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Rh lege, but almost at the outset his studies were interrupted by feeble health. He resumed them in 1834, when he entered the University of New York. Here he completed his academic educa- tion, and devoted himself to the study of law. While in college he wrote a series of papers in defence of President Van Buren's policy in re- gard to the United States bank. He made a more elaborate plea for the independent treasury sys- tem, as opposed to the union of bank and state, in a speech delivered to his neighbors at New Leban- on in October, 1840.

On his admission to the bar, Mr. Tilden began practice in New York city, but continued to take an active part in politics. He was elected to the assembly in 1845, and while there was chairman of a committee appointed to inquire into the causes of the anti-rent disorders, and the masterly report on the whole subject of the great leasehold estates and their tenants was almost entirely his work. He was a member of the Constitutional convention of 1846. The three most memorable cases in which he was employed as a lawyer were the trial of the contested election of his friend, Azariah C. Flagg, as comptroller of New York city, the opposition on the part of the heirs of the murdered Dr. Bur- dell to Mrs. Cunningham's application for letters of administration on his estate, and the defence of the Pennsylvania coal company to the claim of the Delaware and Hudson canal company for payment of extra tolls. The hearing of the last-named con- sumed seventy days, and Mr. Tilden's argument in the case was a marvel of analytical ingenuity and constructive ability. Prom 1855, more than half of the great railway corporations north of the Ohio and between the Hudson and Missouri rivers were at some time clients of Mr. Tilden's. He was the author of many of the plans of reorganization that were rendered necessary by the early financial necessities of these companies. He took part in the Free-soil revolt within the Democratic party in 1848. In 1851 he made a strong plea for respect to the constitution in dealing with the question of improvements on the state canals. In 1855 he was the candidate for attorney-general on the ticket of the " Soft-Shell " Democrats. Through- out the civil war he maintained that the struggle against the Confederacy could be successfully waged without resorting to extra-constitutional modes of action. By 1868 Mr. Tilden had definitely assumed the leadership of the Democratic party in New York state. To the enactment of what was known as " the Tweed charter " of 1870, which confirmed the control of a corrupt ring over the government and revenues of New York city, Mr. Tilden offered the most determined opposition.

To the side-partners of Tweed, the almost equally notorious persons who were engaged, by the aid of courts, in plundering the stockholders of the Erie railway, Mr. Tilden had made himself similarly obnoxious. He was one of the founders of the Bar association, which was an organized protest against the perversion of the machinery of justice accom- plished by judges George G. Barnard and Albert Cardozo and their allies. In the impeachment proceedings against these judges in 1872 Mr. Til- den's was the directing mind, and it was mainly for this purpose that he agreed to serve as a member of the assembly. On the exposure of the methods of plunder of the Tweed ring, which was made in the columns of the New York " Times " in July, 1871, Mr. Tilden undertook, through an examina- tion of the bank-accounts of the chief members of the combination, a legal demonstration of the share of the spoil received by each, and the tables pre- sented with his affidavit furnished the basis of the civil and criminal proceedings brought against the ring and its agents. He threw all his energy into the prosecution of suits in the name of the state against the men who had seized the machinery of local justice, and he resisted successfully the efforts of the ring and the politicians in its service to re- tain their hold on the state Democratic organiza- tion in the autumn of 1871. In 1874 he was the Democratic candidate for governor, and was elect- ed by a plurality of 50,000 over Gov. John A. Dix. His special message to the legislature on the ex- travagance and dishonesty that had characterized the management of the canals made a deep im- pression. During his administration the new capi- tol building at Albany was begun (see illustration), which has cost $17,000,000, but is not finished. In June, 1876, the National Democratic convention, assembled at St. Louis, nominated him for the presidency. (For an account of the election and its results, see Hayes, Rutherford B.) As finally declared, the electoral vote was 185 for Mr. Hayes and 184 for Mr. Tilden. The popular vote, as counted, gave Tilden 4,284.265; Hayes, 4,033,295 ; Cooper, 81,737 ; Smith, 9,522. Mr. Tilden was opposed to the electoral commission, declaring his belief in " the exclusive jurisdiction of the two houses to count the electoral votes by their own servants and under such instruction as they might deem proper to give." From that time till the end of his life he was first among the leaders of the national Democracy, and the pressure for his renomination in 1880 became so great that his friends, who knew his fixed determination not to be a candidate, appealed to him for a formal announcement of his resolution, addressed to the delegates from his own state. Four years later this declaration had to be repeated. His last important contribution to the history of his time was a communication addressed to John G. Carlisle, speaker of the house of representatives, in regard to the urgent necessity of liberal appropriations for such a system of coast defences as would place the United States in a position of comparative safety against naval attack. Under the provisions of Mr. Tilden's will, the greater portion of his fortune (which was estimated at $5,000,000) was devoted to public uses, the chief of which was the establishment and endowment in the city of New York of a free public library; but the will was contested by his relatives, lie never married. His life was written by Theodore P. Cook (New York, 1876), and his writings edited by John Bigelow (2 vols., 1885). — Mr. Tilden's elder brother, Moses Y. (1812-76),