Letters and Literary Memorials of Samuel J. Tilden, v. 1Tilden, Samuel J. (Samuel Jones)
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Letters and Literary Memorials of Samuel J. Tilden, v. 1
Tilden, Samuel J. (Samuel Jones)
Tilden, Samuel J. (Samuel Jones), 1814-1886
"Whatever it be, the sooner the administration shall show that it does
not intend to reverse the policy which brought it into existence the
better. Without a prompt, firm, and decisive course in this respect,
we shall have nothing--from cabinet minister down to tide-waiter--but
discussions of past dissensions, which it is the policy and duty of
Genl. Pierce, with all his power as the head of the party, to bury.
It is a case in which boldness is the highest prudence. If the party
cannot be kept large enough to contain all the great divisions of it
which have predominated in powerful States or sections of the Union,
it cannot be kept in the majority. In the face of the certain results
of any other system, I feel courageous in supporting this, on the
principle on which Moreau said he rendered his soldiers brave--by
making them fear more to run than to fight.
"Asked the other day by a Hunker friend if I thought it prudent to
take a man of Gen. Dix's class, I replied, most certainly to take one
such. If past positions on the slavery question as it existed among
Democrats, are to be the grounds of a classification, it is proper
and necessary to represent the divisions to which Genl. Dix belonged
as well as others. Can it be done anywhere else as well as in New
York? He will be in line with the majority of the party and the entire
government in that State, which the minority of the party there, if
that classification be the criterion, will still be amply represented
in other members of the cabinet, whereas if he be not taken, and the
section to which he belongs be not represented elsewhere, as we may
presume it will not, the results will be regarded by the country as a
practical exclusion of that interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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