Mr. Conkling was one of the greatest men our country had ever produced.  He was a man of much influence and great power.  He was not only an intellectual giant, but he was a man of commanding presence and attractive personality.  As an orator he had few equals and no superiors.  As in the case of Senator Sumner he spoke and voted as a Senator not merely for his State, but for his country; not for any particular section or locality, but for the United States.  He was too great a man, and his services were too important and valuable for his country to be deprived of them merely on account of a misunderstanding between the President and himself about Federal patronage in New York.  He and his colleague should have retained their seats in the Senate and trusted to the judgment of their fellow-citizens for a vindication of their course and action in that as in other matters.  They not only made a mistake in resigning their seats in the Senate, but consummated it when they went before the Legislature of their State, which was then in session, and asked for a vindication through the medium of reelection.  This was subjecting their friends to a test to which they were not willing to submit.  Their friends, both in the Legislature and out of it, were loyal to them, and this loyalty would have been demonstrated at the proper time and in the right way had the two Senators remained in a position which would have enabled their adherents to do so without serious injury to the party organization.  But when these men were asked, as the price of their loyalty, to place the party organization in the State in open opposition to the National Administration for no other reason than a misunderstanding about Federal patronage in the city of New York, they did not think that the controversy was worth the price; hence the request was denied.  The result was the defeat of Conkling and Platt, and the election of two Administration Republicans, Warner Miller and E.G.  Lapham.

This foolhardy act of Conkling’s had the unfortunate effect of eliminating him from public life, at least so far as an active participation in public affairs was concerned.  But this was not true of Mr. Platt.  He was determined to come to the front again, and in this he was successful.  At the very next National Convention (1884) he turned up as one of the Blaine delegates from New York, and was one of the speakers that seconded Mr. Blaine’s nomination.  That was something Mr. Conkling never could have been induced to do.  He was proud, haughty and dictatorial.  He would never forget a friend, nor forgive an enemy.  To his friends he was loyal and true.  To his enemies he was bitter and unrelenting.  For his friends he could not do too much.  From his enemies he would ask no quarter and would give none.  More than one man of national reputation has been made to feel his power, and suffer the consequences resulting from his ill-will and displeasure.  But for the unfriendliness of Mr. Conkling, Mr. Blaine no doubt