"On the subject of the finances, an element so vital to the successful prosecution of a war, Mr. Tilden's views were at variance with those adopted by the administration; he had more faith in the people, in their readiness to bear the burdens and make the sacrifices which the occasion required, than was manifested by the authorities at Washington. Before their financial policy was fully determined upon he advised that the money for carrying on the war should be chiefly drawn from loans to be supplemented by taxes, and no more Treasury notes not bearing interest issued than were barely necessary to supply the new uses created by the government in its own payments. He was of the opinion that if these measures were promptly adopted, so that the supply should keep pace with the wants of the government, the war might be carried on without any serious embarrassment, without any exorbitant inflation of prices, and without any extreme depreciation of the government bonds. In discussing the financial situation of our own State in his first message to the Legislature in 1875, Gov. Tilden briefly restated the views which he then entertained and expressed upon this subject. "Though Mr. Tilden foresaw the disastrous consequences of the policy which prevailed at Washington, the wild inflation of prices, the ruinous depreciation of government securities, the extravagant premium on gold, and the certainty that the continuation of that policy would lead, as it has done, to incalculable disaster; and believing, as he did, that it might even endanger the ability of the government to continue the war, he rigorously abstained from any public discussion of them that might tend to create the discredit which he apprehended, and restricted himself to private remonstrances with the more influential friends of the administration. "While doing all he could to counteract what he deemed the errors of the government, both in the management of the war and of the finances, he was determined neither to be made responsible for nor to be compromised by either. His attitude throughout that pregnant period of our history was, so far as possible for a private citizen holding no official or even active relations with any political party, that of patriotic constitutional opposition to supposed errors of administrative policy, openly co-operating with all the measures of the government of which he approved, and privately discouraging those of which he disapproved. "At the same time he said, in a speech: