Tildenites (Brothers No More)

President Samuel J. Tilden

The Tildenites were a faction of the Democratic Party in the 1870's and 1880's. Growing around the policies of President Samuel J. Tilden, they supported nationwide abolition of slavery, extensive civil service reform, traditional Democratic economic policies, support of the gold standard, and opposition to the Confederacy.

History

The Tildenites formed during the presidency of their namesake, in opposition to the Bullwhackers led by Tilden's predecessor George H. Pendleton. They didn't have a strong unifying cause other than supporting President Tilden's policies, particularly the abolition of slavery. Most former War Democrats from the Civil War era would go on to become Tildenites, but many Tildenites were actually former Copperheads or peace Democrats.

The first major opposition to Pendleton in the party came after the Great Disgrace of 1876, when Pendleton made overtures to the Confederacy and invited Confederate president Jackson to the White House. Northern Democrats heavily opposed any warming of relations with the Confederacy and also opposed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1875, which Pendleton had passed to win Jackson's favor. It was at this point that the Northern Democrats, including Tilden, began organizing into a faction of their own to take control of the party away from the agrarian and white supremacist Pendleton faction. Tilden was nominated as president in 1876 to pivot away from Pendleton's new unpopularity.

The split in the party was solidified when Tilden signed the Abolition Act into law, outlawing slavery nationwide. Pendleton's faction harshly criticized him for infringing on states' rights. Tilden's supporters organized in response, hoping to win control of the Democratic Party and nominate one of their own to continue Tilden's policies in 1884.

Abram Hewitt

Tilden himself was not a direct leader of the faction. He aimed to avoid factionalism and keep a united party. When he left office in 1885, he left politics entirely and retreated to his personal estate, having no further role in determining the direction of the faction formed in his name. He died later that year. His close ally and political protege of sorts, Abram Hewitt, became the generally accepted leader of the faction after this.

The Tildenites gained the upper hand over the Bullwhackers as time went on and the country grew more fiercely opposed to Confederate-aligned policies. By 1888, the factions had began to reconcile in hopes of defeating the newly empowered National Americans and passing civil service reform. They entirely disappeared after Pendleton's death in 1889, but some disputes continued into the new decade in the form of the gold vs. bimetallism vs. silver currency debate. Tildenites supported gold and many Bullwhackers were open to silver.

Ideology

The ideology of the Tildenite faction was somewhat varied. Faction members simply had to believe that Tilden's policies as president were preferable to Pendleton's. All of them agreed that Pendleton's overtures to the Confederacy had gone too far. Some were militantly opposed to the Confederacy while others wished to simply ignore them for the most part. They also were generally abolitionists who supported efforts to outlaw slavery nationwide instead of leaving it to be an issue for the states. They supported states' rights outside of this.

Tildenites were against the continued usage of Greenbacks

As supporters of Tilden, everyone in the faction also supported civil service reform and the gold standard. Tildenites tended to believe that the government's corruption issues were rooted in the national Democratic Party, while Bullwhackers believed that the city-based Republicans were the root of the problem. Bullwhackers didn't think a party rooted in agrarianism could fall to corrupt deal making and defended Pendleton as being a scandal-free, morally upright president. Tilden personally believed that the entire system had to be reformed, including the Democratic Party itself.

Bullwhackers were economically populist, which meant they supported the economic proposals of poor Midwestern farmers. These proposals were generally inflationary, calling for the production of more Greenback paper currency and the tying of the monetary system to silver instead of exclusively gold. Tilden, on the other hand, believed in elimination of the Greenbacks and a strict hard money system. Besides these differences, the two factions were largely united on economic policy. Some Tildenites supported higher tariffs, but in general this was seen to be a National American position rather than a Democratic one. Some also viewed the Tildenites as a movement of industrialists over the agrarianism that the Bullwhackers peddled. Faction leader Abram Hewitt was indeed an industrialist. However, despite Bullwhacker claims to the contrary, the faction as a whole was not based in industrialism or urban favoritism. Many Tildenites were based in rural areas.