The rhetoric of Roscoe Conkling

As many of you know, I am fascinated by the language of Gilded Age politics. Few if any politicians of the era used it more effectively or powerfully than Roscoe Conkling, the imperious senator from New York and “boss” of the state’s mighty Republican organization.

Conkling’s standard posture at the lectern or on the Senate floor was attack. Over the years he poured out his scorn on James G. Blaine, Andrew Johnson, Charles Sumner, and Rutherford B. Hayes, among others. He took particular delight in flailing civil service reformers and the Liberal Republicans who bolted from the party in 1872 to back Horace Greeley’s doomed bid for the White House.

In a speech at the Cooper Union on July 23, 1872, he dismissed the critics of President Ulysses S. Grant thusly: “Every thief and cormorant and drone who has been put out – every baffled mouser for place or plunder – every man with a grievance or a grudge – all who have something to make by a change, seem to wag an unbridled tongue or to drive a fouled pen.”

Everything about that line – its language (“cormorant,” “drone,” and my favorite, “baffled mouser”), and its alliteration (“grievance or a grudge” and, Joe Duffus reminds me, “place or plunder”) — combine to pack a powerful punch. Conkling ranked as the master of rhetorical belligerency in an age known for its rough and tumble politics. This is a good example of why.