every person who hopes for good at the hands of
the Democratic party if such opposition is permitted to prevail in its
councils. He has put his principles in practice in the most fearless
and resolute manner, and has made himself especially obnoxious to his
opponents as their hostility to him clearly shows."--New York _Evening
Post_ (editorial by William Cullen Bryant), May 26, 1876.]

[Footnote 1507: New York _Tribune_, June 17.]

[Footnote 1508: New York _Evening Express_, June 23, 1876.]

At St. Louis Tilden's opponents, headed by John Kelly, Augustus
Schell, and Erastus Corning, soon wore these insinuations
threadbare.[1509] To their further declaration that in order to succeed
in November the Democracy must have one October State and that Tilden
could not carry Indiana, Dorsheimer and Bigelow, the Governor's
spokesmen, replied that New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut could
elect Tilden without Indiana. The colossal assurance of this answer
characterised the convention's confidence in Tilden's strength. It
possessed the South, the East, and the West. Hancock might be the
favourite in Pennsylvania, Parker in New Jersey, Bayard in Delaware,
Allen in Ohio, and Hendricks in Indiana, but as delegates entered the
convention city the dense Tilden sentiment smothered them. Even
scandal did not appreciably weaken it.

[Footnote 1509: The National Democratic convention assembled on June 27
and 28.]

There was nothing mysterious about this strength. Tilden represented
success. Without him disaster threatened--with him victory seemed
certain. His achievement in administrative reform exaggerated
Republican failure; his grasp upon New York, the most vital State of
the North, magnified Democratic strength; his leadership, based upon
ideas and organisation, dwarfed political rivals; his acute legal
mind, leading to the largest rewards in the realm of law, captivated
business men; and his wealth, amassed in the field of railroad
organisation and litigation, could fill Democracy's exchequer. Thus
Tilden, standing less on the Democratic platform than on his own
record, held the commanding position in his party, and the talk of his
unpopularity or how he obtained wealth seemed to make as little
impression as his professed devotion to the Wilmot Proviso in 1847, or
his departure for a season from a lifelong pro-slavery record to bear
a prominent part in the Barnburners' revolt of 1848. Indeed, so
certain was Tilden of success th