October 9 Saturday – James G. Blaine (1830-1893) replied to Clemens, who had written asking Blaine to verity his endorsement of George Vaughn (“a fraud”)

Jubes renovare infandum dolorem / O Clementia!!

After the late cruel war was over Washington was for several years the resort of those suffering patriots from the South who through all Rebel persecutions had been true to the Union—and the number was so great that the wonder often was where the Richmond Government found soldiers enough to fill its armies—of these Union heroes & devotees was Vaughan—He appeared there about 1868 or 1869—He had fled from oppression in the land of his birth only to find still more gr[i]evous tyranny in the land of his adoption. He looked as though he had been at once the victim of kingly vengeance & the object of concentrated Rebel malignity. His mug was like that of Oliver Twist and he evoked your pity even if its first of kin, contempt, went along with it—He obtained some very small place in one of the Departments & held it I think for a year or two. He fastened on me as his last hope & continually brought me notes of commendation, letters of introduction & rewards of merit. But he never insulted me with a reference to his being a candidate for anything. He uses that card only with green people in the country for in Washington candidate[s] go for nothing. It’s only the chaps that are elected that count.

The idea finally occurred to Vaughan that a good way to be avenged at once on all his enemies, to make Queen Victoria & Jeff Davis both feel bad at the same time would be to have a commiss[ion] as bearer of dispatches to England—As carry[ing] a mail bag across the Atlantic on a Cunar[d] steamer seemed a cheap & convenient way of exhibiting triumph over the dead Confeder[acy] & hurling defiance at England at the same time[.] I gave Vaughan a letter to the Sec’y of State—though I had no idea that I wrote quite so gushingly as the quotations you send me imply. But it is quite possible that seeing Vaughan before me the impersonation of fidelity to the Union & honest hatred of the Britishers I was carried beyond the bounds of discretion & indulged in some eccentricities of speech—But alas! my real convictions are that Vaughan in all his pitiful poverty belongs to that innumerable caravan of deadbeats whose headquarters are in Washington—It does my very soul good to know that Hartford is getting its share—Your evident impatience under the affliction, your lack of sympathy & compassion for the harmless swindler show how ill fitted you would be for the stern duties of a Representative in Congress—And if the advent of Vaughan teaches you Hartford saints no other lesson, let it deeply impress on your minds a newer, keener, fresher, appreciation of the trials & the troubles, the beggars, the bores, the swindlers, and the scalawags wherewith the average c Congressman is evermore afflicted—

Excuse my brief note— If I had time I would give you a full account of Vaughan [MTPO]. Note: Sam’s letter is not extant. Blaine’s intro Latin phrase = “O Queen, you ask me to recall unspeakable sorrow.”