its effect)
prohibiting any taxation or any appropriation for expenditures on the
canals, beyond their revenues, would starve the Canal Ring by cutting
off its supply. Mr. Tilden became Governor at the right hour to reap
the harvest which others had sown. It is seldom that any administration
is signalized by two events so impressive and far-reaching as the
crumbling of a formidable and long-intrenched foe to honest
administration like the Tweed Ring, and a decrease of the tax
budge by nearly one-half. It was Mr. Tilden's rare fortune that his
Governorship was coincident with these predetermined and assured
results. It would be unjust to deny to him the merit of resisting the
canal extortionists and hastening their extinction, but it would be
equally untrue not to say that in the work of the reformer he did not
forget the shrewd calculations of the partisan. He understood better
than any other man the art of appropriating to himself the credit of
events which would have come to pass without his agency, and of reforms
already planned by his political opponents.

By a fortunate concurrence of conditions which he partly made, and
which with signal ability he wholly turned to account, Mr. Tilden thus
gained the one commanding position in the Democratic party. He held
the most vital State of the North in his grasp. He embodied the one
thought which expressed the discontent with Republicanism and the hope
of the Democracy. He evinced a power of leadership which no man in his
party could rival. The Democracy before his day could count but four
chiefs of the first rank--Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, and Van Buren.
Mr. Tilden was not indeed a leader of the same class with these masters
who so long a period shaped the whole thought and policy of their
party, but he displayed political capacity of a very high order. He
was trained in the school of the famous Albany Regency, and had
exhibited much of its ingenuity and power. He placed his reliance both
upon ideas and organization. He sought to captivate the popular
imagination with a striking thought, and he supported it with the most
minute and systematic work. In his own State he discarded all leaders
of equal rank with himself, and selected active young men or mere
personal followers as his lieutenants. He bore no brother near the
throne. In other States he secured strong alliances to promote his
interests, and called into existence a National force which was as
po