March 27 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Orion, who again had asked that his brother buy the farm that he and Mollie lived in. Sam declined, suggesting “Mr. Stotts sell Mollie a life interest in the place for an annual sum…”. Responding to Orion’s switching political allegiance to the democrats, Sam wrote:

If you will let me make a suggestion, it is this: the present era of incredible rottenness is not democratic, it is not republican, it is national. This nation is not reflected in Charles Sumner, but in Henry Ward Beecher, Benjamin Butler, Whitelaw Reid, Wm. M. Tweed. Politics are not going to cure moral ulcers like these, nor the decaying body they fester upon.

Notes: Sam’s inclusion of Reid with those tainted with scandal reflected personal hard feelings from Reid’s refusal to allow Edward House to write a Gilded Age book review for the New York Tribune. Charles Sumner, highly revered senator from Massachusetts during 1851-1874; Beecher was involved in an adultery scandal and trial for alienation of affection; Butler and Tweed were corrupt political bosses [MTL 6: 427-8].