The Road to Tilden

Samuel Jones Tilden (February 9, 1814 – August 4, 1886). Tilden was born into a wealthy family in New Lebanon, New York. Attracted to politics at a young age, he became a protégé of Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States. After studying at Yale University and New York University School of Law, Tilden began a legal career in New York City, becoming a noted corporate lawyer. He served in the New York State Assembly and helped launch Van Buren's third party, anti-slavery candidacy in the 1848 United States presidential election. Although he opposed Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 United States presidential election, Tilden supported the Union during the American Civil War. After the Civil War, Tilden was selected as the chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee and managed Democratic nominee Horatio Seymour's campaign in the 1868 United States presidential election. Tilden initially cooperated with the state party's Tammany Hall faction, but he broke with them in 1871 due to boss William M. Tweed's rampant corruption.

1856 -- James Buchanan, Northern Democrat, elected President over John C. Frémont of the new Republican Party, the successor to the Whig Party

1860 --Abraham Lincoln wins the Presidency on the Republican ticket. The losing Democratic Party hand splintered its support into three different presidential candidates, one from the North and two from the South. 

1861 -- The nation is plunged into civil war.

1864 -- Lincoln running on the National Union ticket, a coalition of the Republicans together with War Democrats. wins re-election over Anti-War Democrat George McClellan, whom Lincoln had relieved as commander of the Union forces. Lincoln'a running mate is War Democrat Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. 

1865 -- End of the War. Surrender of the South

1868 -- Democrats nominate Horatio Seymour of New York for President. He loses to Republcan Ulysses Grant, carrying 8 states and wins 80 electoral votes against Grant's 26 states and 214 electoral votes. Three unreconstructed southern states do not participate in the election: Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia.

1872 -- The Democratic Party declines to run its own nominee, throwing its support at its national convention to the Liberal Republican ticket, which had nominated newspaper editor Horace Greeley of New York, and which had adopted a platform of civil service reform and an end to Reconstruction. Greeley loses to Grant, and moreover he dies three weeks after the election, his electoral votes being split among four candidates.

1873 -- The Panic of 1873

1874 -- Democrats pick up 92 seats in the House from mostly northern seats, gaining a lopsided majority. Samuel Tilden of New York, who had managed Horatio Seymour's 1868 campaign, is elected Governor of New York on an anti-corruption platform.

1876 Jun -- The Democratic National Convention at Merchants Exchange Building in St. Louis nominates Samuel Tilden of New York for President. It was the first national conventional held west of the Mississippi.

The 12th Democratic National Convention assembled in St. Louis in June 1876. Five thousand people jammed the auditorium in St. Louis, hoping for the Democrats' first presidential victory in 20 years. The platform called for immediate and sweeping reforms following the scandal-plagued Grant administration.

Six names were placed in nomination: Samuel J. Tilden, Thomas A. Hendricks, Winfield Scott Hancock, William Allen, Thomas F. Bayard, and Joel Parker. Tilden won more than 400 votes on the first ballot, a strong showing, but less than the 487 required by the convention's two-thirds rule. He won the nomination by a landslide on the second ballot. Although Tilden was strongly opposed by "Honest John" Kelly, the leader of New York's Tammany Hall, he was still able to obtain the nomination. According to contemporary accounts, Tilden's nomination was received by the delegates with more enthusiasm than that of any nominee since Andrew Jackson