In a Very Rare Significant ALS as President, William McKinley Accepts the Resignation of His Secretary of the Interior, A Man Who in Just 2 Years He Would Ask to Run as His Vice President

We obtained this unpublished letter from the recipient’s descendants and it has never before been offered for sale

Cornelius N. Bliss was a partner in one of the largest wholesale dry-goods firms in the country. He was also chairman of the Republican committee in New York in 1887 and 1888, and contributed much to the success of the Benjamin Harrison ticket in his state in the 1888 election. He served as treasurer of the Republican National Committee from 1892 to 1904. He turned down the offer of becoming Secretary of the Treasury under President McKinley, but accepted the post of Secretary of the Interior, maintaining that position until 1899. While in office, Bliss focused on forestry and Indian affairs. Offered by McKinley the vice presidential slot in his 1900 reelection campaign, he declined, so the nod went instead to Theodore Roosevelt. In 1904, Bliss was Roosevelt’s campaign manager.

The year 1898 was a key one in McKinley’s presidency, as it was the one in which he had to make decisions on war and peace, and then direct the Spanish-American War. Early in the year, many in the country were clamoring for war with Spain, but McKinley, haunted by memories of the Civil War – in which he had served – did not take the prospect of going to war lightly. Eventually he felt that there was no alternative to war, and the balance of the year was spent directing the war and peace negotiations afterwards. Bliss was McKinley’s confidant and advisor during all that time. Then in 1899 Bliss told McKinley he wanted to return to private life.

Autograph letter signed, as President, on Executive Mansion letterhead, 2 pages, Washington, December 20, 1898, to Bliss, accepting but lamenting his resignation. “Your resignation of the office of Secretary of the Interior is received and while not unexpected, brings genuine regret. For two years, our relation has been so close and confidential and your cooperation in all my purposes so cordial and hearty that I cannot contemplate your retiring from the cabinet without a feeling of real sorrow. Then too your administration of the great department over which you have presided – a department of complex duties and difficult problems, has been so efficient and satisfactory to the public that I feel your retirement will be a loss to the country.

“Your fidelity to public duty – your helpfulness in the trying year just passed, your affectionate devotion to me make your departure painful indeed. I would earnestly urge a reconsideration of your action did I not know that the reasons fully justify it, I can not further urge you to do that which will be a sacrifice of your own interests and obligations. I thank you most warmly for the valuable services you have rendered the country and in accepting your resignation wish for you and your family every happiness in the future. I will cherish the memories of our association while I live.”

Full ALSs of McKinley as president are very uncommon. In all our decades in this field, we have never seen a better content one, making this a true rarity. We obtained this letter direcly from the Bliss descendants, and it has never before been offered for sale.