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Samuel J. Tilden

samuel j. tilden
governor of new york

biography
Samuel J. Tilden was educated at Yale and the University of the City of New York, being graduated from the latterin 1837. He had then studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1841. He was successful in reorganizing corporations involved in litigation and amassed one of the largest fortunes ever made in the practice of law.

An ardent Jacksonian in the 1830's, Tilden became a leader in the 1840's of the Barnburners, a Democratic faction committed to free-soil principles. Although a delegate to the Free-Soil National Convention in 1848, he did not follow most Free-Soilers into the new Republican. Growing wealthy and conservative, he returned to the Democratic party and abandoned his free soil convictions.

As a member of the New York state legislature in 1845, he was instrumental in the settlement of anti-rent troubles. The following year, he became a member of the state constitutional convention and in 1848 was a delegate of a faction to the Democrat National Convention.

During the Civil War, Tilden's main concerns were neither union nor slavery but the threat of tyranny by a powerful centralized government in Washington. After the war he condemned Radical Reconstruction and in 1868 managed the presidential campaign of Horatio Seymour, governor of New York. From 1866 to 1874, as chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, Tilden initially cooperated with and later helped destroy the infamous "Tweed ring" that controlled New York City politics.

Even after the Republican New York Times attacked the ring with damning evidence in July 1871, Tilden, a partisan Democrat, moved cautiously, but in October he examined ring bank accounts and proved that William M. Tweed and his friends had stolen from the city. Members of the ring were promptly arrested. As a member of the state legislature in 1872, Tilden worked to smash the Tweed ring and reform the judiciary, but he characteristically opposed a reform charter for New York City.

Renowned as a reformer, Tilden was nominated and elected governor of New York in 1874. A meticulous administrator, he reduced expenditures and taxes by introducing economics and eliminating frauds. He destroyed the bipartisan "Canal ring," a group of wealthy politicians who had stolen from the funds necessary to repair and extend the state canal system.

He was later secured the 1876 Democratic presidential nomination, with Gov. Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana as his running mate; this lead to a bitter campaign with his Republican rival Rutherford B. Hayes. The Democrats attacked Republican corruption in President Grant's administration, while the Republicans accused the Democrats of being disloyal during the war and made issues of Tilden's connections with railroads, his questionable income tax returns, and his health. Tilden apparently won the election by popular votes, but lost because of electoral vote bargaining by the Republicans coupled with Tilden's timidity and procrastination.

In 1880 and 1884 there was sentiment for Tilden's renomination, but he refused both times to be considered. He died in Yonkers, N. Y., on Aug. 4, 1886, a bachelor. Of his $5-million estate, $3 million helped found the New York Public Library.

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