President Cleveland had selected Melville W.
Fuller of Illinois for the office of chief justice of the Supreme Court.
According to Senator Cullom, Senator Edmunds "was very much out of humor with the President because he had fully expected that Judge Phelps, of his own State, was to receive the honor....

The result was that Senator Edmunds held the nomination, without any action, in the Judiciary Committee for some three months." Senator Cullom, although a party associate of Edmunds, was pleased that the President had selected an Illinois jurist and he was determined that, if he could help it, Edmunds should not have the New Hampshire candidate appointed.

He therefore appealed to the committee to do something about the nomination, either one way or the other.

The committee finally reported the nomination to the Senate without recommendation.

When the matter came up in executive session, "Senator Edmunds at once took the floor and attacked Judge Fuller most viciously as having sympathized with the rebellion." But Cullom was primed to meet that argument.