American politician (1829–1888)
Roscoe Conkling (October 30, 1829 – April 18, 1888) was an American lawyer and Republican politician who represented New York in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. He was a leader of the Republican Stalwart faction and a dominant figure in the United States Senate during the 1870s. As senator, his control of patronage at the New York Customs House, one of the busiest commercial ports in the world, made him very powerful. His comity with President Ulysses S. Grant and conflict with Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield were defining features of American politics of the 1870s and 1880s. He also participated, as a member of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, in the drafting of the landmark Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Conkling publicly led opposition to proposals for civil service reform, which he called "snivel service reform," and defended the prerogatives of senators in appointments. His conflict with President Garfield over appointments eventually led to Conkling's resignation in 1881. He ran for re-election to his seat in an attempt to display his support from the New York political machine and his power, but lost the special election, during which Garfield was assassinated. Though Conkling never returned to elected office, the assassination elevated Chester A. Arthur, a former New York Collector and Conkling ally, to the presidency. Their relationship was destroyed when Arthur pursued civil service reform, out of his sense of duty to the late President Garfield. Conkling remained active in politics and practiced law in New York City until his death in 1888.
Conkling turned down two presidential appointments to the United States Supreme Court: first to the position of Chief Justice in 1873 and then as an associate justice in 1882. In 1882, Conkling was confirmed by the Senate but declined to serve, the last person (as of 2025) to have done so.
Conkling, who was temperate and detested tobacco, was known for his physical condition, maintained through regular exercise and boxing, an unusual devotion for his time.
Early life.
Family.
Roscoe Conkling was born on October 30, 1829, in Albany, New York to Alfred Conkling, a U.S. Representative and federal judge, and his wife Eliza Cockburn, cousin of the late Lord Chief-Justice Sir Alexander Cockburn of England. His father's ancestors emigrated to the North America around 1635 and settled in Salem, Massachusetts before moving to Suffolk County, New York. Roscoe's maternal grandfather James Cockburn was Scottish by birth, but emigrated to the Bahamas and later to the Mohawk Valley, where he married Margaret Frey, the daughter of a feudal lord.
Roscoe was the youngest of seven children, four sons and three daughters. He had two older brothers, Frederick and Aurelian. A third brother also named Roscoe died before this article's subject was born. Both Roscoes were named for the British author William Roscoe, whom Eliza Conkling read during her pregnancy.
Conkling's mother was said to have a "talent for repartee and brilliant talk" which her son inherited.
Childhood.
At the suggestion of William H. Seward, the Conkling family moved to Auburn, New York, via the Erie Canal in 1839. At his new home, Roscoe enjoyed horseback riding, which became a lifelong pursuit. He did not take to academic study, but had a retentive memory.
In 1842, Roscoe was enrolled in the Mount Washington Collegiate Institute in New York City. While in New York, he also studied oratory with his elder brother Frederick. They often practiced their speaking together.
After a year at the Mount Washington Institute, Roscoe entered the Auburn Academy and remained there for three years. Even as a schoolboy, Roscoe's intimidating appearance and intellect demanded attention. A childhood friend said young Roscoe "was as large and massive in his mind as he was in his frame, and accomplished in his studies precisely what he did in his social life — a mastery and command which his companions yielded to him as due."
Conkling first became interested in politics during his time at Auburn. Since his father was a leading member of the upstate Whig Party, Roscoe became acquainted with some of the most prominent men of the era, such as Presidents Martin Van Buren and John Quincy Adams, Governor Enos Throop, Supreme Court Justice Smith Thompson, James Kent, and Thurlow Weed. Fellow Auburn resident William Henry Seward was a friend of Conkling's father and soon of Conkling as well.
Law and local politics.
In 1846, seventeen year-old Conkling moved to Utica to study law in the offices of Joshua A. Spencer and Francis Kernan, two of the leading lawyers in the state. He integrated himself into Utica society and spoke publicly on a variety of issues, especially in support of human rights and the abolition of slavery. At eighteen, he spoke at various venues in Central New York in sympathy for the sufferers of the Great Famine in Ireland. He displayed deep abhorrence for slavery, which he described as "man's inhumanity to man," and referred to himself as a "Seward Whig," stumping the county for Taylor and Fillmore in 1848.
On one occasion, he is said to have transcribed a Henry Clay speech from memory with such accuracy that Clay himself remarked on its quality. He also practiced his oratory by reciting passages from the Bible, Shakespeare, and British Whigs including Thomas Babington Macaulay, Edmund Burke, and Charles James Fox. In 1849, Conkling gained his first exposure to political campaigning when he was elected as a delegate to his New York State Assembly district's Whig nominating convention, then to the state judicial nominating convention as a supporter of Joshua Spencer for the New York Court of Appeals.
Conkling was admitted to the bar in 1850. Almost immediately, Governor Hamilton Fish appointed him as interim district attorney of Oneida County. He was still only twenty-one, and set about prosecuting cases without the aid of more senior co-counsel. He was nominated for re-election that fall but was defeated along with the rest of the Whig ticket. Opposition mainly centered on Conkling's youth.
In 1852, Conkling opened a legal partnership with former Mayor of Utica Thomas R. Walker; the partnership continued until 1855. He became famous throughout central New York after his defense of Sylvester Hadcock for forgery; Joshua Spencer was the prosecutor, but Conkling won acquittal by proving Hadcock's illiteracy. In 1854, he won a case for slander against a priest who had accused a young woman of "want of chastity." In 1855, he partnered with his former classmate Montgomery Throop; their partnership continued until 1862. He became one of the highest-paid attorneys in the region, often charging over $100 per trial.
Through 1853, Conkling remained an orthodox Whig. In 1852, he stumped New York state for General Winfield Scott, denouncing Franklin Pierce as a British tool committed to upholding slavery and free trade to fuel the cotton mills of England. In 1853, Conkling was a leading candidate for Attorney General of New York; he lost the Whig nomination to Ogden Hoffman on the third ballot. As the Whig Party rapidly disintegrated, Conkling took an active part in the formation of the Republican Party and came to consider himself an "original Republican." In 1856, he spoke throughout Oneida and Herkimer counties for John C. Frémont and William L. Dayton.
Mayor of Utica (1858–59).
In 1858, Republicans sought a candidate for Mayor of Utica, considered a slightly Democratic city. The party convention nominated Conkling on the first ballot. After a five-day campaign, Conkling defeated Democrat Charles S. Wilson on March 2, 1858, and took office on March 9.
Although he did not run for re-election, Conkling remained mayor until his resignation on November 18, 1859 because the March 1859 election to choose his successor resulted in a tie.
U.S. House of Representatives (1859–67).
First term.
Almost immediately after his nomination for mayor, Conkling prepared to mount a run for Congress; incumbent Representative Orsamus B. Matteson had chosen to retire after his censure for corruption. Conkling's chief opponent was another Utica attorney, Charles H. Doolittle. Conkling said he hoped to be elected "because some men object to my nomination. So long as one man in the city opposes, I shall run on the Republican ticket." Conkling campaigned as a personal ally of Senator Seward, and Seward delivered a speech on Conkling's behalf. Conkling won easily on the first ballot of the district convention; Doolittle was nominated by future Conkling ally Ward Hunt.
Conkling's opponent in the general election, Judge P. Sheldon Root, had the endorsement of the incumbent Matteson, his former law partner. Root refused to debate Conkling; Conkling stumped the county on his own behalf. Conkling won the election by 2,793 votes out of slightly under 20,000 cast. He ran 200 votes ahead of Governor Edwin D. Morgan.
Conkling's first term as Representative was uneventful. He quietly opposed slavery and his speeches largely consisted of legal expositions. Throughout the protracted battle for Speaker that dominated the first session, Conkling supported John Sherman of Ohio. On the second day of the session, December 6, Conkling allegedly rose and stood to guard Thaddeus Stevens as he castigated Southern Representatives, amid fears that they would assault Stevens. (Representative Preston Brooks had beaten Charles Sumner unconscious only three years prior.) On April 17, 1860, Conkling delivered a long address attacking the Taney Court for its decisions in the Dred Scott case and "Ableman v. Booth". Conkling went so far as to reject judicial review as final, arguing "the judgments of the Supreme Court are binding only upon inferior courts and parties litigant."
In the second session of the 36th Congress, Conkling voted in favor of a committee to address the growing secession crisis and gave a speech denouncing secession and slavery. He voted in favor of the Morrill Tariff and against the proposed Corwin Amendment, which would have shielded slavery from federal interference as a step toward reconciliation.
Second term and Civil War.
In the summer of 1860, Conkling campaigned on behalf of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin in New York. Though Conkling was disappointed that Seward had not been nominated, he spoke in favor of Lincoln at a June 4 unity rally. Conkling himself was unanimously re-nominated on September 4 and was re-elected by an increased majority over Utica mayor DeWitt Clinton Grove. As a high-profile House freshman, he spent much more of the 1860 campaign outside his district.
Given his first opportunity to advise President-elect Lincoln on federal appointments in Oneida, Conkling rejected a list provided by district Republicans, replying, "Gentlemen, when I need your assistance in making the appointments in our district, I shall let you know."
In 1861, Conkling teamed up with Chester A. Arthur and another man, George W. Chadwick, to make a profit on wartime cotton. The business worked well and was expunged from public record. Conkling later secured Arthur's appointment as a tax commissioner; Arthur was appointed Collector of the Port of New York in 1871.
The 37th Congress met amidst the American Civil War, which began in April 1861. President Lincoln called Congress into a special session on Independence Day in order to equip an army. Conkling took a leading role in the session and was joined in the House by his elder brother Frederick, who had been elected from New York City. Conkling was promoted to chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia. He introduced a bill to "establish an auxiliary watch for the protection of public and private property in the city of Washington" and another instituting a committee to report on the subject of a general bankruptcy law.
When Congress reconvened on December 3, 1861, Conkling introduced a resolution calling for the War Department to investigate the humiliating Union defeat at the Battle of Ball's Bluff. When George McClellan responded that an investigation would be incompatible with the public service, Conkling delivered a speech calling the battle "the most atrocious military murder ever committed in our history as a people," gaining national attention. His persistent criticism led to the creation of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War to provide civilian oversight of the war effort.
Conkling was a consistent opponent of issuing paper currency to pay for the war effort, unsuccessfully voting against the Legal Tender Act of 1862 and proposing bond issuances redeemable in gold as substitutes. He remained a consistent opponent of monetary expansion throughout his career.
Out of office.
Conkling was renominated by party faithful at Rome on September 26, 1862. He was opposed by his