STORY OF THE MISUNDERSTANDING BETWEEN GARFIELD AND CONKLING
The Garfield Administration, as I have said, started out under most
favorable auspices. Mr. Conkling took an active part in the Senate as a
champion and spokesman of the administration. He seemed to have taken it
for granted, that,--although his bitter enemy, Mr. Blaine, was Secretary
of State,--his own influence with the administration would be potential.
In conversation with his personal friends he insisted that this was a
part of the agreement that had been entered into at the famous Mentor
Conference, about which so much had been said and published. If it were
true that Mr. Conkling's control of the Federal patronage in New York in
the event of Republican success was a part of that agreement, it
transpired that Mr. Blaine had sufficient influence with the President
to bring about its repudiation.
It is a fact well known that the President was anxious to avoid a break
with Senator Conkling. Judge W.H. Robertson, who was a candidate for the
Collectorship of the port of New York was strongly supported by Mr.
Blaine. Judge Robertson had been one of the influential leaders of the
Blaine movement in New York. It was he who had disregarded the action of
the State Convention in instructing the delegates to cast the vote of
the State as a unit for General Grant. In bolting the action of the
State Convention Judge Robertson carried about nineteen other delegates
with him over to Mr. Blaine. Therefore Mr. Blaine insisted upon the
appointment of Judge Robertson to the Collectorship of the port at New
York. Senator Conkling would not consent under any circumstances to this
appointment. Mr. Blaine, it appears, succeeded in convincing the
President that, but for Judge Robertson's action, his, Garfield's,
nomination would have been impossible and that consequently it would be
base ingratitude not to appoint Robertson to the position for which he
was an applicant. Mr. Blaine contended that the administration would not
only be guilty of ingratitude should it refuse to appoint his candidate,
but that it would thereby allow itself to be the medium through which
this man was to be punished for his action in making the existence of
the administration possible.
"Can you, Mr. President, afford to do such a thing as this?" asked Mr.
Blaine.
To which the President gave a negative answer. Perhaps it did not occur
to Mr. Blaine at that time that, while the action of Judge Robertson
may have made the nomination of Mr. Garfield possible, the subsequent
action of Senator Conkling made his election possible. But,
notwithstanding this, the President decided that Judge Robertson should
have the office for which he was an applicant.
As previously stated, however, the President was anxious to avoid a
break with Senator Conkling. To get the Senator to consent to the
appointment of Judge Robertson was the task the President had before
him. With that end in view the President invited Mr. Conkling to a
private conference, at which he expressed a willingness to allow the New
York Senator to name every important Federal officer in New York except
the Collector of the Port, if he would consent to the appointment of
Judge Robertson to that office. But the only concession Senator Conkling
was willing to make was to give his consent to the appointment of Judge
Robertson to any position in the foreign service. This was not
satisfactory, hence the conference was a failure. The President was thus
placed in a very disagreeable dilemma, being thus forced, very much
against his inclination, to take a decided stand in a very unpleasant
controversy. He was thus forced to choose between Mr. Blaine, his own
Secretary of State, on one side, and Senator Conkling on the other. To
one he felt that he was indebted for his nomination. To the other he
believed that his election was largely due. It was asserted by some who
were in a position to know that, if the President had taken sides with
Mr. Conkling, Mr. Blaine would have immediately tendered his
resignation, and thus would have severed his official connection with
the administration. While no intimation of this was made known to the
President, yet he no doubt believed, in consequence of the deep and
intense interest Mr. Blaine had shown in the matter, that such action on
his part, in the event of an adverse decision, was more than probable.
When the President saw that there was no escape,--that he was obliged to
take a decided stand one way or the other,--he decided to sustain the
contention of his Secretary of State. Consequently, after the fruitless
conference between the President and Senator Conkling, the name of Judge
Robertson for Collector of the port at New York, was sent to the Senate.
Senator Conkling, joined by his colleague, Senator Platt, at first made
an effort to have the nomination rejected, but the other Republican
Senators were not willing to place themselves in open opposition to the
administration. When the fact was developed that the nomination would be
confirmed, Senators Conkling and Platt immediately tendered their
resignations.
This in my opinion was a grave blunder on their part, as subsequent
events more than proved. They had before them the example of Senator
Sumner, by which they should have profited. Senator Sumner was greatly
humiliated, when, through the influence of the administration, he was
supplanted by Senator Cameron as Chairman of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations on account of a misunderstanding with President Grant,
growing out of the effort on the part of the administration to bring
about the annexation of Santo Domingo, to which Senator Sumner was
bitterly opposed. Yet he did not,--because he was thus, as he felt,
unjustly humiliated,--resign his seat in the Senate. He realized that
while he was commissioned to speak for his own State, his great power
and immense influence were not confined solely to that particular State.
He appreciated the fact that when he spoke and voted as a Senator, he
did so, not merely as a Senator from the State of Massachusetts, but as
a Senator of the United States. He belonged to no one State, but to the
United States. He had,--on account of his great intellect, power,
influence, and ability,--long since ceased to be the spokesman and
representative of any particular State or section; he was a
representative of his country--recognized as such throughout the
civilized world. Knowing these things to be true Sumner did not feel
that he should deprive the people of his valuable services simply
because he was not in harmony with the administration upon some one
matter, however important that matter might be. In this Senator Sumner
was unquestionably right.
What, then, was true of Senator Sumner was equally true of Senators
Conkling and Platt in their misunderstanding with President Garfield
about the Collectorship of the port of New York.
Mr. Conkling was one of the greatest men our country had ever produced.
He was a man of much influence and great power. He was not only an
intellectual giant, but he was a man of commanding presence and
attractive personality. As an orator he had few equals and no superiors.
As in the case of Senator Sumner he spoke and voted as a Senator not
merely for his State, but for his country; not for any particular
section or locality, but for the United States. He was too great a man,
and his services were too important and valuable for his country to be
deprived of them merely on account of a misunderstanding between the
President and himself about Federal patronage in New York. He and his
colleague should have retained their seats in the Senate and trusted to
the judgment of their fellow-citizens for a vindication of their course
and action in that as in other matters. They not only made a mistake in
resigning their seats in the Senate, but consummated it when they went
before the Legislature of their State, which was then in session, and
asked for a vindication through the medium of reëlection. This was
subjecting their friends to a test to which they were not willing to
submit. Their friends, both in the Legislature and out of it, were loyal
to them, and this loyalty would have been demonstrated at the proper
time and in the right way had the two Senators remained in a position
which would have enabled their adherents to do so without serious injury
to the party organization. But when these men were asked, as the price
of their loyalty, to place the party organization in the State in open
opposition to the National Administration for no other reason than a
misunderstanding about Federal patronage in the city of New York, they
did not think that the controversy was worth the price; hence the
request was denied. The result was the defeat of Conkling and Platt, and
the election of two Administration Republicans, Warner Miller and E.G.
Lapham.
This foolhardy act of Conkling's had the unfortunate effect of
eliminating him from public life, at least so far as an active
participation in public affairs was concerned. But this was not true of
Mr. Platt. He was determined to come to the front again, and in this he
was successful. At the very next National Convention (1884) he turned up
as one of the Blaine delegates from New York, and was one of the
speakers that seconded Mr. Blaine's nomination. That was something Mr.
Conkling never could have been induced to do. He was proud, haughty and
dictatorial. He would never forget a friend, nor forgive an enemy. To
his friends he was loyal and true. To his enemies he was bitter and
unrelenting. For his friends he could not do too much. From his enemies
he would ask no quarter and would give none. More than one man of
national reputation has been made to feel his power, and suffer the
consequences resulting from his ill-will and displeasure. But for the
unfriendliness of Mr. Conkling, Mr. Blaine no doubt would have attained
the acme of his ambition in reaching the Presidency of the United
States. It was Mr. Blaine's misfortune to have made an enemy of the one
man who, by a stroke of destiny, was so situated as to make it possible
for him to prevent the realization of Mr. Blaine's life ambition. It was
due more to Mr. Conkling than to any other one man that Mr. Blaine was
defeated for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1876,--the year
in which he could have been elected had he been nominated.
Mr. Conkling was too much of a party man to support the Democratic
ticket under any circumstances, hence, in 1884, when Mr. Blaine was at
length nominated for the Presidency, Mr. Conkling gave the ticket the
benefit of his silence. That silence proved to be fatal. In consequence
of Mr. Conkling's silence and apparent indifference in 1884, Mr. Blaine
lost New York, the pivotal State, and was defeated by Mr. Cleveland for
the Presidency. The falling off in the Republican vote in Mr. Conkling's
home county alone caused the loss of the State and of the Presidency of
the United States to the Republican party.
The quarrel between Blaine and Conkling originated when both of them
were members of the House of Representatives. In a controversy that took
place between them on the floor of the House Mr. Blaine referred to Mr.
Conkling as the member from New York with the "turkey gobbler strut."
That remark made the two men enemies for life. That remark wounded Mr.
Conkling's pride; and he could never be induced to forgive the one who
had so hurt him.
As a United States Senator Conkling was both felt and feared. No Senator
ever desired to get into a controversy with him, because he was not only
a speaker of great power and eloquence, but as a debater he was cutting
and scathing in his irony. Senator Lamar, of Mississippi, who as an
eloquent orator compared favorably with the best on both sides of the
Chamber, had the misfortune to get into a controversy on one occasion
with the distinguished New York Senator. In repelling an accusation that
the Senator from Mississippi had made against him, Mr. Conkling said:
"If it were not that this is the United States Senate I would
characterize the member from Mississippi as a coward and a
prevaricator."
If those words had been uttered by any other Senator than Roscoe
Conkling it is more than probable that he would have been severely
reprimanded; no other Senator, however, cared to incur Conkling's
displeasure by becoming the author of a resolution for that purpose.
Senator John J. Ingalls, of Kansas, was the only other Senator that ever
came near holding a similar position; for, while he was by no means the
equal of Conkling, he was both eloquent and sarcastic. For that reason
Senators were not anxious to get into a controversy with him. On one
occasion it seemed that he came near getting into a dispute with Senator
Manderson, of Nebraska. While the Senator from Nebraska was delivering a
speech, he made a remark to which the Senator from Kansas took
exceptions. When the Kansas Senator arose,--flushed with anger, and
laboring under intense excitement,--to correct what he declared in words
that were more forcible than elegant, to be a misstatement of his
position, the Senator from Nebraska did not hesitate for a moment to
accept the correction, remarking by way of explanation and apology that
he had not distinctly heard the remark the Senator from Kansas had made,
and to which he was alluding when interrupted.
"Then," retorted the Senator from Kansas, "that is your misfortune."
"I admit," the Senator from Nebraska quickly replied, "that it is always
a misfortune not to hear the Senator from Kansas."
The unfortunate controversy between President Garfield and Senator
Conkling resulted in a national calamity. The bitterness that grew out
of it had the effect of bringing a crank on the scene of action. Early
in July, 1881,--when the President, in company with Mr. Blaine, was
leaving Washington for his summer vacation,--this cowardly crank, who
had waited at the railroad station for the arrival of the distinguished
party, fired the fatal shot which a few months later terminated the
earthly career of a President who was beloved by his countrymen without
regard to party or section.
Whatever may have been the merits of this unfortunate controversy, it
resulted in the political death of one and the physical death of the
other; thus depriving the country of the valuable services of two of the
greatest and most intellectual men that our country had ever produced.
When the President died I was at my home, Natchez, Mississippi, where a
memorial meeting was held in honor of his memory, participated in by
both races and both parties. I had the honor of being one of the
speakers on that occasion. That part of my remarks which seemed to
attract most attention and made the deepest impression was the
declaration that it was my good fortune, as a member of the National
House of Representatives, to sit within the sound of his eloquent voice
on a certain memorable occasion when he declared that there could never
be a permanent peace and union between the North and the South until the
South would admit that, in the controversy that brought on the War the
North was right and the South was wrong. Notwithstanding that
declaration, in which he was unquestionably right, I ventured the
opinion that, had he been spared to serve out the term for which he had
been elected, those who had voted for him would have been proud of the
fact that they had done so, while those who had voted against him would
have had no occasion to regret that he had been elected.
Upon the death of President Garfield Vice-President Arthur,--who had
been named for that office by Mr. Conkling,--became President; but he,
too, soon incurred the displeasure of Mr. Conkling. Mr. Conkling had
occasion to make a request of the President which the latter could not
see his way clear to grant. For this Mr. Conkling never forgave him. The
President tried hard afterwards to regain Mr. Conkling's friendship, but
in vain. He even went so far, it is said, as to tender Mr. Conkling a
seat on the bench of the Supreme Court; but the tender was
contemptuously declined.
President Arthur aspired to succeed himself as President. As a whole he
gave the country a splendid administration, for which he merited a
renomination and election as his own successor. While there was a strong
and well-organized effort to secure for him a renomination, the
probabilities are that the attitude of Mr. Conkling towards him
contributed largely to his defeat; although the ex-Senator took no
active part in the contest. But, as in the case of Mr. Blaine, his
silence, no doubt, was fatal to Mr. Arthur's renomination.