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1. In pursuance of the demand, and representing the convictions of what we believe to be a majority of the Republican party throughout the Union, this Convention of Republicans has assembled for the purpose of declaring those convictions with reference to the present aspect of political affairs. This action is necessary in view of the determined efforts to force upon the party the nomination of a candidate for the Presidency for a third term, in defiance not only of the traditions of the Government, but also of the solemn declarations of the Republican party through its conventions in the largest and controlling Republican States, reaffirmed by its representatives in the popular branch of Congress, and adopted by the entire party in the declarations of its latest Presidential candidate.

2. We reaffirm our adhesion to the principles of the Republican party as heretofore set forth by its authorized representatives, especially the declarations of the State Republican Convention of New York in 1875, opposing a third term for the President; of Pennsylvania in 1875, and reaffirmed in 1876, to the same effect; of Ohio in 1875; Massachusetts the same year; and of Minnesota and other Republican States, all to the same effect; also by the House of Representatives, in December, 1875, by an overwhelming majority.

3. We declare that the nomination of a third

term candidate will put the party on the defensive by reviving the memory of the public scandals and official corruptions which brought the party to the verge of ruin. We believe the questions now at issuefinance, tariff, etc.-require a trained statesman for President; and we find additional objection to a thirdterm candidate in that it would substitute a dangerous tendency to personal government for an unwearied effort for the true reform of civil service, which is vital to the welfare and safety of the republic.

4. As Republicans, we can not be hero-worshipers, and we demand from a party without a master the nomination of a candidate without a stain.

5. Resolved, That a National Committee of One Hundred be appointed and instructed, in the event of the nomination of General Grant, to meet in the city of New York, at the call of the chairman of this committee, and there to act in such a manner as they shall then deem best to carry out the spirit and purpose of these resolutions, the said committee to be selected by a committee of thirteen, and published at its earliest convenience.

The prominent candidates for the Republican nomination, besides General Grant, were Senator James G. Blaine, of Maine, and John Sherman, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; and there was some talk among the anti-thirdterm and independent Republicans of Senator George F. Edmunds, of Vermont.

The Republican National Convention gathered at Chicago, in accordance with the terms of the call, on Wednesday, the 2d of June, and was called to order by J. D. Cameron, chairman of the Executive Committee, at one o'clock. Senator George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, was chosen temporary chairman, and the committees were constituted, after which an adjournment was taken until the next day. On the second day a permanent organization was effected, Mr. Hoar being continued in the chair, but the time was taken up by the consideration of contested cases by the Committee on Credentials. The main source of controversy was the question of the power of State Conventions to name delegates from Congressional districts, and to bind their action by instructions. The third and fourth days of the

Convention were spent mainly in settling contests, but the platform was adopted on the fourth day, Saturday, June 5th. At the beginning of the discussion on Friday, Mr. Conkling, of New York, offered a resolution in these terms:

Resolved, As the sense of this Convention, that every member of it is bound in honor to support its nominee, whoever that nominee may be, and no man should hold a seat here who is not ready to so agree.

This was carried by a vote of 719 to 3, the latter being cast by delegates from West Virginia. Mr. Conkling then offered a resolution "that the delegates who, on this roll-call, have voted No on this resolution, do not deserve to have, and have forfeited their votes in this Convention." in which General Garfield, of Ohio, took a conAfter some warm discussion, ciliatory part, this resolution was withdrawn. The contested cases were settled in accordance with the principle that Congressional districts have the right to choose their own delegates, and that instructions of State Conventions for united action are not binding. The platform, as reported, was as follows:

sembled, at the end of twenty years since the Federal The Republican party, in National Convention asGovernment was first committed to its charge, submits to the people of the United States this brief report of its administration.

It suppressed a rebellion which had armed nearly reconstructed the Union of the States with freedom ina million of men to subvert the national authority. It stead of slavery as its corner-stone. It transformed 4,000,000 human beings from the likeness of things to the rank of citizens. It relieved Congress from the it to see that slavery does not exist. It has raised the infamous work of hunting fugitive slaves, and charged value of our paper currency from 38 per cent. to the par of gold. It has restored upon a solid basis paygiven us a currency absolutely good and equal in every ment in coin for all the national obligations, and has part of our extended country. It has lifted the credit of the nation from the point where 6 per cent. bonds sold at 86 to that where 4 per cent, bonds are eagerly sought at a premium. Under its administration, railways have increased from 31,000 miles in 1860, to more than 82,000 miles in 1879. Our foreign trade has increased from $700,000,000 to $1,150,000,000 in the same time, and our exports, which were $20,000,000 less than our imports in 1860, were $264,000,000 more than our imports in 1879. Without resorting to loans, it has, since the war closed, defrayed the ordinary expenses of Government, besides the accruing interest on the public debt, and has annually disbursed more than $50,000,000 for soldiers' pensions. It has paid $888,000,000 of the public debt, and by refunding the balance at lower rates, has reduced the annual interestcharge from nearly $151,000,000 to less than $89,000,All the industries of the country have revived; labor is in demand; wages have increased, and throughout the entire country there is evidence of a coming prosperity greater than we have ever enjoyed.

000.

Upon this record the Republican party asks for the continued confidence and support of the people, and this Convention submits for their approval the following statements of the principles and purposes which will continue to guide and inspire its efforts:

1. We affirm that the work of the last twenty-one years has been such as to commend itself to the favor of the nation, and that the fruits of the costly victories which we have achieved through immense difficulties should be preserved; that the peace regained should be cherished; that the dissevered Union, now happily restored, should be perpetuated; and that the fiber

ties secured to this generation should be transmitted undiminished to future generations; that the order established and the credit acquired should never be impaired; that the pensions promised should be extinguished by the full payment of every dollar thereof; that the reviving industries should be further promoted, and that the commerce already so great should be steadily encouraged.

2. The Constitution of the United States is a supreme law, and not a mere contract. Out of confederated States it made a sovereign nation. Some powers are denied to the nation, while others are denied to the States; but the boundary between the powers delegrated and those reserved is to be determined by the national, and not by the State, tribunals.

3. The work of popular education is one left to the care of the several States, but it is the duty of the national Government to aid that work to the extent of its constitutional power. The intelligence of the nation is but the aggregate of the intelligence in the several States, and the destiny of the nation must not be guided by the genius of any one State, but by the average genius of all.

4. The Constitution wisely forbids Congress to make any law respecting an establishment of religion, but it is idle to hope that the nation can be protected against the influence of sectarianism while each State is exposed to its domination. We therefore recommend that the Constitution be so amended as to lay the same prohibition upon the Legislature of each State, and to forbid the appropriation of public funds to the support of sectarian schools.

5. We affirm the belief, avowed in 1876, that the duties levied for the purpose of revenue should so discriminate as to favor American labor; that no further grant of the public domain should be made to any railway or other corporation; that slavery having perished in the States, its twin barbarity, polygamy, must die in the Territories; that everywhere the protection accorded to citizens of American birth must be secured to citizens by American adoption; and that we esteem it the duty of Congress to develop and improve our watercourses and harbors, but insist that further subsidies to private persons or corporations must cease. That the obligations of the republic to the men who preserved its integrity in the hour of battle are undiminished by the lapse of the fifteen years since their final victory. To do them perpetual honor is, and shall for ever be, the grateful privilege and sacred duty of the American people.

6. Since the authority to regulate immigration and intercourse between the United States and foreign nations rests with Congress, or with the United States and its treaty-making power, the Republican party, regarding the unrestricted immigration of the Chinese as an evil of great magnitude, invokes the exercise of those powers to restrain and limit that immigration by the enactment of such just, humane, and reasonable provisions as will produce that result.'

7. That the purity and patriotism which characterized the earlier career of Rutherford B. Hayes, in peace and war, and which guided the thoughts of our immediate predecessors to him for a Presidential candidate, have continued to inspire him in his career as Chief Executive, and that history will accord to his Administration the honors which are due to an efficient, just, and courteous discharge of the public business, and will honor his interpositions between the people and proposed partisan laws.

8. We charge upon the Democratic party the habitual sacrifice of patriotism and justice to a supreme and insatiable lust of office and patronage; that to obtain possession of the national and State governments, and the control of place and position, they have obstructed all efforts to promote the purity and to conserve the freedom of suffrage, and have devised fraudulent certifications and returns; have labored to unseat lawfully-elected members of Congress; to secure, at all hazards, the vote of a majority of the States in the House of Representatives; have endeavored to

occupy, by force and fraud, the places of trust given to others by the people of Maine, and rescued by the courageous action of Maine's patriotic sons; have, by methods vicious in principle and tyrannical in practice, attached partisan legislation to appropriation bills, upon whose passage the very movement of the Government depends, and have crushed the rights of individuals; have advocated the principles and sought the favor of rebellion against the nation, and have endeavored to obliterate the sacred memories of the war, and to overcome its inestimably valuable results of nationality, personal freedom, and individual equality. The equal, steady, and complete enforcement of laws, and the protection of all our citizens in the enjoyment of all privileges and immunities guaranteed by the Constitution, are the first duties of the nation. The dangers of a solid South can only be averted by a faithful performance of every promise which the nation has made to the citizen. The execution of the laws and the punishment of all those who violate them are the only safe methods by which an enduring peace can be secured, and genuine prosperity established throughout the South. Whatever promises the nation makes the nation must perform, and the nation can not with safety relegate this duty to the States. The solid South must be divided by the peaceful agencies of the ballot, and all opinions must there find free expression, and to this end the honest voter must be protected against terrorism, violence, or fraud. And we affirm it to be the duty and the purpose of the Republican party to use every legitimate means to restore all the States of this Union to the most perfect harmony that may be practicable; and we submit it to the practical, sensible people of the United States to say whether it would not be dangerous to the dearest interests of our country at this time to surrender the administration of the national Government to the party which seeks to overthrow the existing policy under which we are so prosperous, and thus bring distrust and confusion where there are now order, confidence, and hope.

The following, offered by a delegate from Massachusetts, was added after some debate, and the whole adopted:

affirmed by its last National Convention, of respect The Republican party, adhering to the principles office, adopts the declaration of President Hayes, that for the constitutional rules governing appointment to the reform in the civil service shall be thorough, radical, and complete. To that end it demands the cooperation of the legislative with the executive department of the Government, and that Congress shall so legislate that fitness, ascertained by proper practical tests, shall admit to the public service; that the tenwhich distinctive policy of the party in power shall ure of administrative offices (except those through behavior, and that the power of removal for cause, be carried out) shall be made permanent during good ordinates, shall accompany the power of appointwith due responsibility for the good conduct of sub

ment.

The first ballot was taken on Monday, June 7th, the fifth day of the Convention, and resulted in 304 votes for General U. S. Grant, of Illinois; 284 for James G. Blaine, of Maine; 93 for John Sherman, of Ohio; 34 for George F. Edmunds, of Vermont; 30 for Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois; and 10 for William Windom, of Minnesota. The balloting continued during two days, thirty six votes being taken in all, and resulted finally in the nomination of General James A. Garfield, of Ohio, as the candidate of the Republican party for the office of President of the United States. The following table exhibits the result of the several ballotings:

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The nomination of General Garfield was made unanimous on motion of Mr. Conkling, of New York. General Chester A. Arthur, of New York, was nominated for Vice-President on the first ballot, the vote being, 468 for Arthur; 193 for E. B. Washburne, of Illinois; 44 for Marshall Jewell, of Connecticut; 30 for Horace Maynard, of Tennessee; 8 for B. K. Bruce, of Mississippi; 2 for E. J. Davis, of Texas; 4 for J. L. Alcorn, of Mississippi; 1 for Thomas Settle, of North Carolina; and 1 for Stewart L. Woodford, of New York.

The Greenback or National Greenback-Labor party took an active part in the canvass. Early in the year its Executive Committee called a National Convention to be held at Chicago on the 9th of June. On that day there were two separate factions gathered in that city, but they succeeded in effecting a union, and the business of the Convention was disposed of on the day following. The following platform was adopted:

Civil government should guarantee the divine right of every laborer to the results of his toil, thus enabling the producers of wealth to provide themselves with the means for physical comfort, and the facilities for mental, social, and moral culture; and we condemn as unworthy of our civilization the barbarism which imposes upon the wealth-producers a state of perpetual drudgery as the price of bare animal existence. Notwithstanding the enormous increase of productive power, the universal introduction of la saving machinery, and the discovery of new agents for the increase of wealth, the task of the laborer is scarcely lightened, the hours of toil are but little short

*One vote for Philip H. Sheridan.
One vote for Roscoe Conkling.

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ened, and few producers are lifted from poverty into comfort and pecuniary independence. The associated monopolies, the international syndicates, and other income classes demand dear money and cheap labor; a strong government," and hence a weak people. Corporate control of the volume of money has been the means of dividing society into hostile classes, of the unjust distribution of the products of labor, and of building up monopolies of associated capital endowed with power to confiscate private property. It has kept money scarce, and scarcity of money enforces debt, trade, and public and corporate loans. Debt engenders usury, and usury ends in the bankruptcy of the borrower. Other results are deranged markets, ture, precarious and intermittent employment for the uncertainty in manufacturing enterprise and agricullaborers, industrial war, increasing pauperism and crime, and the consequent intimidation and disfranchisement of the producer, and a rapid declension into corporate feudalism; therefore, we declare1. That the right to make and issue money is a sovereign power, to be maintained by the people for the common benefit. The delegation of this right to corporations is a surrender of the central attribute of sovereignty, void of constitutional sanction, conferring upon a subordinate, irresponsible power absolute dominion over industry and commerce. All money, whether metallic or paper, should be issued and its volume controlled by the Government, and not by or through banking corporations, and, when so issued,. should be a full legal tender for all debts public and private.

2. That the bonds of the United States should not be refunded, but paid as rapidly as is practicable, acTo enable the Government to cording to contract. be substituted for the notes of the national banks, the meet these obligations, legal-tender currency should national banking system abolished, and the unlimited coinage of silver, as well as gold, established by law.

8. That labor should be so protected by national and State authority as to equalize its burdens and insure a just distribution of its results. The eight-hour law of Congress should be enforced, the sanitary con

McCrary.

Hayes.

Harrison.

Dawes.

Hartranft.

Total.

dition of industrial establishments placed under rigid control, the competition of contract convict-labor abolished, a bureau of labor statistics established, factories, mines, and workshops inspected, the employment of children under fourteen years of age forbidden, and wages paid in cash.

4. Slavery being simply cheap labor, and cheap labor being simply slavery, the importation and presence of Chinese serfs necessarily tends to brutalize and degrade American labor; therefore immediate steps should be taken to abrogate the Burlingame treaty.

5. Railroad land-grants forfeited by reason of nonfulfillment of contract should be immediately reclaimed by the Government, and henceforth the public domain reserved exclusively as homes for actual settlers.

6. It is the duty of Congress to regulate interState commerce. All lines of communication and transportation should be brought under such legislative control as shall secure moderate, fair, and uniform rates for passenger and freight traffic.

7. We denounce as destructive to prosperity and dangerous to liberty the action of the old parties in fostering and sustaining gigantic land, railroad, and money corporations and monopolies, invested with and exercising powers belonging to the Government, and yet not responsible to it for the manner of their exer

cise.

8. That the Constitution, in giving Congress the power to borrow money, to declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a nation, never intended that the men who loaned their money for an interest consideration should be preferred to the soldier and sailor who periled their lives and shed their blood on land and sea in defense of their country; and we condemn the cruel class legislation of the Republican party, which, while professing great gratitude to the soldier, has most unjustly discriminated against

him and in favor of the bondholder.

9. All property should bear its just proportion of taxation, and we demand a graduated income-tax. 10. We denounce as most dangerous the efforts everywhere manifested to restrict the right of suffrage. 11. We are opposed to an increase of the standing army in time of peace, and the insidious scheme to establish an enormous military power under the guise of militia laws.

12. We demand absolute democratic rules for the government of Congress, placing all representatives of the people upon an equal footing, and taking away from committees a veto power greater than that of the President.

13. We demand a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, instead of a government of the bondholder, by the bondholder, and for the bondholder; and we denounce every attempt to stir up sectional strife as an effort to conceal monstrous crimes against the people.

14. In the furtherance of these ends we ask the cooperation of all fair-minded people. We have no quarrel with individuals, wage no war upon classes, but only against vicious institutions. We are not content to endure further discipline from our present actual rulers, who, having dominion over money, transportation, over land and labor, and largely over the press and the machinery of government, wield unwarrantable power over our institutions and over life and property.

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The proceedings of the Convention ran through the night of June 10th, and in the early morning of the 11th the nominations for President and Vice-President were made. The first ballot for candidate for President was informal, and resulted in 224 votes for General J. B. Weaver, of Iowa; 1263 for Hendrick B. Wright, of Pennsylvania; 119 for Stephen B. Dillaye, of New Jersey; 95 for Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts; 89 for Solon Chase,

of Maine; 41 for E. P. Alhs, of Wisconsin; and 21 for Alexander Campbell, of Illinois. By changes in the votes before the result was declared, General Weaver was unanimously nominated. General B. J. Chambers, of Texas, was nominated for Vice-President on the first ballot.

The Prohibition party held a National Convention at Cleveland, Ohio, on the 17th of June. There were 142 delegates present from twelve States. Neal Dow, of Maine, was nomimated by acclamation as the candidate for President, and A. M. Thompson, of Ohio, was made the candidate for Vice-President. A platform was adopted setting forth the well-known principles of the party in regard to the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors. It declared in favor of a national prohibition law for the District of Columbia and the Territories, condemned both the Republican and Democratic parties for their attitude on the liquor question, demanded the right of suffrage for women, and asserted that the experience of nations shows no loss of revenue following the abolition of liquor-taxes.

Nominations were also made by the "American Antimason" party. The candidates were General John W. Phelps, of Vermont, for President, and the Hon. Samuel C. Pomeroy, of Kansas, for Vice-President. The declared object of this party was to " expose, withstand, and remove secret societies, Freemasonry in particular, and other anti-Christian movements, in order to save the churches of Christ from

being depraved; to redeem the administration of justice from perversion, and our republican government from corruption."

On the 23d of February the National Executive Committee of the Democratic party held a meeting in Washington, and determined on Cincinnati as the place, and June 22d the time for holding the National Convention. The of New York, was prominent throughout the question of the candidacy of Samuel J. Tilden, preliminary canvass in the several States, and was likely to affect somewhat seriously the proceedings of the Convention; but two days before it was organized the following letter was received by the New York delegates in Cincinnati, withdrawing his name:

NEW YORK, June 18, 1880. To the Delegates from the State of New York to the Democratic National Convention:

Your first assembling is an occasion or which it is proper for me to state to you my relation to the nomination for the Presidency which you and your associates are commissioned to make in behalf of the Democratic party of the United States. Having passed my early years in an atmosphere filled with the traditions of the war which secured our national independence, and of the struggles which made our continental syslearned to idolize the institutions of my country, and tem a government for the people, by the people, I was educated to believe it the duty of a citizen of the republic to take his fair allotment of care and trouble in public affairs. I fulfilled that duty to the best of my ability for forty years as a private citizen. Although during all my life giving at least as much thought and effort to public affairs as to all other ob

jects, I have never accepted official service except for brief periods for a special purpose, and only when the occasion seemed to require of me that sacrifice of private preferences to public interests.

zen.

My life has been substantially that of a private citiIt was, I presume, the success of efforts in which, as a private citizen, I had shared to overthrow a corrupt combination then holding dominion in our metropolis, and to purify the judiciary, which had become its tool, that induced the Democracy of the State in 1874 to nominate me for Governor. This was done in spite of the protest of a minority that the part I had borne in those reforms had created antagonisms fatal to me as a candidate. I felt constrained to accept the nomination as the most certain means of putting the power of the gubernatorial office on the side of reform, and of removing the impression, wherever it prevailed, that the faithful discharge of one's duty as a citizen is fatal to his usefulness as a public servant.

The breaking up of the canal ring, the better management of our public works, the large reduction of taxes, and other reforms accomplished during my administration, doubtless occasioned my nomination for the Presidency by the Democracy of the Union, in the hope that similar processes would be applied to the Federal Government. From the responsibilities of such an undertaking, appalling as it seemed to me, I did not feel at liberty to shrink.

In the canvass which ensued, the Democratic party represented reform in the administration of the Federal Government, and a restoration of our complex political system to the pure ideas of its founders. Upon these issues the people of the United States, by a maority of more than a quarter of a million, chose a majority of the electors to cast their votes for the Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President. It is my right and privilege here to say that I was nominated and elected to the Presidency absolutely free from any engagement in respect to the exercise of its powers or the disposal of its patronage. Through the whole period of my relation to the Presidency I did everything in my power to elevate and nothing to lower moral standards in the competition of parties.

By what nefarious means the basis for a false count was laid in several of the States I need not recite. These are now matters of history about which, whatever diversity of opinion may have existed in either of the great parties of the country at the time of their consummation, has since practically disappeared. I refused to ransom from the returning boards of Southern States the documentary evidence by the suppression of which and by the substitution of fraudulent and forged papers a pretext was made for the perpetration of a false count. The constitutional duty of the two Houses of Congress to count the electoral votes as cast, and to give effect to the will of the people as expressed by their suffrages, was never fulfilled. An electoral commission, for the existence of which I have no responsibility, was formed, and to it the two Houses of Congress abdicated their duty to make the count by a law enacting that the count of the commission should stand as final unless overruled by the concurrent action of the two Houses. Its false count was not overruled, owing to the complicity of a Republican Senate with the Republican majority of the commission. Controlled by its Republican majority of eight to seven, the Electoral Commission counted out the men elected by the people, and counted in the men not elected by the people.

That subversion of the election created a new issue for the decision of the people of the United States, transcending in importance all questions of administration. It involved the vital principle of self-government through elections by the people. The immense growth of the means of corrupt influence over the Ballot-box which is at the disposal of the party having possession of the executive administration, had already become a present evil and a great danger, tending to make elections irresponsible to public opinion, hampering the power of the people to change rulers, and

enabling the men holding the machinery of government to continue and perpetuate their power.

It was my opinion in 1876 that the opposition attempting to change the administration needed to include at least two thirds of the voters at the opening of the canvass in order to retain a majority at the election. If, after such obstacles had been overcome, and a majority of the people had voted to change the administrations of their government, the men in office could still procure a false count founded upon frauds, perjury, and forgeries, furnishing a pretext of documentary evidence on which to base the false count, and if such a transaction were not only successful, but if, after allotments of its benefits were made to its contrivers, abettors, and apologists, by the chief beneficiary of the transactions, it were condoned by the people, a practical destruction of elections by the people would have been accomplished. The failure to install the candidates chosen by the people-a contingency consequent upon no act of omission of mine, and beyond my control-has thus left me for the last three years and until now, when the Democratic party, by its delegates in National Convention assembled, shall choose a new leader, the involuntary but necessary representative of this momentous issue, as such denied the immunities of private life, without the powers conferred by public station, subject to unceasing falsehoods and calumnies from the partisans of an Administration laboring in vain to justify its existence.

I have, nevertheless, steadfastly endeavored to preserve to the Democratic party of the United States the supreme issue before the people for their decision next November, whether this shall be a government by the sovereign people through elections, or a government by discarded servants, holding over by force and fraud, and I have withheld no sacrifice and neglected no opportunity to uphold, organize, and consolidate against the enemies of republican institutions the great party which alone, under God, can effectually resist their overthrow.

Having now borne faithfully my full share of labor and care in the public service, and wearing the marks of its burdens, I desire nothing so much as an honorable discharge. I wish to lay down the honors and toils of even quasi-party leadership, and to seek the repose of private life. In renouncing renomination for the Presidency, I do so with no doubt in my mind as to the vote of the State of New York, or of the United States, but because I believe it is a renunciation of reelection of the Presidency. To those who think my nomination and reelection indispensable to an effectual vindication of the right of the people to elect their rulers, violated in my person, I have accorded as long a reserve of my decision as possible, but I can not overcome my repugnance to enter into a new engagement which involves four years of ceaseless toil.

The dignity of the Presidential office is above a merely personal ambition, but it creates in me no illusion. Its value is as a great power for good to the country. I said four years ago, in accepting the nomination: "Knowing as I do, therefore, from fresh experience, how great the difference is between gliding through an official routine and working out a reform of systems and policies, it is impossible for me to contemplate what needs to be done in the Federal Administration without an anxious sense of the difficulties of the undertaking. If summoned by the suffrages of my countrymen to attempt this work, I shall endeavor, with God's help, to be the efficient instrument of their will."

Such a work of renovation after many years of misrule, such a reform of systems and policies to which I would cheerfully have sacrificed all that remained to me of health and life, is now, I fear, beyond my strength. With unfeigned thanks for the honors bestowed upon me, with a heart swelling with emotions of gratitude to the Democratic masses for the support which they have given to the cause I represented, and their confidence in every emergency, I remain, your fellow-citizen, SAMUEL J. TILDEN.

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