is paper, and the exhaustion of his
physical powers had broken him. The announcement of his death,
however, although the public got an early intimation of the cruel work
which his troubles were making upon a frame that once seemed to be of
iron, came with the shock of sudden calamity. The whole country
recognised that in the field of his real conquests the most remarkable
man in American history had fallen, and it buried him with the
appreciation that attends a conqueror. At the funeral President Grant,
Vice-President Colfax, and the Vice-President-elect, Henry Wilson,
rode in the same carriage.[1420]

[Footnote 1418: He died November 29, 1872.]

[Footnote 1419: "In the darkest hour my suffering wife left me, none
too soon for she had suffered too deeply and too long. I laid her in
the ground with hard dry eyes. Well, I am used up. I cannot see before
me. I have slept little for weeks and my eyes are still hard to close,
while they soon open again." Letter to his friend, Mason W. Tappan of
New Hampshire.--Hollister's _Life of Colfax_, p. 387, note.]

[Footnote 1420: New York _Tribune_, December 5, 1872.]

CHAPTER XXIV

TILDEN DESTROYS HIS OPPONENTS

1873-4

The Legislature which convened January 6, 1873, re-elected Roscoe
Conkling to the United States Senate. There was no delay and no
opposition. Cornell was in the watch-tower as speaker of the Assembly
and other lieutenants kept guard in the lobbies.[1421] The Republican
caucus nominated on the 8th and the election occurred on the
21st.[1422] A few months later (November 8) the President, in
complimentary and generous terms, offered Conkling the place made
vacant by the death of Chief Justice Chase (May 7). His industry and
legal training admirably fitted him for the position, but for reasons
not specified he declined the distinguished preferment just as he had
refused in December, 1870, the offer of a law partnership with an
annual compensation of fifty thousand dollars. Probably the suggestion
that he become a presidential candidate influenced his decision,
especially as the President favoured his succession.[1423]

[Footnote 1421: Cornell resigned as surveyor of the port and was
elected to the Assembly.]

[Footnote 1422: The Democrats voted for Charles Wheaton of Dutchess,
distinguished locally as a county judge.]

[Footnote 1423: Alfred R. Conkling, _Life of Conkling_, p. 451.]

At this time Conkling, then forty-four years old, may be said to