In the summer of 1873, Mr. Tilden, for the first time, visited the Old World. While there he sent the following note, addressed, I presume, to John Kelly, then supreme in Tammany Hall. In this assigning reasons for his mistrust of the Republican party, the organization of which was contemporaneous with the commencement of the Civil War of 1860-61. KEY-NOTE OF FEDERAL POLITICS IN 1873 "In the sixteen years during which it will have been in possession of the government at the expiration of the present Presidential term, all the evils which call so loudly for redress have had their origin, their persistent and daily growth. Nearly all its thinkers, speakers, and writers, its active intellect and its power of leadership are imbued with strong government theories of so extravagant a character that even Hamilton would have disowned and doubtless would have condemned them. The classes who desire pecuniary profit from existing governmental abuses have become numerous and powerful beyond any example in our country. The myriads of officeholders, with enhanced salaries, and often with illicit gains; the contractors and jobbers; the beneficiaries of congressional grants of the public property or of special franchises; the favored interests whose business is rendered lucrative by legislative bounties or legislative monopolies; the corporations whose hopes and fears are appealed to be the measures of the government; the rapacious hordes of carpet-baggers who have plundered the impoverished people of the South at least ten times as much as Tweed's Ring did the rich metropolis, and whose fungus growth is intertwined with the roots of the Republican party; all these classes are not only interested in perpetuating existing evils and existing wrongs, but they are the main agencies and instruments by which that work is done." This is the key-note of Mr. Tilden's view of our Federal politics in 1873. Unhappily, there is nothing in this statement upon which we can boast to-day of any considerable improvement. MR. TILDEN RESIGNS THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE[63] "GENEVA, IN SWITZERLAND, _Aug. 1873_. "MY DEAR SIR,--As I shall not be able to return home in season to take part in the political canvass of this fall, I desire through you to request the delegate to the State convention who will be chosen from my district to say for me that I decline a re-election as member-at-large of the State committee and as its chairman.