Tilden, Samuel J. (Samuel Jones), 1814-1886

<p>Samuel Jones Tilden was a leading political figure of the 19th Century. He served as Governor of New York State and was the Democratic candidate for president in 1876, perhaps the most unusual presidential election in United States history.</p>

<p>Born in 1814 in New Lebanon, NY, Tilden was educated at what later was to become New York University, where he studied law. Admitted to the bar in 1841, Tilden was extremely successful as a lawyer, boasting many corporate clients, including several of the railroads. He became a strong partisan of Martin Van Buren in New York State Democratic politics. Tilden was a Free-Soiler, but unlike other Free-Soil Democrats of the 1850's, he did not join the new Republican party and later disapproved of the Civil War. As state Democratic chairman after 1866 he sought reform and gathered much of the evidence of corruption that broke up the notorious "Tweed Ring" in 1871.</p>

<p>Elected governor of New York in 1874, he continued building his reputation for reform by attacking and breaking the "Canal Ring," individuals whom had made millions of dollars illegally from contracts for the repair and extension of the state's lucrative canals.</p>

<p>Tilden's reputation as a reformer led his party to nominate him as their candidate for President. Rutherford B. Hayes was the Republican nominee. The campaign resulted in one of the most famous election disputes in American history. Tilden received a small majority of the popular vote, but there were disputed returns of electoral votes from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina and a contest over the vote of one Oregon elector. To settle the question, which was not covered by the Constitution, Congress created an electoral commission of five U. S. senators, five members of the House of Representatives, and five Supreme Court justices. Seven were Republicans and seven were Democrats, and there was one independent. When the independent was named U. S. Senator from Illinois, he was replaced by a Republican on the commission. The commission voted along party lines, and awarded Hayes all the disputed electoral votes, giving him a majority of one, 185 to 184. This vote took place on on March 2, 1877, just two days before the new president was to be sworn in. Tilden discouraged further disputes by his party. In what became known as the "Hayes - Tilden Compromise," Hayes became president, and the military occupation of the southern states, which had been in effect since the end of the Civil War, and was a major Democratic campaign issue, was ended.</p>

<p>Samuel Tilden died in 1884 in Yonkers, NY. In his will he left 3 million dollars toward the establishment a free public library in New York City. In 1895 this trust was joined with the Astor and Lenox libraries to form the New York Public Library.</p>

<p>In 1917, after being known initially as Camp Rockaway, Fort Tilden was renamed in his honor.</p>

<p>Samuel Jones Tilden (February 9, 1814 – August 4, 1886) was the 25th Governor of New York and the Democratic candidate for president in the disputed election of 1876. Tilden is the only individual to win an outright majority of the popular vote in a United States presidential election but lose the election.</p>

<p>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 presidential election. Though he opposed the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, 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 he managed Democratic nominee Horatio Seymour's campaign in the 1868 presidential election.</p>

<p>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. Tilden won election as Governor of New York in 1874, and in that office he helped break up the "Canal Ring". Tilden's battle against public corruption, along with his personal fortune and electoral success in the country's most populous state, made him the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1876. Tilden was selected as the nominee on the second ballot of the 1876 Democratic National Convention. In the general election, Tilden faced Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes, another governor with reform credentials. Tilden focused his campaign on civil service reform, support for the gold standard, and opposition to high taxes, but many of his supporters were more concerned with ending Reconstruction in the South.</p>

<p>Most observers initially believed that Tilden had won the election, but disputes in four states left both Tilden and Hayes without a majority of the electoral vote. As Tilden had won 184 electoral votes, one vote shy of a majority, a Hayes victory required that he sweep all of the disputed electoral votes. Against Tilden's wishes, Congress appointed the bipartisan Electoral Commission to settle the controversy. Republicans had a one-seat advantage on the Electoral Commission, and in a series of party-line rulings, ruled that Hayes had won all of the disputed electoral votes. In the Compromise of 1877, Democratic leaders agreed to accept Hayes as the victor in return for the end of Reconstruction. Tilden was a major contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 1880 and 1884 presidential elections, but declined to run.</p>