ay to him. It was understood
that Conkling was coming to protest against the appointment of
Blaine as Secretary of State. My advice was to let Mr. Conkling
understand that he would appoint whomsoever he pleased as members
of his cabinet; that he would run the office of President without
fear or favor; and that he would appoint Mr. Blaine as Secretary
of State because he considered him the very man best qualified for
that high office. Garfield agreed with me, asserting that I had
expressed exactly what he intended saying to Conkling; but if we
are believe the stories of Senator Conkling's friends, he made far
different promises to Senator Conkling in reference to this as also
to other appointments.

But the culmination of the trouble between Garfield and Conkling
was the appointment of Robertson as Collector of Customs at the
Port of New York. The President took the ground, for his own
reasons, that the Collector of Customs of New York was a National
office, in which every State had an interest, and was not to be
considered as Senatorial patronage. Conkling strenuously contended
that it was exclusively Senatorial patronage, and in this he was
sustained by precedents.

It so happened that I was in Washington when the trouble between
Conkling and Garfield was at its height, over the appointment of
Robertson. I called to see the President to pay my respects. He
asked me if I knew what General Logan would do in reference to the
nomination of Mr. Robertson. I told him I did not know, and he
asked me if I could find out, and to come to breakfast with him
next morning. I did find out that General Logan expected to stand
by the President, and I so reported to him next morning.

I bade him good-bye and this was the last time that I ever saw him
alive. I attended his funeral at Cleveland, and as I saw his body
laid away, I thought of the strange caprice of fate. Was it
premonition that made him so sad and castdown--so utterly crushed,
as it seemed to me--when he became the Republican candidate for
President before that great convention of 1880? Had he not been
elected President, he would probably have enjoyed a long, useful,
and highly creditable public career. He would have been one of
the most distinguished representatives that Ohio ever had in the
upper branch of Congress. He was to the most eminent degree fitted
for a legislator. In the national halls of Congress his public
life had been spent; there he was