ol. 2, p.
530.

A writer in the _North American Review_ says, "the clamour for offices
is already quite extraordinary, and these poor people undoubtedly
belong to the horde which has pressed in here seeking places under the
new Administration, which neither has nor can hope to have places
enough to satisfy one-twentieth the number." November, 1879, p. 488.]

In this bewildering mass of humanity New York had its share. Seward
sought protection behind his son, Frederick W. Seward, whom the
President had appointed assistant secretary of state. "I have placed
him where he must meet the whole army of friends seeking office," he
wrote his wife on March 8--"an hundred taking tickets when only one
can draw a prize."[727] Roscoe Conkling, then beginning his second
term in Congress, needed no barrier of this kind. "Early in the year
1861," says his biographer, "a triumvirate of Republicans assumed to
designate candidates for the offices which President Lincoln was about
to fill in the Oneida district. To accomplish this end they went to
Washington and called upon their representative, handing him a list of
candidates to endorse for appointment. Mr. Conkling read it carefully,
and, seeing that it contained undesirable names, he replied:
'Gentlemen, when I need your assistance in making the appointments in
our district, I shall let you know.' This retort, regarded by some of
his friends as indiscreet, was the seed that years afterward ripened
into an unfortunate division of the Republican party."[728]

[Footnote 727: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 518.]

[Footnote 728: A.R. Conkling, _Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling_,
pp. 119, 120.]

If Seward was more tactful than Conkling in the dispensation of
patronage, he was not less vigilant and tenacious. Almost immediately
after inauguration it became apparent that differences relative to
local appointments existed between him and Ira Harris, the newly
elected New York senator. Harris' tall and powerful form,
distinguished by a broad and benevolent face, was not more marked than
the reputation that preceded him as a profound and fearless judge. At
the Albany bar he had been the associate of Marcus T. Reynolds, Samuel
Stevens, Nicholas Hill, and the venerable Daniel Cady, and if he did
not possess the wit of Reynolds or the eloquence of Cady, the
indomitable energy of Stevens and the mental vigour of Nicholas Hill
were his, making conspicuous his achievements in th