Grover Cleveland Typed Letter Signed to Senator Samuel B. Maxey of Texas. One page, 7.75" x 10", July 16, 1892, "Gray Gabl... (Total: 3 Items)

Description

Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) served as the twenty-second president from 1885 through 1889, the first Democrat in the White House since the Civil War. (The "Souvenir of the Inauguration Ball, March 4^th, 1885" included in this lot is from his 1885 inauguration.) After losing the 1888 election to Republican Benjamin Harrison, Cleveland worked for the next four years in a New York City law firm. He was reelected in 1892 as the twenty-fourth president, making him the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms. This letter was written in the midst of the 1892 campaign--a campaign which has been described by historian Allan Nevins as "the cleanest, quietest, and most creditable in the memory of the post-war generation." (Nevins, Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage; Dodd, Mead & Company: 1962). This letter reads in part: "I feel intensely not only the responsibility of the position I occupy, but unlike some of my party associates I have an idea that the pending campaign is only to be won by hard constant work and the utmost attention to organization. My estimate of the value to our party and to the country of our success is this canvas makes me extremely anxious that all ["all" has been struck through and Cleveland has written "everything possible" above it] should be done in every part of the country to arouse the enthusiasm and fix the loyalty of our people."

Samuel Maxey (1825-1895), an attorney from Paris, Texas, was chosen as a delegate to Texas' 1861 Secession Convention. During the Civil War, he was promoted to a Confederate brigadier general and served in Tennessee with Bragg. Following a post-war pardon, he was elected to two terms as senator. This letter, written to Maxey near the end of his life, has been passed down from his descendants.