Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1876 — Tilden’s War Record. [ARTICLE]

Tilden’s War Record.

The heaviest burden which the Democratic party is now carrying is the record of Tilden as an advocate of the right of secession. Industriously as they seek to expunge this record and to present their candidate before the country as an original Union man, the proofs to the contrary accumulate faster than they can meet them. In a recent speech delivered by the Hon. Samuel Shellabarger, at Dayton, Ohio, another chapter of Tilden’s record is exposed. which is more damaging than anything that has yet appeared touching his advocacy of the monstrous doctrine of State Sovereignty. In the personal diary of Mr. Russell, the correspondent of the jondon Times, recorded in March, 1861, n a private journal, where there could be no motive for misrepresentation, he writes the utterances of TUden at a public dinnor, as follows:

According to tbo Constitution, the Government coaid not employ force to prevent secession, or to compel the S ates which had seceded, by a vote of the people, to acknowledge the Federal power. In fact, according to them, the Federal Government was a mere machine, ut forward by a society of sovereign States as a common instrument forcer ain ministerial acts; more particularly those which affect the external relations of the confederation. T ere w s not a man [and Tilden was one oft them] who maintained that the Government had any power to coerc the people of a State, or 10 «wee a State to remain In the Union. In addition to this explicit declaration that secession cannot be met and resisted hy war, and that a dissolution of the Lnion by a vote of a 8. ate cannot be re stated by the Nation, Mr. Sheliabarger brought forward other corroborating testimony, showing" that his actions were in cousonance with lua utterances. Shortly

after this dinner, Tilden was invited to be present at a meeting in Uaion Square, called for the purpose of expressing devotion to the Union, and refused to pvticipatc, with the declaration that he felt "no sympathy with the object of the meeting.’’ In February, 1868, in the very darsest hours of tiie Republic, he assisted to organize “ The tt;>dety for the Diffusion of ITacful Political Knowledge,” whose publications were his own letter, which was calculated "to persuade the country that the measuita of the war were perilous usurpations, and that liberty and the Government were perishing amid the follies and faults of Abraham Lincoln's Administration "; the traitorous speech of Turpie, of Indiana; the speech of Seymour, that produced the draft riots in New York; the defense of slavery from the Bible; the speech of Pugh in defense of Vallandighain ; and the demand of the Albany traitors that Vallandighem should be surrendered. Following these publications came the resolution of the National Democratic Convention, reported by the Committee of which Tilden was a member, declaring the war a failure, and demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities. Mr. Shellabarger has not only done a great service to the people of this country in presenting Tildcn’s record as a Copperhead, but he has emphasized it with the following statement of the conditions and time in which he was denouncing the Government and its soldiers:

Remember, moreover, that when Mr. Tilden re ported this resolution and his Convention adopted it. it was the same supreme moment when, as we are now assnrod by H. H. Stewart, at Stanton. Va., he bad been summoned, by a letter of Jndah P. Benjamin, to go. by way of N assan. to Canada, with $8,000,000, to there operate on prominent men “in creating a peace sentiment at the North.” and he was not required to furnish vouchers for any of the $8,000,000. Remember that, besides 11. H. Stewart and his $8,000,100. Davis had also sent that same all., Mr. Valiandlgham, —whose battles Mr. T 1 den's ** society ” was lighting in New York,—to the same place, and ou the samc identical mission, to-wit (as Stewart expresses It): ”To create a peace sentiment at the North.” And remember that, just then, Mr. Tilden's Committee drafted, and his Convention adopted, that resolve which demanded a surrender of the Republic. Remember these things, and also that, daring that four years of conflict with this treason, no word or act of cheer ever came from the Hue or life of Mr. Tilden in aid of our armies or their great cause, aud that he has never disavowed the doctrines he uttered to Rnssell, — uttered through his "Society for the Diffusion of Vsefnl Political Knowledge.” This is the man whom the Democrats are now seeking to present to the people of this country as a ‘ patriot, and who makes such hypocritical pretenses of reforming the Government which he attempted to overthrow by conveying aid and comfort to Southern rebels at the most critical moment of the war. —Chicago Tribune.