Roscoe Conkling

Roscoe Conkling was an American lawyer and Republican politician who represented New York in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. He was a leader of the Republican Stalwart faction and a dominant figure in the United States Senate during the 1870s. As senator, his control of patronage at the New York Customs House, one of the busiest commercial ports in the world, made him very powerful. His comity with President Ulysses S. Grant and conflict with Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield were defining features of American politics of the 1870s and 1880s. He also participated, as a member of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, in the drafting of the landmark Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.