Columbus, Ohio, July 8, 1876.

Hon. Edward McPherson, Hon. William A. Howard, Hon. Joseph H. Rainey, and others, Committee of the Republican National Convention:

G entlemen: In reply to your official communication of June 17, by which I am informed of my nomination for the office of President of the United States by the Republican National Convention at Cincinnati, I accept the nomination with gratitude, hoping that, under Providence, I shall be able, if elected, to execute the duties of the high office as a trust for the benefit of all the people.

I do not deem it necessary to enter upon any extended examination of the declaration of principles made by the convention. The resolutions are in accord with my views, and I heartily concur in the principles they announce. In several of the resolutions, however, questions are considered which are of such importance that I deem it proper briefly to express my convictions in regard to them. The fifth resolution adopted by the convention is of paramount interest. More than forty years ago a system of making appointments to office grew up, based upon the maxim “To the victors belong the spoils.” The old rule, the true rule, that honesty, capacity, and fidelity constitute the only real qualifications for office, and that there is no other claim, gave place to the idea that party services were to be chiefly considered. All parties, in practice, have adopted this system. It has been essentially modified since its first introduction; it has not, however, been improved. At first the President, either directly or through the heads of departments, made all the appointments. But gradually the appointing power, in many cases, passed into the control of members of congress. The offices in these cases have become not merely rewards for party services, but rewards for services to party leaders. This system destroys the independence of the separate departments of the government. It tends directly to extravagance and official incapacity; it is a temptation to dishonesty; it hinders and impairs that careful supervision and strict accountability by which alone faithful and efficient public service can be secured; it obstructs the prompt removal and sure punishment of the unworthy; in every way it degrades the civil service and the character of the government. It is felt, I am confident, by a large majority of the members of congress, to be an intolerable burden and an unwarrantable hindrance to the proper discharge of their legitimate duties. It ought to be abolished. The reform should be thorough, radical, and complete. We should return to the principles and practice of the founders of the government, supplying by legislation, when needed, that which was formerly the established custom. They neither expected nor desired from the public officers any partisan service. They meant that public officers should give their whole service to the government and to the people. They meant that the officer should be secure in his tenure as long as his personal character remained untarnished, and the performance of his duties satisfactory. If elected, I shall conduct the administration of the government upon these principles, and all constitutional powers vested in the executive will be employed to establish this reform.

The declaration of principles by the Cincinnati convention makes no announcement in favor of a single Presidential term. I do not assume to add to that declaration, but, believing that the restoration of the civil service to the system established by Washington [bioWA044], and followed by the early Presidents, can be best accomplished by an executive who is under no temptation to use the patronage of his office to promote his own reëlection, I desire to perform what I regard as a duty in stating now my inflexible purpose, if elected, not to be a candidate for election to a second term.

On the currency question I have frequently expressed my views in public, and I stand by my record on this subject. I regard all the laws of the United States relating to the payment of the public indebtedness, the legal tender notes included, as constituting a pledge and moral obligation of the government which must in good faith be kept. It is my conviction that the feeling of uncertainty, inseparable from an irredeemable paper currency, with its fluctuations of value, is one of the great obstacles to a revival of confidence and business, and to a return of prosperity. That uncertainty can be ended in but one way,—the resumption of specie payments. But the longer the instability of our money system is permitted to continue, the greater will be the injury inflicted upon our economical interests, and all classes of society. If elected, I shall approve every appropriate measure to accomplish the desired end, and shall oppose any step backward.

The resolution with respect to the public school system is one which should receive the hearty support of the American people. Agitation upon this subject is to be apprehended, until by constitutional amendment the schools are placed beyond all danger of sectarian control or interference. The Republican party is pledged to secure such an amendment.

The resolution of the convention on the subject of the permanent pacification of the country, and the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all their constitutional rights, is timely and of great importance. The condition of the Southern states attracts the attention and commands the sympathy of the people of the whole Union. In their progressive recovery from the effects of the war, their first necessity is an intelligent and honest administration of government, which will protect all classes of citizens in their official and private rights. What the South most needs is “peace,” and peace depends upon the supremacy of the law. There can be no enduring peace if the constitutional rights of any portion of the people are habitually disregarded. A division of political parties resting merely upon sectional lines is always unfortunate, and may be disastrous. The welfare of the South, alike with that of every other part of this country, depends upon the attractions it can offer to labor and immigration, and to capital. But laborers will not go, and capital will not be ventured, where the constitution and the laws are set at defiance, and distraction, apprehension, and alarm take the place of peace-loving and law-abiding social life. All parts of the constitution are sacred, and must be sacredly observed,—the parts that are new, no less than the parts that are old. The moral and national prosperity of the Southern states can be most effectually advanced by a hearty and generous recognition of the rights of all by all,—a recognition without reserve or exception. With such a recognition fully accorded, it will be practicable to promote, by the influence of all legitimate agencies of the general government, the efforts of the people of those states to obtain for themselves the blessings of honest and capable local government. If elected, I shall consider it not only my duty, but it will be my ardent desire, to labor for the attainment of this end. Let me assure my countrymen of the Southern states that if I shall be charged with the duty of organizing an administration, it will be one which will regard and cherish their truest interests,—the interests of the white and of the colored people both, and equally; and which will put forth its best efforts in behalf of a civil policy which will wipe out forever the distinction between North and South in our common country.

With a civil service organized upon a system which will secure purity, experience, efficiency, and economy, a strict regard for the public welfare solely in appointments, and the speedy, thorough, and unsparing prosecution and punishment of all public officers who betray official trusts; with a sound currency; with education, unsectarian and free to all; with simplicity and frugality in public and private affairs; and with a fraternal spirit of harmony pervading the people of all sections and classes, we may reasonably hope that the second century of our existence as a nation will, by the blessing of God, be preëminent as an era of good feeling, and a period of progress, prosperity, and happiness.

Very respectfully, your fellow-citizen,

R. B. HAYES.

Tilden Acceptance Letter

Samuel J. Tilden, governor of New York, was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate on 28 June 1876, at the party’s convention in St. Louis. He formally accepted in a letter of 31 July to the convention’s notification committee, which was published in Official Proceedings of the National Democratic Convention, Held in St. Louis, Mo., June 27th, 28th, and 29th, 1876 (Democratic Convention 1876, 181–92). The members of the committee were: John A. McClernand (1812–1900), convention president, a Union veteran and a former judge and congressman from Illinois; William B. Franklin (see 28 Apr 1876 to Franklin, n. 2); Josiah G. Abbott (1814–91), a lawyer, corporate official, and an incumbent congressman from Massachusetts; Henry J. Spaunhorst (d. 1907), a former Missouri state senator; Heman J. Redfield (1823–83), a former mayor of Monroe, Michigan; Francis S. Lyon (1800–82), a lawyer, former Whig congressman from Alabama, Alabama state senator, and member of the Confederate congress (New York Times: “How the Thing Was Done,” “Nomination of Candidates,” 29 June 1876, 1, 2; Democratic Convention 1876, 59, 165, 181–92; “Missouri State Legislators” 2006, s.v. “Spaunhorst”; St. Louis Obituary Index 2006, s.v. “Spaunhorst”; Political Graveyard 2006, s.v. “Redfield”).

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Albany, July 31, 1876.

Gentlemen:—When I had the honor to receive a personal delivery of your letter on behalf of the Democratic National Convention held on the 28th of June, at St. Louis, advising me of my nomination as the candidate of the constituency represented by that body for the office of President of the United States, I answered that, at my earliest convenience, and in conformity with usage, I would prepare and transmit to you a formal acceptance. I now avail myself of the first interval in unavoidable occupations to fulfill that engagement.

The Convention, before making its nominations, adopted a Declaration of Principles, which, as a whole, seems to me a wise exposition of the necessities of our country, and of the reforms needed to bring back the Government to its true functions, to restore purity of administration, and to renew the prosperity of the people. But some of these reforms are so urgent that they claim more than a passing approval.

reform in public expense.

The necessity of a reform “in the scale of public expense—Federal, State and Municipal”—and “in the modes of Federal taxation,” justifies all the prominence given to it in the Declaration of the St. Louis Convention.

The present depression in all the business and industries of the people, which is depriving labor of its employment, and carrying want into so many homes, has its principal cause in excessive governmental consumption. Under the illusions of a specious prosperity, engendered by the false policies of the Federal Government, a waste of capital has been going on ever since the peace of 1865, which could only end in universal disaster.

The Federal taxes of the last eleven years reach the gigantic sum of 4,500 millions. Local taxation has amounted to two-thirds as much more. The vast aggregate is not less than 7,500 millions.

This enormous taxation followed a civil conflict that had greatly impaired our aggregate wealth, and had made a prompt reduction of expenses indispensable.

It was aggravated by most unscientific and ill-adjusted methods of taxation, that increased the sacrifices of the people far beyond the receipts of the treasury.

It was aggravated, moreover, by a financial policy which tended to diminish the energy, skill and economy of production, and the frugality of private consumption, and induced miscalculation in business and an unremunerative use of capital and labor.

Even in prosperous times, the daily wants of industrious communities press closely upon their daily earnings. The margin of possible national savings is at best but a small percentage of national earnings. Yet now for these eleven years governmental consumption has been a larger proportion of the national earnings than the whole people can possibly save even in prosperous times for all new investments.

The consequence of these errors is now a present public calamity. But they were never doubtful, never invisible. They were necessary and inevitable, and were foreseen and depicted when the waves of that fictitious prosperity ran highest. In a speech made by me on the 24th of September, 1868, it was said of these taxes:

To the Secretary of the Treasury I said, early in 1865:

This reform will be resisted at every step, but it must be pressed persistently. We see to-day the immediate representatives of the people in one branch of Congress, while struggling to reduce expenditures, compelled to confront the menace of the Senate and the Executive, that unless the objectionable appropriations be consented to, the operations of the Government thereunder shall suffer detriment or cease. In my judgment, an amendment of the Constitution ought to be devised, separating into distinct bills the appropriations for the various departments of the public service, and excluding from each bill all appropriations for other objects, and all independent legislation. In that way alone can the revisory power of each of the two houses and of the Executive be preserved and exempted from the moral duress which often compels assent to objectionable appropriations, rather than stop the wheels of government.

the south.

An accessory cause enhancing the distress in business is to be found in the systematic and insupportable misgovernment imposed on the States of the South. Besides the ordinary effects of ignorant and dishonest administration, it has inflicted upon them enormous issues of fraudulent bonds, the scanty avails of which were wasted or stolen, and the existence of which is a public discredit, tending to bankruptcy or repudiation. Taxes, generally oppressive, in some instances have confiscated the entire income of property, and totally destroyed its marketable value. It is impossible that these evils should not react upon the prosperity of the whole country.

The nobler motives of humanity concur with the material interests of all in requiring that every obstacle be removed, to a complete and durable reconciliation between kindred populations once unnaturally estranged, on the basis recognized by the St. Louis platform, of the “Constitution of the United States, with its amendments universally accepted as a final settlement of the controversies which engendered civil war.”

But, in aid of a result so beneficent, the moral influence of every good citizen, as well as every governmental authority, ought to be exerted, not alone to maintain their just equality before the law, but likewise to establish a cordial fraternity and good will among citizens, whatever their race or color, who are now united in the one destiny of a common self-government. If the duty shall be assigned to me, I should not fail to exercise the powers with which the laws and the Constitution of our country clothe its chief magistrate, to protect all its citizens, whatever their former condition, in every political and personal right.

currency reform.

“Reform is necessary,” declares the St. Louis Convention, “to establish a sound currency, restore the public credit and maintain the national honor;” and it goes on to “demand a judicious system of preparation by public economies, by official retrenchments, and by wise finances, which shall enable the nation soon to assure the whole world of its perfect ability and its perfect readiness to meet any of its promises at the call of the creditor entitled to payment.”

The object demanded by the Convention is a resumption of specie payments on the legal-tender notes of the United States. That would not only “restore the public credit” and “maintain the national honor,” but it would “establish a sound currency” for the people.

The methods by which this object is to be pursued, and the means by which it is to be maintained, are disclosed by what the Convention demanded for the future, and by what it denounced in the past.

banknote resumption.

Resumption of specie payments by the Government of the United States on its legal-tender notes would establish specie payments by all the banks, on all their notes. The official statement, made on the 12th of May, shows that the amount of the banknotes was 300 millions, less 20 millions held by themselves. Against these 280 millions of notes, the banks held 141 millions of legal-tender notes, or a little more than fifty per cent. of their amount. But they also held on deposit in the Federal Treasury, as security for these notes, bonds of the United States, worth in gold about 360 millions, available and current in all the foreign money markets. In resuming, the banks, even if it were possible for all their notes to be presented for payment, would have 500 millions of specie funds to pay 280 millions of notes, without contracting their loans to their customers, or calling on any private debtor for payment. Suspended banks, undertaking to resume have usually been obliged to collect from needy borrowers the means to redeem excessive issues and to provide reserves. A vague idea of distress is, therefore, often associated with the process of resumption. But the conditions which caused distress in those former instances do not now exist.

The Government has only to make good its own promises, and the banks can take care of themselves without distressing anybody. The Government is, therefore, the sole delinquent.

legal-tender resumption.

The amount of legal-tender notes of the United States now outstanding is less than 370 millions of dollars, besides 34 millions of dollars of fractional currency. How shall the Government make these notes at all times as good as specie?

It has to provide, in reference to the mass which would be kept in use by the wants of business, a central reservoir of coin, adequate to the adjustment of the temporary fluctuations of international balances, and as a guaranty against transient drains artificially created by panic or by speculation.

It has also to provide for the payment in coin of such fractional currency as may be presented for redemption, and such inconsiderable portions of the legal tenders as individuals may, from time to time, desire to convert for special use, or in order to lay by in coin their little stores of money.

resumption not difficult.

To make the coin now in the treasury available for the objects of this reserve, to gradually strengthen and enlarge that reserve, and to provide for such other exceptional demands for coin as may arise, does not seem to me a work of difficulty. If wisely planned and discreetly pursued, it ought not to cost any sacrifice to the business of the country. It should tend, on the contrary, to a revival of hope and confidence. The coin in the treasury on the 30th of June, including what is held against coin certificates, amounted to nearly 74 millions. The current of precious metals which has flowed out of our country for eleven years from July 1, 1865, to June 30, 1876, averaging nearly 76 millions a year, was 832 millions in the whole period, of which 617 millions were the product of our own mines.

To amass the requisite quantity, by intercepting from the current flowing out of the country, and by acquiring from the stocks which exist abroad without disturbing the equilibrium of foreign money markets, is a result to be easily worked out by practical knowledge and judgment.

With respect to whatever surplus of legal tenders the wants of business may fail to keep in use, and which, in order to save interest, will be returned for redemption, they can either be paid or they can be funded. Whether they continue as currency, or be absorbed into the vast mass of securities held as investments, is merely a question of the rate of interest they draw. Even if they were to remain in their present form, and the Government were to agree to pay on them a rate of interest, making them desirable as investments, they would cease to circulate and take their place with government, state, municipal, and other corporate and private bonds, of which thousands of millions exist among us. In the perfect ease with which they can be changed from currency into investments lies the only danger to be guarded against in the adoption of general measures intended to remove a clearly ascertained surplus; that is, the withdrawal of any which are not a permanent excess beyond the wants of business. Even more mischievous would be any measure which affects the public imagination with the fear of an apprehended scarcity. In a community where credit is so much used, fluctuations of values and vicissitudes in business are largely caused by the temporary beliefs of men, even before those beliefs can conform to ascertained realities.

amount of necessary currency.

The amount of the necessary currency, at a given time, cannot be determined arbitrarily, and should not be assumed on conjecture. That amount is subject to both permanent and temporary changes. An enlargement of it, which seemed to be durable, happened at the beginning of the civil war by a substituted use of currency in place of individual credits. It varies with certain states of business. It fluctuates, with considerable regularity, at different seasons of the year. In the autumn, for instance, when buyers of grain and other agricultural products begin their operations, they usually need to borrow capital or circulating credits by which to make their purchases, and want these funds in currency capable of being distributed in small sums among numerous sellers. The additional need of currency at such times is five or more per cent. of the whole volume, and, if a surplus beyond what is required for ordinary use does not happen to have been on hand at the money centers, a scarcity of currency ensues, and also a stringency in the loan market.

It was in reference to such experience that, in a discussion of this subject in my annual message to the New York Legislature, of January 5, 1875, the suggestion was made that “the Federal Government is bound to redeem every portion of its issues which the public do not wish to use. Having assumed to monopolize the supply of currency, and enacted exclusions against everybody else, it is bound to furnish all which the wants of business require.” * * * * * “ The system should passively allow the volume of circulating credits to ebb and flow, according to the ever-changing wants of business. It should imitate as closely as possible the natural laws of trade, which it has superseded by artificial contrivances.” And in a similar discussion, in my message of January 4, 1876, it was said that resumption should be effected “by such measures as would keep the aggregate amount of the currency self-adjusting during all the process without creating at any time an artificial scarcity, and without exciting the public imagination with alarms which impair confidence, contract the whole large machinery of credit, and disturb the natural operations of business.”

means of resumption.

“Public economies, official retrenchments and wise finance,” are the means which the St. Louis Convention indicates as provision for reserves and redemption.

The best resource is a reduction of the expenses of the Government below its income; for that imposes no new charge on the people.

If, however, the improvidence and waste which have conducted us to a period of falling revenues oblige us to supplement the results of economies and retrenchment by some resort to loans, we should not hesitate. The Government ought not to speculate on its own dishonor, in order to save interest on its broken promises, which it still compels private dealers to accept at a fictitious par. The highest national honor is not only right, but would prove profitable. Of the public debt, 985 millions bear interest at six per cent. in gold, and 712 millions at five per cent. in gold. The average interest is 5.58 per cent.

A financial policy which should secure the highest credit, wisely availed of, ought gradually to obtain a reduction of one per cent. in the interest on most of the loans. A saving of one per cent. on the average would be 17 millions a year in gold. That saving regularly invested at four and a half per cent. would, in less than thirty-eight years, extinguish the principal. The whole 1,700 millions of bonded debt might be paid by this saving alone, without cost to the people.

proper time for resumption.

The proper time for resumption is the time when wise preparations shall have ripened into a perfect ability to accomplish the object with a certainty and ease that will inspire confidence and encourage the reviving of business. The earliest time in which such a result can be brought about is the best. Even when the preparations shall have been matured, the exact date would have to be chosen with reference to the then existing state of trade and credit operations in our own country, the course of foreign commerce, and the condition of the exchanges with other nations. The specific measures and the actual date are matters of detail having reference to ever-changing conditions. They belong to the domain of practical administrative statesmanship. The captain of a steamer, about starting from New York to Liverpool, does not assemble a council over his ocean chart, and fix an angle by which to lash the rudder for the whole voyage. A human intelligence must be at the helm to discern the shifting forces of the waters and the winds. A human hand must be on the helm to feel the elements day by day, and guide to a mastery over them.

preparations for resumption.

Such preparations are everything. Without them, a legislative command fixing a day, an official promise fixing a day, are shams. They are worse—they are a snare and a delusion to all who trust them. They destroy all confidence among thoughtful men, whose judgment will at last sway public opinion. An attempt to act on such a command, or such a promise, without preparation, would end in a new suspension. It would be a fresh calamity, prolific of confusion, distrust and distress.

the act of january 14th, 1875.

The Act of Congress of the 14th of January, 1875, enacted that on and after the 1st of January, 1879, the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem in coin the legal-tender notes of the United States on presentation at the office of the Assistant Treasurer in the City of New York. It authorized the Secretary “to prepare and provide for” such resumption of specie payments by the use of any surplus revenues not otherwise appropriated, and by issuing, in his discretion, certain classes of bonds.

More than one and a half of the four years have passed. Congress and the President have continued ever since to unite in acts which have legislated out of existence every possible surplus applicable to this purpose.

The coin in the treasury claimed to belong to the Government had on the 30th of June fallen to less than forty-five millions of dollars as against fifty-nine millions on the 1st of January, 1875, and the availability of a part of that sum is said to be questionable. The revenues are falling faster than appropriations and expenditures are reduced, leaving the treasury with diminishing resources. The Secretary has done nothing under his power to issue bonds.

The legislative command, the official promise, fixing a day for resumption, have thus far been barren. No practical preparations towards resumption have been made. There has been no progress. There have been steps backward.

There is no necromancy in the operations of government. The homely maxims of every-day life are the best standards of its conduct. A debtor who should promise to pay a loan out of surplus income, yet be seen every day spending all he could lay his hands on in riotous living, would lose all character for honesty and veracity. His offer of a new promise, or his profession as to the value of the old promise, would alike provoke derision.

resumption plan of the st. louis platform.

The St. Louis platform denounces the failure for eleven years to make good the promise of the legal tender notes. It denounces the omission to accumulate “any reserve for their redemption.” It denounces the conduct “which, during eleven years of peace, has made no advances towards resumption, no preparations for resumption, but instead has obstructed resumption, by wasting our resources and exhausting all our surplus income, and, while professing to intend a speedy return to specie payments, has annually enacted fresh hindrances thereto.” And having first denounced the barrenness of the promise of a day of resumption, it next denounces that barren promise as a “hindrance” to resumption. It then demands its repeal, and also demands the establishment of “a judicious system of preparation” for resumption. It cannot be doubted that the substitution of a “system of preparation,” without the promise of a day, for the worthless promise of a day without “a system of preparation” would be the gain of the substance of resumption in exchange for its shadow.

Nor is the denunciation unmerited of that improvidence which, in the eleven years since the peace, has consumed $4,500 millions of dollars, and yet could not afford to give the people a sound and stable currency. Two and a half per cent. on the expenditures of these eleven years, or even less, would have provided all the additional coin needful to resumption.

relief of business distress.

The distress now felt by the people in all their business and industries, though it has its principal cause in the enormous waste of capital occasioned by the false policies of our Government, has been greatly aggravated by the mismanagement of the currency. Uncertainty is the prolific parent of mischiefs in all business. Never were its evils more felt than now. Men do nothing, because they are unable to make any calculations on which they can safely rely. They undertake nothing, because they fear a loss in everything they would attempt. They stop and wait. The merchant dares not buy for the future consumption of his customers. The manufacturer dares not make fabrics which may not refund his outlay. He shuts his factory and discharges his workmen. Capitalists cannot lend on security they consider unsafe, and their funds lie almost without interest. Men of enterprise who have credit or securities to pledge will not borrow. Consumption has fallen below the natural limits of a reasonable economy. Prices of many things are under their range in frugal, specie-paying times before the civil war. Vast masses of currency lie in the banks unused. A year and a half ago the legal tenders were at their largest volume, and the twelve millions since retired have been replaced by fresh issues of fifteen millions of bank notes. In the meantime the banks have been surrendering about four millions a month, because they cannot find a profitable use for so many of their notes.

The public mind will no longer accept shams. It has suffered enough from illusions. An insincere policy increases distrust. An unstable policy increases uncertainty. The people need to know that the Government is moving in the direction of ultimate safety and prosperity, and that it is doing so through prudent, safe and conservative methods, which will be sure to inflict no new sacrifice on the business of the country. Then the inspiration of new hope and well-founded confidence will hasten the restoring processes of nature, and prosperity will begin to return.

The St. Louis Convention concludes its expression in regard to the currency by a declaration of its convictions as to the practical results of the system of preparations it demands. It says: “We believe such a system, well devised, and above all, intrusted to competent hands for execution, creating at no time an artificial scarcity of currency, and at no time alarming the public mind into a withdrawal of that vast machinery of credit by which ninety-five per cent. of all business transactions are performed—a system open, public, and inspiring general confidence—would, from the day of its adoption, bring healing on its wings to all our harassed industries, set in motion the wheels of commerce, manufactures and the mechanic arts, restore employment to labor, and renew in all its natural sources the prosperity of the people.”

The Government of the United States, in my opinion, can advance to a resumption of specie payments on its legal-tender notes by gradual and safe processes tending to relieve the present business distress. If charged by the people with the administration of the Executive office, I should deem it a duty so to exercise the powers with which it has been or may be invested by Congress as best and soonest to conduct the country to that beneficent result.

civil service reform.

The convention justly affirms that reform is necessary in the civil service, necessary to its purification, necessary to its economy and its efficiency, necessary in order that the ordinary employment of the public business may not be “a prize fought for at the ballot-box, a brief reward of party zeal, instead of posts of honor assigned for proved competency, and held for fidelity in the public employ.” The convention wisely added that “reform is necessary even more in the higher grades of the public service. President, Vice-President, Judges, Senators, Representatives, Cabinet Officers, these and all others in authority are the people’s servants. Their offices are not a private perquisite, they are a public trust.”

Two evils infest the official service of the Federal Government:

One is the prevalent and demoralizing notion that the public service exists not for the business and benefit of the whole people, but for the interest of the office-holders, who are in truth but the servants of the people. Under the influence of this pernicious error public employments have been multiplied; the numbers of those gathered into the ranks of office-holders have been steadily increased beyond any possible requirement of the public business, while inefficiency, peculation, fraud, and malversation of the public funds, from the high places of power to the lowest, have overspread the whole service like a leprosy.

The other evil is the organization of the official class into a body of political mercenaries, governing the caucuses and dictating the nominations of their own party, and attempting to carry the elections of the people by undue influence, and by immense corruption funds systematically collected from the salaries or fees of office-holders. The official class in other countries, sometimes by its own weight, and sometimes in alliance with the army, has been able to rule the unorganized masses, even under universal suffrage. Here it has already grown into a gigantic power, capable of stifling the inspirations of a sound public opinion, and of resisting an easy change of administration, until misgovernment becomes intolerable, and public spirit has been stung to the pitch of a civic revolution.

The first step in reform is the elevation of the standard by which the appointing power selects agents to execute official trusts. Next in importance is a conscientious fidelity in the exercise of the authority to hold to account and displace untrustworthy or incapable subordinates. The public interest in an honest, skillful performance of official trust must not be sacrificed to the usufruct of the incumbents.

After these immediate steps, which will insure the exhibition of better examples, we may wisely go on to the abolition of unnecessary offices, and, finally, to the patient, careful organization of a better civil service system, under the tests, wherever practicable, of proved competency and fidelity.

While much may be accomplished by these methods, it might encourage delusive expectations if I withheld here the expression of my conviction that no reform of the civil service in this country will be complete and permanent until its chief magistrate is constitutionally disqualified for re-election; experience having repeatedly exposed the futility of self-imposed restriction by candidates or incumbents. Through this solemnity only can he be effectually delivered from his greatest temptation to misuse the power and patronage with which the Executive is necessarily charged.

conclusion.

Educated in the belief that it is the first duty of a citizen of the republic to take his fair allotment of care and trouble in public affairs, I have for forty years, as a private citizen, fulfilled that duty. Though occupied in an unusual degree during all that period with the concerns of government, I have never acquired the habit of official life. When, a year and a half ago, I entered upon my present trust, it was in order to consummate reforms to which I had already devoted several of the best years of my life. 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.

SAMUEL J. TILDEN.

To Gen. John A. McClernand, Chairman, Gen. W. B. Franklin, Hon. J. J. Abbott, Hon. H. J. Spaunhorst, Hon. H. J. Redfield, Hon. F.S. Lyons, and others, Committee, &c.