards gave their certificates to the Democratic electors, but they all did give them to the Republican electors. I had a per-fectly-fixed purpose, from which I never deviated in word or act—a purpose which was known to, or assumed by, all with whom I was in habitual communication. If the Presidency of the United States was to be disposed of by certificates to be won from corrupt Returning Boards by any form of venal inducements, whether of offices or money, I was resolved to take no part in the shameful competition, and I took none. The main interest of the victory which resulted in my election was the expectation that through the Chief Magistracy a system of reforms similar to that which had been accomplished in our metropolis and in our State administration would be achieved in the Federal Government. For this object it was necessary that I should lie nntrammeled by any commitment in the choice of men to execute the official trusts of the Government, and untrammeled by any obligation to special interests. I had been nominated and I was elected without one limitation upon my perfect independence. To have surrendered or compromised the advantages of this position by a degrading competition for Returning-Board certificates would nave been to abandon all that made victory desirable —everything which could have sustained me in the larger struggle which that victorv would have imposed upon me. I was resolved to go into the Presidential chair in full command of all my resources for usefulness or not at all While thus abstaining from the ignominious competition for such certificates I saw these certificates obtained for the Republican electors who had not lieen chosen by the people, and denied to the Democratic electors who had been chosen by the people. These false and fraudulent certificates, now confessed and proved to have been obtained by corrupt inducements, "were made the pretext for taking from the people their rightful choice for the Presidency and Vice Presidency. These’certi fl cates were declared by the tribunal to which Congress had abdicated the function of deciding the count of disputed electoral votes to be the absolute and indisputable conveyance of the title to the Chief Magistracy of the nation. The State of Florida, which had united all her executive, legislative and judicial powers to testifv to Congress long before the count who werelier genuine agents; which had by statute caused a recanvass, the issue of new certificates, and the formal sovereign authentication of the right of the true electors to deposit their votes to be counted, was held to be incapable of communicating to Congress a fact which everybody then knew and which cannot now be disputed. Congress, though vested by the constitution with authority to count the electoral votes; though unrestricted either as to the time when it should receive the evidence, or as to the nature of that evidence, and though subject to no appeal from its decision, was declared to have no power to guide its own count by any information it could obtain, or by any authority which it might accept from a wronged and betrayed State whose vote was about to be falsiThe monstrous conclusion was thus reached that the act of one man holding the deciding vote in the Board of State Canvassers (for without his concurrence the frauds of the other Returning Boards would have failed), in giving certificates known at the time, and now by himself confessed to be false and fraudulent, and confessed to have been obtained by promise of office—certificates whose character was known months before Congress could begin the count—must prevail over all the remedial powers of the State of Florida and the Congress of the United States combined, and must dispose of the Chief Magistracy of this republic. 8. J. Tilden. New Yobk, Oct. 16,1678. Now that locomotive wheels are made of paper it is not astonishing to be informed that artificial teeth made out of the same substance are to be found at the Berlin Paper Exposition.