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.