"As to the 'Old Guard,' although its ranks are thinned and time has stricken it with age; although it can scarcely hope to survive much beyond the impending contest, yet its spirit is unbroken. It asks not office or emolument: it covets only the post of duty and danger. It never surrenders: it will stand by you whether for a nomination or an election--for both it will keep the faith to the end. Will you not lead it, as its tried, trusted, and honored chief, to deliverance from the humiliation of unceasing contumely and proscription? "Upon the whole your refusal to lead the Democratic masses would fall on them as a stunning and bewildering blow. It would balk their welling expectations and overwhelm them with disappointment. Would it not provoke a reaction of feeling and opinion injurious-- seriously injurious--to both you and the country? I candidly think so. "In conclusion, I assume, as I believe, that your nomination would be followed by your election. "Your obt. sert., "JOHN A. MCCLERNAND." * * * * * In spite of the earnest and almost oppressive urgency of friends to whose counsels he was always anxious and usually ready to defer, Mr. Tilden's consciousness of his lack of strength for the work that would be expected of him if elected President and ought to be required of him, did not permit him to weaken in his purpose. It even hastened his official termination of these importunities before the meeting of the State convention, which had seemed to him the appropriate occasion for any announcement that the four preceding years had worked no change in the views previously expressed of retiring from public life. The circumstances which led him to anticipate by a few weeks what he regarded as the fit time for such an announcement, I hope I may be excused for giving, as I set them down at the time in my diary, premising that delegates from every part of the State to the national convention were already appointed with instructions, or with the understanding that they should support Mr. Tilden for the nomination. D. MANNING'S APPEAL IN BEHALF OF CLEVELAND TO HAVE TILDEN FORMALLY DECLINE BEING CONSIDERED A CANDIDATE IN 1884 "On or about the 8th day of June, 1884, Mr. Daniel Manning, chairman of the New York Democratic State Committee, called at my house in New York and asked me to accompany him to Greystone to see Mr. Tilden. The motive he assigned for his visit there, and for wishing me to accompany him, was to persuade Mr. Tilden, if persuasion should be necessary, to no longer delay the formal announcement of his intention, well known to Mr. Manning and myself, not to accept a renomination to the Presidency.