Samuel Jones Tilden 1814-86, American political figure, Democratic presidential candidate in 1876, b. New Lebanon, N.Y. Admitted to the bar in 1841, Tilden was an eminently successful lawyer, with many railroad companies as clients. He became a strong partisan of Martin Van Buren and the Barnburners in New York Democratic politics. Unlike other Free-Soil Democrats of the 1850s (see Free-Soil party ), he did not join the new Republican party and later disapproved of the Civil War. As state Democratic chairman after 1866 he sought reform and gathered much of the evidence of corruption that broke the notorious Tweed Ring (see Tweed, William Marcy ). Elected governor of New York (1874), he further enhanced his reputation for reform by his successful attack on the corrupt "Canal ring," which made illegal profits on repair and extension of the state canal system.

Tilden thus became the outstanding Democrat in the nation, and in 1876 his party nominated him for President. Rutherford B. Hayes was his Republican opponent. The campaign resulted in one of the most famous election disputes in American history. By a slim margin, Tilden received a majority of the popular vote, but there were double and conflicting returns of electoral votes from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina and a contest over one Oregon elector. To settle the unusual question, not covered by the Constitution, Congress created an electoral commission of five senators, five representatives, and five Supreme Court justices. Eight were Republicans and seven were Democrats, as plans for one independent failed. The commission, by partisan division, awarded (Mar. 2, 1877) Hayes all the disputed votes, making his total a majority of one (185 to 184). Tilden discouraged further contest. In his will he left a large sum toward establishing a free public library in New York City, and in 1895 this trust was joined with the Astor and Lenox libraries to form the New York Public Library .

Bibliography: See biographies by J. Bigelow (1895) and A. C. Flick (1939, repr. 1963); P. L. Haworth, The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Election of 1876 (1906, new ed. 1927, repr. 1966); K. Polakoff, Politics of Inertia: The Election of 1876 and the End of Reconstruction (1973); R. Morris, Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876 (2003); W. H. Rehnquist, Centennial Crisis: The Disputed Election of 1876 (2004).

Samuel Jones Tilden

American politician Samuel Jones Tilden (1814-1886), a governor of New York and Democratic presidential candidate, typified genteel reform in the "gilded age."

Samuel J. Tilden was born on Feb. 9, 1814, in New Lebanon, N.Y. His father, a merchant and local politician, left him a legacy of Democratic politics. The Tilden home often served as meeting place for Martin Van Buren, Silas Wright, and other leaders of the Democratic "Albany Regency." Health concerns clouded Tilden's early years, forcing him to terminate a brief career at Yale. After studying law at the University of the City of New York, he established a law practice in 1841. Worry about nerves, aches, and pains remained a major factor in his career.

During the 1840s Tilden associated with the reformist, antislavery wing of the New York Democrats. When James K. Polk's election resulted in the ascendancy of the pro-Southern wing, Tilden was divorced from party leadership. He opposed Abraham Lincoln's election, spear-headed opposition to Republican centralization in Washington, and supported President Andrew Johnson's conciliatory Reconstruction policies.

After 1866 Tilden, appointed chairman of the state Democratic committee, rose steadily. His role in prosecuting the corrupt Tweed ring won him the governorship in 1874, where he pursued a policy of fiscal retrenchment. Smashing the corrupt Canal ring added to his reputation as a reformer. He won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1876.

The election, the most controversial in American history, left Tilden bitter. Although he received a plurality of some 250, 000 votes, an electoral commission awarded the election to Rutherford B. Hayes. Tilden said that he would not risk more civil war by forcing his installation. In fact, his defeat, no simple "corrupt bargain, " involved an elaborate attempt at sectional compromise. Mentioned again as a candidate, Tilden, now definitely ailing, pleaded illness.

As a lawyer and businessman, Tilden was an unqualified success. Famous as a lawyer, he amassed one of America's largest fortunes in railroads and mining. He died a bachelor at the age of 72, having never had a relation with a woman of which, he confided to his biographer, he "would have hesitated, for motives of delicacy, to speak with his mother or his sisters." He left $6 million; $2 million helped fund the New York Public Library.

The opposite of the political bosses he opposed, Tilden—cerebral and unimpressive in appearance—won success primarily through his incisive intelligence. His devotion to the public good makes him an important link between Jacksonian and modern reform.

Further Reading

John Bigelow, The Life of Samuel J. Tilden (2 vols., 1895), rich in detail, is apologetic. An exhaustive biography placing Tilden in the Jefferson-Jackson reform tradition is Alexander C. Flick, Samuel Jones Tilden: A Study in Political Sagacity (1939). The "corrupt bargain" is discussed in C. Vann Woodward, Reunion and Reaction (1951). □