HORATIO KING - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 12/19/1889 - HFSID 35478

HORATIO KING
Signed Autograph Letter (1889) to another past Postmaster General, criticizing his successors and complaining bitterly that he had never received credit for introduction of the "penalty envelope."
Autograph Letter signed: "Horatio King", 3 pages, 4½x7¼, conjoined. Washington, D.C., 1889 December 19. To Judge James Campbell, Philadelphia. In full: "Last night I saw your real self - I mean in a dream - looking well and hearty; and I am not sure that it was not a hint from my 'spiritual guide or guides' to send you the enclosed letter in which I pay my respects to your brave townsman, John Wanamaker, and his assistant in mischief. After the labor I performed in bringing about the penalty envelope reform, which no Postmaster General has done me the justice to acknowledge; nor has it been mentioned except indirectly, until now when a doubt is cast on it. I think it is rather hard on me, having thus to come to the protection of my off-spring! Dana put the caption to my letter and sent me 20 copies of his paper containing it. And did you notice that the P. M. General has, unwittingly no doubt, recommended in effect the old optional prepayment system for letters and transient printed matter, which was overturned in your administration by acts of March 3, 1855, as regards letters, and 20th December, 1856, as regards transient printed matter. Col. Chs. James of this city, who was Lincoln's Collector of San Francisco, told me he had sent to the Sun today a scathing article on the subject. I don't see that paper regularly, but I think if you should see it Saturday or Sunday, at furthest, you would find the article referred to. Very respectfully & truly yours". Horatio King (1811-1897), previously a newspaper editor, was employed by the US Post Office as a clerk in Washington in 1839, and rose through the Department to become first Assistant Postmaster General (1854, under Campbell), and then Postmaster General in the final month of the Buchanan Presidency (February-March 1861). Responding to an inquiry about the franking privilege from a South Carolina Congressman, King was the first federal official to formally deny that states had a right to secede from the Union. King remained in Washington during the Civil War, helping to supervise emancipation in that city, and was active afterwards in the Monument Society, hastening completion of the Washington Monument. He wrote frequent letters to the newspapers. While a lawyer in private practice, he successfully lobbied Congress to introduce the Penalty Envelope, an envelope for official business warning of a stiff "penalty for private use." James Campbell (1812-1893), a former Attorney General of Pennsylvania, was Postmaster General under President Pierce (1853-1857). John Wanamaker (1838-1920), founder of the famed Philadelphia department store, was US Postmaster General under President Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893). Harrison was a Republican, whereas King and Campbell had served Democrats, but it is not clear without further research what "mischief" King was attributing to Wanamaker. Veteran journalist Charles Dana (1819-1897) was - at the time of this letter, editor and part owner of the New York Sun. Horizontal fold crease. Lightly toned. Otherwise, fine condition.