To-day the advances which we have made toward this system are maturing their fatal fruits. The Federal Administration is tainted with abuses, with jobbery, and with corruption. In the dominion which it maintains over the reconstructed Southern States, organized pillage, on a scale tenfold greater than that of the Tweed Ring, is the scandal and shame of the country.

Civil liberty is endangered. It is now certain that President Grant nourishes the bad ambition of a third term. If the sacred tradition established by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson can be broken, the President may be re-elected indefinitely; and wielding from the centre the immense patronage which will grow out of such vast usurpation of authorities by the Federal Government, he will grasp the means of corrupt influence by which to carry the elections. There will be no organized thing in the country of sufficient power to compete with him or to resist him. The forms of free government may remain, but the spirit and substance will be changed; an elective personal despotism will have been established; Roman history, in the person of Augustus Cæsar, will be repeated.

Thoughtful men are turning their minds to the means of escape from these overshadowing evils. The Republican party cannot save the country. Ideas of governmental meddling and centralism dominate it; class interests hold it firmly to evil courses. Throngs of office-holders, contractors, and jobbers, who have grown up in fourteen years of administration, in four years of war and during an era of paper money, are too strong in the machinery of the party for the honest and well-intending masses of the Republicans. The Republican party could contribute largely to maintain the Union during the civil war; it cannot reconstruct civil liberty and free institutions after the peace.

A change of men is necessary to secure a change of measures. The Opposition is being matured and educated to take the administration. The Democracy, with the traditions of its

best days, will form the nucleus of the opposition. It embraces vastly the larger body of men of sound ideas and sound practices in political life. It must remove every taint which has touched it in evil times. It must become a compact and homogeneous mass. It must gather to its alliance all who think the same things concerning the interests of our Republic. It is becoming an adequate and effective instrument to reform administration and to save the country. It reformed itself in order that it might reform the country.

And now in your name and in the name of five hundred thousand voters we represent, we declare that in this great work we will tread no step backward. Come weal or come woe, we will not lower our flag. We will go forward until a political revolution shall be worked out, and the principles of Jefferson and Jackson shall rule in the administration of the Federal Government.

Let us never despair of our country. Actual evils can be mitigated; bad tendencies can be turned aside; the burdens of government can be diminished; productive industry will be renewed; and frugality will repair the waste of our resources. Then shall the golden days of the Republic once more return, and the people become prosperous and happy.

XXXII.

SHORTLY after the fall election of 1874 the Young Men's Democratic Club - a political organization then only about three years old - tendered to the Governor-elect a public reception at Delmonico's. In response to a toast proposed by Mr. Townsend Cox, the president of the Club, Mr. Tilden spoke at some length of the political duties of young men.

THE POLITICAL DUTIES OF YOUNG MEN. - ADDRESS

TO THE YOUNG MEN'S DEMOCRATIC CLUB.

GENTLEMEN OF THE CLUB, I should have scarcely felt myself at liberty to-night to attend any ordinary festivity; but a meeting of the young men of promise that I see about me, who have associated for the purpose of securing co-operation in the conduct and fulfilment of the duties of citizenship,- too much neglected in this community and everywhere, was an occasion I felt was entitled to whatever of commendation and encouragement my presence could confer.

I had occasion three years ago, after a period of political revolution, and on several occasions since, to express my sense of the consequences in a republican community of the disregard of the duties of citizenship, and to say that it is indispen sably necessary in the present condition of our country that the young men -young men whose situation would enable them to make some sacrifice — should come forward and do their duty to the communities in which they live.

Doubtless several circumstances have contributed to a pretty general neglect of these duties. Official station does not bring with it as much distinction as it did in the early days of the Republic; men have not the same incentive, therefore, to take part in public affairs. And then in modern times have sprung up innumerable industrial enterprises, and other organizations conceived with special reference to the wants of society, which have attracted very largely the young men of promise and withdrawn them from politics and public affairs. Then again, in the last twenty years for it is little more than that period since the ill-omened repeal of the Missouri Compromise broke up the

traditions of ancient settlements and kindled the flame of sectional controversy and sectional hatred-it has mattered little what a man's opinions were, what his conduct had been, in regard to any of the ordinary concerns of government or human society. It was enough that he took a particular view on certain questions which excited the public mind, — questions of a social character, questions of a sentimental character. Government and administration of the concerns that affect human society seemed to receive little attention from the people. The consequence was that we almost ceased to educate young men for their part in carrying on the functions of government. I had occasion in 1867 to look around for somebody to nominate, at least to exercise what little influence I had in the nomination; and in conversation with a gentleman not now living, who agreed with me that we ought to introduce into the public affairs of this State some young men, after he had named all he could think of, I told him they were all about fifty years old,—"You are fifty, and I am fifty, and every one is fifty." And that was the finale of our attempt to discover young men fit to be charged with public trusts.

Now I don't doubt that there were young men of competency and character; but the difficulty was there had been no opportunity to train any, and if they existed, they were difficult to find. We have had lately no schools of statesmanship in this State or in the nation. There have been no statesmen of the younger class to carry on the government of this country. And it is because there is in this society the germ of a better future for our country that I came here to-night to do what I can to encourage you. I hope you will go forward in the work you have begun. We who are older than most of those I see around me would look in vain for those to whom we can hand over these great trusts if they are not formed within the next few years. I think there is no institution, no society of men in this country, that is capable of being more serviceable in this respect than the Club which I have the pleasure to meet to-night. Go on, young men; perfect yourselves in political education; go