Nothing could be more preposterous
or insolent than the demand of a Senator from any State that
a President just elected, who had received the support of
the people of that State, should ostracize his own supporters.
It would have been infamous for Garfield to yield to the demand.
I ought, in saying that there was no man of high integrity
and great ability among the leaders of the Republican Party
who retained Conkling's friendship, to have excepted Hamilton
Fish. He was a man of great wisdom, who understood well the
importance to the Republican Party of avoiding a breach with
the powerful Senator from New York. But Conkling was jealous
of all the other able men in the Republican Party in his own
State. He could--
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.
The spirits of good and evil politics have striven with one
another in New York from the beginning of her history as
Jacob and Esau strove together in the womb. In general the
former has prevailed in western New York and along the lakes.
In the city of New York sometimes one has carried the day,
and sometimes the other.
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