THE GUBERNATORIAL QUESTION. THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN AS A COMMUNICATION TO A NEWSPAPER, BUT OWING TO UNAVOIDABLE ACCIDENT, ITS PUBLICATION WAS PREVENTED..

[Concord?, 1867. Folio broadside, 9" x 16-1/2". Caption title, printed in three columns. Old folds [two short splits at center fold edges]. Dated and signed in type, "January 4, 1867. Justice." Very Good.

Onslow Stearns, president of the Northern Railroad, sought the Republican nomination for Governor of New Hampshire in 1865, but withdrew in favor of Frederick Smyth, another railroad executive, with the understanding that his turn would come at the next election. When the 1867 election came around, Republicans had second thoughts.
The Manchester Mirror attacked Stearns on the ground that he headed a railroad monopoly; he had not served in the War [he was 50 years old when the War began]; and it was thought that a soldier candidate was needed. Walter Harriman, the Secretary of State and a Colonel during the Civil War, received the nomination.
Stearns and his allies were furious. "The gross and repeated attacks upon Mr. Stearns and his friends is entirely unprecedented, and the attempt to make people believe that he is put forward for governor as the head of a 'great railroad monopoly', is utterly false." Stearns rejected calls for him to run as an independent; his consolation price was that he would receive the nomination in 1869, a promise that the Republicans kept. He was elected. [Renda: RUNNING ON THE RECORD: CIVIL WAR ERA POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE 43-44 UVA Press: 1997].
Not located on OCLC or the online sites of AAS, NYPL, Rauner Library, NHHS.