CONKLING, Roscoe, (son of Alfred Conkling, brother of Frederick Augustus Conkling), A Representative and a Senator from New York; born in Albany, N.Y., October 30, 1829; moved with his parents to Auburn, N.Y., in 1839; completed an academic course; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1850 and commenced practice in Utica, N.Y.; district attorney for Oneida County in 1850; mayor of Utica 1858; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1859-March 3, 1863); chairman, Committee on District of Columbia (Thirty-seventh Congress); unsuccessful candidate in 1862 for reelection; elected to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses and served from March 4, 1865, until he resigned to become Senator, effective March 4, 1867; elected in 1867 as a Republican to the United States Senate; reelected in 1873 and again in 1879 and served from March 4, 1867, until May 16, 1881, when he resigned as a protest against the federal appointments made in New York State; was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by his own resignation; chairman, Committee on Revision of the Laws of the United States (Fortieth through Forty-third Congresses), Committee on Commerce (Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, and Forty-seventh Congresses), Committee on Engrossed Bills (Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Congresses); resumed the practice of law in New York City; nominated and confirmed as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in March 1882 but declined to serve; died in New York City, on April 18, 1888; interment in Forest Hill Cemetery, Utica, N.Y.
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
[ Top ]Burlingame, Sara Lee. "The Making of a Spoilsman: The Life and Career of Roscoe Conkling from 1829 to 1873." Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1974.
Chidsey, Donald Barr. The Gentleman from New York: A Life of Roscoe Conkling. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935.
Conkling, Alfred Ronald. The Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling, Orator, Statesman, Advocate. New York: C.L. Webster & Co., 1889.
Fry, James Barnet. The Conkling and Blaine-Fry Controversy in 1866. New York: Press of A.G. Sherwood & Co., 1893.
Hollenbach, James Barry. "The Political Speaking of Roscoe Conkling of New York." Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio University, 1973.
Jordan, David M. Roscoe Conkling of New York: Voice in the Senate. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971.
McClain, Charles J. "From the Huntington Papers: The Huntington-Conkling Connection." Pacific Historian 29 (Winter 1985): 31-46.
