Roscoe Conkling (1829-1888) represented the most unabashed sort of American political partisanship in the 1860s and 1870s. A leader of the "Stalwart" faction of the Republican party, he became a symbol of spoilsmanship in politics.

Roscoe Conkling was born on Oct. 30, 1829, in Albany, N.Y. He attended Mount Washington Collegiate Institute, read law, and became district attorney of Albany. He moved to Utica, where in 1858 he was Whig party mayor. He sat in the House of Representatives from 1859 to 1863 and 1865 to 1867. A staunch supporter of Thaddeus Stevens and the Radical Republicans, Conkling once defended the dying Stevens from physical attack and sat on the "Committee of 15," which drafted the Radical program of reconstruction.

In 1867 Conkling seized effective control of the New York State Republican organization and got himself elected to the Senate. A devoted follower of Ulysses S. Grant, Conkling was at home only in the rough-and-tumble world...