The Democrats nominated the liberal Samuel Tilden of New York, who had won the governorship in the Democratic landslide of 1874. Carrying New York was as critical to them as carrying Ohio was to the Republicans. A lawyer whose work with the railroads had made him wealthy, Tilden, like Hayes, was intellectual and well read. He followed Democratic orthodoxy in wanting reconciliation between North and South. A hard-money man, whose liberalism derived from states’ rights Democratic traditions, Tilden held Democratic loyalties but this did not make him a democrat. Although he had earlier worked
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