Ohio History Journal

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392 Ohio Arch

392        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

HAYES-TILDEN CONTROVERSY.

There is a saying, "Happy is the nation that has no history." We

doubt the truth of that trite-ism and would certainly take issue with

its philosophy. To say a nation has no history is to brand it as having

been one lacking necessity and activity. These latter elements wanting,

a nation would speedily lapse into lassitude and retrogression. Certain

it is that the nations that have contributed the most to the progress of

civilization are the nations which have led the "strenuous life" both

within themselves and with their environment. This is particularly true

of our own United States. Born amid the throes of a sturdily-fought

Revolution it grew to lusty manhood amid the strengthening struggles

incident to untrodden territory and untried forms of government. Having

won the perilous victory of independence, it next had to learn the lesson

of self control. That lesson it learned in the contest of Civil War--the

greatest internecine strife ever experienced by a civilized nation. The

world stood aghast at the magnitude and fierceness of that war in which

brother-states contended against brother-tates for the dissolution of the

perpetuity of the Union. The end of that bloody clash sealed forever

the unity of our government and the universal liberty of its inhabitants.

Scarcely had the vast armies of the North and South been dispersed

to their peaceful homes when the strength of this dearly bought unity

was to be tested, not upon the field of battle, but in the forum of bitter

political strife. This was the unique and unparalleled controversy known

as "The Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Election of 1876." A history

of that intensely interesting event was never fully written and put in

historical form until the appearance of a volume with that title, just

quoted, by Paul Leland Haworth, Lecturer in History, Columbia Univer-

sity, a volume in convenient form of some 370 pages, published by the

Burrows Brothers Company, Cleveland, Ohio, at $1.50, net.

We have carefully perused the pages of this book and cannot too

highly commend the thoroughness and impartiality with which Professor

Haworth has performed his task, one difficult, delicate and tedious. To

the handling of his subject Professor Haworth has brought the advantage

of the specially trained methods of a scholar; the historical temperment

and the untiring patience requisite for the acquisition and digestion of a

vast amount of detail. He has consulted practically all the material extant

of any value concerning his topic, and from this mass he has sifted that

which was reliable and pertinent to the proper presentation of both sides

of the controversy. With rare judgment he has impartially and fully pre-

sented the facts of both sides. Professor Haworth has chosen the oppor-

tune time for the preparation of such a political dispute. Up to within

comparatively a few years ago it would have been difficult to have obtained

an unbiased survey of the claims of either party, and a few years hence

there will probably have passed from the stage the witnesses who alone

could give testimony at first hand. Professor Haworth seems to have