6 July 1870 • Washington, D.C. (MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00487)
P. S. Got your letter, sweetheart—thank you.
Livy my darling, I have put in a tremendous day’s work. Got up at 6—shaved & breakfasted & cleared out on business. Went to several places. Finally, at 9, got a carriage & took Mr. Stewart to the Senate. Then hunted up Smith of Tennessee & told him to get Brownlow to address a note to Colfax asking him to take the bill out of its order. Smith was full of the idea. Then I called on Colfax. He said it was so late in the session that nothing on earth could save the bill but an a favorable report from the Judiciary Committee. Then I “went for” the members of that Committee once more—did all I could in that direction. 2explanatory note Then I got afraid that Mr. Smith was sleepy & slow—& so, concluding & just then I heard that parson Brownlow’s son was here taking care of his dying invalid father.
I Ⓐemendationknew him personally away out in the Mountains—“w called on him—he was out; went & got the Postmaster of the Senate to call on the senior—the senior was too sick to be seen. I then laid a proper train for fixing the thing subsequently, & left. I went all through the Gov’t printing office with old Clapp & then went to meet one of 3 5 Ⓐemendation five invitations to dine—throwing off & atrociously discarding old friends in order to dine with your old friend, Sunset Cox.3explanatory note
And presently Mr. Stewart came in & said his Committee (the Judicaiary) had reported favorably on our bill!!!
My stars, yesterday our Tennesseaeans hadn’t any idea such a thing (thing (they could be accomplished (they been working for it for weeks—even months, maybe.) Stewart said I was the only man he knew of who could have got that stubbo committee to change its ancient policy Ⓐemendation & report that bill favorably.
Well I felt so comfortable over this big success that I had half a notion to clear out home & lef Ⓐemendationleave the passage of the bill to Lewis,4explanatory note Smith & the others—but when I came to think how worse inefficient they have been so far, I guessed it would be safest to stay here a day or two & try to get the thing on its final passage.
Livy darling, it is almost foolishness to hope to get it through both houses before the adjournment5explanatory note—it is foolish to hope it—but then I do so hate to give a thing up after starting in. It seems like my courting days over again, & I feel as if I want to go & tackle that whole Congress & mak Ⓐemendation & hang to them till they say yes. Just as you , did, little sweetheart.
I have the advantage of obscure lobbyists, because I can get any man’s ear for a few moments, & also his polite attention & respectful hearing. The most of them—all of them, in fact—tacitly acknowledge an indebtedness to me for wisdom supplied to them by my pen, & it is a very influential point in one’s favor, don’t you see?
Dined from 6 to 8.30. Called on Ⓐemendationthe Fitch’s Ⓐemendationfrom 8.30 to 9.30.6explanatory note Then Ⓐemendation went to see Mr. Ⓐemendation & Mrs. Bennett & played euchre till 11.7explanatory note
I am tired, my own darling. Good Ⓐemendation night precious sweetheart.
Mrs. Samℓ. L. Clemens | Elmira | N. Y. return address: return to j. langdon, elmira, n. y. if not delivered within 10 days. postmarked: washington d.c. jul 7
Clemens departed Elmira for Washington on the night of 4 July, sharing a sleeping car with, among others: William Henry Kelsey (1812–79), Whig and Republican congressman from New York (1855–59, 1867–71); Hamilton Ward (1829–98), Republican congressman from New York (1865–71); and Cornelius Cole (1822–1924), Republican senator from California (1867–73). On 5 July he began lobbying for passage of Senate Bill 1025, which had been introduced, then referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, on 29 June. The bill stipulated a reorganization of the Tennessee judicial system, which was of crucial importance to the Langdon family, particularly in light of Jervis Langdon’s deteriorating health. Langdon was involved in a lawsuit, begun in 1869, against Memphis. The city owed him five hundred thousand dollars for the paving of its streets by a firm in which he had invested, Brown and Company of Des Moines, Iowa headed by his nephew by marriage, Talmage Brown. The suit was stalled in Tennessee’s overburdened judiciary, which consisted of a single judge riding circui between three districts. The bill would establish two districts with a judge fo each and was expected to expedite pending cases (Cornelius Cole to Olive Cole 5 July 70, CLU-SC; Keyes; BDUSC , 189, 806, 1297, 2006; Dawson; Congressional Globe: 1870, 6:4976; 1871, 2:909; U.S. Congress, Senate; L3 , 264–65 271, 278–79; see pp. 43, 325–26).
The second session of the Forty-first Congress was scheduled to end on 1 July 1870. The members of the Senate Judiciary Committee were: Lyman Trumbull (1813–96), Republican from Illinois (1855–73), who was chair; William Morris Stewart (1827–1909), Republican from Nevada (1864–75, 1887–1905), who had employed Clemens as private secretary in Washington in November and December 1867; George Franklin Edmunds (1828–1919), Republican from Vermont (1866–91); Roscoe Conkling (1829–88), Republican from New York (1867–81); Benjamin Franklin Rice (1828–1905), Republican from Arkansas (1868–73); Matthew Hale Carpenter (1824–81), Republican from Wisconsin (1869–75, 1879–81); and Allen Granberry Thurman (1813–95), Democrat from Ohio (1869–81) (Poore 1870, 11, 56; L2 , 78, 109–10 n. 2, 139 n. 4; L3 , 458 n. 3; BDUSC , 187, 746, 816, 951, 1711, 1877, 1938–39, 1957).
In addition to the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the individuals mentioned in the first two paragraphs of this letter were: William Jay Smith (1823–1913), Republican congressman from Tennessee (1869–71); William Gannaway Brownlow (1805–77), formerly a Methodist minister and now the Republican senator from Tennessee (1869–75), who had sponsored Senate Bill 1025; Brownlow’s son James (1841?–79), a distinguished Civil War veteran, whom Clemens had met in San Francisco in June 1868; Vice-President Schuyler Colfax (1823–85); Charles S. Taft, postmaster of the Senate; Almon M. Clapp, founder and a former proprietor of the Buffalo Express, congressional printer since April 1869; and Samuel Sullivan (Sunset) Cox (1824–89), former journalist, author of several successful books, and Democratic congressman, first from Ohio (1857–65) and now from New York (1869–73, 1873–85, 1886–89), known for his controversial support of the South during Reconstruction. Cox’s acquaintance with Olivia Clemens has not been explained ( BDUSC , 187, 688, 836–37, 1840; Boyd 1870, 504; Cox 1852, 1865, 1869; L2 , 219–20; L3 , 296–97 n. 2, 368–69).
Either John Francis Lewis (1818–95), Republican senator from Virginia (1870–75), or Joseph Horace Lewis (1824–1904), Democratic congressman from Kentucky (1870–73) ( BDUSC , 188, 1369, 1370).
House Bill 1573, proposing the division of Tennessee into two judicial districts, had been introduced by William J. Smith on 21 March 1870 and was immediately referred to the House Judiciary Committee (Congressional Globe: 1870, 3:LXXIX, 2094; 1871, 2:909).
Thomas and Anna Fitch. Among the subjects discussed were Thomas’s potential as a lecturer and, probably, his intercession in Orion Clemens’s dispute with the Treasury Department (15 Jan 70 to PAM, n. 4click to open link; 10? July 70 to Redpathclick to open link; 10? July 70 to Fitchclick to open link).
David Smith Bennett (1811–94), Republican congressman from Buffalo (1869–71), had been in the produce business before his election ( BDUSC , 608; Buffalo Directory 1869, 72, 226).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L4 , 164–166; LLMT , 361, brief paraphrase.
see Samossoud Collection in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.