Tilden thus wrote he had not experienced nor could he have foreseen the legal consummation of his labors in the arrest, imprisonment or flight of all the parties who, only a few months before, seemed to hold the wealth and power of the Empire State in the hollow of their hands, nor the condemnation of Tweed to the striped jacket and cell of a felon, nor the recovery of verdicts which promised to restore to the city treasury many millions of ill-gotten plunder.

Nor could he have foreseen, among the most direct and immediate results of his labors for the purification of the New York City and State governments, his election as Governor in the fall of 1874, by a majority of more than fifty thousand over General Dix, the Republican candidate.

The talents and jniblic virtues which, as a municipal reformer, won the confidence of the people of his native State and made him Governor, on this new and wider theatre won the confidence and admiration of the nation and made him its choice by a considerable popular majority for the Presidency in 1876. It was not, however, in the order of Providence that he j or the people were to enjoy the legitimate fruits of this latter victory.

When Congress convened in the winter of 1876- 77, and proceeded to discharge its constitutional

I " Writings and Life of Samuel J. Tilden,'' edited by John Bigelow.

Pub., Harper 4 Brothers, 1885.

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

duty of counting the electoral votes for President and Vice-President, it appeared that there were one hundred and eighty-four uncontested electoral votes for Samuel J. Tilden for President and for Thomas A. Hendricks for Vice-President, one hundred and sixty-five uncontested electoral votes for Rutherford B. Hayes for President and William A. Wheeler for Vice-President, and twenty votes in dispute.