The Hayes-Conkling Controversy, 1877-1879

What it is

This is a historical study published in July 1919 as Volume IV, Number 4 of the Smith College Studies in History. Its author, Venila Lovina Shores, wrote about the conflict between President Rutherford B. Hayes and Senator Roscoe Conkling during the years 1877 to 1879. The editors of the series were John Spencer Bassett and Sidney Bradshaw Fay. The copy in this archive is a scan of the printed study.

Why it matters

The study covers a dispute over patronage, meaning the power to hand out government jobs. Hayes wanted to reform how federal appointments were made, while Conkling, a powerful New York senator, resisted. The quarrel shows how party leaders and presidents competed for control of government in the late nineteenth century. A study written more than forty years later gives a historian's view of these events rather than the view of the people who lived through them.

Look closer

• Whose side does the author seem to take, and what evidence would you check to decide?
• Which sources did the author rely on, and which voices might be missing from them?
• Why might a conflict over government jobs matter to ordinary citizens?