De Alexander

The removal of Motley as minister to England, coming so soon after Sumner's successful resistance to the San Domingo scheme, was treated as an attempt to punish a senator for the just exercise of his right and the honest performance of his…

The hostility of the American people to the use of troops at elections had once before proved a source of angry contention, and the criticism which now rained upon the Republican party afforded new evidence of the public's animosity.

His approval of the Ku-Klux law, therefore, intensified a feeling already strained to bitterness, and although he administered the law with prudence, a physical contest occurred in the South and a political rupture in the North.

This measure, although not dissimilar to others which protected the negro in his right of suffrage, met with stout Republican opposition, the spirited debate suddenly heralding a serious party division.

By controlling the negro vote Republican administrations in several Southern States had wrought incalculable harm to the cause of free-government and equal suffrage.

Although the Tammany exposure had absorbed public attention, the Republican party did not escape serious criticism.

People had not realised what an avenging hand pursued Tammany, but they now understood that Tweed was a common thief, and that Tilden, by reducing strong suspicion to a mathematical certainty, had closed the mouths of eulogists and…

No intelligent man having an accurate knowledge of the facts could doubt his guilt, since every circumstance plainly pointed to it, but judicial proof did not exist until furnished by the investigation of the Broadway Bank, which Tilden…

As the crusade progressed the details of the great crime, becoming better understood, made Tammany's position intolerable.

Murphyism and Tweedism resembled each other so much that a contest against either presented a well-defined issue of political morality.

From that hour he became the real leader of the Democracy.

The course taken by Tilden on this memorable occasion made his own career, and also a new career for his party.

It became dizzy when he denied Tammany's right to be regarded as the regular organisation, but his proclamation, defiantly and clearly made, that hereafter he should bolt its nominations even if the convention refused to impeach its…

And if that is to be regarded the regular ticket, I will resign my place as chairman of the State committee and help my people stem the tide of corruption.

The excitement threatened to become a riot, but Tilden, caring as little for disapprobation as the son of Tisander in the story told by Herodotus, calmly awaited silence.

Curtis characterised the question as one of life or death to a great community weighed down by oppression and crime, and maintained that the convention, if it sought to avoid its duty by the subterfuge already enacted, would show both…

Curtis, referring to the refusal of the credentials' committee, declared that a voice from the Democratic masses of New York, seeking relief from a gang of thieves, was stronger, higher, and more sublime than mere questions of technicality.

He possessed no capricious dislikes, and his kindly heart, in spite of a stateliness of bearing, won all the people who came near him.

But Tilden, conscious of the need of an anti-Tweed legislature, had surmised the Ring's plan as early as Tweed devised it, and he replied with firmness that everything beside the legislative ticket was of minor importance to him.

The league between corrupt Republicans and corrupt Democrats, which was formed during Republican ascendency, proved too strong for honest men.

To him the quarter of a century covered by Van Buren, Marcy, and Wright, shone as an era of honour and truth, while the twenty-four years spanned by the Republicans and the party from whence they sprung brought shame and disgrace upon the…

He was not only an intense partisan, but he had a positive genius for saying bitter things in the bitterest way.

If for a moment, as he calmly declared opposition to the substitute, he seemed to stand alone, his declaration that a horde of Tammany ballot-box stuffers, pirates, and robbers had controlled and debauched the Republican organisation in…

Indeed, dismissals and appointments in the civil service had preceded the assembling of the convention until politicians understood that the way to preferment opened only to those obedient to the new dictator.

Although never to become an orator of great power and genuine inspiration, his quickness of perception, coupled with the manners of an accomplished gentleman, brilliant in conversation and formidable in debate, made him a popular favourite…