Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1886 — The Late Gov. Tilden. [ARTICLE]

The Late Gov. Tilden.

Among the great non-military men who have passed away in such numbers within a comparatively brief time, Gov. Tilden was undoubtedly the greatest He had acquired a hold upon the Democratic party such as no contemporary statesmen except Douglas had ever enjoyed. His mastery was certainly equal to that of Douglas, and had a broader foundation. He was not an orator in the sense that Mr, Douglas was. He had none of the “magnetism” that usually enters into the equipment of the popular chieftain. His qualities were of the solid and reflective type that are slowly recognized by the masses, but when once perceived constitute the strongest claim upon public attention, and yield to the pos - sessor the largest influence with his fellows. His place in the later councils of his party was not unlike that held by Jefferson after his retirement. Absolute confidence in his purity and almost absolute confidence in his wisdom resided in the breasts of fully one-half of the American people, and it may be said that Gov. Tilden commanded as much of the respect of the other half as it is possible for an inflexible partisan to win from his opponents. An inflexible but not a bitter partisan Mr. Tilden was. Through the trying period of the war he was an unbending Democrat. He believed that there could be no permanent peace on the American Continent without the Union, and accordingly his voice and influence were always in favor of military suppression of the rebellion. But upon all points within the range of party strife, and especially upon the vexed question of “war powers,” he was as stiff a partisan as ever, and when the war was ended he had risen from local to national fame by his persistent adherence to what he conceived to be the limitations of the Constitution upon the military power of the Executive. President Lincoln knew Mr. Tildea well, believed in his patriotism, and trusted him even in the darkest hours of the war. The secret of Mr. Tilden’s success in life as a lawyer, a man of business and a statesman was the thoroughness with which he did everything that he attempted to do. He never took anything for granted. He never went into court with a case until he had searched every nook and cranny of the law. He never made an investment until he had personally studied the last details of the business. He never went into a political campaign without looking after every individual voter. In the campaign of 1876 he took everything into account up to the closing of the ballot-boxes, and he beat his opponents according to the rules of the game. It' the election laws of the whole country had been like those of New York he would have been President of th» United States for one term, and probably for two. His calculations of means to ends were almost infallible, and nowhere were they more signally justified than in the legal fight against the Tweed ring, in New York City, and in his political fight against the same ring in the State at large. It was a maxim of his that honest methods in politics are the only ones that yield large results at the polls, and from this maxim he never deviated. —New York Evening Post.