plained, embraced such as were favourably
reported by a committee or accepted by the Republican senators of the
State from which the nominee hailed. In other words, the caucus action
practically notified the President that no nomination would be
confirmed that did not please a senator, if a Republican. To exclude
Robertson under such a rule it was only necessary that the New York
senators object to his confirmation. Immediately the press of the
country teemed with protests. The Constitution, it declared, imposed a
moral obligation upon senators to confirm a nomination which was not
personally unfit or improper, or which did not imperil the public
interest, and it was puerile for a majority to agree in advance to
refuse to consider any nomination to which any member, for any reason
whatever, saw fit to object. Such a rule substantially transferred the
Executive power to one branch of Congress, making the President the
agent of the Senate. It was "senatorial courtesy" run mad.

[Footnote 1755: "If any Democratic senator is thinking only of New York
politics, and of the mere party relations of the pending question of
Presidential nominations, the Democrats of New York must frankly tell
him that nothing but injury to the Democracy of New York has come or
can come of coalitions with Senator Conkling. The past is eloquent on
the subject. Whether set on foot by Mr. Tilden in 1873, or by Mr.
Kelly at a later date, Democratic coalitions with Mr. Conkling have
benefited only the Republicans. Mr. Tilden finally came to grief
through them, and so did Mr. Kelly; and, what is more important, so
did the Democratic party.... It is high time that the false lights
which Senator Conkling displayed to certain Democratic senators, and
with the help of whom the nominations of President Hayes were
thwarted, should be understood. The chequered career of Senator
Conkling should compel cautious people to inquire carefully into the
evidence for any declaration which may be made by him as to President
Garfield and his undertaking."--New York _World_, April 1, 1881.]

As the days passed senators exhibited, under pressure from the country
as well as from the White House, a growing desire to have the matter
settled, and as a final effort in the interest of harmony the
Committee of Safety itself called upon the President, proposing that
he withdraw Robertson's name and have the others confirmed. To this
Garfield emphatically declined to accede. A few