pended upon
Democratic discipline to gain the full support of his party. If events
favoured his designs and the exigencies of an exciting Presidential
election concealed hostility, these conditions did not placate his
opponents, who began plotting his downfall the moment the great
historic contest ended. This opposition could be approximately
measured by the fact that the entire party press of the State, with
three exceptions, disclosed a distinct dislike of his methods.[1589]

[Footnote 1589: New York _Tribune_, September 1, 1877.]

Nevertheless, Tilden's friends held control. Governor Robinson, an
executive of remarkable force, sensitively obedient to principles of
honest government and bold in his utterances, remained at the head of
a devoted band which had hitherto found its career marked by triumph
after triumph, and whose influence was still powerful enough to rally
to its standard new men of strength as well as old leaders flushed
with recent victories. Robinson's courageous words especially engaged
the attention of thoughtful Democrats. He did not need to give reasons
for the opposition to John Bigelow, or the grievance against Charles
S. Fairchild, whose court docket sufficiently exposed the antagonism
between canal contractors and the faithful prosecutor. But in his
fascinating manner he told the story of the Attorney-General's heroic
firmness in refusing to release Tweed.[1590] In Robinson's opinion the
vicious classes, whose purposes discovered themselves in the
depredations of rings and weakness for plunder, were arrayed against
the better element of the party which had temporarily deprived the
wrong-doers of power, and he appealed to his friends to rescue
administrative reform from threatened defeat.

[Footnote 1590: "The man who has been the most effective organiser of
corruption strikes boldly for release. He is arrayed as an element in
the combination which attacks the Governor and Democratic State
officers, and which seeks to reverse their policy."--Albany _Argus_,
October 4, 1877.]

The Governor was not unmindful of his weakness. Besides Tilden's loss
of prestige, the renomination of the old ticket encountered the
objection of a third term, aroused the personal antagonism of hundreds
of men who had suffered because of its zeal, and arrayed against it
all other influences that had become hostile to Tilden through envy or
otherwise during his active management of the party. Moreover, he
understood