1881 United States Senate special elections in New York March 4. On May 16, 1881, both U.S. Senators from New York resigned in protest against the distribution of federal patronage in New York by President James A. Garfield, a Half-Breed, without being consulted. The confrontation between the Stalwart and the Half-Breed (in the press now usually referred to as the "Administration men") factions of the Republican Party arose when the leader of the New Yorker Half-Breeds, President pro tempore of the State Senate William H. Robertson, was appointed Collector of the Port of New York, the highest paying federal office in New York. Conkling preferred that Collector Edwin Merritt
SS Coptic (1881) SS Coptic (1881) SS "Coptic" was a steamship built in 1881, which was successively owned by the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and the Japanese Oriental Steam Ship Co. ("Toyo Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha") before being scrapped in 1926. She was filmed by Thomas Edison in 1897 in one of his early movies. The movie is currently stored in The Library of Congress, archive.org and other internet archives. A sister ship to , "Coptic" was built at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, for service with the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company's White Star Line. Launched