Politics & Power Quote by Roscoe Conkling

Conkling’s sentence is politics as stagecraft: a bow to “instructions” that flatters party machinery while quietly advertising that he, too, is a man of “firm conviction.” The opening clause performs obedience to the delegation and, more importantly, to the unwritten rules of the convention hall. He’s signaling he is disciplined enough to serve the machine, even as he claims the moral posture of someone who is not merely carrying water.

The subtext is a careful balancing act inside late-19th-century Republican factional warfare, when nominations were less about public primaries than about backroom leverage, patronage, and bloc votes. “I should never dare to disregard” isn’t humility so much as an assertion of legitimacy: the New York delegation speaks with authority, and Conkling is its polished instrument. He’s reminding everyone that New York is a power center that must be courted, not scolded.

Then comes the turn from loyalty to inevitability. “Grandly win” is boosterism with a purpose: it frames the nominee not as a compromise hammered out by anxious insiders but as a national destiny. Conkling is selling electability as virtue, smuggling factional interest under the banner of country and party. The phrase “in behalf of the State of New York” is also a subtle threat: ignore our choice and you risk our machinery, our money, our turnout.

It works because it fuses coercion and uplift. Conkling makes the nomination sound like duty, ambition, and patriotism all at once, the classic convention alchemy that turns raw power into a public mandate.