"MY DEAR SIR,--It is clear to demonstration that Mr. Tilden should be our nominee, and if he would consent to run, that he would be again elected, this time by an overwhelming electoral as well as popular majority. From the moment of the nomination to the close of the polls, the canvass would be a triumphal progress. We should be obliged to do some hard fighting, but always under the influence of assured victory by fighting. The nomination and election would not simply vindicate Mr. Tilden, but the right of the people to elect their own officers. Nor is this all. If Mr. Tilden would accept the nomination, that would relieve the Democracy of all jealousy and heart-burning--all controversy between rival candidates, all difficulty in the convention or after the convention. Again, the platform could be carefully drawn before the meeting of the convention, and ought to be by Mr. Tilden himself. Since the days of Jefferson and Franklin, this country has not had a statesman whose pen could delineate so accurately and so simply a principle, a policy, or a line of conduct. What the people need is somebody who can tell them with accuracy and simplicity just what they themselves think. This is the secret of Mr. Tilden's great popularity with the masses, the existence of which eminent jackasses in our party have often denied, and do not seem to comprehend now that they are beginning to be driven to concede it. There are always political prophets (I don't mean to speak irreverently) looking for power in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, instead of the still, small voice. Now, the question of Mr. Tilden's health presents itself about which I know absolutely nothing. His age is no objection. Cato learned Greek at eighty, and Goethe completed 'Faust' after he had passed eighty. Taney and Shaw delivered judgments when nearly ninety. Look at John Quincy Adams and Gladstone and 'old Palm.' Why, Lord Palmerston at the age of eighty saved his administration by a masterly practical speech delivered without a note in the early hours of the morning. And, speaking of him, McCarthy, in his _History of Our Own Times_, commences the chapter on the death of Lord Palmerston with the quotation, 'Unarm, Eros, the long day's task is done and we must sleep.' Mr. Tilden's day has not been so long by eleven years. Is his task done? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower must not remain unfinished. The art of prolonging life lies in an object to be attained. I admit that various things are to be taken into consideration as assisting in sustaining health, and in that way prolonging mere existence; but all these, while mere adjuncts to vegetation, really amount to nothing if there be not a sufficient object for living outside of keeping one's self on this side of the river. I can conceive of no higher object than the attainment of the Chief Magistracy with the view of benefiting the people of this Republic. Here I do Mr. Tilden justice.