"There is no one in this country, I suppose, who can suffer more from a popular misunderstanding of his motives than Mr. Tilden, but circumstances constrain him, no less now than heretofore, to leave the vindication of his conduct as the leader of his party in the last Presidential contest to its good sense and its love of justice. There has been no time when he could participate in any public discussion of the methods finally adopted for counting the electoral vote, without appearing to criticise the conduct of statesmen standing high in the confidence of the Democratic party and whose patriotism is above suspicion. That alone would be a sufficient reason with him for maintaining silence, and for declining to make of what might seem to some a personal grievance a provocation of unprofitable party dissension. "But in my judgment he had another and a better reason. He knew that whenever, if ever, it should become necessary for the people of the United States to pass judgment upon his conduct during and subsequent to the canvass of 1876 they could not fail to acquit him of any responsibility for its final result. "The logic of nations is far more rigorous than that of the individuals composing it, and it would be doing the understanding of the American people great injustice to suppose they cannot see that there was no time when Mr. Tilden could have taken any step towards seizing the Presidency with any color of right or with any prospect of success. There were just two contingencies, and only two, in which it would have been lawful and obligatory on Mr. Tilden to take the oath as President of the United States. "The first one would have been presented if Congress had performed its constitutional duty: had counted the electoral votes, and declared Mr. Tilden the chosen of the electoral colleges. The duty of verifying the electoral votes is given by the Constitution to the two Houses of Congress and to them only; it has always been exercised by them at the choice of every previous President from the foundation of the government. It was known to all who came in contact with Mr. Tilden--for he was unreserved in the expression of his opinion upon that subject--that in his view this power and duty of Congress was lodged nowhere else.