A majority of the Senate being Republicans and a majority of the House of Representatives being Democrats, that the Senate would not agree to to count any one of these twenty votes for Tilden and Hendricks was assumed; and to avoid a conflict of jurisdiction, which was thought by some to threaten the peace of the country, a special tribunal, to consist of members of Congress and of the Supreme Court, fifteen in number, was created, upon which the duty of counting the electoral vote was devolved by an act of Congress. One of the membei's of this tribunal was classified as an Independent, seven as Republicans and seven as Democrats. The Republicans voted to count all the votes of the three contested States for Hayes, and the Indei)endent, voted with them, and the candidate elected to the Presidency by a considerable popular majority was compelled to give place to the candidate of a minority.

The circumstances under which Mr. Tilden was deprived of the Presidency made it inconvenient, indeed impossible, to obey the counsels and warnings of declining health to lay down the leadership of the great party whose unexampled wrong was represented in his person, until he could surrender it into the hands of its proper national rejiresentatives. As soon, however, as the National Democratic Convention assembled in 1880, he felt constrained to address to the chairman of the New York delegation the memorable letter in which he proclaimed his well-considered intention to retire from public life, for the labors of which he had long felt his health and strength were unequal. In 1884 he was obliged to repeat his resolution, to prevent his nomination by the delegates to the National Convention, who were almost unanimously chosen because of their avowed partiality for Mr. Tilden as their candidate, notwithstanding his impaired and failing health.