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Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast.

I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in the history of the world.

These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Vigelin,

Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark, and so many other famous and not so famous adventures from

throughout history. Go to Explorerspodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app. That's

the Explorers Podcast. I'm He was a statesman, one whose place in our political system was akin to one of those tremendous

phenomena we read about in the tropics, and a pendant curl at his forehead.

Now, I'd love to be able to say that we are talking about Chet Arthur here in this account, but no, this account is of Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, the person that Arthur is probably most associated with political boss, Senator Stallwart.

We call Roscoe Conkling a stalwart like the papers would have at the time, and that word probably gets a bad rap stalwart.

It sounds like the political machines like evil people preserving jobs, being

corrupt and celebrating it and there are elements of that that are true. But like everything in history,

I have to examine it a little bit more. To some degree, if we like jobs by merit instead of by party affiliation, we should consider that.

Because while it meant that he could be considered a boss and he was on a party,

love it or leave it type guy, especially because he was controlling the party,

he was also what that word means.

A stalwart.

Loyal to Thurlow Weed during the Whig Days and his New York political machine,

loyal to Seward, loyal to the cause of the Civil War,

when Seward was removed from possibility of being Republican president and Abraham Lincoln was the choice,

loyal to Lincoln and defended him as president, but also

loyal to the prerogatives of the Congress and Stallward in his stance against Andrew

...