The life and letters of Roscoe Conkling, orator, statesman, advocate

CHAPTER I. Genealogy 1-8

CHAPTER n.

The Boyhood of Roscoe Conkling 9-18

CHAPTER HI.

1850-1853.

The Young Lawyer 19-41

CHAPTER IV.

1853-1853.

Legal Practice and Local Politics 42-60

CHAPTER V.

1858-1859.

Mr. Conkling as Mayor 61-73

CHAPTER VI.

August, 1S58 — April, 1S59.

He is Elected to Congress — Unpublished Correspondence between Mr. Conkling and Thomas Corwin, of Ohio 74-90

CHAPTER Vn. 1S59-1S61.

His First Term in Congress — Extracts from Speeches on the Powers of the Supreme Court of the United States and in Opposition to Slavery gi-i20

CHAPTER VIII.

I 860-1 861.

The Budge Murder Trial ,,.,,,.,.,,,, isi-i^q

PAGE

^'"* CONTENTS.

The Thirty-Seventh Congress— A rnni-i;,,o. t> •

133-150

CHAPTER X. 1862.

The Legal-Tender Act

' 151-169

CHAPTER XI.

I 862-1 863.

Resolutions-Speeches-He is Renon^inated and Defeated .70-188

CHAPTER XII.

1863-1865.

He Resumes Law Practice-Patriotic Meetings-Addresses His Renomination and Election.. ^aaresses-

189-212

CHAPTER XIIL

The Haddock Court-Martial A r^^ • , . .

v^uuri martial— A Case in wh ch Mr. Conklino-

was Successful '-onkiing

213-244

CHAPTER XIV.

1865-1866.

The Reconstruction Period

CHAPTER XV. 1866.

His Last Congressional Campaign.

269-284

Part Second. Chapter XVI. 1867

The Young Senator

285-307

CHAPTER XVIL 1868.

A Trip to the Rocky Mountains-The Presidential Campaign -Financial Bills in the Senate -^mpaign

CONTENTS. IX

CHAPTER XVIII.

Senator Conkling and President Grant 31^337

CHAPTER XIX.

1871.

The Syracuse Convention and the State Campaign 338-347

CHAPTER XX.

January, 1872.

The One-term Dogma 348-359

CHAPTER XXI.

1852-1887.

Oratory 360-424

CHAPTER XXII. 1872.

The Administration Vindicated — Debates in the Senate — His

Greatest Campaign Speech 425-44S

CHAPTER XXIII.

1873- His Re-efection — A Legal Argument — An Official Trip to Canada — He is offered the Chief-Justiceship, and Declines. . . . 449-464

CHAPTER XXIV.

1874.

Senatorial Debates — Financial Measures — A Celebrated Case. . . 465-486

CHAPTER XXV.

1875.

Senator Conkling and General Sheridan — A Famous Patent

CHAPTER XXVI. 1876.

The State Convention at Syracuse — The Cincinnati Convention

— The Hayes-Tilden Campaign — Life in Washington 494-515

CHAPTER XXVIL

January-August, 1877.

The Electoral Count — The Electoral Commission — Second Trip

to Europe 516-535 s/

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

September-December, 1877. page

The State Convention at Rochester — President Hayes and the

New York Custom House 536-562

CHAPTER XXIX. 1878.

Eulogy on Senator Oliver P. Morton — Mr. Conkling Opposes

the Silver Bill — A Notable Chemical Patent Suit 563-573

CHAPTER XXX.

January, 1S79 — June, iSSo.

An Unusual Honor — The First Republican to be Elected Thrice to the Senate — Saluted by Negroes — The Utica Convention of February, 1880 574-587

CHAPTER XXXI.

The Chicago Convention 588-609

CHAPTER XXXII.

The Presidential Campaign 610-632

Part Third. Chapter XXXIII

1880-18S1.

His Last Year in Public Life — President Garfield — Resignation

from the Senate — His Defeat at Albany 633-643

CHAPTER XXXIV.

1S50-1SS8.

Resume of His Public Career — Some Anecdotes 644-667

CHAPTER XXXV.

Mr. Conkling as a Lawyer in New York 668- 700

CHAPTER XXXVL

List of Fac-similes.

Steel Portrait of Roscoe Conkling Frontispiece.

Fac-simile of letter from Hannibal Hamlin to Alfred

R. Conkling 401

Fac-simile of letter from U. S. Grant to Roscoe

Fac-simile of letter from Roscoe Conkling to U. S.

Fac-simile of letter from Benj. Harrison to Rose©©

Fac-simile of 306 Grant Medal 609

Fac-simile of letter from Jas. A. Garfield to Roscoe

Fac-simile of letter from Chester A. Arthur to Roscoe

Fac-simile of letter from Allen G. Thurman to Alfred

R. Conkling 686 n

Preface

The biography of Roscoe Conkling must be, to a large extent, the poHtical history of New York and of the United States from the year 1866 to the year 1884. The best part of his Hfe was spent in the service of the State and the nation. When he was elected to Congress, he had won reputation as an orator and an advocate. From that time, down to the year 1881 — excepting the term of the Thirty-eighth Congress — he zealously served his country in the legislative branch of the general Government.

Mr. Conkling was so much misunderstood and so imperfectly appreciated by those who did not personally know him, that an exhaustive biography seems necessary.

Soon after his death a brief memorial was published by order of the Legislature of the State of New York; but it was deemed by many of his friends inadequate to commemorate the life and public services of one who, for so many years, was the recognized leader of the Republican party in his native State, and one of its champions in the nation. The effort has been conscientiously made to set right, before a busy people, one whose repugnance to denying newspaper rumors and calumnies, and whose hatred of personal explanations, have allowed the world to remain in ignorance of his true character.

He is known chiefly as a public rather than as a pro-

XIV PREFACE.

fessional man, and yet the last seven years of his life, during which he was engaged in the practice of law in the city of New York, have given him a reputation as a jurist and an advocate second to none in his day.

The opinions of many competent persons are quoted to show that the author does not overestimate the professional ability and standing of Mr. Conkling.

In fact, one who would have a just idea of modern American eloquence must study the speeches and arguments of Roscoe Conkling; and it is believed that public educators may find in the chapter on "Oratory" some useful material for their pupils.

These pages will set forth his democratic spirit as well as his sympathy for the poor and the oppressed — especially for the negro race. He was bitterly opposed to slavery, and in his first term in Congress he denounced it in scathing language. Many letters and incidents of his life will furnish ample proof of his hatred of "man's inhumanity to man."

It has been the purpose of the writer to present an impartial life of one of the ablest orators and statesmen that the republic has ever produced; Roscoe Conkling has therefore been called, as it were, to the witness-stand of public opinion, and required to testify for himself. To this end, free use has been made of his speeches, arguments and letters, from the Presidential campaign of 1852 down to a day immediately preceding his fatal illness.

His speeches are too long and too numerous to print in a general biography. Accordingly, extracts only from the celebrated speeches will be given; and in some cases it is preferable to omit rather than to mutilate them.

PREFACE. XV

It is in contemplation to publish a second volume of his best speeches, and it is believed that such a book will serve as a manual, not only of eloquence, but of recent American history.

A complete list of the names of persons who have kindly aided the author would fill a printed page, and he takes this opportunity to record his grateful sense of obligation to the gentlemen who have thus contributed to the value of this memoir.

He must not, however, fail to express his thanks to Hamilton Fish, Clarence A. Seward, Alonzo B. Cornell, Samuel Wilkeson, Theodore W. Dwight, Isaac H. Bailey, of New York; Francis Kernan, Daniel Batchelor, Theodore Pomeroy, William H. Watson, Charles M. Dennison, William H. Comstock, David C. Stoddard, William Blaikie, Addison C. Miller, William J. Bacon, of Utica; D. E. Wager, of Rome; Montgomery H. Throop, of Albany; James Parton, of Massachusetts; U. H. Painter, Samuel Shellabarger, George C. Gorham, of Washington; and James P. Boyd, of Philadelphia.

Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling.

Part Kirst.

1635-1829.

CHAPTER I.

GENEALOGY.

JOHN CONKLING was probably the first of J a family which, for the greater part of the nineteenth century, has been conspicuous in American politics, statesmanship and jurisprudence. He lived in Nottinghamshire, England. The records of Saint Peter's parish church in this county show that John Conklin^ married Elizabeth Allseabrook, January 24, 1625. They had two sons, John and Ananias.

There is a tradition in the Long Island branch of the family that that branch came from Maidstone, in Kent. In the summer of 1886 the author visited Maidstone for the purpose of verifying

* So spelled in the original records.

this impression ; but in searching back to the year 1560, he found no trace of the Conkling family in the County of Kent.

Leaving England with his family about the year 1635, John Conkling landed at Boston, and settled at Salem, Massachusetts. He and his sons engaged in the manufacture of glass, and in the early land-grants they are described as "glassemen." Their establishment is said by some historians of American industries to have been the first one of the sort in this country.

The earliest records of the Conkling family in the United States are to be found at Salem; and the following notes are taken from the original book of grants"^' of this place.

\^From the Original Book of Grants of Salefn.'\ (i) 25th day of the fourth moneth, 1638.

"Its ordered that Ananias Conclane and Willm Osborne shall have an acre apiece for house lotts.

(2) 25th day of the 12th moneth, 1638.

" Granted to Edmond Marshall 3 acres nere the 10 acre lott of Ananias Concline." [The latter was made a freeman in the same year. — A. R. C]

(3) The 19th day of the 6th moneth, 1639.

" At a genall towne meeting granted to Ananias Concklyn one acre nere unto his dwelling house."

(4) A genall towne meeting the nth day of the loth moneth,

* It will be observed that the family name is written in five different ways, for the scriveners of the period had no standard for spelling. The reasonable presumption is that there was but one stock of Conklings in America.

GENEALOG Y. 3

" Granted one acre more to Ananias Conclyn, and 2 acres a piece to the other tooe viz., Laurence Southwick & Obadiah Holmes, each of them 2 acres to be added to theire former lotts." [In the Glasse-house field. — A. R. C]

(5) The 25th day of the first moneth, 1641.

" Granted to Ananias Conclyn a yard conteyning 20 pole."

(6) At a genall towne meeting the 27th of the 12th moneth 1642.

" Its promised by the towne that the 8 that hath ben — n

left by the court by the request of the towne to Ananias Conclyne and other poore people, shall be repayed the court at the next Indian corne harvest."

(7) At a meeting of the 7 men the 30th day of the 3rd moneth, 1649.

" Granted unto John Conclyne, Ananias Conclyne and Thomas Scudder to each of them 4 acres to be laid out in the medow aforesaid."

The descendants of John ConkUng have become numerous in the State of New York and have spread as far west as Ilhnois.

They had large famiUes, and the name^' is now quite common throughout Long Island.

At present there are Conklings in eastern Massachusetts, at Philadelphia, at Cincinnati, at Cleveland, at Detroit, and in the cities of Chicago and Springfield, Illinois. The biographer is not aware that any of these families are related to Roscoe Conkling, although it has been said that the ex-Senator had near kinsmen at Springfield.

* In the counties of Queens and Suffolk it is now usually spelled Conklin, without the " g."

On or about the year 1649 John ConkUng and his two sons moved to Suffolk County, New York, Ananias settHng at Easthampton, John at Southold. Roscoe ConkUng is descended from Ananias. John ConkHng's birth and death are thus recorded on his tombstone :

" Here lyeth the body of Captain John Conkelyne, born in Nottinghamshire in Englande, who departed this hfe the sixth day of April at Southold on Long Island, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. Anno Domini, 1694."

Ananias Conkling had two sons, Jeremiah and Benjamin. The former married Mary, daughter of Lion Gardner, of Say brook. Jeremiah Conkling, John Mulford and Thomas Ames bought, December i, 1670, the tract of land between Fort Pond and Great Pond called " the nine score acre purchase." Jeremiah died March 14, 171 2. His wife died June 15, 1726, at the age of eighty-nine. Jeremiah Conkling left two sons, David and Lewis. The latter was born in 1672. He settled in Amagansett about the year 1700, and about 1739 married Mary Stratton. He died October 2, 1 746, leaving two sons, Sineus and Isaac, and four daughters. His wife, Mary, died November 15, 1752, aged seventy -six. Sineus Conkling was born September 6, 1718, married Clement Ayers about 1745, and died in 1810. He had two sons,

GENEALOG V. 5

Isaac and Benjamin. The latter was the grandfather of Roscoe Conkling.

Benjamin was born in 1757. He became a farmer and taught himself Latin. He married Esther Hand and died m 1832. Benjamin Conkling had five children, viz : Sineus, Alfred, Nathaniel, Betsey and Phoebe. The first named married Miss Bowditch and died in 1880. Nathaniel died young. Betsey married Eleazer Conkling and Phoebe married a Dr. Sherman. Thus much for the uncles and aunts of Roscoe Conkling.

Alfred Conkling was born in an ancient frame house at Amagansett, two and a half miles from Easthampton, October 12, 1789. His uncle Isaac had lonof lived in the same mansion. Alfred attended the district school, and then prepared himself for college by studying with the village parson.

In his younger days he was fond of mischief. On one occasion he and a companion took shotguns, and, disguised as highwaymen, stopped a stage-coach and frightened the passengers. Thereafter when the village schoolmaster wished to censure a boy he would often say, " You are as bad as Alfred Conkling and Charley Jones."

The former entered Union College in 1806 and was graduated in 1810. Thus far the family had been engaged in agricultural and commerical pursuits. Alfred Conkling was the first to gain distinction in professional and public life. He married Eliza Cockburn, May 5, 181 2. His wife was eighteen months his junior, having been born March 22, 1791.

She was the daughter of James Cockburn, who was by profession a civil engineer and a relative of the late Lord Chief-Justice Cockburn of England. James Cockburn left Scotland early in the eighteenth century and went to the Bermudas. Thence he came to New York, and for many years he lived in the central part of the State. He married Margaret, daughter of Colonel Hendrick Prey, a feudal lord in the valley of the Mohawk. Their daughter Eliza was a noted beauty of the time and was called the " belle of the Mohawk Valley." She was a graceful dancer, and an heiress for those days, having a fortune of several thousand dollars. At the time of his marriage, Alfred Conkling was a law student in the office of Daniel Cady, of Johnstown, one of the leading advocates of the Empire State. Here the young couple resided for a year. They then removed to Canajoharie, in Montgomery County, where they lived for twelve years. They had three daughters and four sons. The names of the latter were Frederick, Aurelian and Roscoe. The third

GENE A LOG V.

son was called Roscoe, but he died before the birth of the subject of this biography.

Alfred Conkling practiced law at Canajoharie until the year 1818. He was then, at the age of twenty-nine, elected District-Attorney of Montgomery County. On one occasion when, at a trial for murder, he was summing up, the prisoner, being a mason, made the sign of distress. District- Attorney Conkling was so enraged at the mere thought of the masonic order being used to defeat the ends of justice that he at once resigned from his lodge. In 1820 Alfred Conkling was elected to the seventeenth Congress, and in 1825 he was appointed United States District Judge for the northern district of New York. He held the latter position for twenty-seven years.

Judge Conkling was the author of several works on the law, viz. : i. "The Young Citizen's Manual," 1836; 2. "Treatise on the Organization and Jurisdiction of the Supreme, Circuit and District Courts of the United States," 1842 ; 3. "Jurisdiction, Law and Practice in Admiralty and Maritime Causes," 1848 ; and 4. " Powers of the Executive Department of the United States," 1866. He also delivered many addresses before literary and collegiate societies. He had a keen, strong, highly cultivated intellect, an extraordinary charm of conversation, great power of labor, a courtly manner, and a dignity that honored and guarded the high official trusts committed to his keeping.

He moved in 1829 to Albany, where Roscoe,* the subject of this memoir, was born October 30, 1829. He was never baptized, but his mother called him Roscoe, after the celebrated author of that name, whose works she was then reading.

It is not generally known that Roscoe Conkling was born at Albany. For many years Judge Conkling's frame house at Amagansett, Suffolk County, New York, was commonly, although erroneously, pointed out to travelers as " Roscoe Conkling's birthplace." As recently as the summer of 1885 this house was thus described and shown to the author.

* Roscoe Conkling the first was born January 13, 1828, and died July i, in the same year.

I829-I850.

Chapter II. The Boyhood Of Roscoe Conkling

"D OSCOE lived for nine years at Albany. His eldest brother, Frederick, was then a salesman in the wholesale dry-goods business at New York. The three sisters and the other brother resided at home.

Judge Conkling's district extended to Buffalo, and as the means of transportation were then primitive, he spent much time in traveling. During his quarter of a century on the bench he tried many admiralty and patent causes, as well as suits in bankruptcy. The bankrupt law was passed during "his term, and the duties growing out of it proved very laborious to the Judge.

In the summer of 1839 Judge Conkling decided to change his residence from Albany to Auburn. When the family was about to move Roscoe met with a severe accident. He was kicked in the face by a horse, his jawbone being broken. When the wound was dressed the boy was told to remain in bed, but he disobeyed the orders of both father lO LIFE AND LETTERS OF ROSCOE CONK LING.

and surgeon, and diverted himself by making and flying a kite on the afternoon of the day of the accident ! When the physician permitted Roscoe to be moved, Judge Conkling, with his family, left Albany for Auburn on one of the common freight and passenger canal-boats. The trip lasted several days, and the discomforts of travel would be appalling to those who now roll in a Wagner car from the State capital to Auburn in six hours !

In the stern of the canal-boat was a small apartment which served as saloon and stateroom; at night a cloth curtain was hung in the middle to divide the sexes. There was then no newsboy at hand with his attractive comic and illustrated papers. In the absence of awnings, the tourists sat on deck and took sun-baths. When "Lowbridge ! " was called, the ladies went below and the men "flattened" so as to avoid bumping their heads against the timbers; for there was not enough space for a chair on deck when the boat passed under a bridge. On Sunday the party reached Port Byron, which is seven miles from Auburn. Roscoe's trip on " Clinton's big ditch " made him a life-long friend of canals. It is worthy of remark that fifty years later, when a bill to appropriate $1,000,000 was pending in the Legislature, a letter from Mr. Conkling was read wherein he advocated the pres-

HE A TTENDS SCHOOL AT NEW YORK. 1 1

ervation and improvement of the canals of New

York.

It was at the suggestion of WilUam H. Seward that Judge ConkUng moved his family to Auburn. He Uved at ''Melrose." the name of his new residence, until about the year 1864. Roscoe was a romping boy and very fond of horses and dogs. His father gave him a white Canadian pony, which was the pride of his youthful days. His love of horseflesh clung to him, for in after years he once rode 500 miles in the far West. When a boy he had no taste for books and the work of the schoolroom was a hardship to him.

He remained at Melrose till 184-2, when he went to the city of New York to enter the Mount Washington Collegiate Institute, of which Professor George W. Clarke was the principal. It will be remembered that Mr. Clarke afterward became a member of Assembly from the city of New York, and at the Republican State Convention of 1872 at Utica he nominated General John A. Dix for Governor. In leaving his son Roscoe with Professor Clarke, Judge Conkling said : " I have heard of you, and I want to put this lad of thirteen under your care. He is utterly untutored, but he must be trained to studious habits. Please start him on the road to college." Young Roscoe studied for an academic year at this institution.

It was during his residence in the metropoHs that young ConkUng received his first lessons in oratory. The eldest brother was then thirty years of age, and had acquired some reputation as a campaign speaker. They took lessons together from an English professor named Harvey, who had heard such masters of eloquence as Daniel O'Connell, Sir Robert Peel, and other political orators in the British Isles. They often delivered speeches to each other for the sake of practice, and used constantly a text-book, long since out of print, entitled " The Art of Speaking," published in London about the year 1787. In this volume were found not only the usual extracts from standard writers of prose and poetry, but also a thorough treatise on the art of expression, including all forms of facial action, as well as of gesture. In 1843 young Conkling entered the Auburn Academy, where he remained for three years.

Judge Conkling being a man of high standing in professional and social life, his house was visited by many learned and eminent men. In this atmosphere of law and politics Roscoe grew up, and having a very retentive memory, these early associations made him what might be called a boy of the world. Some of his father's visitors were Chancellor James Kent, ex-Presidents Van Buren and John Quincy Adams, ex-Governor Enos T.

HE ENTERS THE A UB URN A CA DEM Y. 1 3

Throop, Mr. Justice Smith Thompson, of the United States Supreme Court, and Thurlow Weed.

He had inherited from his father an aptitude for pohtics, a genius for debate, a love of Hterature and a strong taste and fitness for the law. The Judee devoted as much time as he could snatch from his official duties to teaching his youngest son. His informal lessons, however, did not include oratory ; for, unlike his gifted son, the father was deficient in the qualities and graces of an orator.

A schoolmate of young Conkling, who is now one of the most distinguished citizens of New York, thus speaks of his boyhood:

Roscoe was large of his age, very athletic, vigorous in his movements, and easily superior to all others in the games and sports of childhood. He was noted then for the accuracy and copiousness of his diction. He was quick of learning, but had too much of a strong, physical, buoyant nature to make himself particularly observant of rules whose enforcement was supposed to be necessary to acquisition. He jumped the rules in every way a high-strung, boisterous boy could, but was never absent from recitation, never indifferent to the lessons, and was always up in class.

He was gifted then, as ever since, with a wonderful memory, not only for what he heard and read, but for localities, facts and faces. What cost others a great effort in this respect seemed to be an intuition with him. He was as large and massive in his mind as 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 his due. There was no antagonism to him or jealousy of him in this recognition of his

14 LIFE AND LETTERS OF ROSCOE CONR'LING.

superiority, either in his class or on the playground. He was as loyal and chivalrous then as he was in after life; and to be his friend was tantamount to having a protector whom no one dared to disturb. His affluent strength and consciousness of his own ability made him easily a recognized leader, and the position was accorded without envy, friction or complaint. No classmate ever felt that his leadership was an act of usurpation, or in any sense domineering. Though only fifteen years old at this time, he had a great store of memorized poetry and adages on hand, which he quoted freely in his school speeches and playground conversations. This wonderful faculty grew with him, and no public man was ever better equipped with prose and poetical quotations illustrative of his thoughts and arguments.

Young Conkling's education was academic only. His impatience to begin the battle of life was such that he declined to enter upon a collegiate course of study.

The reader will remember that in the fall of 1842 Judge Conkling, in placing his son at Professor Clarke's school, said, " Please start him on the road to college." The Judge being a graduate of Union College, it is probable that Roscoe would have entered this institution had he wished for a collegiate education.

In the year 1846 he removed to Utica and entered the law offices of Spencer & Kernan as a student. Joshua A. Spencer was then one of the leading lawyers of the country. He had just successfully defended McLeod, under indictment for murder, and he had thus won fresh laurels in an international case which threatened to in-

HE BEGINS THE STUD Y OF LAW. 1 5

volve the United States In a war with England. Francis Kernan had been his partner since 1840.

Mr. Spencer was kind to the students in the office, but he was often absent from home, and too busy in the preparation of his cases specially to instruct any of the young men. He, however, gave to young Conkling during his four years' term of study in the office many valuable hints, which were not forgotten. In August, 1879, while speaking to a friend concerning the importance of pressing a case to trial at the right time, the writer heard Mr. Conkling remark, " Spencer used to say, ' Beat them when you can.' "

The young man studied the characters of his preceptors, and while he made neither his model, he learned lessons from each. He admired Mr. Spencer's magnificent manner of accomplishing results, and emulated Mr. Kernan's application and exactness.

Both Spencer and Conkling belonged to the Whig party, and the following anecdote shows that the former was, perhaps, responsible for the dibut of the latter as a campaign speaker. One day a countryman came to the great advocate and said : " Mr. Spencer, we want a man to speak at a Whig meeting out in our village. Send us some one who can assert himself, for there's a big bully among the Democrats who breaks up our meetings." The reply was, " I shall send Mr. Conkling ; I think he will make himself heard."

During the terrible famine in Ireland of 1847, Roscoe Conkling was but eighteen years of age, and yet his deep sympathy for the sufferers beyond the sea enlisted him in their cause. He spoke at various places in Central New York in behalf of the starving multitudes of the Emerald Isle.

When Roscoe Conkling became a resident of Utica, he soon entered the " society " of the city. Surrounded by a score of strong families, he improved his opportunities for social culture and refinement.

Mr. Conkling spent his evenings to a great extent in the study of the best English literature, with which he became quite familiar and in which he took much delight. Of foreign languages he was ignorant, and so he remained till the day of his death.

During the autumn of 1848 young Conkling spoke in behalf of the Whig candidates (Taylor and Fillmore) in a public hall at Rome. On this occasion the Hon. B. J. Beach (who was then the Whig member of Assembly from that district) presided, and at the close of his remarks con-.

AN INTERESTING ANECDOTE. I 7

gratulated the speaker '' for the marked abiUty of his effort."

Referring- to his abhorrence of slavery, a distinguished citizen of Utica, Mr. Theodore Pomeroy, has recently related the following anecdote :

When Mr. Conkling was a law student at Utica, on a certain occasion he happened to meet at the writer's residence a gentleman who since has occupied an important professorship in one of our oldest and most noted colleges. This gentleman being a Southerner by birth, and then imbued with Southern sentiments on the subject of slavery, in a conversation with Mr. Conkling entered upon an argumentative discussion in behalf of slavery in the Southern States. Young Conkling at once engaged in the discussion with characteristic point and power, arguing against the pretensions and claims of the South on this vital question, which, less than fifteen years thereafter, plunged the country into the horrors of civil war. The position assumed by Mr. Conkling in that early discussion in favor of freedom and human rights was maintained by him with such an exhibition of intellectual skill and power, that the gentleman asked the writer, " Who is that young man I have so long been conversing with ? " On being informed that he was a law student, Roscoe Conkling by name, he replied, '' We will hear from him hereafter." The writer well remembers the impression that discussion of nearly forty years ago made upon the two or three persons that heard it, listening with no little surprise to the keen and decisive arguments with which he easily met and overpowered his skillful antagonist. But at that time we little imagined this brilliant young student was destined to become the most able and powerful of national leaders in advocating the claims of freedom and humanity, to result in the final overthrow of the gigantic wrong contemplated by making human slavery the corner-stone of the Republic.