6 or 7 August 1876 • Elmira, N.Y. (Paraphrase and transcript: MTB , 2:581, UCCL 05983)
Eighteen hundred and seventy-six was a Presidential year—the year of the Hayes-Tilden campaign. Clemens and Howells were both warm Republicans and actively interested in the outcome, Clemens, as he confessed, for the first time in his life. Before his return to Hartford he announced himself publicly as a Hayes man, made so by Governor Hayes’s letter of acceptance, which, he said, “expresses my own political convictions.”1explanatory note His politics had not been generally known up to that time, and a Tilden and Hendricks club in Jersey City had invited him to be present and give them some political counsel, at a flag-raising.2explanatory note He wrote, declining pleasantly enough, then added:
“You have asked me for some political counsel or advice: In view of Mr. Tilden’s Civil War record my advice is not to raise the flag.”3explanatory note
Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–93), governor of Ohio, had accepted the Republican nomination for president in a letter of 8 July 1876. It is transcribed in the Appendix “1876 Nominations for President”click to open link.
The following was the invitation (CU-MARK) :
On McDermott’s envelope, Clemens wrote: “Flag-raising. | Declined.” On 28 June 1876, at the Democratic national convention in St. Louis, Samuel J. Tilden (1814–86), governor of New York, had been nominated as presidential candidate; on 29 June, Thomas A. Hendricks (1819–85), governor of Indiana, had been nominated as vice-presidential candidate (New York Times: “How the Thing Was Done,” “Nomination of Candidates,” 29 June 1876, 1, 2; “The Ticket Completed,” 30 June 1876, 1).
Tilden had called for the defeat of Lincoln in the election of 1860, anticipating that his policy on slavery would make civil war inevitable. When the South seceded, Tilden favored compromise, but when the conflict actually began he espoused a rapid and forceful suppression of the rebels. Nevertheless, although the Lincoln administration more than once sought his advice on the prosecution of the war, Tilden remained a controversial opponent of its policies, particularly its suppression of dissent, and took little direct part in the war effort (Tilden 1885, 1:289–340; Annual Cyclopaedia 1886 , 817–18). For Clemens’s extended comments on Tilden, see 14 Sept 1876 to Howellsclick to open link, and 24–30 Sept 1876 to Unidentifiedclick to open link.
References
- Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain: A Biography. By Albert Bigelow Paine. 3 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers. [Volume numbers in citations are to this edition; page numbers are the same in all editions.] 1912
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- University of California, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, Berkeley
- Tilden, Samuel J. The Writings and Speeches of Samuel J. Tilden. Edited by John Bigelow. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1885
- Annual Cyclopaedia 1886. Appletons’ Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1886. Vol. 26 (n.s. vol. 11). New York: D. Appleton and Co. 1887
Paraphrase and transcript, MTB, 2:581.