Roscoe Conkling: Custom House Boss Who Twice Refused the Supreme Court

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Roscoe Conkling was born in Albany, New York, in 1829, son of a federal judge and congressman. Six foot three, he boxed, rode and took long daily walks, yet recoiled from being touched. As a Utica lawyer he won a forgery case by proving the defendant could not read or write, then served as mayor of Utica and went to the House as an anti-slavery Republican. During the Civil War he investigated the Union defeat at Ball's Bluff and fought the printing of unbacked paper money. On the Joint Committee on Reconstruction he helped draft the 14th Amendment, championing the section that cut House representation for states denying the vote and the use of persons rather than citizens.

A bitter 1866 House exchange with James G. Blaine, who mocked his vanity and strut, began a feud that split the Republican Party for two decades. As a senator Conkling led the Stalwart faction through control of jobs at the New York Custom House. After failing to win Ulysses S. Grant a third nomination in 1880, he saw his protégé Chester A. Arthur put on the ticket, then resigned in 1881 when President James A. Garfield handed Custom House posts to Blaine allies, expecting a reelection that never came. After Garfield's assassination, President Arthur embraced civil service reform. Conkling declined a confirmed Supreme Court seat, was chased from a Rhode Island estate by a jealous husband, and died after walking home through the Great Blizzard of 1888.

• He was said to be able to transcribe entire speeches from memory after hearing them once.
• Custom House employees owed the party an assessment, sometimes two to six percent of their salaries.
• Garfield's assassin claimed he acted for the Stalwarts so that Arthur would become president.
• Ulysses S. Grant had earlier offered him the chief justiceship, which he also turned down.
• Later, arguing for railroad clients, he claimed the 14th Amendment's drafters chose the word persons to protect corporations.