CHAPTER V

Admitted to the bar - Opposes a coercive bankrupt law - The Glentworth election frauds - Law-book purchases Death of Elam Tilden - A winter's journey from Albany - The Know-Nothing cyclone - James K. Polk elected President - Silas Wright elected Governor of New YorkThe "Daily News" established - The slavery schism in the Democratic party- Elected to the Assembly - The anti-rent war - Elected to the Constitutional Convention of 1846-Governor Wright's defeat for reelection-Annexation of Texas - Address of the Democratic members of the Legislature on the slavery issues - Baltimore convention-Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams nominated by the FreeSoil party for President and Vice-President.

AT the May term of the Supreme Court in 1841, Mr. Tilden was admitted to the bar, and immediately opened an office at No. 11 Pine street, in the city of New York. From that day forth he ceased to be a burden to his parents, and though his clients were not numerous, nor his business very lucrative, he had been accustomed to live so inexpensively that he managed to bring his expenses at once within his income, a habit which he maintained through life. His business was not yet so engrossing, however, as to withdraw his attention from public affairs.

Before President William Henry Harrison had been inaugurated, his ardent partisans threatened to improve the first days of the approaching session of Congress not only in rechartering the United States Bank, but in conferring upon it a charter which Congress should have no power to repeal. Mr. Tilden made the unsoundness and absurdity of such an attempt on the part of Congress to disable itself the theme of an article of some seventeen pages in the "Democratic Review" for August, 1841.1

This "Review" had been established at Washington a few years before, and during the administration of President Jackson, by John L. O'Sullivan,

VOL. I.-7

His argument has never been answered, nor has the action of Congress in repealing the charter ever been reversed.1

He was also a speaker at a public meeting in New York of those opposed to a coercive bankrupt law, and conducted a protracted and somewhat acrimonious contest in the "Evening Post" with the Whig press in reference to the part which the collector of the port, Mr. Edward Curtis, had taken in procuring or conniving at the introduction of citizens from a neighboring city to vote at the then recent presidential election. The frauds were engineered by an adventurer of the name of James B. Glentworth. It is to this affair that allusion is made in a letter to his father, dated Jan. 20, 1842.

"I sent two of the Glentworth pamphlets to you and one to Mr. Younglove immediately on receiving Henry's letter. Can it be that you have not received them? I think I will send another.

"You will have seen that the papers do now make extracts from the pamphlet. Mr. Bryant and I have kept up a hot fire on Curtis. There was a concerted design not to answer, and to whistle down the whole matter; but we forced them to speak. The first and second long articles were mine, except the two concluding lines of each; the third, Mr. Bryant's; the two or three short ones mostly mine; the first answer to the American, and the concluding reply, except its first two paragraphs. I would not have been drawn into the matter except at the urgent solicitation of Mr. Bryant, and under the strong indignation I felt at the course of proceedings, commencing with the charge of conspiracy, and ending with the removal of Morris. I hope we are now done with C., but we may be obliged to reply once more. The understanding is that the others shall receive justice at different hands than mine.

"These articles have made a great sensation, and are

a friend of Mr. Tilden, and Mr. Langtry, a brother-in-law of Mr. O'Sullivan.

166 Writings and Speeches," Vol. I. p. 165.

2

? Postmaster of New York under the Van Buren administration.

regarded by our people as triumphant, and by some of the Whigs as satisfactory. The Whig press has been exceedingly troubled the steadiness and perseverance of the attacks, the concentration of them on a single point until the public attention was thoroughly arrested, and the successful avoidance, so far, of all false issues, have annoyed them amazingly. The three last were written in great haste-nearly the whole of each, after I got down to the office of the 'Post,' and before the paper went to press at twelve or one. If, as is very likely, I am found out by Curtis, I shall have made one warm friend.

"I am, on the whole, better than for several winters before. Though on the day that I made the speech at the bankrupt meeting-I was in committee all the evening, and kept up late by Mr. Ward's business—I was fagged, and the next night was at a party at Mr. Butler's, and then editing the Post,' I became a little worn. All that is now done, and I am in the usual train again."

There were no law institutes nor law libraries accessible to the young lawyer in those days, and it was necessary for him to purchase such books as he required or go without them. The investment of a few hundred dollars in books, therefore, was the first expense for which he had to provide in those days after he had paid for his "shingle." Tilden had opened his office but a few months when he felt that, with a little assistance from his father, he could afford to strengthen this branch of his office equipment. Of the way he set about it we have some curious glimpses in the following letter:

TILDEN TO HIS FATHER.

"MY DEAR FATHER:

ee

"NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 1842.

I went the other night to an auction of law books to pick up a few little things. Whether because of the rain, or from mere accident, probably from the season of the year in which there are few competitors, I found the New York Reports' selling at about twenty-five per cent. lower than the lowest auction prices. I bought

'Wendell,' 25 vols.; Cowen,' 9 vols.; Paige,' 7 vols., and Johnson,' 20 vols., which, with a few I have already, comprise the reports of this State, except some half a dozen less important ones which I allowed an acquaintance to take at a very low price. These works are in higher demand, and usually bring nearer the bookstore price than any other books; and they are the most indispensable.

"I have attended all the auctions for some years, and I give a schedule of comparative prices.

"I never knew more than one set sell at these low prices at the same time. Of course the books are, some of them, soiled. I should not have bought them just now if the chance had not been one which ought not to be allowed to pass.

"I believe that I could take at least $50 from the bookseller for my purchase; nevertheless I am extremely reluctant to lay out so much money in these times (between $190 and $200), and I wanted to pay up what I had drawn from Pinneo rather than draw more. He is in so easy a condition that it will produce not the least inconvenience. One-half, or nearly, I think I can reimburse during the next two days. There was $20 on a note I gave him from Aaron, and I yesterday got another of $60 having thirty days to run. I shall try the harder to get it out of

This last set I bought on a pure speculation. I have it already. The next lowest purchase I ever knew was the set I bought last year. This I can make answer me as cash at fifty or sixty-five per cent. advance, for books which never get into the auction-room.