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Senate Years of Service: 1867-1881 Party: Republican
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Library of Congress |
CONKLING, Roscoe, (son of Alfred Conkling and brother of Frederick Augustus Conkling),
a Representative and a Senator from New York; born in Albany, N.Y.,
October 30, 1829; moved with his parents to Auburn, N.Y., in 1839; completed an
academic course; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1850 and commenced
practice in Utica, N.Y.; district attorney for Oneida County in 1850; mayor of
Utica 1858; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh
Congresses (March 4, 1859-March 3, 1863); chairman, Committee on District of
Columbia (Thirty-seventh Congress); unsuccessful candidate in 1862 for
reelection; elected to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses and served from
March 4, 1865, until he resigned to become Senator, effective March 4, 1867;
elected in 1867 as a Republican to the United States Senate; reelected in 1873
and again in 1879 and served from March 4, 1867, until May 16, 1881, when he
resigned as a protest against the federal appointments made in New York State;
was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the United States Senate to
fill the vacancy caused by his own resignation; chairman, Committee on Revision
of the Laws of the United States (Fortieth through Forty-third Congresses),
Committee on Commerce (Forty-fourth, Forty-fifth, and Forty-seventh
Congresses), Committee on Engrossed Bills (Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh
Congresses); resumed the practice of law in New York City; declined to accept a
nomination to the United States Supreme Court in 1882; died in New York City,
on April 18, 1888; interment in Forest Hill Cemetery, Utica, N.Y.
Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography;
The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law; Chidsey,
Donald B.
The Gentleman from New York: A Life of Roscoe Conkling. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1935; Jordan, David M. Roscoe Conkling:
Voice in the Senate. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971.
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