Leadership Quote by Roscoe Conkling

The line is a velvet-gloved shiv aimed less at Ulysses S. Grant than at the party machinery that pretends to “discover” leaders while busily inventing them. Conkling, a hard-edged Republican operator and master of convention combat, frames Grant as the rare candidate who doesn’t need the usual industrial apparatus of persuasion: no “bureaus,” no “committees,” no “officials or emissaries” to “manufacture sentiment.” That verb matters. It implies most enthusiasm is synthetic, produced by backroom professionals the way a factory turns out bolts or ballots. Grant, by contrast, is cast as pre-political, a man whose legitimacy arrives without the grease of intrigue.

The subtext is strategic. Conkling is trying to make unity feel organic and dissent feel illegitimate. “Supporters have never threatened to bolt” isn’t just praise; it’s a warning shot to factions flirting with walkouts and third tickets. If you’re considering leverage, Conkling reframes it as disloyalty. The sentence turns party discipline into a moral quality, then pins that quality to Grant.

Context sharpens the edge: Conkling was the Stalwart kingpin, defending patronage and party cohesion during the post-Civil War scramble over Reconstruction’s legacy and the spoils system. Grant functioned as both symbol and shield - war hero credibility that could quiet reformers, rival bosses, and weary voters. Conkling’s rhetoric sells Grant as effortless consensus while quietly doing the very work he denies exists: manufacturing sentiment by insisting it doesn’t need manufacturing.