t THE JOURNALIST, REFORMER AKD PHILANTHROPIST. THE LIFE HOEACE GrEEELEY; WITH GRAPHIC NOTICES OF IMPORTANT HISTORICAL EVENT8; POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, AND EMINENT JOURNAL- ISTS, POLITICIANS AND STATESMEN OF His TIMES. BY L. D. INGERSOLL, ESQ. ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER ENGRAVINGS. PHILADELPHIA: JOHN E. POTTER AND COMPANY, 617 SANSOM S TRUST. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by JOHN E. POTTER AND COMPANY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. SOON after the death of HORACE GREELEY, I was advised to write a biography of him. I had occupied much time for many years in studies preparatory to the composition of a historical work upon American politics, and was already familiar with most of the events of Mr. Greeley's life. I felt some hesitancy in undertaking such a task, believing that others more capable would write more acceptably. But some of my friends urged the matter so earnestly that I finally yielded to the arguments which were advanced in behalf of a biography of the Great Editor. The result is herewith submitted to the public. I have not written so much for scholars and men of letters as for the people, of whom HORACE GREELEY was one. He was never at ease in polite society ; or, it might with more exactness, perhaps, be stated, polite society never was at ease with him. He was ever making himself vulnerabta to criticisms of eti- quette. In delineating his life I shall, perhaps, be guilty of a like offense. I do not say this, to deprecate criticism, but only to ask a candid examination of the object with which the volume has been written. My design has been to so construct the work that it would present a connected series of portraits of Mr. Greeley, in his multiform manifestations of character and genius, rather than a strictly chronological account of his life, whereby the unity of time would be preserved in the penalty of a succession of broken pictures. * I have also endeavored to present him as he was ; not a single character in a monologue, PREFACE. but surrounded by friends and encompassed by opponents ; he and they fulfilling their destinies together and, in friendship or in antagonism, controlling events and making history. Mr. Greeley, though a man of the people, was a reformer, a politician, a statesman, a leader. He was noted as a philan- thropist, a lecturer, a public speaker, a journalist, an author. In one way or another, he impressed his influence upon most of his countrymen, and upon much of his country's wisest legis- lation. Of a man so remarkably one of themselves, the people will naturally desire to learn as much as they can, as soon as they can. If I have in this work presented them with the true outlines of a life of beautiful simplicity, of real grandeur, of vast influence in behalf of the elevation and happiness of all men ; and have also shown how he was helped by those with whom he labored, and how many of his desired reforms were retarded by those who opposed, if I have succeeded in truly picturing forth the life of a good, a great and an honest man, though not a perfect character, my labors will not have been in vain. THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. HORACE GREELEY'S BIRTH ANCESTRY BOYHOOD. Birth of Horace Greeley Ancestry; Father, Grandfather, Great-grand- father His Mother, Mary Woodburn Her Energy, Stories, Good Nature The Woodburn Family Of the Scotch-Irish Race The Puritans Fond of Fun Birth-place Learns to Read Books Upside Down First School Days A Prodigy at Spelling Hard Work on the Farm Old Fashioned New Hampshire Hospitality The Greeley Family sold out of House and Home 17 CHAPTEE II. APPRENTICESHIP. Removal of the Ruined Family to Vermont Poverty of the Manly American Sort Vermont Schools Horace Keeps a Sort of Night School An Omnivorous Reader " Clearing " Timber Lands Flea Knoll The Ague A Respected Poor Family Review of Farmer- Boy Life Horace chooses the Printer's Trade Apprenticeship at Poultney in the Northern Spectator Office Dramatic Account of the Contract Family Remove to Western Pennsylvania A Sad Part- ing Horace as a Printer An Authority in Politics and General Knowledge Anecdotes An Excellent " Checker " Player His Uncouth Toilet Takes Down a "Swell" Sends His Earnings Home Journeys to Pennsylvania First Essays in Writing A Fugitive Slave-Chase Fiftieth Anniversary of Independence Learn- ing a Trade Better than a College Education 81 CHAPTEE III. A JOURNEYMAN PRINTER. Departure from Poultney Visits his Father Works as a Journeyman at Jamestown and Lodi, New York Chopping Wood Again Em- ployed on the Erie (Pennsylvania) Gazette Offered a Partnership; CONTENTS. Declines Returns To His Father's In Vain Tries to Procure "Work in the West Resolves to Go to New- York Divides his Earnings with his Father The Journey to New -York Arrival There with a Cash Capital of Ten Dollars Diligent Search for Work Sets up a " Lean " New Testament Chicken-pox Proof Varied Experience as a Journeyman in the Great City Steady Progress Visits New England Business on his own Account 51 CHAPTEE IY. SOCIAL MORALS FAITH POLITICS. Horace Greeley a Born Reformer A New England Pioneer of Tern- perance Opposition to the Use of Tobacco His Religious Faith His Own Statement as to How He Became a Universulist A Very Young Politician Discussion of the Slavery Question in 181&-20 An Anti-Slavery Boy The "Era of Good Feeling" Era of Per- sonal-Preference Parties Election of John Quincy Adams to the Presidency The " Anti - Mason " Excitement Jackson Elected President in 1828 Defeat of Henry Clay in 1832 Horace Greeley Goes into Business for Himself. 62 CHAPTER V. BUSINESS VENTURES IN NEW -YORK. Partnership with Francis V. Story A Bank Note Reporter and The Morning Post Failure of the Penny Daily Dr. Shepard Mr Schols Weathering the Storm Partner Drowned in East River Mr. Jonas Winchester, next Partner The New-Yorker The City Political Contest of 1834 Prints and Partially Edits a Campaign Paper A "Grahamite" Boarding -House Marriage Clay, Cal- houn, Crittenden Severe Struggle with the Hard Times of 1837 The New-Yorker Continued, though burdened by Debts Finally It Goes Up in .Flame and Smoke 76 CHAPTER YI. CHIEFLY OF THE "LOG -CABIN" CAMPAIGN. The Presidential Election of 1836 "Old Hickory " Greeley's Opinion of Martin Van Buren Thurlow Weed Calls en Mr. Greeley The Latter Induced to Take Charge of a " Campaign" Paper at Albany The Jefferson ian A Model Political "Organ" The Graves and Cilley Duel Success of the Whigs in New York State William H. Seward Elected Governor The Remarkable Presidential Campaign of 1840 The Harrisburgh Conveption Nomination of General Har- rison" Tippecanoe and Tyler Too " Log-Cabins and Hard Cider OOHTENTS. Mr. Greeley Edits The Log -Cabin Newspaper Its Character Pro- digious Success The Nation Aroused Notices of Some of the Most Noted Orators Triumph The Death of President Harrison Mr. Greeley Determines to Establish a Daily Journal in New- York 85 CHAPTER. VII. FOUNDER OF THE NEW -YORK TRIBUNE. Resum6 of Public Journalism up to the Time of the New- York Tribune The Partisan Press "Organs" Noted Party Editors: Isaac Hill, Thomas Ritchie, Edwin Croswell, Duff Green, Andrew Jackson, Amos Kendall, Francis P. Blair, John C. Rives; "The Kitchen Cabinet " The National Intelligencer Gales and Seaton Charles Hammond; George D. Prentice New -York Journalism Goes to the Front The Six -Penny Journals William C. Bryant, James Watson Webb, and Other Journalists of the Old Regime The Cheap Press The New- York Sun The Herald and James Gordon Bennett The Herald Originally a Journal Without Principle A Newspaper Vacuum Thereby Caused Horace Greeley Establishes The Tribune, Price One Cent Its Early History Mr. Thomas McElrath Character of The Tribune Devoted to the Welfare of the People Welcomes All New Ideas Success 103 CHAPTER VIII. THE TRIBUNE HISTORY EDITORS AND CORRESPONDENTS. Early Successes of The Tribune Contest with The Sun Henry J. Ray- mond, First Assistant Editor Establishment of The Weekly Tribune Its Remarkable Success The Era of Newspaper Expresses Foreign News and Correspondence Distinguished Correspondents, at this Time and Afterwards, of The Tribune Bayard Taylor ; Margaret Fuller; Thomas Hughes; Emilio Castelar; *M. D. Conway; G. W. Smalley ; Kane O'Donnell Notable Associate Editors of The Tribune Charles A. Dana; George Ripley; Solon Robinson; William H. Fry; George M. Snow ; and Others Hearty Accord of All with Mr. Gree- ley's General Views A Journal Earnestly Devoted to the Welfare of the People The Feniniore Cooper Libel Suits -- ..119 CHAPTER IX. SOCIALISM AND OTHER "ISMS." Mr. Greeley's Socialism His Mature Views as Set Forth by Tlimself The Famous Discussion With Mr. Raymond The Effect of Mr Grecley's Supposed Opinions Upon New -York Journalism Estab- lishment of The Times " Grahamism " Spiritualism J'enny Lind CONTENTS. Attends "the Rappings" at Mr. Greeley's House Summing up of His "Isms." 146 CHAPTEK X. FINAL DEFEAT OF HENRY CLAY. The Presidential Campaign of 1844 Henry Clay the Whig Candidate for President Other Candidates "The Clay Tribune" Mr. Greeley's Labours with Tongue and Voice George D. Prentice of the Louisville Journal An Animated Campaign Defeat Mr. Greeley Greatly Dis- satisfied with the Result His Opinion of Henry Clay." 160 CHAPTEK XI. CONTINUATION OF TRIBUNE HISTORY. The Tribune and Literature Inaugurates A New Era of Criticism Ed- gar A. Poe A High-Priced Autograph The Tribune Brings Out the Transcendentalists Margaret Fuller; Her Contributions to the Trib- une Mr. Greeley's Tribute to Her Genius Notices of American Female Journalists Charles Dickens Mr. Greeley's Early Recogni- tion of his Genius His First Visit to America Washington Irving's "Break Down" at the Dickens Dinner Mr. Dickens's Second Visit Mr. Greeley Presides at the New- York Dinner A Notable Gathering Mr. Greeley's Great Services to Literature Contributions of Tribune Writers to Permanent Literature 168 CHAPTEK XII. ERA OF THE MEXICAN WAR GEN. TAYLOR, PRESIDENT. The Tribune from 1844 to 1848 Its Era of Irrepressible Conflicts Rapid Review of its Battles* Moves on to Anti-Slavery Its Hostility to the War with Mexico Enthusiastic Sympathy with Popular Movements in Europe " Slieve-gammon " Tribune Office Burned Mr. Gree- ley Visits the West The Presidential Campaign of 1848 Mr. Gree- ley Dissatisfied with the Nomination of General Taylor Declines to Support the Ticket Speech at Vauxhall Garden Nominated for Congress Taylor and Clay 188 CHAPTEK XIII. A MEMBER OF CONGRESS. Elected to Congress for " a Short Term " His Opinion of the Chaplaincy Land Reform The Famous Congressional Mileage Expose Ani- mated Debates Tilt with "Long John" Wentworth on the Tariff CONTENTS. Question A Lively Debate on Congressional Books Speech on Re- cruiting in the Army Speeches on the California and New Mexico Bills The Last Night of the Session "War Between the North and South Begun " Some of His Distinguished Fellow-Members : Messrs. Winthrop; Lincoln; Collamer; Giddings; Schenck; Horace Mann; Andrew Johnson; Ashmun; Wentworth; Cobb; R. W. Thompson; Jacob Thompson ; George W. Jones, of Tennessee ; Stephens ; Toombs ; Botts; John S. Pendleton; and others Address To his Constituents Congress Then and Now 205 CHAPTER XIY. VISITS EUROPE. Crossing the Atlantic The Great Exhibition at London A Juror Sight-seeing Mr. Greeley's Opinion of London His Opinion of tha English and American Press Visits Paris Views of Parisian Morals and Social Life Predicts the Stability of the Republic Journey to Lyons Palaces and Potatoes Proceeds to Italy Sardinia Rome St. Peter's and the Coliseum The People Journey to Venice Switzerland Germany Belgium Paris Again Returns to London Glances at Scotland and Ireland Opinion of the English People Home 231 CHAPTER XV. ON THE PLATFORM REVISITS EUROPE. Mr. Greeley On the Platform His First Lecture : "Human Life" His Style of Public Speaking Publishes a Volume of Lectures and Es- says, Entitled " Hints Towards Reforms " Declines to Address a Literary Society Characteristic Letter A Letter Misinterpreted Does Not "Fail to Connect" Agricultural Addresses The Indiana Agricultural Fair of 1853 Mr. Greeley's Address The Night Ride on a Hand-car Revisits Europe Several Weeks of Leisure Two Days in a French Prison His Amusing Account of His Incarceration Switzerland and the Glaciers A Presentiment Return to America. 260 CHAPTEE XVI. CAMPAIGN OF 1852 THE WHIG PARTY EXIT. The Dawn of a New Political Era The Political Canvass of 1852 The Nominations Mr. Greeley Mildly Supports General Scott, and "Spits Upon the Platform " -^ His Individual Platform A Lively Campaign Terminating in Utter Rout 285 CONTENTS. CHAPTEE XVII. MR. GREELEY AND THE NEW POLITICAL ERA. Review of Mr. Greeley's Past Political Life Of tlie Parties of the Times The Day of Small Things The Compromise Measures of 1850 Mr. Greeley's Opinion of Them Renewed Agitation of the Slavery Question The Political Influence of Mrs. Stowe's Novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin " Of the Public Press Mr. Greeley Departs on the New Departure 290 CHAPTER XVIII. 1854 TO 1860. Mr. Greeley in the Political Contests of the Time The Renewal of Slavery Agitation The Kansas-Nebraska Struggle Messrs. Sumner, Chase, Wade, Seward, Fessenden The Know-Nothing Party Mr. Greeley opposes it "The Banks Congress" Mr. Greeley Assaulted General Banks Organization of the Republican Party The Fre- mont-Buchanan Campaign Defeat of the Republicans The Kansas War "Lecompton" Senator Douglas Defends Popular Sovereignty Senator David C. Broderick, of California Edward D. Baker The Lincoln-Douglas Debates The Tribune on the Side of Douglas Mr. Greeley Travels Overland to California Extracts from His Letters Buffaloes, Prairie-Dogs, and Indians Life at Denver in 1859 Brig- ham Young and Mormonism Honours in California Receptions and Addresses The Yosemite The Pacific Railroad Return John Brown 296 CHAPTER XIX. THE QUADRILATERAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860. The Division of Parties in 1860 Rupture of the Democratic National Convention at Charleston, South Carolina The Chicago Convention Popular Enthusiasm Mr. Greeley a Delegate from Oregon Sup- ports Edward Bates for President He Defeats Mr. Seward's Nomina- tion "Greeley at the Tremont, Weed at the Richmond House" Mr. Weed's Chagrin Eminent Men of the Convention: Thomas Corwin; David Wilmot; William M. Evarts; Joshua R. Gicldings; Carl Schurz; John A. Andrew; Cassius M. Clay; and others The Imbroglio Among New- York Politicians Mr. Raymond, from Auburn, Assails Mr. Greeley The Famous Letter Dissolving the Finn of "Seward, Weed and Greeley" Mr. Weed's Wisdom Two Democratic Tickets Nom- inatedThe "Bell-Everett" Ticket The Candidates The Cam- paign Success 337 COMTENTS, CHAPTER XX. HOME LIFE. Horace Greeley at Home An Unpretending Hou$ehold Margaret Ful- ler's Description of Mr. Greeley's Home His Personal Habits Toilet Food His Hospitality Tenderness for His Children The Death of "Pickie " His Taste as to Home Adornments Buys a Farm. 357 CHAPTER XXI. HORACE GREELEY, THE FARMER His Love of Rural Life But Not of Ox-Life His Wife's Judgment Principally Consulted as to The Farm Site Chappaqua A Descrip- tion of the Place The First Forest Home There Mr. Greeley's Mode of Improving the Place His Practical Farming The Later Home General Facts as to his Farmer-Life His Work Entitled " What I Know of Farming" The Subject of Innumerable Jests Their Effect Upon Him..... 372 CHAPTER XXII. THE WAR OF THE REBELLION BEGUN. The Election of Abraham Lincoln Made a Pretext for War Mr. Greeley's Opinion upon the Right of Secession He Demands a Vote of the South eru People, Expressing a Willingness to Abide by the Result A Reply to Mr. Thurlow Weed's Assertion that Mr, Greeley was a Secessionist A Candidate for United State Senator The Tribune During the Early Part of the War "On To Richmond!" Mr. Fitz Henry Warren's Washington Letters The Washington Extemporaneous Club of Critics The Defeat of Bull Run Its Cause Ml-. ^Greeley "Stampeded" Messrs. Dana and Warren Retire from The Tribune Secretary Stanton His Letter to Mr. Greeley Organizes Victory for the Union Arms The Policy of The Tribune. 387 CHAPTER XXIII, THE WAR OF THE REBELLION CONTINUES. Correspondence with President Lincoln The Mob of 1863 Mr. Lincoln Re-elected President General McClcllan the Opposing Candidate General Fremont and Montgomery Blair Withdraw Mr. Greeley's Peace Negotiations The Rebel Negotiations The Military Cam- paigns of 1864-65 under Grant and Sherman Victory The Death of President Lincoln Horace Gieeley's Opinion of Him as aWar Presi- CONTENTS. dent President Andrew Johnson Mr. Greeley Undertakes to Bring About a Reconciliation Between the President and Congress The President Impeached Failure 404 CHAPTEE XXIY. HORACE GREELEY AND JEFFERSON DAVIS. Jefferson Davis, Escaping from Richmond, Is Captured Confined at Fortress Monroe Impracticability of Trial Horace Greeley's Inter- view with Senator Wade, of Ohio, on the Subject of Bailing Mr. Davis Mr. Greeley is Dissuaded from the Project But at Length Finally Resolves to Go Upon the Bond Visits Richmond for that Purpose The Scene in the Court Room Mr. Greeley's Richmond Speech Effect of this Act of Magnanimity Upon the Public 427 CHAPTEE XXV. MORE HISTORY OF THE TRIBUNE. More of The Tribune's " Isms " Proudhon Endorses the Principle of the "Woman's Rights" Reform Advocates Labour Reform Asso- ciation Adopted in The Tribune Office An Era of Energetic Idium A Description of The Tribune Establishment How the Paper is Edited Mention of Tribune Writers The Composition Room Press Room Counting Room The "Weekly" Day Resum6 of Tribune History from Its Beginning 439 CHAPTEE XXVI. THE AUTHOR OF BOOKS. Mr. Greeley in Permanent Literature His Labours on Political Manuals Edits a Life of Henry Clay " Hints Towards Reforms " " Glances at Europe " " Overland Journey to California " " What I Know of Farming" "The American Conflict" A Work Upon Polit- ical Economy "Recollections of a Busy Life" Estimate of Mr. Greeley as an Author 487 CHAPTEE XXVII. 1868 TO 1872. The Presidential Campaign of 1868 Nomination of General Grant by the Republicans and of Horatio Seymour by the Democrats Mr. Greeley Supports General Grant The Canvass Success of the Republicans President Grant's First Cabinet He Secures the Wrath of Professional Politicians Mr. Greeley at First Sustains the Admin. CONTENTS. istration A Candidate for Congress Against S. S. Cox The " Revenue Reform " Movement The Formation of a New Party Undertaken The Ideas of Its Representative Men Mr. Greeley Not at First in the Movement 507 CHAPTEE XXVIII. A TOUR OF THE SOUTH. Mr. Greeley Visits Texas An Account of this Southern Tour He Emphatically Assails "the Carpet-Baggers" as a Class The Effect of the Tour Upon His Political Opinions 519 CHAPTEK XXIX. A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Organization of the Liberal Republican Party Preliminary Tactics Debates in the Senate , Eminent Republicans Join in the Movement The Cincinnati Convention Candidates for Nomination Mr. Gree- ley Successful The National Democratic Convention at Baltimore The Cincinnati Ticket Endorsed The Republican National Con- vention and its Candidates The Canvass Death of Mrs. Greeley Defeat At Work Again on The Tribune 530 CHAPTER XXX. LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND FUNERAL. Mr. Greeley Suddenly Prostrated by Alarming Illness The Public Interest in the State of His Ailment His Death from Disease of the Brain Circumstances Attending His Last Hours The Causes of His Death Manifold Work, the Criterion of Age His Funeral Attended by the President and Members of the Cabinet, the Vice- President and Many Eminent Men The Procession to the Grave A City in Mourning. , 557 CHAPTER XXXI. TO SUM THE WHOLE THE CLOSE OF ALL. Rcvie-wof the Private Life and Public Services of Mr. Greeley Estimate of His Genius His Character The Services He Rendered His Country and Mankind A Friend of the Labouring Man, One of the People, a Great, a Good, and an Honest Man, though Not a Perfect Character.. ..597 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. MM STEEL PORTRAIT OF HORACE GREELEY. Frontispiece. HORACE GREELEY'S BIRTHPLACE. 22 HORACE GREELEY'S FIRST SCHOOL 30 HORACE GREELEY'S ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK 50 THURLOW WEED 61 JAMES GORDON BENNETT 75 HENRY J. EAYMOND 84 FIRST MEETING OP HORACE GREELEY WITH THURLOW WEED 88 GRAND POLITICAL BARBECUE OF 1840 100 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 118 SARAH MARGARET FULLER 167 CHARLES A. DANA 204 WHITELAW KEID 289 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 295 GENERAL EDWARD D. BAKER 336 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 340 J. EUSSELL YOUNG 356 DR. CHARLES H. RAY 371 HORACE GREELEY'S LATE HOME AT CHAPPAQUA 372 THE CLUMP OF EVERGREENS 376 THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS 378 HORACE GREELEY IN HIS ORCHARD 384 MURAT HALSTEAD 386 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 388 EDWIN M. STANTON 400 SAMUEL BOWLES 403 THE TRIBUNE BUILDING, PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE, NEW YORK 438 HORACE GREELEY'S EDITORIAL ROOM 452 FACSIMILE OF HORACE GREELEY'S PENMANSHIP 480 JAMES GORDON BENNETT, JUN 486 M ANTON MARBLE 506 ALLEN G. THURMAN 529 JOHN W. FORNEY 547 THE BODY OF HORACE GREELEY LYING m STATE IN THE CITY HALL, NEW YORK 550 THE FUNERAL PROCESSION 564 DUST TO DUST 556 THE OnAPTEE I. HORACE GREELEY'S BIRTH ANCESTRY BOYHOOD. Birth of Horace Greeley Ancestry; Father, Grandfather, Great-grand, father His Mother, Mary Woodburn Her Energy, Stories, Good Nature The Woodburn Family Of the Scotch- Irish Race The Puritans Fond of Fun Birth - place Learns to Read Books Upside Down First School Days A Prodigy at Spelling Hard Work on the Farm Old Fashioned New Hampshire Hospitality The Greeley Family sold out of House and Home. HORACE GREELEY, who became the founder of the New- York Tribune, the most eminent journalist of his times, and one of the most useful and distinguished of men, was born February 3d, 1811, in the town (called township in many parts of the United States) of Amherst, Hillsborough county, New Hamp- shire. He was the third of seven children, of whom the two elder died before his birth. The father of Horace was Zaccheus Greeley, the mother Mary Woodburn, and they had been married about four years when the little stranger who was destined to become so cele- brated first opened his eyes to the light of day. Holy "Writ informs us, in a text that has perplexed many minds, that God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him ; which is but a forcible way of saying to a nation of rude men, more 18 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELET. easily persuaded through fear than otherwise, that like pro- duces like. It is, after all, but the enunciation of a law of nature believed to be universal. Notwithstanding certain modern hypotheses stated with wonderful ingenuity and subtle- ty, there has yet been no demonstration, or approach to it, that corn ever produced anything but corn, fruits anything but fruits, apes anything but apes, man anything but man. The good and ill qualities of races, families, individuals, descend from father to son no less certainly, though not always so pal- pably, as wheat springs from wheat. Horace Greeley had the advantage of an ancestry of industrious, frugal, honest, respect- able, Christian families, both on the side of his father and mother for several generations. Three brothers named Gree- ley (spelled nearly as many different ways as the name of Shakespeare) migrated to America from Nottingham, England, twenty years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. One of them settled in Maine, where there are many descendants; another in Rhode Island; the third, in Massa- chusetts, near the southern line of New Hampshire, into which State his descendants soon migrated. " The Greeleys of our clan," says Mr. Greeley, " while mainly farmers, are in part blacksmiths. Some of them have in this century engaged in trade, and are presumed to have acquired considerable property ; but these are not of the tribe of Zaccheus." 1 " My grandfather Greeley," he continues, " was a most ex- cellent, though never a thrifty, citizen. Kind, mild, easy-going, honest, and unambitious, he married young, and reared a family of thirteen, of whom he who died youngest was thirty years old; while a majority lived to be seventy, and three are yet living (1868), at least two of them having seen more than eighty summers. * * A devoted, consistent, life-long Chris- Kecollections of a Busy Life, p. 34. Mr. Parton, in his Life of Horace Greeley, speaks of " Old Captain Ezekial " Greeley in anything but com- plimentary terms, and makes him out as having been the great journalist's great-grandfather. Mr. Greeley himself expressly says, a few lines above the words just quoted from him, that his father, grandfather, and great- grandfather each bore the name of Zaccheus. He doubtless knew wfcrtcr Catechism " a rather tough digest of Calvinistic theology, which aroused my infantile wonder as to what a dreadful bore its longer counter- part must be was, within my experience, regularly administered to us youngsters once a week, as a portion of our common-school regimen ; and we were required to affirm that "God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life," &c., &c., as though it were next of kin to the proposition that two and two made four. If there was anywhere a community strictly, thoroughly Puritan, such was Londonderry down to at least 1800, as she mainly is to-day. And yet there was more humour, more play, more fun, more merriment, in that Puritan community, than can be found anywhere in this anxious, plodding age. All were measurably poor, yet seldom were any hungry; all wore coarse clothes, made in utter contempt of the fashions which, in the course of three or four years, had made their way from Paris to Boston ; yet lads and lasses were as comely in each other's eyes, though clad in coarse homespun, as if they had been arrayed in purple and fine linen, and redolent of lavender and patchouli; and they danced -with each other through long winter nights with a vigour and zest rarely evinced at Almack's or in Fifth Avenue mansions. Their weddings were far more numerously attended and more expensive than are the average in our day; for not to be invited was an affront, as it implied discredit or insignificance ; and all who were invited expected to eat and drink bounti- fully of the best that could be had. A general discharge of musketry throughout the neighborhood ushered in a wedding-day ; and the bride- groom's party, starting from his house, was met by the bride's at a point half-way to hers, when one of each party was chosen to "run for the bottle" to the bride's house; and whichever won the race returned with the prize to the wedding assembly; which, having drunk all around, proceeded, under a dropping fire of musketry, to their destination; wkere the ceremony having been duly performed drinking was resumed, and continued, with alternate feasting and dancing, often till broad daylight If the just renown which Horace Greeley achieved by his intellectual triumphs and his beneficent labours in behalf of the cause of man's moral, political, and social advancement has given new lustre to the name of the people among whom LEARNING TO READ. 23 lie was born and reared, it should be remembered that thence lie received and acquired the qualities which did very much to enable him to win the first position in the most influential calling, and to earn even in his lifetime the candid respect of all men whose respect is worth having. Horace Greeley was born in humble circumstances. IL's father, sometime after his marriage, had bought a farm of forty acres (afterwards increased to fifty), most of which was situated in the town of Amherst, but some of it in the adjoin- ing town of Bedford. It was on the old road from Amoskeag Falls (now the thriving city of Manchester) to the village of Amherst, and about five miles from the latter. To this farm the family had removed about three years before the birth of Horace. The house in which he was born was a modest, framed, unpainted structure of one story, and at the time quite new. "It was only modified in our time," he long afterwards says, "by filling up and making narrower the old- fashioned kitchen fireplace, which, having already devoured all the wood on the farm, yawned ravenously for more." The dwelling, which still remains, faces the road from the north on a narrow plateau, about two-thirds down a hill, which was mostly covered by an orchard of natural fruit. In front was a patch of garden and a small frog-pond. Mr. Greeley always thought that sweeter and more spicy apples grew in the neglected orchard of his birthplace than can be bought in market; and insisted that it was not a mere notion that most fruits attain their highest and best flavour at or near the cold- est latitude in which they can be grown at all. Horace was for some years a feeble, sickly child, even unable to watch through a closed window the falling of rain without incurring instant and violent illness. He became the companion and confident of his mother about as soon as he could talk, and the willing, interested listener to her store of ballad, story, anecdote, and tradition. He says: "I learned to read at her knee, of course longer ago than I can remem- ber; but I can faintly recollect her sitting spinning at her 'little wheel,' with the book in her lap, whence I was taking my daily lesson; and thus I soon acquired the facility of 24 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. reading from a book side wise or upside down as readily as in the usual fashion, a knack which I did not at first suppose peculiar; but which, being at length observed, became a sub- ject of neighbourhood wonder and fabulous exaggeration." Having so early learned to read in so singular a manner, Horace was sent to public school two months before he was three years of age. In order that so little a boy might attend school, he made his home for stated times with his grandfather Woodburn, the school-house of his district being but fifty rods from his house. Hence the precocious boy lived at his grandfather's, and went thence to school, most of each winter and some months in summer from the time he was three till he was six years of age. His first schoolmaster was David Woodburn Dickey, dis- tantly related to himself : a classical scholar, and an able, worthy man, but a severe governor of youth, and having prac- tical faith in the efficacy of birch and ferule. It appears clear that thus early in his life Horace Greeley manifested a strong antipathy to harsh punishments. His next teacher was Cyrus Winn, who rarely or never struck a blow, but governed by moral force and by appeals to the nobler impulses of his pupils. He was highly successful, and left at the close of his second term to the great regret of pupils and parents. His departure caused the first keen sorrow of Horace Greeley's life. He never saw his beloved teacher again, who was drowned during the following winter. The admirable start given Horace by his mother enabled him to make rapid progress in school. He was diligent, and quick to learn. He was especially clever in spelling, and very soon rose to the head of the first class, and retained that posi- tion almost constantly during the whole of his school-days. " It was a custom of the school," says Mr. Greeley, " to choose sides for a ' spelling-match ' one afternoon of each week, the head of the first class in spelling and the pupil standing next being the choosers. In my case, however, it was found neces- sary to change the rule, and confide the choice to those who Btood second and third respectively; as I a mere infant of four years could spell, but not choose, often preferring my 1II& FIRST 8C1IOOLHOUSE. 25 playmates who could not spell at all. These spelling-matches usually took place in the evening, when I could not keep my eyes open and should have been in bed. It was often neces- sary to rap me sharply when ' the word' came around to me; but I never failed to respond; and it came to be said that I spelled as well asleep as awake. I apprehend that this was more likely to be true of some others of the class, who, if ever so sound asleep, could scarcely have spelled worse than they did." 3 The present generation of school-boys, especially in our cities and towns, have little idea of school-day hardships fifty years ago. In nearly every Northern State, and now in many of the Southern States, one may find in every considerable town and city a public schoolhouse, often many, little less than palatial in size, built oftentimes at great expense, and with every consideration for the health and comfort of the pupils, and with all the " modern improvements " as to ventillation, water, heating apparatus, etc., which are found in the most celebrated hotels, with the exception, perhaps, of elevators. Upon these vast structures many millions of money have been expended, very much of which, undoubtedly, might have been more wisely laid out in more modest buildings of greater number and more attractive architecture. Horace Greeley was often carried through the snow to school by an affectionate aunt or the larger boys. When reached, the building was small, square, cheerless in situation, and comfortless within. The seats were rude benches, without backs, with the rudest possible apologies for desks along the sides of the room for those who might be engaged in writing or " cyphering." Such I I think there mast be those who have a genius for spelling, just as there are those who have a genius for poetry, eloquence, mechanics, etc. I knew a lad at school about as little and as young as Horace Greeley when he was the champion of the spelling-matches who, though he could not at first spell at all, and used to weep most mournfully over always being at the foot of the class suddenly went to the head, one day, and never afterwards missed a word. He "put down" the whole town at spelling-matches before he was five years old. He voted for Mr. Greeley for President, in 1872, and has been heard to say that he would not exchange that fact for all the offices in the United States. 26 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. was the building in which lie first attended school, arid ho never went to any which was much better. But he progressed rapidly in his studies, and soon became proficient in reading, arithmetic, and grammar, in addition to his unequalled proficiency as a speller, lie always wanted to be at the head of his class, and if 1 by some mishap he was " turned down," he would weep bitterly over his mistake. He acquired a knowledge of geography at an unusually early age, and had read the Bible through with his mother before he was five years old. He was a shy boy, caring little for boyish sports, and not often participating therein, spending his time in reading instead; but he was a universal favourite with his school -fellows, and generally regarded in the community as a prodigy. He was an omniverous reader, and while the other boys were engaged during the recesses at play, he would be seen lying prone on the grass, weather permitting, devouring some book that he had borrowed. He was observed to be occupied several times during the noon recess, utterly oblivious of dinner, and to return to school, when the teacher rapped with his ferule upon the window, perfectly unconscious that he had done nothing to satisfy his appetite. He was a boy Dominie Sampson harmless, studious, not fond of amuse- ments, brave, and absolutely wanting in the feeling of cruelty. It has been said of him that he would quietly receive the blow of a schoolmate, but would appear, as a declaimer, even when a small boy, before the whole school without embarrassment; but I doubt whether the New England boy lived who would have given a blow in anger to one BO innocent as " Hod " Greeley, as he was commonly called, was universally known to be. . "When the precocious boy got old enough to work, there was much work to do. Farming in New England has never been, sport. The year during which Horace Greeley first worked on the farm was the "cold summer" of 1816, when there was an inch of snow in June, no single month without a frost, the corn not filling till October. The first task of the boy of five years was to precede his father in the hoeing of corn, dig open the hills, .and kill the wire- worms and grubs that were infesting KIPING IIORSE TO PLOUGH. 27 the crop. lie then began to " ride horse to plough," the horse preceding and guiding the oxen. "Occasionally," he says, " the plough would strike a fast stone, and bring up the team all standing, pitching me over the horse's head, and landing me three to five feet in front. In the frosty autumn mornings, the working teams had to be ' baited ' on the rowen or after- math of thick, sweet grass beside the luxuriant corn; and I was called out at sunrise to watch and keep them out of the corn while the men ate their breakfast before yoking up and going afield. My bare feet imbibed a prejudice against that line of duty; but such premature rising induced sleepiness; so, if my feet had not ached, the oxen would have had a better chance for corn." 3 lie also did much in these early days in the work of burning charcoal a labour requiring great watch- fulness and frequent exposure. He says that after a week of coal-burning, one finds it hard to return to regular sleep, but will hastily wake every hour or so, and instinctively jump up " to see how the pit is going on." The lad did a great deal of disagreeable labour in removing stones from the fields of his father's rocky farm. " Pick as closely as you may," he says, " the next ploughing turns up a fresh eruption of boulders and pebbles, from the size of a hickory-nut to that of a tea-kettle; and as the work is mainly to be done in March or April, when the earth is saturated with ice-cold water, if not also whitened with falling snow, youngsters soon learn to regard it with detestation. I filially love the ' Granite State,' but could well excuse the absence of sundry subdivisions of her granite." Fifty years after his hard work, as a mere boy, in the cornfields, burning charcoal, and picking stones, Mr. Greeley recurs to the season of " hop-picking " as the rural carnival, the festive harvest-home of those old times ; answering to the vintage of southern France or Italy. During the fifth and sixth Bummers of Horace Greeley's life, he attended school irregularly, having to go about a mile from home. Often called out of bed at dawn to " ride horse to plough," he would be thus engaged until nine or ten o'clock Recollections, p. 38. 28 TJFE OF HORACE GREELET. in the morning, when lie would trudge off to school, some- times arriving when the morning's session was half through. In the winter there was less work, but the snows were deep, the cold intense, the north wind piercing. Nevertheless, the white-headed urchin, though thinly clad, somehow found his way to school promptly nearly every day during the winter terms, and continued to progress in his studies no less rapidly than when he was the youngest and smallest of the pupils. During the years 1818, 1819, the family lived on what was called the " Beard Farm," in the town of Bedford, but returned to the old homestead in the spring of the following year, which was one of intensely hard and constant labour to father, wife, and children so that neither Horace nor his brother could go to school and sadly ended with the utter bankruptcy of Zaccheus Greeley. The year closed with the termination of his living in the old Granite State and the total wreck of his small fortune. The particulars of this sad mishap we shall relate in the following chapter. Here it will be in order to make a brief r/*WT/i/ of Horace Greeley's life in his native State. We have seen that up to the time when he was about ten years of age, the boy Horace Greeley had done his fair share of hard labour, and had studied more, and far more success- fully, than is usual. When but five years old, he had read the Bible through in course, from Genesis to Revelations. At ten, he had mastered all the school books of the times. He had also read all the books he could borrow in the neighbourhood for miles around. The first book he ever owned was the " Columbian Orator," a volume consisting of selections of prose and poetry for recitation and declamation. Many school- boys of the West whose school daj's were years later than those of Horace Greeley, will well recollect the same book. It did not, in fact, pass out of use in some of the Western States until after Horace Greeley's name was well known throughout the country, and The New- York Tribune had become a power in the land. When he was seven or eight years old, he had committed to memory every selection in this book, but when A BORN DEMOCRAT. 29 he was less than three years old, and before he could speak plainly, he declaimed the verses beginning, " You 'cl scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage," so often that he became heartily sick of the lines, and never again became reconciled to them during his whole life. Very early in life he was also able to repeat from memory whole books of both the Old and the New Testament. It is related of him that in order that he might pursue his studies by night, he would gather large numbers of pine-knots, by the light of which in the fire-place, as he lay prone on the floor, he would read for hours until actually driven to bed, in fact utterly oblivious of what might be going on about him. After going to bed he would keep his brother awake for a good long hour with accounts of all the matters and things he had been reading about. The only sport, perhaps, in which he took any real delight during these early years in New Hampshire, was fishing, and in this he was more expert than any of the boys of the neigh- bourhood. And even fishing was rather work than sport to him. "When I go a-fishing," he used to say, "I go a-fishing, and not funning." He was almost always unusually success- ful, catching more fishes than all his companions together. The years Horace G-reeley lived in New Hampshire were passed in a community of democrats. In Amherst, Bedford, and Londonderry there was no caste of any kind in those days. Perhaps the most notable illustration of the difference between plain and "company" days, was that, on great occasions, guests expected to be treated to wheaten bread, whereas the usual staff of life was bread made of cornmeal or rye flour. The absence of all social distinctions is shown by the fact, related by Mr. Greeley years afterwards, that when for a single year his New Hampshire home echoed to the steps of a female "help," she always ate with the family, even when they had the neighbours as "company," and she had her party, and invited the girls of the neighbourhood to be her guests at tea, just as though she were a daughter of the house. The richest man SO LITE OF HORACE GREELEY. in the whole neighbourhood was not worth more than $3,000. Hospitality had become less bounteous, Mr. Greelej asserts, and kinship less prized, than in the days of the Scotch-Irieh pioneers; but there was still much visiting of relatives and social enjoyment, especially in winter, when hundreds returned to the old Londonderry hive from the younger swarms scat- tered all over the East; not a few from as far away as Western New York. Zaccheus Greeley's latch-string was always out; " and a free liver," his distinguished son remarks with char- acteristic drollery, "with twelve brothers and sisters, to say nothing of their partners by marriage and their children, is not apt to be persistently shunned." The father of Horace Greeley was as proud as he was poor, and as generous as he was proud. The social requirements of the times and neigh- bourhood, perfectly unexclusive, democratic as they were, surpassed his means to afford. And now debts began to press upon him with greater and greater burden; until, in 1820, he reached the zero point of personal finances and credit, and was forced to witness the sad spectacle of his wife and little ones being sold out of house and home that his lawful obliga- tions to pay might be satisfied, in the customary mode of sacrifice according to the forms of law. CHATTER II APPRENTICESHIP Removal of the Ruined Family to Vermont Poverty of the Manly American Sort Vermont Schools Horace Keeps a Sort of Night School An Omnivorous Reader "Clearing" Timber Lands Flea Knoll The Ague A Respected Poor Family Review of Farmer- Boy Life Horace chooses the Printer's Trade Apprenticeship at Poultney in the Northern Spectator Office Dramatic Account of the Contract Family Remove to Western Pennsylvania A Sad Part- ing Horace as a Printer An Authority in Politics and General Knowledge Anecdotes An Excellent "Checker" Player Hia Uncouth Toilet Takes Down a "Swell" Sends His Earnings Home Journeys to Pennsylvania First Essays in Writing A Fugitive-Slave Chase Fiftieth Anniversary of Independence Learn- ing a Trade Better than a College Education. THE family catastrophe referred to at the close of the last chapter was the result of a variety of causes. Zaccheus Gree- ley's two years tenancy of the "Beard Farm" was disastrous in more ways than one. He was not paid, as he expected to be, for the improvements he made on the farm. His health failed, and for nearly a year he was unable to work. His brother, who had taken his own farm, did not prosper. It was a period of "hard times," that is, a period when>almost all persons in community belong to the debtor class. lie had added to his own indebtedness by rash indorsements, so that he owed about $1,000, which all he had would not have paid at the prices then current. The sad story of the complete downfall of the humble household can never be better told than in the words of the Great Editor himself: We had finished our summer tillage and our haying, when a very heavy rain set in, near the end of August. I think its second day was a Satur- day; and still the rain poured till far into the night. Father was absent on business; but our mother gathered her little ones around her, and delighted us with stories and prospects of good things she purposed to do for ua in the better days she hoped to see. Father did not return 32 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. till after we children were fast asleep; and, when he did, it was with tidings that our ill fortune was about to culminate. I guess that he was scarcely surprised, though we young ones ruefully were, when, about sun- rise on Monday morning, the sheriff and sundry other officials, with two or three of our principal creditors, appeared, and first formally demand* ing payment of their claims proceeded to levy on farm, stock, imple- ments, household stuff, and nearly all our worldly possessions but the clothes we stood in. There had been no writ issued till then, of course, no trial, no judgment, but it was a word and a blow in those days, and the blow first, in the matter of debt-collecting by legal process. Father left the premises directly, apprehending arrest and imprisonment, and was invisible all day ; the rest of us repaired to a friendly neighbour's, and the work of levying went on in our absence. It were needless to add that all we had was swallowed up, and our debts not much lessened. Our farm, which had cost us $1,350, and which had been considerably improved in our hands, was appraised and set off to creditors at $500, out of which the legal costs were first deducted. A barn-full of rye, grown by us on another's land, whereof we owned an undivided half, was attached by a doctor, threshed out by his poorer customers by days' work on account, and sold ; the net result being an enlargement of our debt, the grain failing to meet all the cost. Thus, when night fell, we were as bankrupt a family as well could be. We returned to our devastated house ; and the rest of us stayed there while father took a journey on foot westward, in quest of a new home. He stopped in the township of Hampton, Washington County, N. Y., and worked there two or three months with a Colonel Parker French, who tilled a noble farm, and kept tavern on the main road from Troy into western Vermont. He returned to us in due time, and, on the 1st of Jan- uary, 1821, we all started in a hired two-horse sleigh, with the liltle worldly gear that was left us, for the township of Westhaven, Vermont, where father had hired, for $1G per annum, a small house, in which, after an intensely cold journey, we were installed three days later. 1 The family of Zaccheus Greeley had now made the acquain- tance of genuine poverty, "not beggary, nor dependence, but the manly American sort." The value of their whole property, including even the clothes they wore, did not exceed $200 ; and as that sum had afterwards to be paid on old New Hampshire debts, their material possessions when they reached their new home were correctly represented by 0, with a credit for their few worldly goods in possession. "Yet," says Mr. Greeley, in his Recollections of this period of his busy life, "we never needed nor ran into debt for anything; never were 1 Recollections of a Busy Life, 49-50. "THE RUDIMENTS OF LEARNING." 33 without meal, meat, and wood, and very rarely without money." The father went to chopping at fifty cents per day, and the children all attended school till spring, and this though there were no school-funds in those days, " and rate- bills for four children made quite a hole in a gross income of $3 per week." The schools are spoken of as at this time rather better than those of New Hampshire at least on account of the longer duration of the terms. On account of the nar- row range of studies, however, young Greeley was unable to make that considerable advance in knowledge which a more liberal curriculum would have provided for. And here, it may be said, in passing, is an argument in favour of a generous system of instruction in our public schools that they might well heed who insist that the state has done its whole duty in the premises when it has provided for all the means of acquiring " the rudiments of an English education," whatever they may be. Whilst many are acquiring those " rudiments," others and these the best and brightest of our youth are able to acquire the rudiments and much more besides. Why should these be kept hum-drumming the rudiments over and over again because of stupidity for which they are no wise responsible? Those who can only mark time have no right to keep in the ranks those who can march. It does not cost a penny more to the state to keep a boy at school during the school-going years who in that period can gain what is called "a good English education" and also no little knowledge of practical sciences, history, literature, than it does to keep a boy at school for the same period who will emerge at the end of it utterly befogged in the mists of vulgar fractions, and unable to " move on." There is neither reason nor economy in manacling bright heads to blockheads. Horace Greeley lived in Vermont with his father from January, 1821, up to the latter part of April, 1826, that is, from the time he was about ten years old until he was some- tiling over fifteen. This is, perhaps, the period of life when one's mind, as well as body, grows the most rapidly. It surely may be said to be the beginning of the period in which mental development is, on the average, the greatest. But so far as 3 34 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. the schools in this part of Vermont were concerned, there might about as well have been none for any substantial good they did Horace Greeley. Indeed, one of the teachers went to Zaccheus Greeley and frankly confessed Horace might well be his teacher, but he could not teach Horace anything. IIo had all the school books of the time by heart, being as familiar with every one as with the alphabet. Nevertheless, he con- tinued to attend during the winter terms, but doubtless received far more benefit as a teacher than as a pupil. For the boys of neighbours would come to him of nights and get him to clear away the dark places of grammar for them, and show them how to " work out " sums in the arithmetic. He had a remark- able faculty of clearly and forcibly illustrating the lessons in hand. He continued to be a great reader. When about eleven years of age, he read Shakespeare, and not long afterwards procured a volume of poems by Mrs. Hemans for whom he conceived the greatest admiration, which did not abate during his life. He had some time before read the Arabian Nights, and Robinson Crusoe. As in New Hampshire, so when living in Vermont, he scoured the neighbourhood for books; read a number of historical works, considerable English poetry, romances, and, in short, whatever in the shape of a book he could buy or borrow. Thus he educated himself; thus the process of becoming a self-made man went on rapidly and well, notwithstanding difficulties and trials before which an ordinary mind and a nature of less than sublime pluck, would have succumbed in utter despair. For these five years of farmer-boy life in Vermont were not only years of poverty of the manly American sort aforesaid but of hard labour. In New Hampshire, the Greeleys ranked as farmers ; in Vermont they were day- labourers. The cot rented by the father was on an extensive farm known as " the Minot Estate," and the first contract for work he made was one in which he engaged to " clear " fifty acres of white pine lands. The price agreed upon was seven dollars per acre, with the use of a team, and half of tho fuel and timber suitable for use. The work was rugged and A FARMER-BOY. 35 grimy, but healthful. It required two years except the winters to finish the job, and, when done, part of the three hundred and fifty dollars the cash price of the labour of father and two sons for two years was lost, on account of the bankruptcy of the owner of the land. At the end of this work, the family moved two miles westward, to a little farm known as Flea Knoll, where the father tended a saw mill, twelve hours on and twelve oft', in which he was assisted by a son younger than Horace, the latter appearing to have had a natural antipathy to log-rolling of any species. He cultivated Flea Knoll. But the first part of the season was wet, and the crops had to be planted in mortar. Then it became very hot and dry r so that the surface of the ground was baked into a tough crust, through which the plants could not penetrate without great assistance from the hoe. The results were very meagre. Next, the family took the fever and ague, and were glad to return at the end of a year to the Minot estate. Here they cultivated a small farm during the next two years, and also did some more work at " clearing." The crops of these two years were in the main a failure, the wheat being destroyed by the midge. Thus the Greeleys had again become farmers. The expe- rience in New Hampshire had not been without its value upon the father. By hard work, the most careful economy, he had been able during these five years in Yermont to improve some- what his circumstances, and to save a little money. It is not too much to say, perhaps, that no intelligent family in all the republic lived more humbly; not one with greater affection and happiness among its members. Their food was of the plainest, and served in almost primitive manner. Their clothing, in summer, was made of domestic "tow linen"; in winter, of home-spun, in w T hich there was some admixture of wool. Horace Greeley's toilet during these toilsome years consisted of a pair of pantaloons, a shirt, and a hat-, to which were added, for use in winter, a waistcoat, shoes and stockings. It was remarked that his pantaloons were always short in the legs, and inevitably shorter in one than the other. Going bare-footed all summer, from very early spring till very late 36 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. fall, in fact, it may well be concluded that lie imbibed a hearty detestation of the Canada thistles which did greatly abound in the country. The statement should not be omitted, that notwithstanding Zaccheus Greeley's poverty and life of constant labour, there was no household more popular in the neighbourhood than his. lie was himself generous, good- natured, not slow at story-telling. Ilia wife was ever joyful, abounding in song and love of her kind. Horace was a young philosopher, awkward in manner, unique in apparel, but droll in conversation, and ever ready to assist his schoolmates it their studies. No poor family ever received more company, and few rich ones ever had more genuine friends. During his life in Westhaven, Jlorace Greeley learned to take part in two kinds of sport snow-balling and bee-hunt- ing and became quite successful in either. It was observed, however, that the most of his share of the luscious contents of the bee-tree, was invariably carried to the store and sold. He also made some money for himself by grubbing up the roots of pitch-pine trees and selling them for kindlings. The funds thus procured he invested in books. He had now been a hard-working farmer-boy for ten years. Reviewing this portion of his life, he says: "During the whole period, though an eager and omniverous reader, I never saw a book that treated of agriculture and the natural sciences auxiliary thereto. I think I never saw even one copy of a periodical devoted mainly to fanning; and I doubt that we ever harvested one bounteous crop. A good field of rye, corn, or grass, or potatoes, we sometimes had; but we ha more half crops than whole ones; and a good yield of an^ one product was generally balanced by two or three poor ones. I know I had the stuff in me for an efficient and successful farmer; but such training as I received at home would never have brought it out. And the moral I would deduce from my experience is simply this : Our farmers' sons escape fron, their fathers' calling whenever they can, because it is made J mindless, monotonous drudgery, instead of an ennobling, liberalizing, intellectual pursuit. Could I have known in my youth what a business farming sometimes is, always may A SOKROWFUL WALK. 37 be, and yet generally shall be, I never would have sought nor chosen any other. In the farmer's calling, as I saw it fol- lower], there was neither scope for expanding faculties, incite- ment to constant growth in knowledge, nor a spur to generous ambition. To preserve existence was its ordinary impulse; to get rich, its exceptional and most exalted aim. So I turned from it in dissatisfaction, if not in disgust, and sought a different sphere and vocation." The vocation chosen was that of a printer, to which he had been inclined since early childhood. Visiting a blacksmith's shop once, when very young, he was asked if he would not like to be a blacksmith. " No," said he, " I'm going to be a printer." During the last summer that the family lived in New Hampshire, an offer was made by the leading men of the neighbourhood to send the boy to Phillips' Academy at Exeter, and thence to college, the expense being so defrayed that no part of it should fall on his parents. They listened thoughtfully to the proposal, consulted the party chiefly con- cerned, and then gratefully declined it; saying they would give their children the best education they could afford and there stop. The boy preferred to oe a printer, and to be indebted for his schooling to none but those of whom he had a right to ask and expect it. In the course of his " omnivor- ous reading," even when a child, he found nothing that gave him more delight, or, perhaps, more instruction, than the Farmer's Cabinet, a weekly journal published at the village of Amherst, and to which his father was a regular subscriber. In Yermont, he read with equal zest the Northern Spectator, published at East Poultney. Only a year after the family moved to Vermont, and when he was but eleven years old, he went with his father to the newspaper office at Whitehall, where an apprentice was wanted, and applied for the place, but had his application rejected on account of his youth. So he went home downcast and sorrowful. No other opportunity came under his observation until the spring of 1826, when he read an advertisement in the North- ern Spectator, mentioned above, stating that an apprentice was wanted in that office. So lie walked to East Poultney, 88 LEFE OF HORACE GREELET. twelve miles distant, to eee if lie could secure the situation. Mr. Parton, in his Life of Horace Greeley, 3 thus graphically describes the interviews leading to the contract of appren^ ticeship : It was a fine spring morning in the year 1826, about ten o'clock, when Mr. Amos Bliss, the manager, and one of the proprietors, of the Northern Spectator, "might have been seen" in the garden behind his house plant- ing potatoes. He heard the gate open behind him, and, without turning or looking round, became dimly conscious of the presence of a boy. But the boys of country villages go into whosesoever garden their wandering fancy impels them, and supposing this boy to be one of his own neighbours, Mr. Bliss continued his work and quickly forgot that he was not alone. In a few minutes, he heard a voice close behind him, a strange voice, high-pitched and whining. It said, " Are you the man that carries on the printing office ?" Mr. Bliss then turned, and resting upon his hoe, surveyed the person who had thus addressed him. He saw standing before him a boy apparently about fifteen years of age, of a light, tall, and slender form, dressed in the plain farmer's cloth of the time, his garments cut with an utter disregard of elegance and fit. His trowsers were exceedingly short and voluminous; he wore no stockings; his shoes were of the kind denominated "high-lows," and much worn down; his hat was of felt, " one of the old stamp, with sc small a brim, that it looked more like a two- quart measure inverted than anything else ;" and it was worn far back on his head; his hair was white, with a tinge of orange at its extremities, and it lay thinly upon a broad forehead and over a head " rocking on shoulders which seemed too slender to support the weight of a member so dispropor- tioned to the general outline." The general effect of the figure and its costume was so outrS, they presented such a combination of the rustic and ludicrous, and the apparition had come upon him so suddenly, that the amiable gardener could scarcely keep from laughing. He restrained himself, however, and replied, " Yes, I'm the man." Whereupon the stranger asked, " Don't you want a boy to learn the trade?" "Well," said Mr. Bliss, "we have been thinking of it. Do you want to learn to print ?" " I've had some notion of it," said the boy in true Yankee fashion, as though he had not been dreaming about it, and longing for it for years. Mr. Bliss was both astonished and puzzled astonished that such a fellow as the boy looked to be, should have ever thought of learning to print, and puzzled how to convey to him an idea of the absurdity of the notion. So, with an expression in his countenance, such as that of a tender-hearted dry-goods merchant might be supposed to assume if a hod- 1 Page 49, et teg., new edition. TALK WITH MR. AMOS BLISS. 39 carrier should apply for a place in the lace department, he said, "Well, my boy but, you know, it takes considerable learning to bo a printer. Have you been to school much V" " No," said the boy, " I haven't had much chance at school. I've read some." "What have you read?" asked Mr. Bliss. " Well, I've read some history, and some travels, and a little of most everything." " Where do you live ?" " At Westhaven." " How did you come over?" " I carne on foot." " What's your name ?" " Horace Greeley." Now it happened that Mr. Amos Bliss had been for the last three years an Inspector of Common Schools, and in fulfilling the duties of his office examining and licensing teachers he had acquired an uncom- mon facility in asking questions, and a fondness for that exercise which men generally entertain for any employment in which they suppose themselves to excel. The youth before him was in the language of medical students a "fresh subject," and the Inspector proceeded to try all his skill upon him, advancing from easy questions to hard ones, up to those knotty problems with which he had been wont to " stump ' candidates for the office of teacher. The boy was a match for him. He answered every question promptly, clearly, and modestly. He could not be " stumped " in the ordinary school studies, and of the books he had read he could give a correct and complete analysis. In Mr. Bliss's own account of the interview, he says, " On entering into conversation, and a partial examination of the qualifications of my new applicant, it required but little time to discover that he possessed a mind of no common order, and an acquired intelligence far beyond his years. He had had but little opportunity at the common school, but he said ' he had read some,' and what he had read he well understood and remembered. In addition to the ripe intelligence manifested in one so young, and whose instruction had been so limited, there was a single-mindedness, a truthfulness, and common sense in what he said, that at once commanded my regard." After half an hour's conversation with the boy, Mr. Bliss intimated that he thought he would do, and told him to go into the printing-office and talk to the foreman. Horace went to the printing-office, and there his appearance produced an effect on the tender minds of the three apprentices who were at work therein, which can be much better imagined than described, and which is most vividly remembered by the two who survive. To the foreman Horace addressed himself, regardless certainly, oblivious probably, of the stare and the remarks of the boys. The foreman, at first, was inclined to wonder that Mr. Bliss should, for one moment, think it possible that a boy got up in that style could perform the most ordinary duties of a printer's apprentice. Ten minutes' talk with him, however, 40 LIFE OF IIORACE GKEEL1Y, effected a partial revolution in his mind in the boy's favour, and as he was greatly in want of another apprentice, he was not inclined to be over particular. He tore off a slip of proof-paper, wrote a few words upon it hastily with a pencil, and told the boy to take it to Mr. Bliss. That piece of paper was his fate. The words were: "Guess we'd better try him." Away went Horace to the garden, and presented his paper. Mr. Bliss, whose curiosity had been excited to a high pitch by the extraordinary contrast between the appearance of the boy and his real quality, now entered into a long conversation with him, questioned him respecting his history, his past employment, his parents, their circumstances, his own intentions and wishes ; and the longer he talked, the more his admiration grew. The result was, that he agreed to accept Horace as an apprentice, provided his father would agree to the usual terms ; and then, with eager steps, and a light heart, the happy boy took the dusty road that led to his home in Westhaven. "You 're not going to hire that tow-head, Mr. Bliss, are you?" asked one of the apprentices at the close of the day. " I am," was the reply, " and if you boys are expecting to get any fun out of him, yoj 'd better get it quick, or you '11 be too late. There 's something in that tow-head, as you '11 find out before you're a week older." A day or two after, Horace packed up his wardrobe in a small cotton handkerchief. Small as it was, it would have held more; for its proprietor never had more than two shirts, and one change of outer-clothing, at the same time, till he was of age. Father and son walked, side by side, to Poultney, the boy carrying his possessions upon a stick over his shoulder. At Poultney, an unexpected difficulty arose, which for a time made Horace tremble in his high-low shoes. The terms proposed by Mr. Bliss were, that the boy should be bound for five years, and receive his board and twenty dollars a year. Now, Mr. Greeley had ideas of his own on the subject of apprenticeship, and he objected to this proposal, and to every particular of it. In the first place, he had determined that no child of his should ever be bound at all. In the second place, he thought live years an unreasonable time ; thirdly, he considered that twenty dollars a year and board was a compensation ridiculously disproportionate to the services which Horace would be required to render; and finally, on each and all cf these points, he clung to his opinion with the tenacity of a Greeley. Mr. Bliss appealed to the established custom of the country ; five years was the usual period; the compensation offered was the regular thing; the binding was a point essential to the employer's interest. And at every pause in the conversation, the appealing voice of Horace was heard : " Father, I gue you 'd better make a bargain with Mr. Bliss ;" or, " Father, I guess it won 't make much difference;" or, " Don't you think you 'd better do it, father?" At one moment the boy was reduced to despair. Mr. Bliss had given it as his ultimatum that the proposed binding was absolutely indispen- sable ; he " could do business in no other way." " Well, then, Horace," said the father, " let us go home." The father turned to go ; but Horace lingered ; toe could not give it up ; and so the father turned again ; the negotiation FAREWELL TO FAMILY. 41 was re-opened, and after a prolonged discussion, a compromise waa effected. And so the father went home, and the son went straight to the printing-office and took his first lesson in the art of setting type. The terms of the agreement, as stated by Mr. Greelej in his Recollections were : He was to remain in the office until he became twenty years of age, be allowed board only for the first six months, and thereafter, in addition, $40 per annum for his clothing. Such was the humble contract by means of which he who became the founder of The New- York Tribune entered into the business of printing. Soon after he had entered upon his apprenticeship the others of the family removed to Erie county, Pennsylvania, whither the father had some time before journeyed, and where he had purchased a small quantity of land, mostly primeval forest, but including a " log-cabin " and four acres of clearing. Before their departure, Horace walked over to Westhaven to bid them good-bye, spending a Sunday at home. They tried hard to persuade him to go with them, and, on account of there being some things in the conduct of the office at Poult- ney not to his mind, the temptation to go was strong, but his ideas of good faith prevented him from yielding. The members of the family were devotedly attached to each other, and the parting was one of deepest sadness. Horace's return walk to Poultney, as he says himself, was one of the slowest and sad- dest of his life. They proceeded on their long journey, and the place which had known them all so well knew them no more forever. When Mr. Parton visited the farm, more than a quarter of a century afterwards, he found the grass growing \vhere the little home in Westhaven in which the family had longest lived, had stood, and the barn in which they had stored their hay and kept their cattle leaning forward, like a kneeling elephant, letting in the daylight through ten thou- sand apertures. As a printer-pupil,- Horace Greeley was exceedingly apt. He had long thought of the subject, and in the course of his miscellaneous reading, especially of newspapers, had doubtless met with occasional paragraphs giving him correct ideas of the practical art. And hence, when the foreman had once 42 LIFE OF HORACE GTCEELEY. described " the case '' to liim, he knew immediately where to find the types for every letter, punctuation point, spaces, etc. Furnished then with a " stick," " rule," and " copy " (re-print, of course) he wont to work, not much unlike an old hand at the business. He worked steadily and quietly at the case all day, and when evening came on he could set type as rapidly and as well as most boys who have been weeks at the business. Even the knack of "emptying the stick" did not appear to give him much trouble, and he did not "pi " a line for weeks. 3 The sanctum, counting-room, composition-room, and press- room of the Northern Spectator were all in the same apart- ment; and, it may be added, the mailing-room also, which consisted of a table and a few pigeon-holes. The only printer entitled to be called a journeyman was the foreman, who set up job-work, read proofs, and attended to matters generally, giving some of the time of each day to setting up type. So that in reality, Horace Greeley was simply the junior appren- tice in the office. In printer's technical phrase, he was " th-3 devil;" and printers need not be told that from a time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, " the devil " is the butt of the whole office. But Greeley was so perfectly quiet, inoffensive, and industrious, that the boye hardly knew how to take him in. They threw broken types at him; they pelted him with " wads;" but he kept on at his work, replying no more .than if he were an automaton type-Better. On the third day of his apprenticeship, one of the boys took the ball which was then used, instead of the modern roller, to ink the types on the press, and gave Horace three or four very black impressions on his white head. He did not appear to mind it at all, but presently left the office. In an hour or so he returned, with every vestige of the ink removed, and quietly The "stick" is the implement, held in the left hand, into which the types are placed, with the right hand. An ordinary composing stick holds something less than two inches :>f matter, measured down the column, to which, of course, it is adjusted. When this is filled, the types must be taken out and placed in a galley for proof taking. Thus to remove the types from the stick, without having them disarranged ("pied") is a Jmack not often easily acquired. Horace Groeley emptied Lis stick successfully the first day of his apprenticeship. OVERWORKED APPRENTICE. 43 proceeded with, his work. And that was the last practical joke perpetrated upon Horace Greeley during his apprentice- ship. Thenceforth, the boys were all his devoted friends, and though he was, perhaps, the most awkward of youths in general manners, he was so conscientious and diligent in labour and so well informed, it may be doubted whether any apprentice was ever more highly respected by his fellow- printers or by those of the general public who became acquainted with him. Nevertheless it is true that he was by no means wholly pleased with his situation. The organization and manage- ment of the office were vicious, as he himself testifies. An apprentice should have but one master, whereas he had a series of them and often two or three at once. The concern changed owners several times, coming under control of those who were not practical printers. And so the office was ill and laxly governed. On one account this was well for Horace Greeley, for the apprentices were allowed to learn whatever they chose; and he chose to learn all branches of the art. On the other hand this caused him to work over-much ; and he had not been in the oflice a year till he did all the press- work for the paper. Printers will know how hard this work was, when told that the paper was printed on an old-fashioned double-pull Ramage (wooden) press. " I would not imply," says Mr. Greeley, speaking of the time he spent at East Poultney, "that I worked too hard; yet I think few appren- tices work more steadily and faithfully than I did throughout the four years and over of my stay in Poultney. "While I lived at home, I had always been allowed a day's fishing, at least once a month in spring and summer, and I once went hunting; but I never Mshed nor hunted, nor attended a dance, nor any sort of party or fandango, in Poultney. I doubt that I even played a game of ball." It thus happened, that when these four years' and over of steady, faithful work was done, Horace Greeley was graduated to the degree of Journeyman with quite as much right to it, pro tner'do, as any one who ever received it from a country printing office, where, by ilia 44 LITE OF HORACE GREELEY. way, very many of our most successful printers have learned the business. Mr. Bliss, Horace Greeley's first employer in the printing business, states, in a letter which has been largely published, that he " doubts if, in the whole term of his apprenticeship, he ever spent an hour in the common recreations of young men." This is probably true as to out-door recreations ; but it may well be doubted whether there has ever yet been a printer who did not have some in-door recreations. Their labour is both bodily and mental, and, therefore, tiresome, exhaustive. It consumes the " phosphorus " of the human system about as much as any other employment. Some kind of recreation is a necessity. As a matter of fact, printers are generally fond of in-door games and skiUul therein. Horace Greeley, a printer's apprentice, played many a game of checkers, or drafts, with three-em and two-em " quads " for the men, and if he did not play "poker" with quads for "chips" his printer's experience may be accounted as absolutely unique. He was, in truth, an uncommonly skilful checker player, was good at chess, and better than usual at whist and other inno- cent games of cards. But he never gambled for a penny in his life. He indulged in these games for recreation only, and never for this purpose on Sunday. 4 It were well if all printers, and all men for that matter, were, if not as skilful as guiltless of all harm in these games as was Horace Greeley. On many accounts Poultney was an excellent place in which to serve an apprenticeship. The community was essentially rural, the citizens intelligent and moral ; so that there were few temptations to dissipation and vice. There was a publie 4 There is a story that he originated the popular inquiry, " How is that for high?" It is said that, once playing a four-handed game of Old Sledge, or Seven Up, one of the players threw down the tray of trumps, asking " how is that for low?" When it came his turn, he threw down the deuce, exclaiming, " How is that for High?" Though the deuce could not possibly be beaten for " low," the cream of the joke was that Mr. Greeley saved his " Jack " and caught a ten-spot on the very next trick. No " heathen Chinee " ever did better. This is said to be the origin of the comic song '-' How Is that for High," than which none has been more popular on the boards, especially when rendered by our Chicago Emersoa A YOUNG DEBATER. 45 library in the village, the first with which Horace Greeley became acquainted. " I have never since," he says, " found at once books and opportunity to enjoy them, so ample as while there; I do not think I ever before or since read to so much profit." In addition to the books, he also had the advantages of a Debating Society, or Lyceum, whose members consisted of many of the most intelligent men of the village, whose meetings were held once a week, when questions, proposed at previous meetings, were debated very much as questions aro debated in the literary societies of our learned institutions. The exercises were public; the admission was free; and so popular did the meetings become that they were attended by the people of Poultney generally, babies inclusive, and by many from the surrounding country. Farmers from a distance of ten miles often attended. Horace Greeley joined this society, and, though a mere youth, at once took rank as a skilful and powerful debater. He did not then have, and never acquired, " the graces of oratory," so called, but he was then, as he ever was, an interesting, intelligent speaker, whose ideas were clear and clearly, forcibly, originally expressed. His voice was thin, almost like a whine; his gestures were not graceful; but his arguments were to the point and his informa- tion was always ample and almost invariably correct. He had probably read more books and newspapers than any ten members of the Lyceum, and had stored their contents in one of the most capacious and retentive memories ever possessed by man. And hence it happened that the youngest member of the Poultney Lyceum became its intellectual leader and its acknowledged authority on disputed points; and this though he never wore a coat, a neck-tie, nor a pair of gloves. Mr. Bliss, before mentioned, gives the following account of the young apprentice at Poultney: " About this time, a sound, well-read theologian and a practical printer was employed to edit and conduct the paper. This opened a desirable school for intellectual culture to our young debutant. Debates ensued : historical, political, and religious questions were discussed; and often while all hands were engaged at the font of types ; and here the purpose for which our young asp ; rant ' had read some ' was made manifest. Such 46 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. was the correctness of his memory in what he had read, in both biblical and profane history, that the reverend gentleman was often put at fault by his corrections. He always quoted chapter and verse to prove the point in dispute. On one occasion the editor said that money was the root of all evil, when he was corrected by the ' devil,' who said he believed it read in the Bible that the love of money was the root of all evil. "A small town library gave him access to books, by which, together with the reading of the exchange papers of the office, he improved all his leisure hours. He became a frequent talker in our village lyceum, and often wrote dissertations. "In the first organization of our village temperance society, the ques- tion arose as to the age when the young might become members. Fearing lest his own age might bar him, he 1 moved that they be received when they were old enough to drink which was adopted nem. con. "Though modest and retiring, he was often led into political discus- sions with our ablest politicians, and few would leave the field without feeling instructed by the soundness of his views and the unerring correctness of his statements of political events. "Having a thirst for knowledge, he bent his mind and all his energies to its acquisition, with unceasing application and untiring devotion ; and I doubt if, in the whole term of his apprenticeship, he ever spent an hour in the common recreation of young men. He used to pass my door as he went to his daily meals, and though I often sat near, or stood in the way, so much absorbed did he appear in his own thoughts his head bent forward and his eyes fixed upon the ground, that I have the charity to believe that the reason why he never turned his head or gave me a look, was because he had no idea I was there !" The notable respect and influence gained by Horace Greeley, even during the years of his apprenticeship, notwithstanding his singular dress and uncouth manners, are happily illustrated by an anecdote told by a distinguished physician of New- York. The physician's story is thus reported by Parton: " Did I ever tell you," he is wont to begin, " how and where I first saw my friend Horace Greeley ? Well, thus it happened. It waa one of the proudest and happiest days of my life. I was a country boy then, a farmer's son, and we lived a few miles from East Poultney. On the day in question I was sent by my father to sell a load of potatoes at the store in East Poultney, and bring back various commodities in exchange. Now this was the first time, you must know, that I had ever been entrusted with so important an errand. I had been to the village with my father often enough, but now I was to go alone, and I felt as proud and independent as a midshipman the first time he goes ashore in command of a boat. Big with the fate of twenty bushels of potatoes, off I drove reached the village sold out my load drove roun 1 to the avern put up YOUNG GBEELEY'S TOILET. 47 my horses, and went in to dinner. This going to the tavern on my own account, all by myself, and paying my own bill, was, I thought, the crowning glory of the whole adventure. There were a good many people at dinner, the sheriff of the county and an ex-member of Congress among them, and I felt considerably abashed at first ; but I had scarcely begun to eat, when my eyes fell upon an object so singular that I could do little else than stare at it all the while it remained in the room. It was a tall, pale, white-haired, gawky boy, seated at the further end of the table. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he was eating with a rapidity and awkward- ness that I never saw equalled before nor since. It seemed as if he was eating for a wager, and had gone in to win. He neither looked up nor round, nor appeared to pay the least attention to the conversation. My first thought was, ' This is a pretty sort of a tavern to let such a fellow as that sit at the same table with all these gentlemen; he ought to come in with the hostler.' I thought it strange, too, that no one seemed to notice him, and I supposed he owed his continuance at the table to that circum- stance alone. And so I sat, eating little myself, and occupied in watching the wonderful performance of this wonderful youth. At length the conversation at the table became quite animated, turning upon some measure of an early Congress ; and a question arose how certain members had voted on its final passage. There was a difference of opinion ; and the sheriff, a very finely-dressed personage, I thought, to my boundless astonishment, referred the matter to the unaccountable Boy, saying, ' Aint that right, Greeley ?' ' No,' said the Unaccountable, without looking up, 'you 're wrong.' 'There,' sakl the ex-member, 'I told you so.' .'And you 're wrong, too,' said the still-devouring Mystery. Then he laid down his knife and fork, and gave the history of the measure, explained the state of parties at the time, stated the vote in dispute, named the leading advocates and opponents of the bill, and, in short, gave a complete exposition of the whole matter. I listened and wondered; but what surprised me most was, that the company received his statement as pure gospel, and as settling the question beyond dispute as a dictionary settles a dispute respecting the spelling of a word. A minute after, the boy left the dining-room, and I never saw him again, till I met him, years after, in the streets of New- York, when I claimed acquaintance with him as a brother Vermonter, and told him this story, to his great amusement." The future great journalist was so ill clad during his appren- ticeship that there are those still living at Poultney who recollect their feelings of sadness in his behalf, on seeing him walking to the office in the bitter cold mornings of a Vermont Winter. He always walked rapidly, moving as though he were a little too loose in the joints, as they say, and with his gloveless hands in his pockets to protect them from the frost. His homely dress was a constant source of laughter among the 48 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. boys, and it is related that on one occasion when there was to be an unusually interesting debate at the Lyceum, a young man who was noted for the elegance of his toilet and the length of his store account, advised Jlorace to get a new suit of clothes for the great debate. " No," said he, " I guess I'd better wear my old clothes than run in debt for new ones." And in his homely garb he won the decision in the discussion. Half the sum annually received by Horace Greeley would have provided him with comfortable, presentable clothing. But he had not during his apprenticeship, and never acquired, the slightest regard for his personal appearance. Moreover, he was extremely economical at this period of his life, with the object of aiding his father in his pioneer home. Thither he sent every dollar that he could spare, caring nothing for the laughter of the young and the derision of the thoughtless. By reason of his own hard labour and these timely remittances of his son, Zaccheus Greeley was able to pay all his indebted- ness on his farm, and gradually to improve and enlarge it, so that at the time of his death it had become an extensive and valuable estate. During Horace's term of apprenticeship he was allowed a month on two separate occasions to visit the family homestead. This journey of some six hundred miles he accomplished by walking part of the way, and on "line boats " on the Erie canal, whose " cent and a half a mile, mile and a half an hour" many yet remember. "The days passed slowly yet smoothly," he says, " on those gliding arks, being enlivened by various sedentary games; but the nights were tedious beyond any sleeping-car experience. At daybreak, you were routed out of your shabby, shelf-like berth, and driven on deck to swallow fog while the cabin was cleared of its beds and made ready for breakfast." Mr. Greeley decidedly objected to the return of " the good old ways," if they should include line boats and the little tubs which used to do duty as steamboats on Lake Erie, in which he had some disagreeable experiences on these journeys home and return. Horace Greeley's first essays in writing were with neither pen nor pencil. They were set up in types, being directly transferred thereto from his mind while he worked at the case. A FUGITIVE- SLAVE CTIASE. 4i' ! They consisted of condensations of news paragraphs and o % other articles, for the whole cf which there was not room in the paper. An ardent politician and zealons supporter of tin Adams party, we may be sure he also contributed politi^a' paragraphs and " squibs " to the paper, which was emphatically of his way of thinkirg. His " dissertations," read before the Lyceum, were his first foi inal compositions. They were char- acterized by being upon practical topics, which were treated in a straight-forward, strong manner, rather than in the orna- mental style so prevalent in debating societies and, indeed, with young writers generally. He never blossommed into *,hs flowery style in essays which were to be read. He relates that among the incidents of his sojourn ir. Poult- ney that made most impression on his mind was " a fugitive slave-chase." A young negro, held as a slave in a neigbouring town of New York, had transported himself to Poultney, and was there minding his business and doing labour, when his " owner," with due official following, came along to arrest and return him. " I never saw," says Mr. Greeley, " so large a muster of men and boys so suddenly on our village-green as his advent incited; and the result was a speedy disappearance of the chattel, and the return of his master, disconsolate and niggerless, to the place whence he came. Everything on our side was impromptu and instinctive; and nobody suggested that envy or hate of ' the South,' or of New York, or of the master, had impelled the rescue. Our people hated injustice and oppression, and acted as if they could n't help it." Another incident of which he had a fresh recollection after more than forty years was the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence. Many veterans of the He volution were present, in whose eyes, as he thought, the recurrence of the nation's anniversary seemed to rekindle " the light of other days." " I doubt," he remarks, " that Poultney has since been so thrilled with patriotic emotion as on that 4th of July, 1826; and when we learned a few days later, that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the author and the great champion, respectively, of the Declaration, had both died on that day, and that the messengers bearing South 4 "0 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEI. i nd North, respectively, the tidings of their decease had met :'n Philadelphia under the shadow of that Hall in which our Independence was declared, it seemed that a Divine attestation had solemnly hallowed and sanctified the great anniversary by the impressive ministration of Death." And so, upon the whole, the years of Horace Greeley's apprenticeship went happily by. He had become an excellent p.-'nter, though not an uncommonly swift compositor; he had grswn in stature and in mind; had all the while been an tt-r^est advocate of Temperance and a practical tee-totaler; ard had acquired nc unfortunate habits and no vices. With the world row all before him where to choose, having acquired a trade by means of which he could reasonably expect to earn an independent livelihood, he could look back over the years spent in the office of The Northern Spectator with pardonable satisfaction and gratification; with that peculiar happiness which comes of duty conscientiously and well done. " They say," he said, not long before the close of his eventful and influential life, " that apprenticeship is distasteful to, and out of fashion with, the boys of our day: if so, I regret it for their sakes. To the youth who asks, * How shall I obtain an education?' I would answer, 'Learn a trade of a good master.' I hold firmly that most boys may thus better acquire tho knowledge they need than by spending four years in college." CHArTEE III. A JOURNEYMAN PRINTER. Departure from Poultney Visits his Father "Works as a Journeyman at Jamestown and Lodi, New York Chopping Wood Again Em- ployed on the Erie (Pennsylvania) Gazette Offered a Partnership, Declines Returns To His Father's In Vain Tries to Procure Work in the West Resolves to Go to New- York Divides his Earnings with his Father The Journey to New -York Arrival There with a Cash Capital of Ten Dollars Diligent Search for Work Sets up a "Lean" New Testament Chicken-pox Proof Varied Experience as a Journeyman in the Great City Steady Progress Visits New England Business on his own Account. BY the terms of his contract of apprenticeship, Horace Greeley was to remain in the office of the Northern Spectator until he should become twenty years of age. But in June, 1830, some ten months before the expiration of his apprentice- ship, that journal discontinued publication, and the contract by that fact was terminated. lie had gone to Poultney an uncouth, unknown youth. Now that he was about to depart, he found that he had many admiring friends, who bade him good-by with unaffected sorrow - mil bring aoout the desired end, and demanded of la GrWi~/ to substantiate its claim. ." Give us proof," lie urgev. _ " o* its efficacy." He also insisted upon knowing in whom tire property of the Social Order is to be vested; how laboui is to be remunerated; what share capita 1 , is to have in the concern; by what device men are to be induced to work; and how moral offenses are to be dealt with. To this Mr. Greeley responded categorically, that the property of an Association will be vested in those who contributed the capital to establisD it, represented by shares of stock. Labour will be remuneratea by a fixed proportion of its products, or of its proceeds, if sold. Men will be induced to labour by a knowledge that .Ha rewards will be a certain and major proportion of the product, which of course will be less or more according to the skill anC. industry of each individual. Moral offenses will be punishw'. by legal enactment, and they will be rendered unfrequent n w plenty and education. Reaching this point in the discussion, we have embrace.' 3 , the outlines of Association as Mr. Greeley understood it. Henceforth he advocated the plan with great fertility of argu- ment and force of language, Mr. Raymond combatting with rare adroitness and popular effect. The judgment of the reading public was emphatically in Mr. Raymond's favour; and to such an extent that he persuaded a great many persons that The Tribune was a decidedly mischievous journal. With great adroitness he confounded Fourierism, including free love, with Mr. Greeley's ideas of Association, and charged it upon him that he would not only destroy all property, and individual effort, but Home, personal virtue, and make a horrid wreck and chaos of all vested rights and all things held sacred. Mr. Raymond did not, indeed, pretend that such was any part of Mr. Greeley's object; nor was he able to shoT? that it was a logical result of his plan. But artfully showing from the writings of leading Socialists that their doctrines were immoral as well as destructive of property, and assertive,- in effect that Mr. Greeley did not improve upon their plni., V brought down upon his antagonist no little odium which clnn^ to him, in the opinion of many, especially the igno.-iT.it, t.. : i T3 LI*E OF HORACE OEEELET. )i> last days. 3y the general verdict, Mr. Haymona ca:_e o 't >f the contest with the laurel of victory; and to thi^ \L~. Greeley himself gracefully yielded acquiescence by henctlo r th giving Socialism the least possible attention in The Tribune and by saying nothing whatever of Fourier. While candour thus cheerfully awards to Mr. Raymond triumph in a discussion which called forth on either side the strength and stretch of the human understanding in many of Ira versatile capacities, more, perhaps, than were ever exibited, before or since, in a newspaper controversy; yet it is also but lust to affirm that in the results of the discussion both dis- ^u^iits accomplished great good: Mr. Raymond immediately; j'lr. Greeley then, and for the indefinite future. In then -showing the gross evils of Fourierism, Mr. Raymond conferred \n inestimable benefit upon his countrymen. In then calling jn.blic attention to Association, Mr. Greeley did an incalculable service to Labour, to the world's poor people, the good influences of which shall not cease until all mankind shall have been levelled up out of the sloughs of poverty, and vice, and misery, to the enjoyment of plenty, of the sweets of virtue, and all the blessings of genuine Christian civilization. Mr. Greeley took an active part in one or two efforts to give Socialism practical success, notably the "North American Phalanx," but all in which he took especial interest failed to become permanent institutions. He concluded that practical Socialism would always be difficult, though, perhaps, not impossible, without a basis of religious sympathy and reli- gious aspiration. One effect of the discussion with Mr. Raymond was, undoubt- edly, to injure The Tribune in the judgment of a large number of intelligent and influential persons. Mr. Greeley " lost caste." He became the subject of many a vulgar jest on the streets, of much newspaper ridicule; all which neither disturbed nor injured him. But respectable persons in large numbers made rip their minds that Mr. Greeley was a dangerous man and The Tribune a mischievous paper. And the continued prevelance of tMs opinion, it being constantly fostered by the press of 1 it citji gpoerally, and by many journals in the country, was fcPIRITUALISy. 157 one ci.us , cf the establishment of The Times \y J..1?. Raymond, ani cf its popular and financial success only a fsw years after the noted discussion. Mr. Raymond took advantage of The Tribune's undeserved unpopularity very much like Mr. Greeley had taken advantage of the then well-earned disrepntability of T.'.e Herald. "Whether Mr. Raymond intended this by the discuscion and the manner in which he conducted it, to achieve victory rather than to promote the cause of truth, may never be known. But Mr. Raymond was a born politi- cian, an certainly as Horace Greeley was a born philanthropist. Much was also made of Mr. Greeley's alleged " Grahamism." He would not even eat like other people, it was charged, as though one did not have any sort of right to select his own food, with due regard to cleanliness, comfort, economy, and health. It was said that he lived on a " diet of saw-dust," and ae opinion got abroad that lie was in all respects an outland- i"h kind of a man, given over to whim-whams and "isms," and utterly regardless of the established ways of Christian, J/iHed beings! As a matter of fact he never was aGraham- te, 'lough he was decidedly of opinion that man ought rather tat ''o liv"! than live to eat. Mrs. Greeley being mistress of the household, and a decided Graham ite, his table was for many years almost painfully plain to visitors accustomed to higher living; but this only showed respect for his wife on the part of Mr. Greeley and no disrespect for roast beef, nor even chops and tomato sauce. Mr. Greeley did not believe in "spiritualism," as it is called, but The Tribune gave sp.ice to accounts of the first "knoc 1 :- ings," and awarded the subject a respectful hearirig. And here was another terrible " ism " charged up against him! As the spiritual phenomena first occurred not long after the dis- cussion on Socialism, and a sect of spiritualists quite rapidly grew up, which, whatever of good or evil there was in it, was decidedly unpopular upon the whole, and believed by many to be a new manifestation of infidelity, the simple fair play of The Tribune in giving the subject a hearing and candid treatment was used to Mr. Greeley's disadvantage, and to help make way for The Times. When the Fox family came to New-York, ii 158 LIFE OF LORACE GREELEV. 1850, Mr. Gr^cley caJhd upon them at their hotel, to personally witness tiicl ,a" le-rapping ^erforrr.anceb. Y.J was not much interested, and had no desire for a second " sitting " but Mrs Greeley, then much interested in all that pertains tr the unseen world on account of tha recent death of a son O A ' uncommon promise, visited the Foxes, and invited them to spend a week with her at her home. Whilst they were there, Jenny land had a " sitting," which is thus described by Mr. Greeley: "Not long after this, I had called on Mademoiselle jenny Lind, taen ., new comer among us, and was conversing about the current marvel with the late N. P. Willis, while Mademoiselle Lind was devoting herself more especially to some other callers. Our conversation caught Mademoiselle Lind's ear, and arrested her attention ; so, after making some inquiries, she asked if she could witness the so-called ' Manifestations.' " I answered that she could do so by coming to my house in the hear* of the city, as Katy Fox was then staying with us. She assented, and ~ time was fixed for her call ; at which time she appeared, with a conside - able retinue of total strangers. All were soon seated around a table, and the ' rappings' were soon audible and abundant. 'Take your hands fro_n under the table!' Mademoiselle Jenny called across to me in the tone and manner of an indifferently bold archduchess. 4 Whs,t?' I ..ske*', n . distinctly comprehending her. 'Take your hands from unde/ the t' b.e !' she imperiously repeated ; and I now understood that she suspected m^ of causing, by some legerdemain, the puzzling concussions. I instantly clasped my hands over my head, and there kept them until the sitting closed, as it did very soon. I need hardly add that this made not the smallest difference with the 'rappings;' but I was thoroughly and finally cured of any desire to exhibit or commend them to strangers." Not long afterward Mr. Greeley witnessed what he strongly suspected to be a juggle or trick on the part of a " medium," which gave him, as he says, " a disrelish for the whole busi- ness," and he saw very little more of it. There were other things, regarded by the public as delusions, humbugs, or " isms," to which The Tribune gave respectful treatment, and all the errors of which its editor was supposed to endorse ! In religion he was heterodox ; he thought society was organized on a system essentially vicious; he drank neither wine nor spirituous liquors; he lived on Graham bread and other plain food; he had even given "the Millerites" room in The Tribune to predict the speedy destruction of the world ; "ISMS." 159 he did not condemn spiritualism without a hearing, and never unreservedly; he thought there might be something in phre- nology; he was sure every body ought to have a fair show; he assailed capital punishment, and actually made grim fun of the gallows. A man whose " isms " could be summed up in all these singularities and more must be a dangerous man and his paper a mischievous journal! The fact is, there is no error, no " humbug," which has received the considerate approval of eminent minds, which is not entitled to a candid examination by every one who loves truth for truth's sake. And it is especially the duty of a public journalist, the conductor of a metropolitan newspaper, to look out for new ideas, as well as for new events, and give them careful, honest investigation. They may not be what is claimed for them. Very well; then they can be intelligently condemned. Since many of the now universally recognized truths of science were at first generally condemned as wicked errors, it ill becomes any public journalist to hold fast that which we have as embracing all that is truthful, or all that is valuable. One reason why The New- York Tribune became the most influential of American public journals is to be found in the fact that Horace Greeley refused no cause, no " ism," not evidently immoral, a candid examination. And when we impartially and fully consider the many " isms " to whose claims he gave respectful attention, the few he ever adopted himself, we cannot but be struck with wonder at his catholic spirit, his courage, and his surpassing wisdom as a journalist. CHAPTER . FINAL DEFEAT OF HENRY CLAY. The Presidential Campaign of 1844 Henry Clay the Whig Candidate fo. President Other Candidates "The Clay Tribune" Mr. Greeley'a Labours with Tongue and Voice George D. Prentice of the Louisville Journal An Animated Campaign Defeat Mr. Greeley Greatly Dis- satisfied with this Result His Opinion of Henry Clay. MR. GREELEY attended the National Convention of the Whig party which assembled at the city of Baltimore on the 1st of May, 1844. No name was mentioned in connexion with tho nomination for the Presidency except that of Henry Clay, of Kentucky, who was nominated amid stirring excitement fry acclamation. Mr. Clay was thus for the fifth time presented as a candidate for the most exalted official position in the republic. Twice he had been defeated by the people; twice in national conventions of his own party. But at this time his popularity with the Whigs was at its height. He never had been defeated by them except on the ground of expediency. Horace Greeley himself, whose devoted aifection for and hearty admiration of Mr. Clay were greater than were ever called forth by any other public man, and were, perhaps, in some respects undiscrimiuating, nevertheless opposed his nomina- tion, as we have seen, in the Harrisburgh convention of December, 1839, there supporting General Harrison. But in 1844, the situation was entirely different. The desertion of the Whigs by President Tyler, who entered the Executive ollice on the decease of Harrison, had indeed been of great apparent advantage to the Democratic party, whose successes in the years immediately following the wild campaign of 1840 seemed fully to sustain Mr. Yan Buren's appeal " to the sober second thought of the people." But, on the other hand, Mr. Clay had made a series of public addresses in the West which were listened to by vast concourses of people, and had kept (160) "CLA'f ANT ZT^JJ^HUYSEN." 161 hi nanr. and fa*nc prominently before the public though at tiie time he held no office. One of these meetings was aKcpestionably among the greatest public gatherings ever corvened on our continent. I refer to the " Dayton (Ohio) Barbecue" of 1842. Many thousands of men still living will recollect this vast multitude of people gathered together from nany States, as among the great days of political conflict. No voice could penetrate such a prodigious crowd, but Robert 0. Schenck fulrnined forth a remarkable introductory address in four words, which, on account of his tremendous exertions, were generally heard: "Fellow-Citizens, Henry Clay!" No name was then so popular. And Mr. Clay undoubtedly grew *.n popularity with his party friends from this time forth until >-LU defeat in 1844. n 'here was, however, an animated contest in the Convention on the candidate for Yice-President, Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, John Davis, of Massachusetts, Millard Fill- more, of New York, and John Sergeant, of Pennsylvania, being the competitors. Mr. Frelinghuysen was at length nominated. He was a statesman of liberal views, a man of general culture, a most admirable representative of the Chris- tian gentleman. About the only objection which delegates raised against Mr. Frelinghuysen was that his preposterous name could not be got into songs ! They were thinking of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." They discovered that they underestimated the versatile genius of the poetasters; for the very next morning after nomination readers of the Whig journals of Baltimore discovered, to the tuna of several well known airp, that '' the country is rising For Harry Clay and Frelinghuysen.'- The Democratic National Convention assembled, in the same city near the cUse of Mf.y, and after an earnest struggle and with the help of "tne two-thirds rule" defeated Mr. Van Buren. nominating James K". Polk, of Tennessee, on the ninth ballot. The distinguished Silas Wright, of New York, II 162 UFE O..' HORACE GREELEY nominated for Vice-Preside it, but oe Jini^g Mr. G<*?rge !. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, was selected. But more than eight months before the Whig Convention the "Liberal Party" had held a convention in the city of Buffalo which had placed James G. Birnay, o^ Michiga^ in nomination for the Presidency, and Thomas Morris, of Ohio, for the Vice-Presidency. The platform adopted by this Euffalo Convention was strongly anti-slavery, radical, brave, and wise . Mr. Greeley entered into the campaign of 1844 wuh even more enthusiasm, if possible, than he had laboured for Gen- eral Harrison four years before. In addition to the regular editions of The Tribune he published The Clay Tribune, * campaign journal similar to The Log-Cabin of 1840. T.t ha A a very large circulation and great influence. The regul^.' circulation of The Daily Tribune was at this time a!: ^ut 15,000 copies, that of The Weekly Tribune immensely more. So that what with these and the Clay Tribune for the cam- paign, Mr. Greeley might well be thought to have had enough to do in the performance of his duties in The Tribune office. Nevertheless, he made many public speeches in behalf of the cause, and undoubtedly gave more hours to the work than any of his fellow-countrymen. He has himself described his labours in the campaign: "I have admired and trusted many statesmen: I profoundly loved Henry Clay. Though a slaveholder, he was a cnampion of Gradual Emancipation when Kentucky formed her first State Constitution in his early ii&nhood; and was openly the same when sl>e ca.ne to revise it, half a ceotuiy later. He was a conservative in the true sense of that much- abased tevm: satisfied to hold by the present until he cc rid see clearly how to exchange it for the better; but his was no oostmate, bigoted con- Bervatism, but such as became an intelligent and patriotic American. From his first entrance into Congress, he had been a zealous and effective champion of Internal Improvements, the Protection of Home Industry, a sound and uniform National Currency, those leadinp fextires of a com- p/ehensive, beneficent National policy which commanded the fullest assent of iry judgment and the best exertion;: of nuj voice and pen. I lo/ed him for his generous nature, his gallant bearing, his thrilling eloquence, and his life-long devotion to what 1 deemed our country's unity, prosperity, and just renown. Hence, from the day of his nomina- tion In May to thuD or his defeat in ITovember, I gave every hour, every effort, every thought, to his election. My wife ana thea surviving child (our third) spent the Summer at a farm h.oi,s3 in a i c.^al towns" >.ip of "Wassa chusetts, while I ^ave heart and soul tc the caavaSa. i trs'e 1 !^! and spoke much; I vrro^e, 1 tliink, an average of thrac coiumny o* Tha Tribuue each secular daj ; and I gave the residue 01 the hours I eouli save frtJm sleep to watching the canvass, and doing whatever I eo'ild t~> render our side of it mo-e effective. Very often, I crept to *ny l^dgi' g near the office at 2 to 3 A. M., with my head so heated by fourteen to six- teen hours of incessant reading and writing, that I couid only win sleep by means of copious affusions from a shower-bath; a^d these, while th^ - probably saved me from a dangerous fever, brought out such znyriadp of boils, that though I did not heed them till aft?r the battle waa f >agY out and. lost I was covered by them for the six months ?nsuing, or ten fifty or sixty at once, so that I could contrive no pos'tioa in which to rest, but passed night after night in an easy-chai . And these unwelco-". visitors returned to plague me, though less severely, jhroughout the .o- lowing Winter." l Perhaps the only journalist m the country who during this campaign with an enthusiasm a,nd spirit 01 -3"' - sacrifice equal to those of Mr. Greeley, was Mr. George ). Prentice, of The Louisville Journal. A New Englande?* ), birth, with instincts opposed to slavery, Mr. Prentice had cn>. to Kentucky in early manhood and established a journal ij tne greatest commercial city of the State. A poet of rare genius, a writer of paragraphs which for wit and humour had never been approached, he soon became greatly influential ; and all the sooner, doubtless, in Southern society, because he was a good shot and not a non-combatant. lie had written a biogra- phy of Henry Clay, and was greatly, devotedly attached to him, personally and politically. He also published a campaign paper, called The Jouisviile Journal Extra, which had an immense circulation in many Southern States and the North- west. Known to be in Mr. Clay's confidence, Mr. Prentice's journal was regarded by active politicians as an autlvority, and was constantly consulted by them in all parts of the country. Had Mr. Prentice possessed the newspaper "machinery" had by Mr. Greeley, The Louisville Journal would have been more generally circulated, perhaps, during the campaign of 1844 than The New- York Tribune. As it was, it may safely be gaid to have originated more of the fun of the campaign than 1 Recollections of a Busy Life, pp. 167-68. !C.< LIKE OF HORACE CRES.JEY. all tlie otner Whig jemrals combined. .Wr Greeley being "terriSly in earnest,''* could not have had * more powerful oily than be found in Mr. Pventice; w*v, .il<>o, was no less in earnest, no less heartiiy devoted to car-se and chosen leader, &\ a who wrote many grave and powerful articles, which would have received roore attention and exerted more influence than they did, had ili3y not been surrounded by a fairly bewildering display of wit, p,nd retorts so lively that they might have split *.he very sides of cofnnc. Though Mr. Prentice's " heavy work " was great aiid in itself of the greatest merit, it was the lighter effervescences of his mind which won the popular attention. J&cn sometimes forge i; the sublime heavens in the midst of a iisplay of sizzing pyrotechnics. '"Hie campaign of 1844 was only less animated than that of f ~-C. The " machinery " was substantially the same, differing r > y m details. There was no end of Clay and Frelinghnysen ~l*y i* 1 and the old Tippecanoe glee-clubs were revived, and -i a./;* n?w ones formed. Log-cabins and hard cider had, in- ucoc'. become obsolete, but barbecues, liberty-pole raisings ( ^\"iig poles being of ash, Democratic of hickory), processions, and general enthusiasm were common throughout the country. Instead of the log-cabin, the raccoon became the popular em- blem of the Whigs. Mr. YanBuren had been dubbed " the sly fox of Kinderhook." Some one, in allusion to Mr. Clay's pre- vious candidacies, had spoken of the Whigs as eternally hunting after " that same old coon." And " that same old coon " was taken up by the Whigs very much as the log-cabin had been four years previously. Every procession to a barbecue or mass meeting would have several wagons in which were elevated small trees, made interesting and lively by the presence of a number of raccoons. It almost seems that if Mr. Clay had been elected, the raccoon would have displaced the eagle in our national escutcheon. The writer of this volume once counted more than twenty raccoons two or three of them white in a single Clay procession. As he had several times gone " coon hunting," without a shadow of success, unless a single opos- sum on one occasion may be counted such, he greatly won- CF HENRY CL/y. A,K> dered where dl the coons cane from. The market was brie: during the campaign, but after election prices collapsed. Mr. Clay was defeated, his opponent receiving 170 votes cf the electoral college, he receiving 105 This result was ev tremsly distasteful to Mr. Greeley. He was not among those who thought Mr. Clay would go through with a hurrah, or. account of the fact that Mr Polk was comparatively unknown, lie knew that only restless labour, the best exertions of ill working Whigs, and the appliance of every honourable meaLc of influence would secure success. A warmer friend and moic unselfish admirer of Mr. Clay than most men, his judgment was not put at fault by his feelings, and he almost ruined liii' constitution by the work that he imposed upon himsel-. Years afterwards, he maintained with undoubted sincerity t. : yith questionable correctness, that the victory would have b ;er* with Mr. Clay had the friends of Protection liberally expended their money in that behalf, supplying the people with The Tribune and other Whig journals to juch extent that all voters might have had an opportunity to read Whig arguments. Mr. Greeley was probably mistaken. As the people defeated Mr. Clay with a gentleman so little known as Mr. Polk was at that time, it seems reasonable to conclude that no earthly power could have induced them to elevate the Kentucky statesman to the chief magistracy. However this may be, it is certain that Mr. Greeley never became reconciled to the result, an-i lamented it as a public calamity whenevei a^erward? he spcks of it. Mr. Greeley had a most exalted, perhaps sxtra^agintj o->i> - i">n of Henry Clay. He says of him: " Mr. Clay, born in poverty and obscurity, had not even a commor- scbool education, and bad only a few months' clerkship in a store, with r. somewhat longer training in a lawyer's office, as preparation for his grea ; career. Tall in person, though plain in features, graceful in manner, ana at once dignified and aftable in bearing, I think his fervid patriotism and thrilling eloquence combined with decided natural abilities and a wid3 and varied experience to render him the American more fitted to win a-d enjo} popularity than any other who has lived. That popularity I steadi. y achieved and extended through the earlier half of his long )uolio 'ife; ')ut he was now confronted by a political combination well- t\gi J66 -JPE CF HORACE GSEELFT. . . vincible, based on the potent personal strcugih of General Jackson , ina tM<* overcame hi:_n. Five times presented as a candidate for President, h j iVS always beaten, twice in conventions of his political associates, thr^o in Je choice of electors by the people. The ca-elcss reader of our history in future centuries will scarcely realize the force of nis personal magnet- isnr, nor conceive how millions of hearts glowed with sanguine hopes of ^1 s election to the Presidency, and bitterly lamented his and their disccm- Lture." * In accounting for the defeat of Clay, Mr. Greeley, in after years, attributed.it, so far as ge'neral 2auses were concerned, to i.r. Clay's paltering on the question of the annexation of L^exas, on the one band, and to Mr. Pclk's paltering, on the question of the Tariff, on the other. These, he thought, wen, he " great issues " of the campaign. And as Mr. Clay, in his t Jabama letters, stated that he did not object to the annexation - A'exas on account of slavery, thereby losing the most of the ; Liberal " vote of the North, and gaining nothing in tin, Gonth; and as Mr. Polk, in his '' Kane lettei," came out in favour of "incidental protection," thus enabling him to beat Mr. Clay in Pennsylvania, though this would defeat such " pro- tection " as Pennsylvania desired, the people were misled in regard to either candidate, and that upon the vital issues of the campaign. Herein Mr. Greeley was to a certain extent correct, and it is astonishing that he did not see that Mr. Clay's paltering course was alnost infinitely worse than that of Mr. Polk; and this for the reason that Cie Texas question was almost infinitely more important than the Tariff question, as events^iave since a:r.ndantly shown. Mr. Clay equivocated upon the great question; Mr. Polk upon the little one. The abolitionists saw this with perfect distinctness, and wisely preferred to " throw Mvay their votes " upon Mr. Birney rather than more thai w.vste them upon Mr. Clay. The Whigs had not adopted any platform further than a resolution that Whig principles might be summed up as embracing a well regulated national currency; " a Tariff for revenue to defray the necessary expenses of tht ( -".^rnment, and discriminating wi*h special reference to the *<*., p. 168. DEFEAT OF HEKRY CLAY. 167 protection of the domestic labour of the country; " the distri- bution of the proceeds from the sales of the public lands; a single term for the Presidency; reform of executive usurpation. It would have been more correct, if the convention had said that Whig principles might be summed up in Henry Clay. The nation was wiser than Mr. Greeley. But he never ceased to lament the defeat of Mr. Clay, or to regard him vith an affection and admiration of the most devoted anH c-ily^ri . nature. We shall see that his- friendship remained stcs-t^&st to the last. Even so late as when he wrote his ' ^ mer" ^an Conflict," his still enduring love for Clay made him bLvost excuse the measures generally known as the Compromise of 1850. It would appear to be certain that Mr. Greeley never discovered that slavery had demoralized even the generous, chivalric " Harry of the West." SARAH MARGARET FULLER. See pages 170, etc. CHAPTEK XI. CONTINUATION OF TRIBUNE HISTORY. v ;:e Tiibune dnd Literature Inaugurates A New Era of Criticism Ert- jrii* A. Poe A High-Priced Autograph The Tribune Brings Out the 'iTanscendentalists Margaret Fuller ; Her Contributions to the Trib- dae--->.Ir Greeley's Tribute to Her Genius Notices of American Psaiale Journalists Charles Dickens Mr. Greeley's Early Recogni- tion of his Genius His First Visit to America Washington Irving's " Break Down " at the Dickens Dinner Mr. Dickens's Second Visit Mr. Greeley Presides at the New-York Dinner A Notable Gathering Mr. Greeley's Great Services to Literature Contributions of Tribune Writers to Permanent Literature. THE TEIBUNE was generous, catholic in spirit toward current literature from the day of its establishment. Until it inaugu- rated a new era of criticism, exclusively literary journals alone were generally consulted by scholars and thinkers for intelli- gence as to books, the arts and sciences, the current labour, in short, of scholars and thinkers. Ponderous quarterly Reviews had for nearly half a century been regarded as guides in all such matters; though monthly magazines, particularly Black- wood's, of Edinburgh, Scotland, while under the editorship of John Wilson, were not wanting, which discussed literature, science, art, and politics with a brilliancy of criticism and a splendid flow of vituperation not surpassed by the most dash- ing daily journalist of the year 1873. Of those journals which were called literary, the one in New- York which attained the largest influence during the early years of The Tribune, was The Weekly Mirror, afterwards The Home Journal, of which the editors were the distinguished poet, N. P. Willis, and the no less distinguished song- writer, George P. Morris. Mr. Greeley became well acquainted with these gentlemen, and other men of letters who contributed to their journal, making it a sort of literary " organ," and authority for " the upper ten," a phrase which is said to have originated with Mr. Willia. AUTC5KAln. -mor.g tno celebrated literary men with whom Mr. Gree'e oecarne quite intimately acquainted was Edgar A. Poe, author 0^ " The Eaven," and other poems of rare beauty and power, in V3ll as of a number of tales exhibiting remarkable acumen anu powers of analysis. Poe was no less brilliant as a convcr- sr ulrnisL than he was as a writer, but he was irregular in habLd a'ld careless in business matters. Long after the poet's death, ML-. Greeley received the following letter: Srn: In your extensive correspondency you aave undoabted y secured several autographs of the late distinguishec 1 . American poet, Ed^tu A. Poe. If so, will you please favour me with one, and oblige, " Yours, respectfully, A. 3." To which Mr, Greeley replied: SIR: I happen to have in my possession but one, avtogrtn-i the late distinguished American poet, Edgar A. Poe. It consists of at . O. U., with my name on the back of it. It cost me just $50, and you vji have it for half price. "Yours, HORACE Ci^njEL.^ ." Poor Poe had said that genius might almost be defined as the faculty of acquiring poverty. There was some sad self- love in this, doubtless; and, let us hope, his early death alone prevented him from relieving Mr. Greeley of the necessity of paying an exorbitant price for the poet's autograph. However this may be, Poe was popular as poet and critic, and did all he could in the literary world to cast contempt and ridicule upon " the Transcendentalists," as a certain number of writers, at the head of whom was Ralph Waldo Emerson, were called. Thus, and by reason of other influences, the Transcendentalists were made to appear as decidedly heterodox in the literary church. They became a common target for innumerable paper-bullets of the brain ; so that it was well nigh a reproach to be a Trans- cendentalist or an admirer of the school. Mr. Greeley proceeded with great vigour to put an end to this small business. The Transcendentalists were simply reformers in literature; believers in enlarging the realm of thought, in ensmalling the sphere of mere authority. They proposed to themselves to elevate the recognized standard of iiC J-1FE OF HORACE GKEEL^T. ^pinion, whether ox religion or what not. Not Insisting 4 -i <-t there is (absolutely) anything new under the sun, they believed in the still further improvement of the human mind by ne~ viethods, and that the happiness of the race could be v. s*l t - increased. It was their high ideal which gave them the najie of Transcendental ists. They established a quarterly pullic*- tion at Boston, called The Dial, of which Sarah Margaret Full jr became the editor, with Ralph "Waldo Emerson and Geo 'ge .^pley as assistants. After a time Mr. Emerson became the editor, with his predecessor as chief assistant, but with little real change To these reformers The Tribune extended hearty welcome. Mr. Greeley at once and forever appreciated their thought, their unselfishness, their sublime endeavour, and did 'xll in his power to bring the world to his opinion. Margaret -T'.er herself became connected with The Tribune in the latter j-*-t of ISM, and continued to be literary editor up to August lc ~6, when she departed for Europe. This acquaintance made the heroic period of Mr. Greeley 's life. He gives a full account of it in an article published in her memoirs, which will rightly find place here: "My first acquaintance with Margaret Fuller was made through the pages of The Dial. The lofty range an .1 rare ability of that work, and its un-American richness of culture and ripeness of thought, naturally filled the 'fit audience, though few,' with a high estimate of those who were known as its conductors and principal writers. Yet I do not now remem- ber that any article, which strongly impressed me, was recognized as from the pen of its female editor, prior to the appearance of 'The Great Law- Buit,' afterwards matured into the volume more distinctively, yet not quite accurately, entitled ' Woman in the Nineteenth Century.' I think this can hardly have failed to make a deep impression on the mind of every thoughtful reader, as the production of an original, vigorous, and earnest mind. 'Summer on the Lakes,' which appeared some time after that essay, though before its expansion into a book, struck me as less ambitious in its aim, but more graceful and delicate in its execution ; and as one of the clearest and most graphic delineations ever given of the Great Lakes, of the Prairies, and of the receding barbarism, and the rapidly advancing, cut rude, repulsive semi-civilization, which were contending with most unequal forces for the possession of those rich lands. I still consider ' Summer on the Lakes' unequalled, especially in its pictures of the Prairies, and of the sunnier aspect of Pioneer life. "Yet, it was the suggestion of Mrs. Greeley who had spent some weeks of successive seasons in or near Boston, and who had there made the per- MARGAKET FULLER. . . A B'' jal acquaintance of Miss Fuller, and formed a, very high estim.tle of and \rarm attachment for her that induced me, in the autumn of 1844, to offer Lar terms, which were accepted, for her assistance in the literary depar*. nent of The Tribune. A home in my family was included in the stipule*- t on. I was myself barely acquainted with her when she thus came to reside with us, and ". did not fully appreciate her noble'- qualities for some i onths afterward. Though we were members ci the same household, we scarcely met save at breakfast ; and my time and thoughts were absorbed in duties and cares, which left me little leisure or indication for the amenities of rocial intercourse. Fortune seemed to delight in placing us two in relations of friendly antagonism or rather to develop all possible contrasts in our ideas and social habits. She was naturally inclined tc luxury, and a good appearance before the world. My pride, if I had any, delighted in bare walls and rugged fare. She was addicted to strong teu and coffee, both of which I rejected and condemned, even in the mos; homoeopathic dilutions; while, my general health being sound, and hers sadly impaired, I could not fail to find in her dietetic habits t'he cause of her almost habitual illness; and once, while we were still barely acquainted, when she came to the breakfast-table with a very severe head- ache, I was tempted to attribute it to her strong potations of the Chinese leaf the night before. She told me quite frankly that she ' declined being lectured on the food or beverage she saw fit to take,' which was but reasonable in one who had arrived at her maturity of intellect and fixed- ness of habits. So the subject was thenceforth tacitly avoided between us ; but, though words were suppressed, looks and involuntary gestures cculd not so well be; and an utter divergency of views on this and kindred themes created a perceptible distance between us. "Her earlier contributions to The Tribune were not her best, and I c*id not at first prize her aid so highly as I afterward learned to do. She wroie always freshly, vigorously, but not always clearly ; for her full and lnt ! - mate acquaintance with Continental literature, especially German, seemed to have marred her felicity and readiness of expression in her mothe* tongue. While I never met another woman who conversed more freely or lucidly, the attempt to commit her thoughts to paper seemed to induce a singular embarrassment and hesitation. She could write only when m the vein, and this needed often to be waited for through several days, while the occasion sometimes required an immediate utterance. The new book must be reviewed before other journals had thoroughly dissected and discussed it, else the ablest critique would command no general attention, and perhaps be, by the greater number, unread. That the writer should wait the flow of inspiration, or at least the recurrence of elasticity of spirits and relative health of body, will not seem unreasonable to ths general reader; but to the inveterate hack-horse of the daily p/c-f-a, accustomed to write at any time, on any subject, .ar-d rvith a rapidity limited only by the physical ability to form the requisite pen-strokes, t^ > notion of waiting for a brighter day, or a happier frame of mind, appear* fantastic and absurd. He would as soon think of waivirg for a cl'in^c in OF HORACE UKEELEY. the noon., Hence, while I realized that her contributions evinced intellectual wealth and force, I did not value them as I should have do ie Lxd they been written more fluently and promptly. They often seemed io make their appearance ' a day after the fair.' " One other point of tacit antagonism between us may as well be n< te1. Margaret war -I * ays a iiost earnest, devoted champion of the Emancip.v tion of Women from their past and present condition of inferiority, to aa independence of Men. She demanded for them the fullest recognition of Social and Political Equality with the rougher sex ; the freest access to all btt,ti.'HS, professions, employments, which are open to any. To this cnmand I heartily acceded. It seemed to me, however, that her clear per- ceptions of abstract right were often overborne, in practice, by the influence of education and habit; that while she demanded ahso'ute equality for Woman, she exacted a deference and courtesy from men ta women, as women, which was entirely inconsistent with that requirement. In my view the equalizing theory can be enforced only by ignoring the habitual discrimination of men find women, as forming separate clattet, end regarding all alike as simply persons, as human beings. So long as a lady shall deem herself in need of some gentleman's arm to conduct her properly out of a dining or ball-room, so long as she shall consider it dangerous or unbecoming to walk half a mile alone by night, I cannot see how the ' Woman's Rights ' theory is ever to be anything more than a logically defensible abstraction. In this view Margaret did not at all concur, and the diversity was the incitement to much perfectly good- natured, but nevertheless sharpish sparring between us. Whenever she said or did anything implying the usual demand of Woman on the courtesy and protection of Manhood, I was apt, before complying, to look her in the face and exclaim, with marked emphasis, quoting from her 'Woman in the Nineteenth Century,' 'LET THEM BE SEA-CAPTAINS rp THEY WILL!' Of course, this was given and received as raillery, but it did not tend to ripen our intimacy or quicken my esteem into admiration. Though no unkind word ever passed between us, nor any approach to one, yet we two dwelt for months under the same roof, as scarcely more than acquaintances, meeting once a day at a common board, and having certain business relations with each other. Personally, I regarded her rather as my wife's cherished friend than as my own, possessing many lofty qualities and some prominent weaknesses, and a good deal spoiled by the unmeasured flattery of her little circle of inordinate admirers. For myself, burning no incense on any human shrine, I half-consciously tesolved to 'keep my eye-beam clear,' and escape the fascination which one seemed to exert over the eminent and cultivated persons, mainly women, who came to our out-of-the-way dwelling to visit her, and who c:-t,med generally to regard her with a strangely Oriental adoration. "But, as time wore on, and I became inevitably better and better u jquainted with her, I found myself drawn, almost irresistibly, into the ij:.tril current. Z. found that her faults and weaknesses were all super- ici?u ?.:: i obvious to the most casual, if undazzled, observer. They rather MAKGAKCT FULLER. 173 dwindled than expanded upon a fuller knowledge ; or rather, took on new and brighter aspects in the light of her radiant and lofty soul. I learned to know her as a most fearless and unselfish champion of Truth and Human Good at all hazards, ready to be their standard-bearer through danger and obloquy, and if need be, their martyr. I think few have more keenly appreciated the material goods of life, Rank, Riches, Power, Luxury, Enjoyment; but I know none who would have more cheerfully surrendered them all, if the well-being of our Race could thereby have been promoted. I have never met another in whom the inspiring hope of Immortality was so strengthened into profoundest conviction. She did not believe in our future and unending existence, she knew it, and lived ever in the broad glare of its morning twilight. "With a limited income and liberal wants, she was yet generous beyond the bounds of reason. Had the gold of California been all her own, she would have disbursed nine-tenths of it in eager and well-directed efforts to stay, or at least diminish, the flood of human misery. And it is but fair to state, that the liberality she evinced was fully paralleled by the liberality she experienced at the hands of others. Had she needed thou- sands, and made her wants known she had friends who would have cheerfully supplied her. I think few persons, in their pecuniary dealings, have experienced and evinced more of the better qualities of human nature than Margaret Fuller. She seemed to inspire those who approached her with that generosity which was a part of her nature. " Of her writings I do not propose to speak critically. I think most of her contributions to The Tribune, while she remained with us, were char, acterized by a directness, terseness, and practicality, which are wanting in some of her earlier productions. Good judges have confirmed my own opinion, that while her essays in The Dial are more elaborate and ambi- tious, her reviews in The Tribune are far better adapted to win the favour and sway the judgment of the great majority of readers. But, one characteristic of her writings I feel bound to commend, their absolute truthfulness. She never asked how this would sound, nor whether that would do, nor what would be the effect of saying anything; but simply, 'Is it the truth? Is it such as the public should know?' And if her judgment answered, ' Yes,' she uttered it; no matter what turmoil it might excite, nor what odium it might draw down on her own head. Perfect conscientiousness was an unfailing characteristic of her literary efforts. Even the severest of her critiques, that on Longfellow's Poems, for which an impulse in personal pique has been alleged, I happen with certainty to know had no such origin. When I first handed her the book to review, she excused herself, assigning the wide divergence of her views of Poetry from those of the author and his school, as her reason. She thus induced me to attempt the task of reviewing it myself. But day after day sped by, and I could find no, hour that was not absolutely required for the performance of some duty that would not be put off, nor turned over to another. At length I carried the book back to her in utter despair of ever finding an hour in which even to look through it; and, at LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. my renewed and earnest request, she reluctantly undertook its discussion. The statement of these facts is but an act of justice to her memory. " Profoundly religious, though her creed was, at once, very broad and very short, with a genuine love for inferiors in social position, whom she was habitually studying, by her counsel and teachings, to elevate and improve, she won the confidence and affection of those who attracted her, by unbounded sympathy and trust. She probably knew the cherished secrets of more hearts than any one else, because she freely imparted her own. With a full share both of intellectual and of family pride, she pre- eminently recognized and responded to the essential brotherhood of all human kind, and needed but to know that a fellow-being required her counsel or assistance, to render her, not merely willing, but eager to impart it. Loving ease, luxury, and the world's good opinion, she stood ready to renounce them all, at the call of pity or of duty. I think no one, not radically averse to the whole system of domestic servitude, would have treated servants, of whatever class, with such uniform and thoughtful consideration, a regard which wholly merged their factitious condition in their antecedent and permanent humanity. I think few servants ever lived weeks with her, who were not dignified and lastingly benefited by her influence and her counsels. They might be at first repelled, by what seemed her too stately manner and exacting disposition, but they soon learned to esteem and love her. "I have known few women, and scarcely another maiden, who had the heart and the courage to speak with such frank compassion, in mixed circles of the most degraded and outcast portion of the sex. The con- templation of their treatment, especially by the guilty authors of their ruin, moved her to a calm and mournful indignation, which she did not attempt to suppress nor control. Others were willing to pity and deplore ; Margaret was more inclined to vindicate and to redeem. She did not hesitate to avow that on meeting some of these abused, unhappy sisters, she had been surprised to find them scarcely fallen morally below the ordinary standard of Womanhood, realizing and loathing their debase- ment; anxious to escape it; and only repelled bj'the sad consciousness that for them sympathy and society remained only so long as they should persist in the ways of pollution. Those who have read her 'Woman,' may remember some daring comparisons therein suggested between these Pariahs of society and large classes of their respectable sisters; and that was no fitful expression, no sudden outbreak, but impelled by her most deliberate convictions. I think, if she had been born to large for- tune, a house of refuge for all female outcasts desiring to return to the ways of Virtue, would have been one of her most cherished and first realized conceptions. " Her love of children was one of her most prominent characteristics. The pleasure she enjoyed in their society was fully counterpoised by that she imparted. To them she was never lofty, nor reserved, nor mystical ; for no one had ever a more perfect faculty for entering into their sportsj their feelings, their enjoyments. She could narrate almost any story in ' 'xflii,Li2R ITU %;.guage Irvel to their capacities, and in a manner calculated to l> TIK- .'* 'licir hearty and often boisteroasly-expresseJl delight. She possesoed iLp.r- cllou3 powers of observation and imitation or mimicry; and, hac ihe )een attracted to the stage, would have been the first actress America hi. 1 -) oduced, whether in tragedy or comedy. Her faculty of mimicking ^aa r Vi needed to con mend her to the herrts of children, but it had its efTect i increasing the fascinations of her genial nature and her heartfelt j v i their society. To amuse and instruct them was an achievement fo/ ^ hich she would readily forego any personal object; and ner intuitive perception rf the toys, games, stories, rhymes, etc., best adapted to arrest a -d enchain their attention, was unsurpassed. Between her and my o ly child, then living, who was eight months old when she came to us, nml something over two years when she sailed for Europe, tendrils of affect! o.i gradually intefwimd themselves, which I trust Death has not severed tu: rather multiplied and strengthened. She became his teacher, pi ayroite, and monitor; and he requited her with a prodigality 01 lovt unl admiration. " I shall not soon forget their meeting in my office, after some weeirj separation, just before she left us forever. His mother had brought him in from the country, and left him asleep on my sofa, while she was abten'- making purchases, and he had rolled off and hurt himself in tLe all v waking with the shock in a frenzy of anger, just before Margaret, hcuin^ of his arrival, rushed into the office to find him. I was vainly attempting to soothe him as she entered; but he was running from one end to the other of the office, crying passionately, and refusing to be pacified. Sho hastened to him, in perfect confidence that her endearments would cab . the current of his feelings, that the sound of her well-remembered voii. would banish all thought of his pain, and that another moment wo;:..' see him restored to gentleness; but, half-wakened, he did not heed * cr, and probably did not even realize who it was that caught him repeatedly in her arms and tenderly insisted that he should restrain himseli. A_t Isst she desisted in despair; and, with the bitter tears streaming down her face, observed : ' Pickie, many friends have treated me unkindly, but no one had ever the power to cut me to the heart as you have !' Being thus let alone, he soon came to himself, and their mutual delight in the meeting was rather heightened by the momentary estrangement. "They had one more meeting; the last on earth! 'Aunty Margaret 1 was to embark for Europe on a certain day, and ' Pickie ' was brought into the city to bid her farewell. They met this time also at my office, and together we thence repaired to the ferry-boat, on which she was returning to her residence in Brooklyn to complete her preparations for the voyage. There they took a tender and affecting leave of eacn othe . But soon his mother called at the office, on her way to the departing t^i" , and we were easily persuaded to accompany her th'tL ,r, and say fare T 'd\ once more, to the manifest satisfaction of both Margiret and the young z of her devoted friends. Thus they parted, never t. :ieet again in time. She sent him messages and presents repeatedly froiu Europe; and he, ^iti UiTR OF HOR'_>J GEEELEY v/Le.: rdaevrhat older, dic*,atod a letter in return, which was joyful! ' r'jeived and acknowledged. When th , nioiner of our great-soultd frienc sp ~d some days with us nearly two years afterward, ' Pickie ' talked to hei often and lovingly of 'Aunty Margaret,' proposing that they two shoul. ' ^ake a boat and go over and see her,' for, to his infantile conception the low coast of Long Island, visible just across the Fist River, was that Europe to which she had sailed, and where she was unaccountabl detained &"> long. Alas! a far longer and more adventurous journey was required to re-unite those loving souls! The 12th of July, 184C, saw hi> st-icken down from health to death, by the relentless cholera; and nry leMer, anmuncing that calamity, drew from her a burst of pajsion- & sorrow, sucL as hardly any bereavement but the loss of a very near relative ;.'ild have impelled. Another year had just ended, wh?n a calamity, quslly sudden, bereft a wide circle of her likewise, with her husband and ii.fant sor. Little did I fear, when I bade her a confident Good-by, on the deck of her outward-bound ship, that the sea would close over her earthly remains ere we should meet again; far less that the light of my eyes and 'he cynosure of my hopes, who then bade her a tenderer and sadder fare- well, would precede her on the dim pathway to that 'Father's house' whence is no returning! Ah, well! God is above all, and gracious alike in .yhat He conceals and what He discloses ; benignant and bounteous, .a well ivhen H3 reclaims as when He bestows. In a few years, at farthest, our loved and lost ones will welcome us to their home." At a later period of his life, Mr. Greeley spoke of this great /oman with even warmer enthusiasm and higher admiration, ve said: "Ve have seen that the first impressions made by Margaret, even on those /ho so"n learned to admire her most, were not favourable ; and it was decidedly so in my case. A sufferer myself, and at times scarcely able to ride to and from the office, I yet did a day's work each day, regardless of nerves or moods ; but she had no such capacity for incessant labour. If ' quantity only ,were considered, I could easily write ten columns to her one : indeed, she would only write at all when in the vein ; and her head- aches and other infirmities often precluded all labour for days. Meantime, perhaps, the interest of the theme had evaporated, or the book to be reviewed had the bloom brushed from its cheek by some rival journal. Attendance and care were very needful to her; she would evidently have been \appier amid other and more abundant furniture than graced rur dwelling; and, while nothing was said, I felt that a richer and more gen- trois diet than ours would have been more accordant with her tastes and vistes. Then I had a notion that strong-minded women should be above 'Jv.. rreaknesc of fe_ring to go anywhere, at any time, alone, that the sex >ould 1 ave to emauoipate itself from thraldom to etiquette and the need of a masculine an in crossing a street or a room, before it could expect to fight its way to the l.ar, the bench, the jury-box, and the polls. Nor MARGARET FULLER. 177 was I wholly exempt from the vulgar prejudice against female claimants of functions hitherto devolved only on men, as mistaking the source of their dissatisfaction. Her cousin, Channing, narrating a day's conversa- tion with her in 1840, delicately says: " But the tragedy of Margaret's history was deeper yet. Behind the poet was tho woman, the fond and relying, the heroic and disinterested woman. The very glow of her poetic enthusiasm was but an outfltish of trustful allection; the very restlessness of her intellect was the confession that her heart had found no home. A 'book-worm, 1 a 'dilettante,' a ' pedant,' I had heard her sneenngly called; b her geemirg insensibility was virgin pride, and her absorj-.tisji of emotions which had met no object worthy of life-long attucl her peculiarities became intelligible. Fitfulness, unlooked-for ceptions of words and actions, substitution of fancy for fact during the previous season, as inconsistent in a person of BUC! it now it was evident that iu study the natural vent ment. At once, many of changes of mood, miscon- which had annoyed me capacious judgment and sustained self-government, were now referred to the morbid inllueiice of affections pent up to prey upon themselves." If / had attempted to say this, I should have somehow blundered out that, noble and great as she was, a good husband and two or three bouncing babies would have emancipated her from a deal of cant and nonsense. Yet I very soon noted, even before I was prepared to ratify their judg- ment, that the women who visited us to make or improve her acquaintance seemed instinctively to recognize and defer to her as their superior in thought and culture. Some who were her seniors, and whose writings had achieved a far wider and more profitable popularity than hers, were eager to sit at her feet, and to listen to her casual utterances as to those of an oracle. Yet there was no assumption of precedence, no exaction of defer- ence, on her part ; for, though somewhat stately and reserved in the pres- ence of strangers, no one " thawed out " more completely, or was more unstarched and cordial in manner, when surrounded by her friends. Her magnetic sway over these was marvellous, unaccountable: women who had known her but a day revealed to her the most jealously guarded secrets of their lives, seeking her sympathy and counsel thereon, and were them- selves annoyed at having done so when the magnetism of her presence was withdrawn. I judge that she was the repository of more confidences than any cotemporary ; and I am sure no one had ever reason to regret the im- prudent precipitancy of their trust. Nor were these revelations made by those only of her own plane of life, but chambermaids and seamstresses unburdened their souls to her, seeking and receiving her counsel ; while children found her a delightful playmate and a capital friend. My son Arthur (otherwise " Pickie "), who was but eight months old when she came to us, learned to walk and to talk in her society, and to love and admire her as few but nearest relatives are ever loved and admired by a child. For, as the elephant's trunk serves either to rend a limb from the oak or pick up a pin, so her wonderful range of capacities, of experiences, of sympathies, seemed adapted to every condition and phase of humanity. For every effort to limit vice, ignorance, and misery, she had a ready, eager ear, and a willing hand ; so that her charities large in proportion to her 12 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. slender means were signally enhanced by the fitness and fulness of her wise and generous counsel, the readiness and emphasis with which she, pub- licly and privately, commended to those richer than herself any object de- serving their alms. She had once attended, with other noble women, a gathering of outcasts of their sex ; and, being asked how they appeared to her, replied, "As women like myself, save that they are victims of wrong and misfortune." No project of moral or social reform ever failed to command her generous, cheering benediction, even when she could not share the sanguine hopes of its authors : she trusted that these might somehow benefit the objects of their self-sacrifice, and felt confident that they must, at all events, be blest in their own moral natures. I doubt that our various benevolent and reformatory associations had ever before, or have ever since, received such wise, discriminating commendation to the favour of the rich, as they did from her pen during her connection with The Tribune. In closing her "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," not long before she came to New- York, she had said : "I stand in the sunny noon of life. Objects no longer glitter in the dews of morning, neither are they yet softened by the shadows of evening. Every spot is seen, every chasm revealed. Climbing the dusty hill, some few effigies, that once stood for symbols of human destiny, have been broken ; those I still have with me show defects in this broad light. Yet enough is left, even by experience, to point distinctly to the glories of that destiny, faint, but not to be mistaken, streaks of the future day. I can say with the bard, Though MAWY have suffered shipwreck, still beat noble hearts.' " Though ten years had not passed since her first visit to Emerson, at Concord, so graphically narrated by him in a reminiscence wherefrom I have already quoted, care and suffering had meantime detracted much from the lightness of her step, the buoyancy of her spirits. If, in any of her varying moods, she was so gay-hearted and mirth-provoking as he there describes her, I never happened to be a witness; but then I was never so intimate and admired a friend as he became at an early day, and remained to the last. Satirical she could still be, on great provocation ; but she rarely, and, I judge, reluctantly, gave evidence of her eminent power to rebuke assumption or meanness by caricaturing or intensifying their unconscious exhibition. She could be joyous, and even merry; but her usual manner, while with us, was one of grave thoughtfulness, absorp- tion in noble deeds, and in paramount aspirations and efforts to leave some narrow corner of the world somewhat better than she had found it. * While Margaret Fuller was one of the editors of The Tri- bune, she wrote several articles from two to five each week. On account of ill health, she could only write when " in the mood," the mood sometimes declining to come at her bidding. 1 Recollections of a Busy Life, 177-81. FEMALE JOURNALISTS. 179 Her literary reviews were rather disquisitions upon the authors of books than- criticisms upon the works themselves. It was she, and in articles in The Tribune, who first taught Americans to appreciate and to love George Sand. " With a bleeding heart and bewildered feet," said the American woman of her sister in France, " she sought the Truth, and if she lost the way, returned as soon as convinced she had done so, but she would never hide the fact that she had lost it. 'What God knows I dare avow to man,' seems to be her motto." If there are thousands in our land at this hour who cannot think of George Sand but with tears, and reverence, and love, they may bless Margaret Fuller for the delicious sadness. But for Margaret, the genius of George Sand might with us be even yet trampled under the feet of men. The literary columns of The Tribune at this time also bore generous testimony to the genius of Carlyle, Longfellow, Eichter, Eugene Sue, and others, and gave new charm and fascination to the grand old masters of English literature. Margaret Fuller also contributed essays of a general character to The Tribune, which were remarkable for freshness, suggestiveness, and wisdom. Among them, as one might well conclude from what we have seen Mr. Greeley has said of her, and from what ought to be generally known of her works, were articles upon Woman's Eights. He was surely correct in saying that her " Woman in the Nineteenth Century " if not the clearest and most logical was the loftiest and most commanding assertion that had been made of the right of Woman to be regarded and treated as an independent, intelligent, rational being, entitled to an equal voice in framing and modifying the laws she is required to obey, and in con trolling and disposing of the property she has inherited or aided to acquire. He was confident there lived neither man nor woman who might not profit by a thoughtful perusal of that work. I have judged it just thus to speak and quote at such length of Margaret Fuller, not only because Mr. Greeley's acquaint- ance with her made the finest epic poem of his life, but because she was the pioneer of American female journalists. She did not succeed in persuading her country that Woman ought to 180 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. be treated as an independent, intelligent, rational being, to be so acknowledged by the laws; but by her own life she demon- strated the truth of her claim, and set an example which has been followed by many women who have added power and great beneficence to the most influential of professions. Many of our great journals now have female editors and correspondents who receive equal pay and equal honour with men in similar positions. Miss Kate Field won deserved dis- tinction as a writer on The Tribune, and even greater reputation on the platform. " Fanny Fern " became the first of literary sensationalists. No "Washington correspondent has more grandly succeeded than Mary Clemner Ames. Grace Green- wood, in journalism, has had vastly more readers than she ever procured as a writer of books, piquant, genial, irreverent as she was, even when, between solemn green bindings, she declared that a certain dilapidated mill property was not worth a dam. Mrs. Emily E. Briggs ("Olivia") has made a wide reputation and a good deal of money, besides accomplishing a great amount of good, on Forney's Philadelphia Press. No representative of a metropolitan journal at the National Capital is more industrious, more pains-taking, than she, not one who gets hold of better news, and not one w r ho equals her in inde- pendence and originality. The literary department of The Chicago Evening Post has been noted for its impartial criti- cisms, their elevated tone, and delicate appreciation of genius, learning, art. This department of that journal has for years been conducted by Mrs. Sara M. Hubbard. One of the associate editors of the paper is Miss Buchanan, a lady of real genius, who can dash off a leader on almost any topic in the most lively and readable style. Celia Logan has not only contributed essays to several of our magazines, but was for some time assistant editor of a Washington journal which has never been so excellent since she departed from it. Her less brilliant but more successful sister, Olive, has been a frequent contributor to The Tribune. Very many other instances might be given. These show that the example set by Margaret Fuller was not in vain. If she did not so happily succeed in persuading the public of the CHARLES DICKENS. 181 correctness of her views of Woman's Eights, it may have been because of the unfortunate fact that too many of those who espoused the cause were selfish, croakers, ill educated, coarse, and vituperative. She at last succeeded in giving Woman an honourable, most influential position in journalism, whence in good time Woman may safely demand the rights for which she has long begged in vain; which, it would seem probable, she would have had much more generally recognized ere this time but that the management of the cause was iisurped by women, the preposterous scoldings of some and the atrocious principles of others of whom made that cause appear, first highly ridiculous and then surpassingly immoral. These excesses had not occurred but for the untimely death of Mar- garet Fuller. Her commanding genius and her rich wisdom would have prevented any cause she advocated and led from being regarded by many as either ridiculous or wrong. Horace Greeley was among the first of American journalists to recognize the genius of Charles Dickens. In the very first number of The New-Yorker, he published a story by " Boz," a nom de plume then unknown in America, and but just struggling into notice in England. Upon the occasion of Mr. Dickens's first visit to America, The Tribune did not so heartily approve the dinners in his honour as his advocacy of an international law of copyright. In reply to certain com- plaints of the novelist's advocacy of such a measure Mr. Greeley said: "We trust lie will not be deterred from speaking the frank, round truth by any mistaken courtesy, diffidence, or misapprehension of public senti- ment. He ought to speak out on this matter, for who shall protest against robbery if those who are robbed may not? Here is a man who writes for a living and writes nobly; and we of this country greedily devour his writings, are entertained and instructed by them, yet refuse so to protect his rights as an author that he can realize a single dollar from all their vast American sale and popularity. Is this right? Do we look well offer- ing him toasts, compliments, and other syllabub, while we refuse him naked justice? while we say that every man may take from him the fruits of his labours without recompense or redress ? It does very well in a dinner speech to say that fame and popularity, and all that, are more than sordid gold; but he has a wife and four children, whom his death may very pos- sibly leave destitute, perhaps dependent for their bread, while publishers, 182 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. who have grown rich on his writings, roll by in their carriages, anl mil- lions who have been instructed by them contribute not one farthing to their comfort. But suppose him rich, if you please, the justice of the case is unaltered. He is the just owner of his own productions as much as though he had made axes or horse-shoes ; and the people who refuse to protect his right, ought not to insult him with the mockery of thriftless praise. Let us be just, and then generous. Good reader! if you think our guest ought to be enabled to live by and enjoy the fruits of his talents and toil, just put your names to a petition for an International Copyright Law, and then you can take his hand heartily if it comes in your way, and say, if need be, ' I have done what is in my power to protect you from robbery ! ' The passage of this act of long deferred justice will be a greater tribute to his worth and achievements than acres of inflated compliments soaked in hogsheads of champagne." Washington Irving was chosen to preside at the Dickens Dinner in New- York. With great genius were connected in his nature the tenderness and the modesty of woman. He dreaded the dinner-speech. " I know," he said, " I shall break down." When the time came for him to welcome the distin- guished guest he began an appropriate speech which he had prepared in excellent manner, and the profound respect and love in which he was held caused the deepest attention and perfect silence except the sound of his own voice. This and the up-turned faces frightened him, and after two or three sentences he sat down, blushing like a maiden and completely embarrassed. "There!" said he, after he had recovered his presence of mind enough to speak to the gentleman sitting next to him, " I told you I would break down ; and I have done it." There never was a failure so entirely successful as this. It could hardly have been the beloved writer if he had not " broken down." The Tribune defended Mr. Dickens against the attacks made upon him by reason of certain criticisms of his upon American character and customs in his " American Notes " and the novel of "Martin Chuzzlewit." It may not be generally known that the "Eden " of the work last named is the town of Cairo, in Illinois, where Mr. Dickens made an investment in town lots, which, as he refused to play the popular American game of " diamond cut diamond," never returned him any dividends. TOE DICKENS DINNER. 183 Justice to Cairo demands the statement that Mr. Dickens's "Eden" is in some degree imaginary. I may be excused, I trust, for taking the liberty, of which Mr. Dickens set many examples, of here speaking of his reception in New- York on his second visit to America in 1868. The Dickens Dinner at Delmonico's on the 18th of April was surely one of the finest occasions of the kind which even Del- monico has witnessed. The dinner was given by the Press Club of the city. Horace Greeley presided. There were many distinguished men, journalists, artists, writers, present. There sat Henry J. Raymond, to whom years of experience as jour- nalist and public man had given reputation, wisdom, and the happiest social manners. Near by was George William Curtis, with a face sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, who, like .Raymond, was one of the few Americans excelling both as speakers and as writers. There too was Mr. Whitelaw Reid, looking younger than he was, destined to be Mr. Greeley's successor as Editor of The Tribune, and to bear up its lofty character without a day of drooping hesitation. Murat Hal- stead, of the West, was there, and near him was Samuel Bowles of the most widely influential journal of New England. Gen- eral Joseph R. Hawley, soldier, statesman, editor, and great in each capacity, made one of the most notable of the speeches. Mr. James Parton, the biographer of Franklin, of Jackson, and of Greeley, on this occasion represented The North American He view. There also was Augustus Maverick, soon to become the biographer of Mr. liaymond, whose untimely death occurred only a little more than a year afterwards. The World news- paper was represented by Mr. D. G. Croly, Mr. F. B. Carpenter, and Mr. Henry E. Sweetser. Mr. Thomas McElrath, long Mr. Greeley's partner, Mr. Samuel Sinclair, for years the business manager of The Tribune, Mr. J. Russell Young, managing editor, Mr. R. G. Hassard, associate editor, and Mr. F. J. Ottarson, city editor, and Mr. J. F. Cleveland, associate editor, and compiler of The Tribune Almanac participated in the proceedings. Mr. Charles Nordhoflf, of The Evening Post, one of our most accomplished journalists, was present. There too were editors of religious journals, of magazines. 18-1 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. and representatives of great publishing houses. There also was Mr. "William Orton, who spoiled a great editor when lie made himself the head of a great telegraph company. Others there were less or more distinguished in journal- ism, in letters, in commerce than some of those here named. To preside over an assemblage of such men, with Charles Dickens for their guest, was an honour which Mr. Greeley highly prized, and which he justly deserved. The auto- biographical portion of his speech follows: It is now a little more than thirty-four years since I, a young printer, recently located in the city of New- York, had the audacity to undertake the editing and publishing a weekly newspaper for the first time. Look- mg around at that day for materials with which to make an engaging appearance before the public, among the London magazines which I pur- chased for the occasion was the old Monthly, containing a story by a then unknown writer known to us only by the quaint designation of " Boz." That story, entitled, I think, at that time, " Delicate Attentions," but in its present form entitled, " Mr. Watkins Tottle," I selected and published in the first number of the first journal with which my name was connected. Pickwick was then an unchronicled, if not uncreated character. Sam Weller had not yet arisen to increase the mirth of the Anglo-Saxon race. We had not heard, as we have since heard, of the writer of those sketches, whose career then I may claim to have in some sort commenced with my own [great laughter], and the relation of admirer and admired has con- tinued from that day to the present. I am one of not more than twenty of the present company who welcomed him in this country, on an occa- sion much like this, a quarter of a century ago. When I came to visit Europe, now seventeen years ago, one of my most pleasant experiences there, and one of my pleasantest recollections of Europe, is that of buying in the farthest city I visited the city of Venice, on the Adriatic an Ital- ian newspaper, and amusing myself with what I could not read a trans- lation of " David Copperfield," wherein the dialogue between Ham and Peggotty, with which I was familiar in English, was rendered into very amusing Italian. * * * * Friends and fellow-labourers, as I am to set you an example to-night of a short speech, I will, without further pre- lude, ask you to join me in this sentiment: "Health and happiness, honour and generous, because just, recompense to our friend and guest, Charles Dickens." Mr. Dickens responded as he only could respond to a toast. Mr. Greeley gracefully called out Mr. Raymond to respond in behalf of the New- York Press. Mr. Curtis spoke of The Weekly Press in happiest manner. General Hawley responded THE TRIBUNE IN CRITICISM. 185 to The Press of New England. Others spoke, and all things moved on in a manner that was worthy of the Working jour- nalists of New- York and the most widely-read novelist of his times. "How happily the days Of Thalaba went by!" "Certainly the occasion of the Dickens Dinner in New- York was one of the bright, glorious field-days of Horace Greeley's life. Let us return. The Tribune not only aided in giving the Transcendentalists the influence and popularity to which the most thoughtful minds of the country were entitled, but it held out a generous hand of welcome and of help to every struggling thought. There came a time when still a new school of thinkers occupied prominent position in the literary world, thinkers who undertook to advance the cause of truth through the demonstrations of science. Proclaiming that skepticism is a nobler intellectual quality than credulity, and that no authority can establish an absurdity or overthrow that which is true, they were condemned unheard by many as enemies of religion, and, consequently, as assailants of the highest civilization. Among the class of thinkers to whom we refer were a number of the most subtle and comprehensive minds. Now, it is confessed, they have done much for scholar- ship, for science, for truth; and their influence has been such that' the religion they were supposed to assail has become more liberal, more beautiful, and more beneficent in the judg- ment of those whose opinions are most entitled to respect. We are apt to forget that it required not only wisdom but courage for criticism to recognize and honour even Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and George Eipley; that so it was also with George Sand, and later with Huxley, Her- bert Spenser, Darwin, and others whom mere authority sought to put down. It will not be supposed, of course, that Mr. Greeley person- ally wrote the literary articles of The Tribune which, in the manner we have pointed out, accomplished BO much for litera- 186 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. ture, at the same time enlarging its influence and power, and the influence and power of the public press. He chose his literary as his other assistants, however, with the object of having his views promulgated in this as in other departments of the journal ; and The Tribune had not been long established until both George Ripley and Margaret Fuller were of the corps. Those were the literary lieutenants he wanted; and he procured their services. If it be proper to generalize here, it might be remarked that the literary history of The New- York Tribune is one of the most palpable demonstrations of Horace Greeley's many-sided genius. Consider that he had never had an academical course of education. With the exception of almost the slightest possible aid from common schools during early boyhood, his intellectual training had been all his own. He had acquired no language except that in which his fathers spoke, and with that he seems ever to have been content. And yet there was no one scholar among his countrymen, no matter how pro- foundly versed in learning, who accomplished so much for lite- rature, or who gave it so just, comprehensive, wise an appreci- ation, as a means of human progress and of general enlighten- ment. There were those whose views in respect to the mode of thorough education may have been more correct than his, but none who approached him in giving what may be called general intellectual culture to the general public. The notable fact of which I have just spoken is a demonstra- tion not only of Mr. Greeley's many-sided genius, but also of his democratic nature. One of the people, he sought those means by which the people could be most benefitted, and, what with his great genius and his democratic nature, he found means, through literary influences, to confer at once the greatest practicable good upon the people and upon literature. I think I am correct in the judgment that no literary man has conferred greater or more permanent good upon literature than Horace Greeley, himself entirely self-taught. That I am correct in respect to Mr. Greeley's wise appreci- ation of literature is substantiated not only by what has been set forth in regard to The Tribune's labours and influence THE TRIBUNE IN LITERATURE. 187 herein, but by the fact that so many works of acknowledged place in our letters have been produced by Mr. Greeley him- self and by his assistants on the great journal he founded. This is not the place to speak critically or in full detail of these literary labours. It cannot but be recollected, however, that Mr. Bayard Taylor, who has enriched the literature of his own and of other countries, with poetry, romance, and travels, is a graduate of The Tribune. The most extensive and the most useful of American cyclopedias was prepared under the editorial supervision of Mr. Dana and Mr. Ripley. This work was so well received, that a second edition, carefully revised and materially enlarged and improved by the same editors, was issued in 1873. Mr. Dana has written and edited other works which will long be found in every well-regulated library. A few years ago a work was published entitled " Tribune Essays," being a collection of editorials by Mr. Congdon, one of the associate editors of The Tribune. The most of the articles were upon the subject of slavery, whose adherents were laughed at and satirized by Mr. Congdon in the happiest pos- sible manner. The subject has become obsolete, but if one wishes to find the finest humour in the most polished style, I know not where to direct him other than to this volume of Tribune Essays. The work is pervaded throughout by an elevated tone of political morality, which, most unfortunately, the destruction of slavery has not engrafted into the conduct of our national affairs. The rush for notoriety has crowded our book marts with innumerable works of an ephemeral nature; but year by year, generation by generation, the sifting process goes on and the good alone will be finally left. Then it will, perhaps, be found that from no one quarter were pro- duced so many works of value and literary merit, as by the Editor and Assistant Editors of The New- York Tribune during the years of Horace Greeley's control of the paper. CHAPTEK XII. ERA OF THE MEXICAN WAR GEN. TAYLOR, PRESIDENT. The Tribune from 1844 to 1848 Its Era of Irrepressible Conflicts Rapid Review of its Battles Moves on to Anti-Slavery Its Hostility to the "War with Mexico Enthusiastic Sympathy with Popular Movements in Europe " Slieve-gammon " Tribune Office Burned Mr. Gree- ley Visits the West The Presidential Campaign of 1848 Mr. Gree- ley Dissatisfied with the Nomination of General Taylor Declines to Support the Ticket Speech at Vauxhall Garden Nominated for Congress Taylor and Clay. THE defeat of Henry Clay for the Presidency in 1844, aroused Mr. Greeley to a more profound consideration of the question of slavery than, as an editor, he had yet given it. The com- mon people have an adage, that if our fore-sights were as good as our hind-sights, we should oftener hit the mark. We are apt to do injustice to men who were unable to foresee events of which we have full knowledge. Thus, in the case of Horace Greeley, it is easily to be seen, in 1873, that the Liberal party of 1844 more truly represented his views than the Whig party. But it would be most unjust to conclude that, therefore, he made a mistake in 1844. lie was abreast with the times; and cannot be justly censured for not being ahead of them. After the election of Mr. Polk, The Tribune became an anti-slavery paper. Before that event, Mi*. Greeley had believed in the wrongfulness of slavery, but his journal had rather deprecated the agitation of the subject as tending to be of injury rather than benelit to the slaves. Heretofore Horace Greeley, the politician, had in this matter, mastered Horace Greeley, the reformer. But in 1845, he said: " When we find the Union on the brink of a most unjust and rapacious war, instigated wholly (as is officially proclaimed) by a determination to uphold and fortify slavery, then we do not see how it can longer be ration- ally disputed that the North has much, very much, to do with A FIGHTING ERA. 189 slavery. If we may be drawn in to fight for it, it would be hard indeed that we should not be allowed to talk of it." Henceforth Mr. Greeley and The Tribune did " talk of it," uttering no uncertain sound. But before The Tribune came to be called an " abolition " journal, it had an era of disputes with its cotemporary jour- nals of the city of a remarkable nature. The three or four years following the defeat of Henry Clay may be well styled the era of The Tribune's irrepressible conflicts. We have already related the account of Mr. Greeley's famous dispute with Mr. Raymond upon the subject of Socialism. And as herein The Tribune was supposed to purpose unrelenting war against society, order, property, it was but natural that it should call up against it an army of foes. The Democratic press naturally assailed its most vigorous opponent; but the Whig journals of the city and many of the country were scarcely less hostile than those of the party opposed. Two classes of people inevitably have many to kick at them : the highly successful, and those who have the misfortune to fail. Mr. Greeley was highly successful. In a few years, he had moved on from the position of an awkward, ill dressed country- man, to a position of vast influence. His name was upon every tongue; his journal had become almost a necessity to hundreds of thousands of persons. There were those, there always are, who were envious of this success. They deter- mined to put down the successful man. And as he did have many opinions which were then decidedly unpopular, there seemed to be reasons for assailing him. The liberal views of Mr. Greeley upon the subject of reli- gion were made to figure as a charge of " infidelity." To an assault of this kind by the Express, Mr. Greeley replied : "The editor of The Tribune has never been anything else than a believer in the Christian Religion, and has for many years been a member of a Christian Church. He never wrote or uttered a syllable in favour of Infidelity. But truth is lost on The Express, which can never forgive us the ' Infidelity ' of circulating a good many more copies, Daily aud Weekly, than are taken of that paper." 190 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. The coarse nature of the assaults made upon Mr. Greeley during these years may be judged from the following, taken from The Courier and Enquirer, of which James Watson Webb was editor. Coloned Webb bad been sentenced to two years' coniinement in the penitentiary for the crime of duelling, but Governor Seward had pardoned him after a few hours' incar- ceration. Colonel Webb said: "The editor of The Tribune is an Abolitionist; we precisely the reverse. He is a philosopher; we are a Christian. He is a pupil of Graham, and would have all the world live upon bran-bread and sawdust; we are in favour of living as our fathers did, and of enjoying in moderation the good things which Providence has bestowed upon us. He is the advocate of the Fourierism, Socialism, &nd all the tomfooleries which have given birth to the debasing and disgusting spectacles of vice and immorality which Fanny Wright, Collins, and others exhibit. ***** n e seeks for notoriety by pretending to great eccentricity of character and habits, and by the strangeness of his theories and practices; we, on the contrary, are content with following in the beaten path, and accomplish- ing the good we can, in the old-fashioned way. He lays claim to great- ness by wandering through the streets with a hat double the size of his head, a coat after the fashion of Jacob's of old, with one leg of his panta- loons inside and the other outside of his boot, and with boots all bespat- tered with mud, or, possibly, a shoe on one foot and a boot on the other, and glorying in an unwashed and unshaven person. We, on the contrary, eschew all such affectation as weak and silly; we think there is a difference between notoriety and distinction; we recognize the social obligation to act and dress according to our station in life; and we look upon clean- liness of person as inseparable from purity of thought and benevolence of heart. In short, there is not the slightest resemblance between the editor of The Tribune and ourself, politically, morally, or socially ; and it is only when his affectation and impudence are unbearable, that we condescend to notice him or his press." Mr. Greeley replied: " It is true that the Editor of The Tribune chooses mainly (not entire,y; vegetable food; but he never troubles his readers on the subject; it doea not wrong them; why should it concern the Colonel? It is hard for philosophy that so humble a man shall be made to stand as its exemplar; while Christianity is personified by the hero of the Sunday duel with Hon. Tom. Marshall ; but such luck will happen. "As to our personal appearance, it does seem time that we should say something, to stay the flood of nonsense with which the town must by this time be nauseated. Some donkey a while ago, apparently anxious to assail or annoy the editor of this paper, and not well .knowing with what, JAMES WATSON WEBB 191 originated the story of his carelessness of personal appearance; and since then every blockhead of the same disposition and distressed by a similar lack of ideas, has repeated and exaggerated the foolery; until from its origin in the Albany Microscope it has sunk down at last to the columns of The Courier and Enquirer, growing more absurd at every landing. Yet all this time the object of this silly raillery has doubtless worn better clothes than two-thirds of those who thus assailed him better than any of them could honestly wear, if they paid their debts otherwise than by bankruptcy ; while, if they are indeed more cleanly than he, they must bathe very thoroughly not less than twice a day. The editor of The Tribune is the son of a poor and humble farmer; came to New- York a minor, without a friend within 200 miles, less than ten dollars in his pocket, and precious little besides; he has never had a dollar from a rela- tive, and has for years laboured under a load of debt (thrown on him by others' misconduct and the revulsion of 1837), which he can now just see to the end of. Thenceforth he may be able to make a better show, if deemed essential by his friends; for himself he has not much time or thought to bestow on the matter. That he ever affected eccentricity is most untrue ; and certainly no costume he ever appeared in would create such a sensation in Broadway as that James Watson Webb would have worn but for the clemency of Governor Seward. Heaven grant our assailant may never hang with such weight on another Whig Executive! We drop him." Commenting upon this article, in his Life of Raymond, Mr. Maverick says : " Colonel Webb made no reply. Mr. Greeley had flattened him." The Colonel was so enraged, however, that he undertook to incite a mob against The Tribune, where- upon Mr. Greeley said: " This is no new trick on the part of The Courier. It is not the first nor the second time that it has attempted to excite a mob to violence and outrage against those whom it hates. In July, 1834, when, owing to its ferocious denunciations of the Abolitionists, a furious and law-defying mob held virtual possession of our city, assaulting dwellings, churches, and persons obnoxious to its hate, and when the Mayor called out the citizens by Proclamation to assist in restoring tranquillity, The Courier (llth July) proclaimed: "' It is time, for the reputation of the city, and perhaps for the welfare of themselves, that these Abolitionists and Amalgamationists should know the ground on which they stand. They are, we learn, always clamourous with the Police for protection, and demand it as a right inherent to their characters as American citizens. Now we tell them that, when they openly and publicly outrage public feeling, they hate no right to demand protection from tlie People they thus insult. When they endeavour to disseminate opinions which, if generally imbibed, must infallibly destroy our National 192 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. Union, and produce scenes of blood and carnage horrid to think of; when they thus preach up treason and murder, the cegis of the Law indignantly withdraws its suiter from them. " ' When they vilify our religion by classing the Redeemer of the world in the lowest grade of the human species ; when they debase the noble race from which we spring that race which called civilization into existence, and from which have proceeded all the great, the brave, and the good that have ever lived and place it in the same scale as the most stupid, ferocious, and cowardly of the divisions into which the Crea- tor has divided mankind, then they place themselves beyond the pale of all law, for they violate every law, divine and human. Ought not, we ask, our City authorities to make them understand this ; to tell them that they prosecute their treasonable and beastly plans at their own peril F " Such is the man, such the means, by which he seeks to bully Freemen oat of the rights of Free Speech and Free Thought. There are those who cower before his threats and his ruffian appeals to mob violence here is one who never will ! All the powers of Land-jobbing and Slave-jobbing cannot drive us one inch from the ground we have assumed of determined and open hostility to this atrocious war, its contrivers and abettors. Let those who threaten us with assassination understand, onc,e for all, that we pity while we despise their baseness." In hostility to the Mexican war, Mr. Greeley was constantly outspoken. Many Whigs, many friends of The Tribune and of Mr. Greeley thought that herein his course was impolitic, as it surely was not popular. At last, in reply to complaining letters, he said: " Our faith is strong and clear that we serve our country best by obey, ing our Maker in all things, and that he requires us to bear open, un- equivocal testimony against every iniquity, however specious, and to expose every lying pretense whereby men are instigated to imbrue their hands in each other's blood. We do not believe it possible that our country can be prospered in such a war as this. It may be victorious, it may acquire immense accessions of territory; but these victories, these acquisitions, will prove fearful calamities, by sapping the morals of our people, by inflating them with pride and corrupting them with the lust of conquest and of gold, and leading them to look to the commerce of the Indies and the dominion of the seas for those substantial blessings which follow only in the wake of peaceful, contented Labour. So sure as the universe has a Ruler will every acre of territory we acquire by this war prove to our nation a curse and the source of infinite calamities." It was an unpleasant duty to quote the foregoing extracts from The Courier and Enquirer and The Tribune. But I con- cluded, after deliberate consideration, that it was a duty. It REVOLUTIONS IN EUROPE. 193 will hardly be disputed, I suppose, by any one whose judgment is entitled to respect, that Mr. Greeley had a genuinely benig- nant, benevolent nature. This is shown by innumerable facts, from his school days till the time when the shadow of death encompassed him. About this very time, he frequently deliv- ered a lecture beginning: "To do good is the proper business of life to qualify for earnestness and efficiency in doing good, is the true end of Education. The sum of all true knowledge in the child is a consciousness that he lives not for himself, but for his Creator and his Race." This grand truth Mr. Greeley was all the time endeavouring to enforce by example, by speech, by writings. Is it any wonder that, finding himself misunder- stood, grossly misrepresented by the selfish, assailed with bitter vindictiveness by those who were envious of his substan- tial success, that he came to his own defense with an earnest- ness which sometimes boiled over in wrath, and caused him to make use of abusive expressions which it had been well had they never been uttered? Under such assaults as he received, patience, though sublime, was exhausted; generosity, though unbounded, was consumed; and, forced into the fight, he delivered battle with terrible effect and a mercilessness which may be described as almost savage. He won the victory; but the effect of the long conflict was to give bitterness to a nature with which bitterness was not congenial. And this acquired quality clung to him throughout the remainder of his life, and was the origin of some of its most unhappy incidents ; incidents which, with their accompanying expressions, injured the har- mony and dimmed the beauty of a character of such surpassing greatness and natural goodness. But if Mr. Greeley found reason to oppose the Mexican war, he found wars taking place in other parts of the world, in which he took the deepest interest. Late in May, 1848, the steamship Cambria arrived at New-York from Liverpool, bringing intelligence of the abdication of Louis Philippe, King of France; of the proclamation of the French Republic; of other events which were the thrilling precursors of those revo- lutionary attempts in France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Ireland, for whose success the sympathies of the American 13 194 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. people generally were profoundly interested. Though Margaret Fuller was at this time in Europe, a correspondent of The Tribune, and its bureau in the old world was well conducted, Mr. Dana was sent abroad with the object of procuring the fullest and most reliable intelligence touching the revolutionary movements. He wrote a series of letters to The Tribune, signing them with the initials of his name, which gave the paper great interest and value, and which may yet be consulted with profit by those who appreciate the lessons of that eventful epoch. Mr. Greeley himself was animated by great enthusiasm for the popular cause, and wrote articles almost daily upon the subject. He was placed upon the " Directory of the Friends of Ireland," of which he remained an active member, and to the funds of which he contributed with characteristic liberality. One may find at this day in the files of The Tribune of the remarkable era under consideration sufficient data upon which to construct a full and valuable history of events which con- vulsed a continent, but, unhappily, without the immediate benefit to mankind which the friends of man so sanguinely hoped. Mr. Greeley was exceedingly hopeful, but his judg- ment was not so far swayed by his sentiments as to injure the value of his advice, or throw suspicion upon the sincerity of his warnings. A somewhat amusing event in newspaper circles occurred in connexion with current events in Ireland. The country was in excited expectation in regard to the Irish rebellion, when The Tribune published three letters, dated at Dublin about the first of 'August giving an account of " the battle of Slievena- mon," in which the commander of the British forces and sev- eral thousand troops were reported killed by the populace. The Irish and their friends were greatly elated; but it soon transpiring that no such affair had occurred, The Tribune was charged with imposing upon the public. The truth was, The Tribune was imposed upon by the correspondent, and he had written the letters in good faith, believing every word he said. Dublin was all excitement, and the Slievenamon affair was there by many believed to have occurred. It is hardly neces Bary to say that The Tribune's cotemporaries made no small BTJENED OLT. 195 sport of tin's " Slievegamrnon " business as tliey called it. 'At ihe time of the appearance of the letters Mr. Greeley was out of the city, looking after copper-mines in Michigan. But the period from the defeat of Henry Clay to the election of General Taylor of which we are now treating, was one not only of tierce conflicts at home and abroad, but one of varied fortune in The Tribune. Mr. Polk had not yet been inaugu- rated, when the building in which The Tribune was published was destroyed by fire. This was on the morning of February 5, 1845. The catastrophe is thus described by The Tribune of the next morning: Q ' "At 4 o'clock, yesterday morning, a boy in our employment entered our publication office, as usual, and kindled a lire in the stove for the day, after which he returned to the mailing-room below, and resumed folding newspapers. Half an hour afterward a clerk, who slept on the counter of the publication office, was awakened by a sensation of heat, and found the room in flames. He escaped with a slight scorching. A hasty effort was made by two or three persons to extinguish the fire by casting water upon it, but the fierce wind then blowing rushed in as the doors were opened, and drove the flames through the building with inconceivable rapidity. Mr. Graham and our clerk, Robert M. Strebeigh, were sleeping in the second story, until awakened by the roar of the flames, their room being full of smoke and fire. The door and stairway being on fire, they escaped with only their night-clothes, by jumping from a rear window, each losing a gold watch, and Mr. Graham nearly $500 in cash, which was in his pocket-book under his pillow.- Robert was somewhat cut in the face, on striking the ground, but not seriously. In our printing-office, fifth story two compositors were at work making up The Weekly Tribune for the press, and had barely time to escape before the stairway was in flames. In the basement our pressmen were at work on The Daily Tribune of the morning, and had printed about three-fourths of the edition. The balance of course went with everything else, including a supply of paper, and The Weekly Tribune, printed on one side. A few books were hastily caught up and saved, but nothing else not even the daily form, on which the pressmen were working. So complete a destruction of a daily newspaper office was never known. From the editorial rooms, not a paper was saved ; and, besides all the editor's own manuscripts, correspondence, and collec- tion of valuable books, some manuscripts belonging to friends, of great value to them, are gone. "Our loss, so far as money can replace it, is about $18,000, of which $10,000 was covered by insurance. The loss of property which insurance would not cover, we feel more keenly. If our mail-books come out whole from our Salamander safe, now buried among the burning ruins, we shall be gratefully content. 196 LITE OF HORACE GREELET. ** It is usual on such occasions to ask, ' Why were you not fully insured ? * It was impossible, from the nature of our business, that we should be so ; and no man could have imagined that such an establishment, in which men were constantly at work night and day, could be wholly consumed by fire. There has not been another night, since the building was put up, when it could have been burned down, even if deliberately fired for that purpose. But when this fire broke out, under a strong gale and snow- storm of twenty-four hours' continuance, which had rendered the streets impassable, it was well-nigh impossible to drag an engine at all. Some of them could not be got out of their houses; others were dragged a few rods and then given up of necessity ; and those which reached the fire found the nearest hydrant frozen up, and only to be opened with an axe. Mean- time, the whole building was in a blaze." By the kind assistance of other offices and energy on the part of Tribune management, the paper was published as usual the next day. Shortly afterwards these "Reflections over the Fire" appeared: " We have been called, editorially, to scissor out a great many fires, both small and great, and have done so with cool philosophy, not reflecting how much to some one man the little paragraph would most assuredly mean. The late complete and summary burning up of our office, licked up clean as it was by the red flames, in a few hours, has taught us a lesson on this head. Aside from all pecuniary loss, how great is the suffering pro- duced by a fire! A hundred little articles of no use to any one save the owner, things that people would look at day after day, and see nothing in, that we ourselves have contemplated with cool indifference, now that they are irrevocably destroyed, come up in the shape of reminiscences, and seem as if they had been worth their weight in gold. " We would not indulge in unnecessary sentiment, but even the old desk at which we sat, the ponderous inkstand, the familiar faces of files of Cor- respondence, the choice collection of pamphlets, the unfinished essay, the charts by which we steered can they all have vanished, never more to be seen ? Truly your fire makes clean work, and is, of all executive officers, super-eminent. Perhaps that last choice batch of letters may be some- where on file ; we are almost tempted to cry, 'Devil ! find it up !' Poh ! it is a mere cinder now ; some Fathoms deep my letter lies; Of its lines is tinder made, 1 " No Arabian tale can cradle a wilder fiction, or show better how alto- gether illusory life is. Those solid walls of brick, those five decent stories, those steep and difficult stairs, the swinging doors, the Sanctum, scene of many a deep political drama, of many a pathetic tale, utterly whiffed out, as one summarily snuffs out a spermaceti on retiring for the night. And all perfectly true. "THE FAR WEST." 197 One always has some private satisfaction in his own particular misery. Consider what a night it was that burnt us out, that we were conquered by the elements, went up in flames heroically on the wildest, windiest, stormiest night these dozen years, not by any fault of human enterprise, but fairly conquered by stress of weather ; there was a great flourish of trumpets at all events. "And consider, above all, that Salamander safe; how, after all, the fire, assisted by the elements, only came off second best, not being able to reduce that safe into ashes. That is the streak of sunshine through the dun wreaths of smoke, the combat of human ingenuity against the despe- rate encounter of the seething heat. But those boots, and Webster's Dic- tionary well ! we were handsomely whipped there, we acknowledge." It thus appears that Mr. Greeley took the disaster with philosophical serenity. Margaret Fuller, then writing for The Tribune, wrote to a friend: "You have heard that The Tribune office was burned to the ground. For a day I thought it must make a difference, but it has served only to increase my admi- ration for Mr. Greeley's smiling courage. He has really a strong character." In about ninety days the office was rebuilt, making one of the most complete and convenient printing establishments then in existence, but afterwards greatly sur- passed by the offices of other daily journals in New- York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Ever after the fire, The Tribune kept in reserve complete duplicate materials, so that, in case of another similar accident, a new Tribune could instantly be set in motion. This dupli- cate office was generously offered to a Chicago journal after the fearful fire which destroyed a great portion of that city in October, 1871. In the Spring of 1847, Mr. Greeley made his first journey to " the far West." Some three years before he had taken some stock in a mining company of the Lake Superior Copper region, whose deposits of mineral wealth had then been recently discovered, and had persuaded others to do likewise; and now made a business visit to the property, taking with him cash to pay off workmen. At Detroit he bought a yoke of oxen, a supply of forage, provisions, and necessary imple- ments, and proceeded on his journey. He found Lake Huron shrouded in fog and mist throughout its entire length. "At the Sault Ste. Marie," he says, "we found a small bat smart 198 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. young village, to whose assembled inhabitants two of us made temperance addresses, which I think some of them needed." His goods were taken across the portage by wagon, when they and their owner " took the only old propeller which had, as yet, been got across and launched on Lake Superior, and started up the lake." The vessel reached Eagle Harbour, Mr. Greeley's place of destination, on the loth of June. He observed that the shal- low water of the harbour was frozen over next morning for some distance from shore. He attended to the business in hand, making considerable journeys round about on foot, and being wonderfully annoyed by " more ferocious clouds of mos- quitoes and gnats than ever before or since presented their bills, and insisted on immediate satisfaction." Returning, Mr. Greeley paid a visit to Chicago, travelling per steamer, by way of Mackinac, Sheboygan, and Milwaukee. Chicago, he says, was "then a smart and growing village, where some thousands of us gathered from the East and from the West in a grand River and Harbour Convention, which was organized on the 4th of July." Mr. Greeley thought the proceedings of this Convention, whereat its President, Hon. Edward Bates, made the greatest speech of his long public life, gave a considerable impetus to the subsequent great growth of Chicago. He adds, descriptive of the country to the westward of Chicago : " When the Convention had closed its deliberations, Mr. John Y. Scammon, then a rising young lawyer, since an eminent banker of Chicago, took his carriage and pair, and drove with me for three days over the prairies west of that city ; crossing Fox River at Geneva, proceeding to what is now Syca- more, and returning by Elgin to the City of the Lakes. I had, eight years earlier, traversed eastern Michigan, and there made the acquaintance of what were called 'wet prairies,' by which I had not been fascinated. But the prairies of Illinois are of another order; and, though by no means that dead, unbroken level which many suppose them, but cut up by brook- beds, sloughs, and roads, which were merely wagon-tracks in a deep, black soil, wore a generally delightful aspect. Forests were less frequent than seemed desirable ; but ' openings,' or scattered trees, were never out of sight ; and the small and scanty settlements were usually surrounded by promising fields of wheat and Indian corn. I presume we did not see oue human habitation where a traveller over our route would now see fifty ; MILWAUKEE. 199 while the average value or cost of the rude cabins we passed would hardly exceed $200, where that of the present houses would reach at least $2,000. Teamsters conveying grain to Chicago, or returning with lumber, we frequently met; yet inns were decidedly scarce; since few teamsters could afford to pay money for food or shelter, while the great mass stopped for /est or meals under almost any tree, turned out their horses to graze, or fed them from their wagons, while they ate of the substantial, wholesome food they had brought from home. I was told that a load of wheat taken sixty miles to Chicago in those days just about paid for a return load of fence-boards, leaving the farmer who made the exchange little or nothing wherewith to pay tavern-bills. Few of the early pioneers of Illinois took thither more than a fair wagon-load of worldly gear and $100 in money; many lacking the $100, and had but half a load of household stuff in the wagon, the other half being composed of wife and children ; yet all found somehow enough to eat, and did not suffer intolerably from cold; and now those children enjoy comforts and many revel in luxuries which their parents scarcely aspired to. Do they realize and fitly honour the self- forgetting courage and devotion to which they are so deeply indebted ?" Milwaukee at this time appeared to Mr. Greeley as " a smart but struggling country village, consisting of some three or four hundred new houses clustered about a steamboat landing at the mouth of a shallow, crooked creek." Sheboygan was then relatively of far greater importance than now, but he reached the untouched primeval wilderness within two miles from the steamboat-landing, and travelled under the shade of the primitive forest through most of the succeeding ten miles to the residence of an uncle he was visiting. And yet he pre- dicted that Wisconsin at the close of the nineteenth century would be the home " of three millions of people as energetic, industrious, worthy, and happy, as any on earth." At this time no railway reached Chicago and " barely one line (the Michigan Central) pointed directly at that young city." He crossed the lake by steamer, and thence went to Kalamazoo by stage, where he took cars for Detroit, and going hence to Buft'alo by steamer, by rail to Albany, reached home by a North River steamer. Toward the close of August, 1848, Mr. Greeley again visited his Lake Superior mining property, and found that encourag- ing progress had been made since his former visit. The investment never brought him, however, any notable profits. On this visit he tested the assertion that the waters of Lake 200 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. Superior are at all times too cold to bathe in. " I stripped,'* he says, "and plunged in; but was driven out as by a legion of infuriated hornets. The water was too cold to be endured; and I never thereafter doubted the assertion, that a hot day was never known on that Lake at a distance of a mile or more from land." This was also the year of a presidential campaign. The Democratic convention, held at Baltimore, had nominated General Lewis Cass, of Michigan, and General "William O. Butler, of Kentucky, for President and Vice- President respect- ively, in the latter part of May. The Whigs held their con- vention in Philadelphia, on the 7th of June following, and had several days' stormy sessions. Mr. Greeley, who was present, earnestly desired the nomination of Henry Clay, and an endorsement of the Wilmot Proviso in the platform. Unabl^ to secure either the one or the other, he left the convention in disgust, and for some time refused, both personally and edito- rially, to support the ticket nominated, General Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana, for President, and Millard Fillmore, of New York, for Vice-President. Large numbers of Whigs throughout the country heartily sympathized with Mr. Gree- ley, and the disaffection might have been fatal to success, but for even greater disaffection, in the Democratic party, with the Baltimore nominations. A " Free Democratic Convention " was held at Buffalo, in August, and Martin Van. Buren, Ex- President, was nominated for the first place, the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, for the second place on the ticket. Meantime, however, the disaffection of the Whigs had greatly decreased. General Taylor pronounced himself "a Whig, though not an ultra Whig." And, generally, as his history and character became better known, respect for him increased. Slowly though surely the friends of Mr. Clay, who were also quite generally throughout the North advocates of a Protective Tariff and slavery restriction, were induced to sup- port the ticket. The reasons for the course of such were not oetter stated, perhaps, than they were by Mr. Greeley in a speech at Vauxhall Garden, New- York, not long after his VAUXIIALL GARDEN SPEECH. 201 return from Lake Superior, namely on the 27th of September. Happening to attend a Whig meeting there, Mr. Greeley.waa called out, and responded in a speech, which may be read with profit to this day. It has been in substance reported thus : " 1 trust, fellow-citizens, I shall never be afraid nor ashamed to meet a Whig assemblage and express my sentiments on the political questions of the day. And although I have had no intimation till now that my presence here was expected or desired, I am the more ready to answer your call since I have heard intimations, even from this stand, that there was some mystery in. my course to be cleared up some astounding revela- tion with regard to it to be expected. And our eloquent friend, from Ken- tucky even volunteered, in his remarks, to see me personally and get me right. If there be indeed any mystery in the premises, I will do my best to dispel it. But I have, in truth, nothing to reveal. I stated in announc- ing Gen. Taylor's nomination, the day after it was made, that I would support it if I saw no other way to defeat the election of Lewis Cass. That pledge I have ever regarded. I shall faithfully redeem it. And, since there is now no chance remaining that any other than Gen. Taylor or Gen. Cass can be elected, I shall henceforth support the ticket nominated at Philadelphia, and do what I can for its election. " But I have not changed my opinion of the nomination of Gen. Taylor. I believe it was unwise and unjust. For Gen. Taylor, personally, I have ever spoken with respect; but I believe a candidate could and should have been chosen more deserving, more capable, more popular. I cannot pre- tend to support him with enthusiasm, for I do not feel any. "Yet while I frankly avow that I would do little merely to make Gen. Taylor President, I cannot forget that others stand or fall with him, and that among them are Fillmore and Fish and Patterson, with whom I have battled for the Whig cause ever since I was entitled to vote, and to whom I cannot now be unfaithful. I cannot forget that if Gen. Taylor be elected we shall in all probability have a Whig Congress; if Gen. Cass is elected, a Loco-Foco Congress. Who can ask me to throw away all these because of my objections to Gen. Taylor? "And then the question of Free Soil, what shall be the fate of that? I presume there are here some Free Soil men ['Yes! Yes! aZZFree Soil!'] I mean those to whom the question of extending or restricting Slavery outweighs all other considerations. I ask these what hope they have of keeping Slavery out of California and New-Mexico with Gen. Cass Presi- dent, and a Loco-Foco Congress ? I have none. And I appeal to every Free Soil Whig to ask himself this question ' How would South Carolina and Texas wish you to vote ?' Can you doubt that your bitter adversaries would rejoice to hear that you had resolved to break off from the Whig party and permit Gen. Cass to be chosen President, with an obedient Con- gress? /cannot doubt it. And I cannot believe that a wise or worthy course, which my bitterest adversaries would gladly work out for me. 202 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. " Of Gen. Taylor's soundness on this question, I feel no assurance, and can give none. But I believe him clearly pledged by his letters to leave legislation to Congress, and not attempt to control by his veto the policy of the country. I believe a Whig Congress will not consent to extend Slavery, and that a Whig President will not go to war with Congress and the general spirit of his party. So believing, I shall support the Whig nominations with a view to the triumph of Free Soil, trusting that the day is not distant when an amendment of the Federal Constitution will give the appointment of Postmasters and other local officers to the People, and strip the President of the enormous and anti-republican patronage which now causes the whole political action of the country to hinge upon its Presidential Elections. Such are my views ; such will be my course. I trust it will no longer be pretended that there is any mystery about them." "We shall presently see that Mr. Greeley was elected to Con- gress upon the same ticket with General Taylor. After the election, Mr. Brooks published a card of thanksgiving to those who had voted for him which suggested one from Mr. Greeley. As it particularly refers to matters of the year just now in review, it is quoted here: "TO THE ELECTORS OF THE Vlra CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT. "The undersigned, late a candidate for Congress, respectfully returns iis thanks first, to his political opponents for the uniform kindness and consideration with which he was treated by them throughout the canvass, and the unsolicited suffrages with which he was honoured by many of them ; secondly, to the great mass of his political brethren, for the ardent, enthusiastic, and effective support which they rendered him ; and, lastly, to that small portion of the Whig electors who saw fit to withhold from him their votes, thereby nearly or quite neutralizing the support he received from the opposite party. Claiming for himself the right to vote for or against any candidate of his party as his own sense of right and duty shall dictate, he very freely accords to all others the same liberty, without offence or inquisition. " During the late canvass I have not, according to my best recollection, spoken of myself, and have not replied in any way to any sort of attack or imputation. I have in no manner sought to deprecate the objections, nor to soothe the terrors of that large and most influential class who deem my advocacy of Land Reform and Social Re-organization synonymous with Infidelity and systematic Robbery. To have entered upon explanations or vindications of my views on these subjects in the crisis of a great National struggle, which taxed every energy, and demanded every thought, com- ported neither with my leisure nor my inclination. "Neither have I seen fit at any time to justify nor allude to my parti- cipation in the efforts made here last summer to aid the people of Ireland in their anticipated struggle for Liberty and Independence. I shall iiot di GENERAL TAYI.OK. s 2l*{ so now. What I did then, in behalf of the Irish millions, I stand ready to do again, so far as my means will permit, when a similar opportunity, with a like prospect of success, is presented and not for them only, but for any equally oppressed and suffering people on the face of the earth. If any ' extortion and plunder ' were contrived and perpetrated in the meetings for Ireland at Vauxhall last season, I am wholly unconscious of it, though I ought to be as well informed as to tbe alleged ' extortion and plunder ' as most others, whether my information were obtained in the character of conspirator or that of victim. I feel impelled, however, by the expressions employed in Mr. Brooks's card, to state that I have found nothing like an inclination to 'extortion and plunder' in the coun- cils of the leading friends of Ireland in this city, and nothing like a suspicion of such baseness among the thousands who sustained and cheered them in their efforts. All the suspicions and imputations to which those have been subjected, who freely gave their money and their exertions in aid of the generous though ineffectual effort for Ireland's liberation, have originated with those who never gave that cause a prayer or a shilling, and have not yet travelled beyond them. " Respectfully, HORACE GREELEY. " New- York, Nov. 8, 1848." Though Mr. Greeley had many reasons which impelled him to decidedly object to General Taylor's nomination, and which also caused him to decline to support the nomination for some months after it had been made, yet may it now be seen that his judgment was in errour. In after years he ingenuousl^ admitted as much, ir a "andid tribute to General Taylor, when he said: " I think I never ,aw General Ta lor save for a moment at the Inaugura- tion Ball, on the night after his accession to the Presidency. I was never introduced and never wrote to him-; and, while I ultimately supported and voted for him, I did not hurry myself to secure his election. In fact, that of 1848 was my easiest and least anxious Presidential canvass since 1324. When a resolve opposing the Wilmot Proviso was laid on the table at the Convention that nominated him, I felt that my zeal, my enthusiasm for the Whig cause was also laid there. "Yet I have little faith in third-party movements, which are generally impelled by an occult purpose to help one of the leading parties by draw- ing off votes from the other. General Taylor at length avowed himself 'a Whig, but not an ultra Whig ' ; and I believe that was about the literal truth. Zealous Whigs apprehended that he might, if elected, shrink from discharging the officeholders appointed by Tyler and Polk; but, after giving him a trial, they were constrained to admit that he 'turned out better than had been expected.' He was a man of little education or literary culture but of signc-i good sense, coolness, and freedom from LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. prejudice. Few trained and polished statesmen have proved fitter deposi- taries of civil power than this rough old soldier, whose life had been largely passed in canip and bivouac, on the rude outskirt of civilization, or in savage wastes far beyond it. General Taylor died too soon for his country's good, but not till he had proved himself a wise and good ruler, if not even a great one." ' This seems to express agreement with the opinion, enter- tained by many persons at the time familiar with the inside history of the conduct of public affiurs, that President Taylor, had he lived, would have resist"*! the encroachments of the Slave Power and the obnoxious portions of the " Compromise measures." But not so lonp- as Henry Clay lived, nor for many years after his death, did Mr. Greeley discover his mis- take of 1848. 1 Recollections of a Busy Life, p. 215. CHARLES A. DANA. See page 130, etc. CHAPTEK XIII. A MEMBER OF CONGRESS. Elected to Congress for "a Short Term " His Opinion of the Chaplaincy Land Reform The Famous Congressional 3Iileage Expose Aui. mated Debates Tilt with "Long John" Wentwortu on the Tariff Question A Lively Debate on Congressional Books Speech on Re- cruiting in the Army Speeches on the California and New Mexico Bills The Last Night of the Session "War Between the North and South Begun" Some of His Distinguished Fellow-Members: Messrs. Winthrop; Lincoln; Collamer; Giddings; Schenck; Horace Mann; Andrew Johnson; Ashniun; Wentworth; Cobb; R. W. Thompson; Jacob Thompson ; George W. Jones, of Tennessee ; Stephens ; Toombs ; Botts; John S. Pendleton; and others Address To his Constituents Congress Then and Now. HORACE GREELEY, as we have seen, was greatly dissatisfied with the nomination of General Taylor as the Whig candidate for President in 1848. Pie was what the virtuous politicians of the present day would call " a sore-head;" a sore-head being a person with some ideas of his own, and a man not signed, sealed, and delivered up in fee-simple to party. Mr. Greeley finally supported General Taylor, however, and actually ran for Congress on the same ticket with him. This came about in this wise: In the election of 1840, r^cmbers of the Thirtieth Congress beinar *!:en chosen, David S. Jackson, Democrat, had been returned from the upper district of New- York city, beating Colonel James Monroe, the "Whig candidate, by importing the adult male paupers from the almshouse on Blackwell's Island " not merely those," dryly says Mr. Greeley, " who had resided in onr district before they honoured our city by condescending to live at her expense, but those who had been gathered in from other districts." The House of Representatives, on proof of the fraud, unseated Jackson, but instead of seating Colonel Monroe, ordered a new election. But by this time it 206 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELET. was far in the year 1848. Colonel Monroe expected to be a candidate for the vacancy and for the Thirty-first Congress. For the latter, however, the name of James Brooks had been engraved in large letters on " the slate," and the slate could not be broken. Colonel Monroe indignantly declined the nom- ination for " the short term," and it was offered to Mr. Greeley. He at first resolved to decline "that fag-end of a term," but the nomination being most kindly pressed upon him, with strong reasons therefor, he accepted it. Mr. Brooks was nomi- nated for the succeeding Congress. A politician soon called on Mr. Greeley, professing to be from Mr. Brooks, to inquire as to what should be done to secure their election. " Tell Mr. Brooks," said Mr. Greeley, " that we have only to keep so still that no particular attention will be called to us, and General Taylor will carry us both in." The result verified the predic- tion, General Taylor receiving in the district 11,000 votes, Mr. Greeley 9,932, and Mr. Brooks 9,709. General Cass had 6,826 votes, Mr. Van Buren 1,681. Mr. Greeley's district embraced all of the city of New- York above Fourteenth street and three wards lying below that street, and contained about one-third of the population of the city. Its boundaries now contain more than two-thirds of the popu- lation. Soon after taking his seat, Mr. Greeley introduced a bill in the nature of the homestead act successful not till years afterwards and in reply to a Western member who wanted to know why New York should busy herself as to the disposal of the public lands, said that his interest in the matter was greatly stimulated by the fact that he represented more landless men than any other member on the floor. The reason was regarded as highly satisfactory, so far as Mr. Greeley was concerned. Mr. Greeley took his seat in the House of Representatives on Monday, December 4th. On the next day he gave notice of a bill to discourage speculation in public lands, and to secure homes thereon to actual settlers and cultivators. Members and Senators were slow in reaching the Capital. If one will now take up The Congressional Globe of that session he will find this entry day after day: "Several other members appeared this day and took their seats' " and in the Senate such entries FIKSTT HOMESTEAD BILL. 207 as these: "Mr. Rusk, of Texas, and Mr. Borland, of Arkan- sas, appeared in their seats to-day." " Mr. Calhoim, of South Carolina, appeared in his place to-day." (12th.) " Mr. Douglas. Do I understand the Chair that there is no quorum present?" "The Chair replied that there was no quorum." " Mr. Doug- las. Then if there is no quorum, I presume no business is in order." " The Chair replied 4 that no business was in order until a quorum was present." " On motion of Mr. Hale the Senate then adjourned." This mode of proceeding did not strike Mr. Greeley favourably. He thought that men who were paid to be in Washington, engaged in legislation, ought to be there legislating. He wrote a letter to The Tribune upon the subject, which had some vig- orous English in it. From this letter it would seem that he O neld the Congressional Chaplaincy in no very exalted esteem. He says: " On the third day, the Senate did not even succeed in forming a quorum, out of fifty-seven or eight members, who are all sure to be in for their pay and mileage, only twenty-nine appeared in their seats ; and the annual hypocrisy of^elccting a chaplain had to go over and waste another day. If either House liad a chaplain who dare preach to its members what they ought to hear of their faithlessness, their neglect of duty, their iniquitous waste of time, and robbery of the public by taking from the treasury money which they had not even attempted to earn then there would be some sense in the chaplain business; but any ill-bred Nathan or Elijah who should undertake such a job would be kicked out in short order. So the chaplaincy remains a thing of grimace and mummery, nicely calcu- lated to help some flockless and complaisant shepherd to a few hundred dollars, and impose on devout simpletons an exalted notion of the piety of Congress. Should not the truth be spoken ?" A week after notice, Mr. Greeley introduced his Homestead bill, which was referred to the Committee on Public Lands. On the 27th of the following February the Chairman of that Committee reported the bill back to the House without amend- ment which was equivalent to recommending no action on the measure. Mr. Greeley obtained the floor, and made the fol- lowing speech: This is the bill which I introduced at an early day, upon notice given on the second day of the session. It is the only bill which has been before the *20S LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. Committee on Public Lands this winter, proposing to recognize in any foiaa the principle that a man is entitled to live somewliere, although he has no money wherewith to buy land to live on. This bill asserts this principle in the meekest and least exceptionable manner. It respects the pledges solemnly made of the proceeds of our public lands to secure the payment of our Mexican war loans. The fee of every acre of the public lands will remain in the United States, under the provisions of this bill, until it shall have been purchased and paid for by the holder. And, while it thus guards the interests of the whole country, it secures a home to every one who will claim it, without money and without price. Such are the gen- eral characteristics of this bill. Its material provisions are as follows : 1. Every citizen or applicant for citizenship is authorized by this bill to claim and settle upon any quarter-section of the public lands subject to private entry at the minimum price, receiving a certificate of right of pre- emption thereto for seven years thereafter. 2. At any time during those seven years, upon giving due proof that he has improved, cultivated, built a dwelling upon, and now actually inhabits . that quarter-section, and is the owner or claimant of no other land what- ever, he (or she) shall be entitled (if a single person) to a right of unlimited occupancy to forty acres of said tract, or (if the married head of a family) to a like right of occupancy to any legal subdivision of eighty acres thereof, to be his without payment, and to pass to his heirs or assigns, who are owners or claimants of not more than one hundred and sixty acres of land, this included. 3. The balance of the one hundred and sixty acres covered by pre- emption, as aforesaid, may be purchased by the legal occupant at any time within the seven years' existence of the preemption, at the present mini- mum price of one dollar and a quarter per acre,-with legal interest thereon from the date of preemption. If not so purchased, it will be open to pre- emption or purchase by any other person, as aforesaid. 4. Any person may purchase, at the present legal minimum, any quantity of the public lands, making affidavit that he requires the same, and the whole of it, for his own use and improvement; but any person failing or neglecting to make and file such affidavit shall be charged, and shall pay, for whatever land he may buy, the minimum price of five dollars per acre. Such, in substance, is the bill submitted by me, and now before the House, which the Committee on Public Lands have reported to be sum- marily dismissed. I shall not tax the time of the House with any argument in its favour, for which there is now no time. I simply ask the yeas and nays on the rejection of the bill. 1 In view of what has since taken place, one would naturally suppose that the bill and speech would have met with general favour. Here was the origin of the Homestead act, now uni- versally acknowledged as one of the most beneficent measures 1 Congressional Globe, Vol. 20, p. 605. LAND EEFOBM. 209 ever passed by Congress. But this bill was introduced in 1848, and by Horace Greeley, a socialist! Mr. Goggin, of Virginia (and a Whig), after the speech, moved that the lill be laid on the table. Mr. Greeley said: "I ask the yeas and nays on that motion;" and even this was denied. "Only about twenty members/' proceedo The Globe, "rising to second the call for the yeas and naye, they were not ordered; and the bill, by a viva voce \ote, was laid on the table." Such was the apparently humiliating disaster which befell Mr. Greeley's measure of land, reform. The House went on in its usual hum-drum fashion, congratulating itself that a " pestilent agrarian " had been fcijenced. That was a notable mistake. Mr. Greeley was beginning his return match with Mr. Raymond. And was beaten again ! But the game is not won till it is ended. Soon we shall behold banners inscribed with Horace Greeley's little speech of February 27, 1849, reduced to an apothegm : " Lands for the Landless," or it may be, "Homes for the Homeless." We shall see a great party take it up and gain invincible strength thereby. We shall see the policy enacted into law. We shall see its practical results in the wonderful development of a continent, and innumerable happy homes. We shall even see that wherein Horace Greeley's plan was departed from, in substantial principle, therein lay unwisdom, and thence sprang gross abuses, scandalous wrongs, appalling corruptions. But we have anticipated. Let us return to Mr. Greeley's earlier days in Congress again. Perhaps we ought to beg pardon for having followed him through this "wild-goose chase" of a Homestead Law; this attempt to graft an "ism" into national legislation. On December 18th, Mr. Greeley offered a resolution that the Secretary of the Navy be requested to inquire into and report upon the expediency and feasibility of, temporarily employing the whole or a portion of our national vessels now on the Pacific station, in the transportation, at moderate rates, of American citizens and their effects, from Panama and the Mexican ports on the Pacific coast, to San Francisco. This was during the period of the great migration to California, li 210 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. whose gold fields had recently been discovered, and Mr. Greeley's object was, of course, to aid the emigrants as much as could be done by the general government. The resolution laid over under the rules, there being objection, but it was agreed to when called up two days afterwards. 3 One of the greatest of newspaper "hits" in the history of modern journalism, was an article by Mr. Greeley in The Tribune, in which he made what became known as the famous Congressional Mileage Expose. The expose appeared on December 22d. The portion of the article which attracted immediate and universal attention was a tabular statement, showing: 1. The name of each Representative in Congress; 2. Actual distance from his residence to Washington by the shortest post-route; 3. Distance for which he is paid mileage; 4. Amount of mileage actually received by him ; and 5. Excess of mileage received over what would have been paid, mileage being computed by the shortest mail-route. The excess thus figured out as having been paid members of the Thirtieth Con- gress made an aggregate of $73,492.60. The excess of miles travelled was 183,031, making a distance something greater than the circumference of the earth seven times measured. With very few exceptions, every Senator and Representative, was shown to have travelled less or more " circuitous miles.'' It may well be supposed that this number of The Tribune was eagerly sought after. Every body in New-York went to talking on the mileage question. As the paper reached the country, the topic engaged some of every one's attention. Other jour- nals took it up. In fine, the Congressional Mileage Expos6 stirred up a universal sensation. And this sensation was greater, perhaps, at Washington, and within the Capitol, than anywhere else. On the 27th, an excited debate upon the subject occurred. Among Mr. Greeley's fellow-members of the House was Mr. William Sawyer, of Ohio, a Democrat. Mr. Sawyer, with some rural habits cling- ing to him after he reached the political metropolis, had been accustomed to take a little lunch of crackers and "Bologna" at his desk in Representative Hall, whereupon a reporter for 1 The Congressional Globe, Vol. 20, p. 71. THE MILEAGE EXPOSE. 211 The Tribune, without the fear of Sawyer before his eyes, had dubbed him "Sausage Sawyer." It was this eminent gentle man who first entered into the Mileage Debate in the House, though there had been a great deal of energetic language used by members in private conversation previously to Mr. Sawyer's starting the ball in the Hall. The morning had been occupied chiefly with a consideration of the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia, when, that having been disposed of for the time being, Mr. Sawyer " rose to a question of privilege.' " He supposed," he said, " it would be a question of privilege, inasmuch as it involved the honesty, the honour, and the integrity of members of this House, and of himself among the number." Mr. Sawyer's oratory, it will be observed, had a notable resemblance to that of Sir Robert Ilazlewood, a somewhat absurd baronet in Scott's " Guy Mannering." Mr. Sawyer proceeded to say that "he referred to a publication made in The Tribune of the 22d instant, relative to the mileage of the members of this House." Mr. Sawyer figured in the Expose with a mileage excess of $281.60. And he undertook to show that the object of the expose, as to him, was to place him before his constituents " in the light [one might say dark- ness, rather] of having acted falsely and fraudulently in this matter." John Pettit, of Indiana, who was described by the "Whig journals of that commonwealth as " the premium black- guard of this State," with a rudeness of expression only pardonable by reason of its truth, John Pettit here interposed, as he cast one eye up and the other down, with saying, " the gentleman need not be disturbed, for nobody who reads The Triburie believed it." Nevertheless, Mr. Sawyer went on, antil the Speaker interposed, saying it was quite obvious that if one gentleman were allowed to proceed on this subject, as a question of privilege, all the members might with equal propriety claim the same right. Mr. Speaker (Eobert C. Winthrop) began to perceive that if all those one hundred and eighty odd thousand miles of " excess " were to be explained away on questions of privilege, by abuse of Mr. Greeley, nothing else could be done. But the House voted that it was a question of privilege, and Mr. Sawyer 212 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. went on. He bravely determined "that neither a publication which did him so gross injustice, nor its author, should escape that public rebuke which they deserved." At this point the lion. Robert C. Schenek sa'-d. "he understood his colleague as complaining that he had been charged with receiving a greater excess than he (Mr. Schcnck) had done with receiving upwards of $200 excess, while I was charged to have received only $2.40." Mr. Sawyer assented. "Well, then," said Mr. Schenck, "to relieve my colleague from the dilemma, I will swap with him." Sawyer subsided amid roars of laughter. But if Mr. Sawyer had run down, Mr. Thomas J. Turner, a Representative from Illinois, had just got himself well wound up, and consequently " rose to a question of privilege." This gentleman's " excess," according to the Expose, was the sum of $998.40, being only the trifle of $1.60 less than Horace Greeley's annual salary on The Jeffersonian newspaper a few years before. Mr. Turner was, therefore, very much in earnest. He was interrupted by several gentlemen, who explained that members did not charge their own mileage, but "the list," as published in The Tribune, had been made up by a committee, etc. Mr. Turner then went on, and having made an uncom- monly abusive speech, concluded with offering a series of three resolutions. The first directed the Committee on Mileage to inquire whether any member of the House had received more mileage than he was by law entitled to, and if so, what amount. Also to report by what rule mileage is computed, by whom the claim is allowed, and upon what evidence. The second resolution was as follows: "Resolved, That a publication made in The New- York Tribune on the day of December, 1848, in which the mileage of members is set forth and commented on, be referred to a Committee, with instructions to inquire into and report whether said publication does not amount, in substance, to an allegation of fraud against most of the members of this House in this matter of their mileage; and, if, in the judgment of the Committee, it does amount to an allegation of fraud, then to inquire into it, and report whether that allegation is true or false." T11E MILEAGE EXPOSE. 213 The tnird resolve empowered the Committee to send for persons and -papers. Mr. Turner demanded the previous question, but subse- quently withdrew the motion. Whereupon a member from Maryland, by the name of Alexander Evans, renewed it, and insisted upon it, but the House refused to second it; and in the midst of a scene of excitement rarely equalled in the old Hall of Representativee, Mr. Greeley proceeded to justify tho Expos6. The remainder of the debate is thus reported: Mr. Greeley, after alluding (in a manner not heard by the reporter) to the comments that had been made upon the article in The Tribune relative to the subject of mileage, and the abijyes which had notoriously been prac- ticed relative to it, said he had heard no gentleman quote one word in that article imputing an illegal charge to any member of this House, imputing anything but a legel, proper charge. The whole ground of the argument was this: Ought not the law to be changed? Ought not the mileage to be settled by the nearest route, instead of what was called the usually travelled route, which authorized a gentleman coming from the centre of Ohio to go around by Sandusky, Albany, New-York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and to charge mileage upon that route. He did not object to any gentleman's taking that course if he saw fit ; but was that the route upon which the mileage ought to be computed ? Mr. Turner interposed, and inquired if the gentleman wrote that article? Mr. Greeley replied that the introduction to the article on mileage was written by himself; the transcript from the books of this House and from the accounts of the Senate was made by a reporter, at his direction. That reporter, who was formerly a clerk in the Post Office Department (Mr. Douglass Howard), had taken the latest book in the department, which contained the distances of the several post offices in the country from Washington; and from that book he had got honestly, he knew, though it might not have been entirely accurate in an instance or two the official list of the distances of the several post offices from this city. In every case, the post office of the member, whether of the Senate or the House, had been looked out, his distance as charged set down, then the post office book referred to ; and the actual, honest distance by the shortest route set down opposite, and then the computation made how much the charge was an excess, not of legal mileage, but of what would be legal, if the mileage was computed by the nearest mail route. Mr. King, of Georgia, desired, at this point of the gentleman's remarks, to say a word : the gentleman said that the members charged ; now, he (Mr. King desired to say, with reference to himself, that from the first, ha had always refused to give any information to the Committee on Mileaga with respect to the mileage to which he would be entitled. He had told 214: LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. them it was their special duty to e f *Io the matter; that he would have nothing to do with it. He therefore had charged nothing. Mr. Greeley (continuing) said, he thought all this showed the necessity of a new rule on the subject, for here they saw members shirking off, shrinking from the responsibility, and throwing it from one place to an- other. Nobody made up the account, but scnichow an excess of sixty or seventy thousand dollars was charged in the acoouats for mileage, and was paid from the treasury. Mr. King interrupted, and asked if he meant to charge him (Mr. King) with shirking? Was that the gentleman's re~.r.rk? Mr. Greeley replied, that he only said that by some means or other, this excess of mileage was charged, and was paid by the treasury. This money ought to be saved. The same rule ou^ht to b-3 applied to members of Congress that was applied to other parsons. Mr. King desired to auk the gentleman from New York if he had cor- rectly understood his lau-niage, for ho had heard him indistinctly? He (Mr. K.) had mai-? the positive statemtat that he had never had anything to do with reference to the charge of his mileage, and he had understood the gentleman from New York to speak of shirking from responsibility. He desired to know if the gentleman applied that term to him? Mr. Greelsy said he had applied it to no member. Mr. King asked, why make use of this term, then ? Mr. Greeley's reply to this interrogatory was lost in the confusion which prevailed in consequence of members leaving their seats and coming for- ward to the area in the centre. The Speaker called the House to order, and requested gentlemen to take their seats. Mr. Greeley proceeded. There was no intimation in the article that any member had made out his own account, but somehow or other the accounts had been so made up as to make a total excess of some |60,000 or $70,000, chargeable upon the treasury. The general facts had been stated to show that the law ought to be different, and there were several cases cited to show how the law worked badly; for instance, from one district in Ohio, the member formerly charged for four hundred miles, when he came on his own horse all the way ; hut now the member from the same district received mileage for some 800 or 900 miles. Now, ought that to be so? The whole argument turned on this : now, the distances were travelled much easier than formerly, and yet more, in many cases much more, mile- age was charged. The gentleman from Ohio who commenced this discussion, had made the point that there was some defect, some miscalcu- lation in the estimate of distances. He could not help it ; they had taken the post office books, and relied on them, and if any member of the press had picked out a few members of this House, and held up their charges for mileage, it would have been considered invidious. Mr. Turner called the attention of the member from New York to the fact, that the Postmaster General himself had thrown ar/ide that post office DEBATE ON MILEAGE. 215 book, in consequence of its incorrectness. He asked the gentleman if he did not know that fact? Mr. Greeley replied, that the article itself stated that the department did not charge mileage upon that book. Every possible excuse and mitigation had been given in the article ; but he appealed to the House they were the masters of the law why would they not change it, and make it more just and equal? Mr. Sawyer wished to be allowed to ask the gentleman from New York a question. His complaint was, that the article had done him injustice, by setting him down as some 300 miles nearer the seat of government than his colleague (Mr. Schenck) was, although his colleague had stated before the House, that he (Mr. Sawyer) resided some 60 or 70 miles further. Now, he wanted to know why the gentleman had made this calculation against him, and in favour of his colleague? Mr. Greeley replied, that he begged to assure the gentleman from Ohio that he did not think he had ever been in his thoughts from the day he had come here until the present day; but he had taken the figures from the post office book, as transcribed by a former clerk in the Post Office Depart- ment. Mr. Sawyer said, if the gentleman had been as particular when he made out the statement as he was now, he (Mr. S.) would have been saved this trouble. But the article, whether intentionally or not, had done him injus- tice, and therefore he had felt bound to call the attention of the House to the fact. Some conversation (which was too indistinctly heard, to be minutely reported) here took place between Mr. Greeley and Mr. Turner, with refer- ence to the shortest distance of the latter gentleman's residence from the seat of Government; Mr. Turner stating that by an air-line the distance was greater than it had been put down in the newspaper article in ques- tion, and repeating that the only modes of conveyance from his residence were by the lakes or by the rivers, and Mr. Greeley stating that Gen. Dodge, of Iowa, who had just taken his seat in the Senate, had come by another and more direct route; to which Mr. Turner replied that Gen. Dodge resided three hundred miles below him, and consequently he could take the southern route, while he (Mr. T.) could not. Mr. Greeley said, it must be obvious that no gentleman could go around inquiring into the mail routes, and guessing whether the distance of the residence of each member ought to be computed as great as it was put do^vn in the post office book. All that he could do, was to direct the official list to be taken ; he had made no alteration in it. He had felt it his duty to call the attention of the House and of the country to these abuses which existed in reference to the allowance of mileage to members of Congress. They were certainly gross abuses, and ought to be corrected. There was no imputation in the article upon any member, that he had made illegal charges; but arguments and facts had been brought forward to show the necessity of altering the law.' Congressional Globe, Vol. 20, p 111 216 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. Abraham Lincoln moved for a division of the question, and the iirst two resolutions were adopted, the third rejected; when the House settled down into its usual noise and confusion, for a moment, and then adjourned. But this did not end the mileage question. There were two or three more " field-days " in the House upon the subject. On the 9th of January, 1849, the Civil and Diplomatic appropria- tion bill being before the House in committee of the whole, Mr. Embree, of Indiana, moved an amendment to the sum appropriated for compensation and mileage of Senators, Repre- sentatives, and Delegates, the following: Provided, That the mileage of members of both Houses of Congress shall hereafter be estimated and charged upon the shortest mail route from their places of residence, respectively, to the city of Washington. Hereupon there arose an excited debate, in which many members participated, Mr. Greeley receiving a great deal of obloquy. Mr. Amos Tuck, of New Hampshire, bravely and most ably sustained the amendment and upheld the course which had been taken by Mr. Greeley. Mr. Albert G. Brown, of Mississippi, made a bitter attack upon the writer of the Expos6, but coming to close quarters with Mr. Tuck was sud- denly placed hors de combat. Mr. Brown was assailing the gentleman from New Hampshire upon another matter, when Mr. Tuck rose and requested the floor for an explanation. Mr. Brown, addressing the Chair, said, " He is a member, I believe?" Mr. Tuck instantly retorted: "It sometimes happens that a member takes such a course on this floor as to put it out of liis power to insult another member." Mr. Brown dropped into his seat as though he had been shot, and Mr. Tuck pro- ceeded with his explanation. Mr. Root, of Ohio, made a lively speech, which kept the house roaring for an hour. He was opposed to Mr. Embree's amendment, and proposed to fix all this mileage muddle up by voting each member a dollar or so an hour while on the journey to "Washington! He admitted that the present rate of mileage was enough in some instances, but would never make any man rich. One might do very well as to mileage, where he could get on a boat at Brownsville and CONGRESSIONAL MILEAGE. 217 float down the river to the mouth of the Mississippi. As fof himself, he came around by the lakes and New- York, because that was the most comfortable route; "and there is a great deal in this thing of being comfortable!" He also brought in a hit about "dead-heads," which did not happen to hit Mr. Greeley, but only a Pennsylvania member. In replying to Mr. Greeley's explanation on this point Mr. TJoot said: "The gentleman from New- York would do me the justice to admit that I had intended no personalities. All knew how I have been drawn into this conversation. I had given the gentle- man credit for eight dollars and a fip in the omnibus." Mr. Haralson, of Georgia, obtained the floor, by the courtesy of Mr. Embree, and moved that the Committee rise. Mr. Gree- ley asked him to withhold the motion, that he might, by the courtesy of Mr. Embree, make a brief reply to the allusions which had been made to him and his course upon this sub- ject. He asked only for five minutes. But Mr. Haralson with marked discourtesy adhered to his motion, and the Committee rose, reporting " no conclusion." Two days afterwards the subject came up again, and, after a speech by Mr. Yenable, Mr. Greeley obtained the floor, and, amid frequent interruptions and unusual excitement in the House, advocated reform. Among those who interrupted him in the most insulting manner was Mr. Turner, of Illinois. To one of these interruptions, Mr. Greeley replied severely : "Now I shall use no such language; it is not used by gentle- men in my section of the country." Though constantly " badgered," annoyed, insulted, Mr. Greeley kept his temper throughout, and even came off the victor over Mr. Schenck in a contest of wits. The following passages of Mr. Greeley's speech, though poorly reported, will show its general character: Now, let him {Mr. Greeley) reply to some of the remarks which the gentleman from Mississippi had seen fit to apply to him in the discussion yesterday. The gentleman had represented it as an abuse that an editor of a newspaper had a seat on this floor, and that he edited his paper from here. He (Mr. Greeley) presumed he had written less on this floor than most any other gentleman; certainly he had done no editorial writing here. There was time enough for that out of this House. And 218 * LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. besides attending to bis duties on this floor and in the Committee -room, lie had been absent but one day, and that a private-bill day, and a short session; and the chairman of the Committee on the Public Lands, of which he was a member, would tell the gentleman that he (Mr. G.) had not been absent from the meetings of that Committee, and that he had sought, rather than shunned, labour on that Committee. He believed the gentleman from Mississippi would find he (Mr. G.) would be disposed to do as much on this floor, or off of it, of his duties as a member of this House, as the gentleman would deem desirable. Now, what was the abuse! That he was the editor of a newspaper, was certainly true. That he had given awny the time of the public to editing his paper, was not true. Here were lawyers who left their seats in this Hall for two or three weeks together, to attend to their practice. Of this he did not complain ; he did not do it; he should devote his time to the discharge of the duties incumbent upon him, for the brief time he had to serve here. Now, as to this matter of the reform of mileage : Every gentleman who had spoken had admitted that the present system was wrong; that there ought to be some change. Almost every one suggested some amendment. If the present amount paid was just, it ought to be more fairly distributed. He said it was unjust. But this was a beggarly sum. It was only some sixty or seventy thousand dollars' saving. Did you ever know of reform, of retrenchment, that was not beggarly? Retrenchment was always a beggarly business ; it was not a business for a gentleman. Gentlemanly instincts shunned it as a rather low business as rather discreditable, even for editors. Reform when you will, it is always strike higher or lower, or it is something else that is to be amended an entirely different thing from that which you are attempting to do. The country would understand this; he was entirely sure this House did understand it. It was the way, the gentlemanly way, never to mind the expense; go it lavishly; divide, distribute to your friends even if you go ashore; run in debt, repudiate, curse your creditors as descended from Judas Iscariot But he was not rocked in the cradle of gentility. * * * * ****** He believed that this was a matter demanding the attention of the House. He believed, that if they should begin by first making a reform which touched their own pockets, the natural effect would be to lead to other reforms; and these proper and judicious reforms being effected, the confidence of the country in this House would be increased, and the power of this House to do good immensely enhanced. He believed it was desirable in every way, that it would strengthen the confidence of the people in the Government, and lead them to feel that it was an equitable, a just Government; that they were assembled here to do justice to them- selves and to every one else; that they would correct abuses which affected their own pockets. He knew not whether, under the Constitution, this reduction of mileage could be made to apply to the present Congress : if it could, so much the better. 4 4 The Congressional Globe, vol. 20, p. 320. "BATTLE OF THE BOOKS." 210 It is worthy of remark that the rage manifested against Mr. Greeley by the members of the House was generally in pro- portion to their " excess " of mileage. The reform of the law which he had in view was defeated, but u the usual routes of travel " were henceforth very much less " circuitous " than they had been, and some years afterwards the rate of mileage was reduced fifty per cent., and constructive mileage utterly prohibited. A long, long range had Mr. Greeley's gun, but it hit the target at last. Meantime, however, Mr. Greeley paid attention to a great many things besides that which had brought forth so much crimination and recrimination. Some time before the holidays he had introduced a resolution calling upon the Secretary of the Treasury to communicate to the House the considera- tions of equity or public policy which justify the assessment by the tariff of 1846, on woollen blankets, flannels, blaizes, etc., and on hempen cables, cordage, and several other descrip- tions of imported manufactures of rates of duty five to ten per cent, lower than are charged on the principal raw material from which-they are respectively fabricated; and if the same be not justified as aforesaid, what action of Congress in relation thereto is deemed by him desirable. The consideration of this resolution came up early in January, and Mr. Wentworth, of Illinois, proceeded to say with much force that Congress had passed the tariff .act of 1846, and with characteristic straight- forwardness that he " had had as much to do with passing that law as the Secretary of the Treasury had had." A quite animated debate between Mr. Wentworth and Mr. Greeley fol lowed, and Mr. Wentworth's motion to lay the resolution on the table was at first defeated by a majority of one vote, but afterwards prevailed. Mr. Greeley appears to have gained the point he aimed at, however, namely, to show that the tariff of 1846 had been mainly dictated to Congress by the Secretary of the Treasury. And herein he was handsomely assisted by his friend and colleague, Mr. Washington Hunt. On the 23d of January occurred the famous " Battle of the Books," making even a more exciting debate than any called forth by the Congressional Mileage Expose. For two hours 220 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. the Hall was u scene of excitement which was never equalled except upon some occasions when the discussion of the slavery question converted the House into a mob of vociferous, angry, unreasonable men, many of them anxious for personal ren- contres. In this Battle of the Books, though Mr. Greeley was most unexpectedly assailed by a member whom he had regarded as his friend, and though many of the members heartily hated him on account of his exposure of their mileage ways that were dark and tricks that were vain, yet did he bear himself throughout the fierce conflict with imperturbable cool- ness; and repelled the premeditated, cunningly-devised, and malicious assault in such way as must have left its originators blistering and burning with shame for many a day. The House being in Committee of the Whole (the Hon. Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, in the Chair), on the General Appropriation Bill, had considered a variety of subjects, and was about to rise, when Mr. Edwards, of Ohio, moved an amendment (eham) to the effect that the sums of money appro- priated in the bills for books be deducted from the pay of members voting for the appropriation. He then read a brief report from The Tribune of a speech made a few days before by Mr. Greeley, in which he denied that he had voted for the appropriation for the books. Mr. Edwards now undertook to browbeat Mr. Greeley, and to involve him in humiliating contradiction. After considerable sparring, he said: "I under- stand, then, that the gentleman from New York voted without understanding what he was voting upon, and that he would have voted against taking the books had he not been mis- taken." To this Mr. Greeley assented. "I assert," responded Mr. Edwards, " that that declaration is unfounded in fact. I have the proof that the gentleman justified his vote both before and after the voting." The House now became deeply inter- ested and rapidly grew into a paroxysm of excitement. Mem- bers were sure that at last the Great Exposer was going to be himself exposed in no desirable plight. There had indeed been an informal meeting of members of very circuitous routes of travel, who considered the propriety of a movement to "BATTLE OF THE BOOKS." 221 expel the audacious originator of the great popular indigna- tion. Upon a shrewd suggestion from Mr. Wentworth, " that that thing would make Horace Greeley President," the expul- sion plan was abandoned. So now members gathered around Mr. Edwards, urging him to name his witnesses. He named three members of the House. And then Mr. Yinton, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, made a statement as to how the appropriation had been made, which brought about comparative calm. Mr. Greeley followed, asking that the members called upon might make their statements. They did so, two of them apparently sustaining Mr. Edwards, the other not. Mr. Edwards then justified his vote on reasons similar to those which, he said, justified Mr. Greeley 's vote; and then launched into the "circuitous route!" He was stopped by the Chairman, and Mr. Greeley explained the mistake that had been made, but stated that he had before, and now approved the appropriation. "Why, then," asked Mr. Edwards, "did you make the denial in The Tribune, and say that you voted against it?" "I did vote against it," said Mr. Greeley. "I did not vote" for it, because I did not choose to have some sort of gentlemen on this floor hawk at me." Mr. Edwards was one of the sort of gentlemen who did not hawk at him any more. On the 25th, two days after the book war, Mr. Greeley made an earnest speech in attack of the cruelties practiced in the recruiting service, and in favour of a reduction of the expendi- tures for the army. A few days afterwards he also spoke in advocacy of retrenchment in the navy. But the only speech by him, which was fully reported, was that delivered on Febru- ary 26th, on the bill to provide a Territorial Government for California. On the following day he made a speech on the bill organizing New Mexico as a Territory, which was reported with tolerable fullness. He offered an amendment to one of these bills, and, speaking in advocacy thereof, was interrupted by Mr. Kaufman, of Texas, who, with that singular courtesy so often extended to Mr. Greeley, "wished to inquire of the gen- tleman from New York whether, by the introduction of the 222 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. amendment which he had offered, he wanted to steal from Texas land enough for his Fourierite bill to operate upon?" Whereupon Mr. Greeley said: "I do not think it becomes the Representative from Texas to talk about land-stealing." And Mr. Kaufman dropped the subject. Mr. Greeley was a constant attendant upon the sessions of the House; a conscientious worker both in the Hall and Ccai- mittee-room. He did all that one man could to conduct legislative business with dispatch and efficiency. He often demanded the yeas and nays on motions to udjourn over, and called general attention to the waste of tie^e which was con- stantly going on. Almost every day he i/itroduced petitions "for cheap postage and no franking;" for the reform of the mileage abuse; for other measures, then unpopular, fairly odious in the House, now, many of them, incorporated into the settled policy of the Republic. It may well be concluded that he was a thorn in the side of the " o*J soldier " Representa- tive. He was perpetually stirring ap thinge a knowledge whereof did not redound to the credit of many of those " old soldiers " as men of honour or statesmen of capacity. Besides his speeches on the tariff question, and other topics of general interest, he inaugurated the reform of mileage; cheap postage; abolition of the franking privilege; the policy of free home- steads to actual settlers, his despised "Fourierite bill," receiving his vote alone, becoming the most popular law of the land. If the ripe harvest of the seeds sown by Horace Greeley during his brief membership of the House of Repre- sentatives be estimated as the fruit of his statesmanship, it might justly be claimed that he accomplished as much in a single short session as not a few of the most eminent of our public men have been able to accomplish in a lifetime. After his membership, no more journeys to Congress by way of Good Hope! Cheap postage soon followed. Lands for the landless became the fixed policy of the nation. And now, in the administration of President Grant, Horace Greeley's "pet reform " against franking, is accomplished. Mr. Greeley's last night in Congress was, as is usual, one of uproar, and attempts to carry questionable measures, too often A LAST NIGHT OF CONGRESS. 223 resulting in success, as was the case on this memorable night, notwithstanding his exertions against the allowance of expen sive perquisites. But the disturbance on this occasion came near amounting to "a free fight." Mr. Greeley gives his recollections of this last night of the Thirtieth Congress in these words : "The last night of a session is usually a long one; and ours was not only long, but excited. The two Houses were at variance : The House desiring (at least, voting) to prohibit the introduction of Slavery into the vast territories just then acquired from Mexico ; the Senate dissenting from that policy. Of course, we who voted for the restriction could not carry it through nor over the Senate. But that body was not content to stand on the defensive ; it attached to the great Civil and Diplomatic Appropri- ation bill (since divided) a provision for the organization of the new Territories, of course, without the restriction against Slavery, and, in effect, said to us, 'You shall agree to this, or the new [Taylor] Adminis- tration shall not have a dollar to spend after the 1st of July ensuing.' We had one or two conferences by committee ; but neither House would give way. Finally, the bill came back to us on this last evening, the Senate insisting on its Territorial amendment. Each side had rallied in full force (there were but three of all the representatives chosen from the Slave States who were not in their seats), and we were morally certain to be beaten on a motion to recede, three or four weak brethren changing their votes rather than leave the Government penniless ; when some one on our side I believe it was Richard W. Thompson of Indiana got in a motion to concur, with an amendment. This amendment accepted the Senate's project of organizing the new Territories, barely adding a stipulation that tht existing laws thereof should remain in force till changed by consent of Con- gress. (The existing laws were those of Mexico, and forbade Slavery.) This motion prevailed (as I recollect the vote on one important division stood one hundred and eleven to one hundred and ten), and completely changed the whole aspect of the matter. The pro-Slavery men were now as anxious to expunge the Territorial clause as they had previously been determined to insert it at all hazards ; and the Senate struck out its cher- ished provision, and let the Appropriation bill pass as it originally was, leaving the question of Slavery in the new Territories as a legacy of trouble to the incoming Administration. Never was a parliamentary move more clever than that motion to concur, with an amendment. When it had been carried through our House, and while the Senate waa chewing upon it, there ensued a hiatus or interregnum, the House having really nothing to do but wait. At such times, any member who has a pet project or bill asks a suspension of the rules in favour of its consideration. Among these motions was one by Mr. Robert W. Johnson of Arkansas, who wished the House to consider a bill providing payment for horses lost by his constituents while acting as volunteers in Indian wars. His motion 22-t LIFE OF HORACE OKEELEY. to suspend the rules failed; when I drew from my drawer a resolve, which had lain there for weeks, proposing that our country take the general name of COLUMBIA, in honour of the great discoverer. I was making a few remarks introductory to my motion to suspend the rules, which I knew would be defeated, when, as the affair was afterward explained tome, Mr. Johnson turned upon Mr. O. B. Ficklin of Illinois, who sat very near him, and angrily said : ' Ficklin, why do you always oppose any motion I make ?' 'I did not oppose your motion,' was the prompt and true reply. 'You lie,' rejoined Johnson, whose powers of observation were not then in their best estate, and he sprang forward as though to clutch Ficklin ; when Mr. Samuel W. Inge of Alabama, rushed upon the latter, and struck him two or three blows with a cane. 'Order! Order! Ser- geant-at-arms, do your duty !' interposed the Speaker ; and the affray was promptly arrested. 'Why, Inge, what did you fall upon Ficklin for?' inquired one of his neighbours; Ficklin being an intensely pro-Slavery Democrat, as were Inge and Johnson. ' Why, I thought,' explained Inge, 4 that the fight between the North and the South had commenced, and I might as well pitch in.' I did not hear him say this; but it was reported to me directly afterward, and I have no doubt that he said and thought so. " Mr. Giddings went over to the Democratic side of the House that night, and made some jocular remark to an acquaintance on the change of aspect since we had made and sustained our motion to concur, with an amendment, when he was assaulted, and was glad to get away quite rapidly. I am confident I could not have passed quietly through that side of the House between ten and two o'clock of that night without being assaulted; and, had I resisted, beaten within an inch of my life, if not killed outright Yet I had proposed nothing, said nothing, on the exciting topic ; I was obnoxious only because I was presumed earnestly hostile to Slavery. " I believe it was just 7 A. M. of the 4th of March, 1849, the day of General Taylor's inauguration, when the two Houses, having finished all the inevitable business of the session, were adjourned without day, and I walked down to my hotel, free thenceforth to mind my own business. I have not since been a member, nor held any post under the Federal Gov- ernment; it is not likely that I shall ever again hold one; yet I look hack upon those three months I spent in Congress as among the most profitably employed of any in the course of my life. I saw things from a novel point of view ; and, if I came away from the Capitol no wiser than I went thither, the fault was entirely my own." The Congress in which Horace Greeley thus served for the brief period of three months contained many distinguished men in either branch. Webster, Calhoun, Clayton, Benton, Corwin, Douglas, and others of illustrious name were in the Senate. Mr. Greeley, however, was so constant in his attend Recollections of a Busy Life, pp. 231-32. JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 225 ancc npon the House that he saw little of the Senate. Robert C. "\Vinthrop, of Massachusetts, was the Speaker, a gentle- man of acknowledged ability, rare culture, imposing presence. Few men have occupied the presiding chair of the boisterous House with greater dignity or greater credit. Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, afterwards the illustrious President, was a member and specially friendly with Mr. Greeley. Mr. Lincoln seemed, said Mr. Greeley, "a quiet, good-natured man, did not aspire to leadership, and seldom claimed the floor. I think he made but one set speech during that session, and this speech was by no means a long one. Though a strong partizan, he voted against the bulk of his party once or twice, when that course was dictated by his convictions. He was one of the most moderate, though firm, opponents of Slavery Extension, and notably of a buoyant, cheerful spirit. It will surprise some to hear that, though I was often in his company thence- forward till his death, and long on terms of friendly intimacy with him, I never heard him tell an anecdote or story." Mr. Greeley was appointed a member of the Committee on Public Lands, "of which the Hon. Jacob Collamer, of Yermont, was Chairman. Mr. Collamer was then as ever fully entitled to " the grand old name of gentleman." Of a generous, chiv- alric nature, firm in his own opinions, most respectful of the opinions of others; with a fine presence and fascinating con- versational powers, he was as admirably adapted to receive the respect of man and the love of woman as almost any of his cotemporaries among public men. He rose to great distinc- tion in the republic, being highly successful and celebrated both in the executive and legislative branches of government, but it was as a companion in quiet conversation that he won the deepest aflectio*n of those who knew him best. Joshua E. Giddings, of Ohio, since the then recent death of John Quincy Adams, was the most noted champion of anti- Slavery in the House; and anti-Slavery had not yet begun to be popular. Mr. Giddings was an agitator, and he long ap- peared to the public, quite generally opposed to the agitation of the subject of slavery, as an exceedingly unamiable and rather disreputable character. On the contrary, he was a per- 15 226 LIFE OF HOKACE GRKELEY. eon of an unusually large and warm heart, and of refined feelings. He and Mr, Greeley were great friends from the beginning. Mr. Giddings, however, was fond of some amuse- ments and pleasures, deemed innocent by himself and most men, for which Mr. Greeley had neither time nor inclination. " Sundry attempts at reforming what were considered abuses," says Mr. Greeley, "were made that Winter, but without bril- liant success. We tried to abolish flogging in the Navy, but were beaten. I think it was Mr. (now General) Schenck who raised a laugh against us by proposing so to amend that the com- mander of a ship of war should never order a sail spread or reefed without calling all hands and taking a vote of his crew on the question. We were temporarily successful in voting in Committee to stop dealing out strong drink to the sailors and marines in our Navy, though this, too, was ultimately defeated; but, iu the first flush of our delusive triumph, a member sitting near me, who had voted to stop the grog ration, said to a friend who (I believe) had voted the same way, ' Gid, that was a glorious vote we have just taken.' * Yes, glorious,' was the ready response. * Gid,' resumed the elated reformer, ' let us go and take a drink on the strength of it.' 'Agreed,' was the willing echo ; and they went." Robert C. Schenck, here referred to, since celebrated as a general and diplomatist, was at this time in the prime of his manhood. He had a robust frame, a powerful voice, and magnificent pluck. He was an orator of great powers of per- suasion, and one of the keenest, most brilliant disputants of the House in a running debate. Of great good-nature ordi- narily, he was capable of as daring flights of wrath as of eloquence; but humour predominated in his mind when not aroused, and, next to his colleague in this House, Mr. Joseph M. Hoot, of the Cleveland district, Mr. Schenck was chargeable with more of the wit of the session than almost any other member. If Mr. Schenck were an admirable specimen of Western vigour, dash, and parliamentary ability, taking captive Mr. Greeley's hearty admiration, he found in the captivating gen- tlemanliness and ripe scholarship of Horace Mann, of Massa- FELLOW-MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. 227 ehusetts, qualities which won his devoted friendship no less effectively. As Congress was then constituted, and as it still is constituted, the more's the pity, Horace Mann was there out of his element. Among the members of the opposition, Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, afterwards President of the United States, became as well known as any other to Mr. Greeley. Mr. Johnson at this time had not won wide distinction; but he was recognized in the House as a man of strong mind and strong will, and none who knew him then, or ever afterwards, doubted his manly and unpurchasable personal integrity. George Ashmun, of Massachusetts, was then among New England's most eminent Representatives. He presided over the convention which, twelve years afterwards, nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency. A more admirable, efficient presiding officer but few deliberative bodies have ever been fortunate enough to select. Here, too, as we have already seen, was John Wentworth, of Illinois, then of the Democratic party. Gigantic in form, he was universally called "Long John," and retains the designation to this day. A skilful debater, an able parliamentarian, he was better liked by Mr. Greeley than any other one of the opposition. Here also Mr. Greeley daily met Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, Robert Toombs, of the same State note.d Southerners then, more noted afterwards as prominent leaders in the war of the rebel- lion against the Union. Richard W. Thompson, of Indiana, and George W. Jones, of Tennessee, impressed Mr. Greeley as among the most effective speakers pf the House. He thought John S. Pendleton, of Virginia, a splendid specimen of the Southern gentleman, but no finer than Abraham W. Yenable, of North Carolina. Mr. R. Barnwell Rhett was a member of the House, but already too much of a " fire-eater " to be received with marked hospitality by the editor of The Tribune. He greatly liked Green Adams, of Kentucky, and John M. Botts, of Virginia, both of whom became somewhat celebrated in poli- tics, the latter having already, indeed, a national reputation. James Dixon and Truman Smith were in the House from Con- 228 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. necticnt, both afterwards many years in the Senate. Of his own colleagues, Washington Hunt and Frederick A. Tallmadge were the most distinguished. On the evening of March 6th, Mr. Greeley, in full dress, attended the Inauguration Ball, which he perceived was " a eweaty, seething, sweltering jam, a crowd of duped foregather- ers from all creation." In his letter to the Tribune, he thus speaks of the ball, of the new President, General Taylor, and of Henry Clay: * I went to see the new President, who had not before come within my contracted range of vision, and to mark the reception accorded to him by the assembled thousands. I came to gaze on stately heads, not nimble feet, and for an hour have been content to gaze on the flitting phantas- magoria of senatorial brows and epauletted shoulders of orators and brunettes, office-seekers and beauties. I have had ' something too much of this,' and lo! 'the hour of hours' has come the buzz of expectation subsides into a murmur of satisfaction the new President is descending the grand stairway which terminates in the ball-room, and the human mass forms in two deep columns to receive him. Between these, General Taylor, supported on either hand, walks through the long saloon and back through other like columns, bowing and greeting with kind familiarity those on this side and on that, paying especial attention to the ladies as is fit, and everywhere welcomed in turn with the most cordial good wishes. All wish him well in his new and arduous position, even those who struggled hardest to prevent his reaching it. , "But, as at the Inauguration, there is the least possible enthusiasm. Kow and then a cheer is attempted, but the result is so nearly a failure that the daring leader in the exploit is among the first to laugh at the miscarriage. There is not a bit of heart in it. " l They don't seem to cheer with much unction,' I remarked to a Taylor original. " ' Ne-e-o, they don't cheer much,' he as faintly replied ; ' there is a good deal of doubt as to the decorum of cheering at a social ball.' "True enough: the possibility of indecorum was sufficient to check the impulse to cheer, and very few passed the barrier. The cheers ' stuck in the throat,' like Macbeth's Amen, and the proprieties of the occasion were well cared for. " But just imagine Old Hal walking down that staircase, the just inaugurated President of the United States, into the midst of three thou- sand of the flite of the beauty and chivalry of the Whig party, and think how the rafters would have quivered with the universal acclamation. Just think of some one stopping to consider whether it might not be indecorous to cheer on such an occasion I What a solitary hermit that considerer would bo I ADDRESS TO CONSTITUENTS. 229 41 Let those who will, flatter the chief dispenser of Executive patronage, discovering in every act and feature some resemblance to Washington I am content to wait, and watch, and hope. I burn no incense on his altar, attach no flattering epithets to his name. I turn from this imposing pageant, so rich in glitter, so poor in feeling, to think of him who should have been the central figure of this grand panorama the distant, the powerless, the unforgotten 'behind the mountains, but not setting' the eloquent champion of Liberty in both hemispheres whose voice thrilled the hearts of the uprising, the long-trampled sons of Leonidas and Xcno- phon whose appeals for South American independence were read to the hastily mustered squadrons of Bolivar, and nerved them to sweep from this fair continent the myrmidons of Spanish oppression. My heart is with him in his far southern abiding-place with him, the early advocate of African Emancipation ; the life-long champion of a diversified Ilome Industry; of Internal Improvement; and not less glorious in his later years as the stern reprover of the fatal spirit of conquest and aggression. Let the exulting thousands quaff their red wines at the revel to the victor of Monterey and Buena Vista, while wit points the sentiment with an epigram, and beauty crowns it with her smiles : more grateful to me the stillness of my lonely chamber, this cup of crystal water in which I honour the cherished memory with the old, familiar aspiration ' Here 's to you, Harry Clay !' " A day or two afterwards Mr. Grceley returned to New- York, where he prepared an address to his constituents in which ho reviewed the principal proceedings of the session, and the work generally of the Thirtieth Congress, thinking it, upon the whole, much of a failure. This address concluded as follows : "My work S your servant is done whether well or ill it remains for you to judge. Very likely I gave the wrong vote on some of the difficult and complicated questions to which I was called to respond Ay or No with hardly a moment's warning. If so, you can detect and condemn the error; for my name stands recorded in the divisions by Yeas and Nays on every public and all but one private bill (which was laid on the table the moment the sitting opened, and on which my name had just been passed as I entered the Hall). I wish it were the usage among us to publish less of speeches and more of propositions and votes thereupon it would give the mass of the people a much clearer insight into the management of their publie affairs. My successor being already chosen and commis- sioned, I shall hardly be suspected of seeking your further kindness, and I shall be heartily rejoiced if he shall be able to combine equal zeal in your service with greater efficiency equal fearlessness with greater popularity. That I have been somewhat annoyed at times by some of the consequences of my Mileage Expose is true, but I have never wished to 230 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. recall it, nor have I felt that I owed an apology to any, and I am quite confident, that if you had sent to Washington (as you doubtless might have done) a more sternly honest and fearless Representative, he would have made himself more unpopular with a large portion of the House than I did. I thank you heartily for the glimpse of public life which your favour has afforded me, and hope to render it useful henceforth not to myself only but to the public. In ceasing to be your agent, and return- ing with renewed zest to my private cares and duties, I have a single additional favour to ask, not of you especially, but of all ; and I am sure my friends at least will grant it without hesitation. It is that you and they will oblige me henceforth by remembering that my name is simply "HORACE GREELEY." Twenty years afterwards, Mr. Greeley, in his " Recollections of a Busy Life," 7 spoke of Congress as it bad been, wben be was a member, and as it was wben be wrote tbat work, in tbese words: " I do not imply that legislation, whether in Congress or elsewhere, is purer and cleaner now than it was twenty or forty years ago. On the con- trary, I judge that it is oftener swayed, to the prejudice of the public interest, by considerations of personal advantage, and that the evil tends strongly to increase and diffuse itself. The chartering of railroads through public lands which are required (as is clearly just) to contribute to their construction, whether by liberal grants of territory or by direct subsidies in cash, and many kindred devices for promoting at once public and private prosperity, have strongly tended to render legislation mercenary, whether in Congress, in State Legislatures, or in Municipal Councils. When I was in the House, there were ten or twelve members not more than twelve, I am confident who were generally presumed to be ' on the make,' as the phrase is ; and they were a class by themselves, as clearly as if they were so many black sheep in a large flock of white ones. I would gladly believe that this class has not since increased in numbers or in impudence ; but the facts do not justify that presumption." 'Page 224. CIIAPTEE XIV. VISITS EUROPE. Crossing the Atlantic The Great Exhibition at London A Juror Sight-seeing Mr. Greeley's Opinion of London His Opinion of the English and American Press Visits Paris Views of Parisian Morals and Social Life Predicts the Stability of the Republic Journey to Lyons Palaces and Potatoes Proceeds to Italy Sardinia Rome St. Peter's and the Coliseum The People Journey to Venice Switzerland Germany Belgium Paris Again Returns to London Glances at Scotland and Ireland Opinion of the English People Home. MR. GREELET had now laboured constantly, greatly, on The Tribune for the full period of ten years. He had also done his fair share, of lecturing and public speaking, and was entitled to a rest. He had earned the right to "go a- fishing." He accordingly determined to visit Europe, early in 1851 the year of the Great Exhibition, or World's Fair, at London. He left New- York at noon of April 16, on the good steamship Baltic. Sea-sickness is an ailment of the brain, which becomes perturbed and disturbed, and, as it cannot get out anywhere, being confined by the skull, the stomach fraternally sym- pathizes, and gets very sick too. During the first hour after seizure, the patient fears he will die, and then he begins to fear that he will not! Such is the most truthful description of this complaint I have seen. The Baltic had not got five miles oft* Sandy Hook, before Mr. Greeley was " a decided case," and he remained a decided case during about the whole of the voyage, the weather being constantly bad and the sea rough. He conceived a great disgust for the authors of "A Life on the Ocean Wave," "The Sea! the Sea! the Open Sea!" and such nonsense, and emphatically asseverated that " a home on the raging deep " is not a scene of enjoyment even to the Bailor. 232 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. About tlie only notable incidents of the passage across the Atlantic were an iceberg seen to the northward one morning about sunrise (Mr. Greeley being below deck) ; a single school of whales (about which he heard); and a few vessels. "But there were days," he says, " wherein we saw no sail but our own; and I think we traversed nearly a thousand miles at one time on this great highway of nations without seeing one." Stopping not at Liverpool, Mr. Greeley hastened on to the Great Metropolis in order to be present at the opening of The World's Fair, on the 1st of May. He witnessed this magnifi- cent pageant with evident pleasure, as an exhibition of royal display, and with a dissatisfaction that he did not attempt to conceal, on account of its being the poorest possible occasion for the show of so much fuss and feathers. " The Queen, we will say," he writes in a letter to The Tribune, " was here by Right Divine, by right of Womanhood, by Universal Suffrage any how you please. The ceremonial could not have spared her. But in inaugurating the first grand olympiad of Indus- try, ought not Industry to have had some representation, some vital recognition, in her share of the pageant? If the Queen had come in state to the Horse Guards to review theSliteot' her military forces, no one would doubt that ' the Duke ' should figure in the foreground, with a brilliant staff of Generals and Colonels surrounding him. So, if she were proceeding to open Parliament, her fitting attendants would be Ministers and Counsellors of State. But what have her ' Gentlemen Usher of Sword and State,' 'Lords in Waiting,' ' Master of the Horse,' 'Earl Marshal,' 'Groom of the Stole/ 'Master of the Buck- hounds,' and such uncouth fossils, to do with a grand Exhibi- tion of the fruits of Industry? What, in their official capacity, have these and theirs ever had to do with Industry unless to burden it, or with its Products but to consume or destroy them? The 'Mistress of the Robes' would be in place if she ever fashioned any robes, even for the Queen; so would the 'Ladies of the Bedchamber,' if they did anything with beds except to sleep in them. As the fact is, their presence only served to strengthen the presumption that not merely their offices but Royalty itself is an anachronism, and all should have deceased GEW-OAWS AND EEATEE8. 233 with the era to which they properly belonged. * To have ren- dered the pageant expressive, congruous, and really a tribute to Industry, the posts of honour next the Queen's person should have been confided on this occasion to the children of Watt, of Arkwright, and their compeers (Napoleon's real con- querors); while inetead of grandees and Foreign Ambassadors, the heirs of Fitch, of Fulton, of Jacquard, of Whitney, of Daguerre, etc., with the discoverers, architects, and engineers to whom the world is primarily indebted for Canals, Railroads, Steamships, Electric Telegraphs, etc., etc., should have been specially invited to swell the Royal cortege." Mr. Greeley was glad to see the Queen, however, and espe- cially her husband, who had done so much for the Fair. For the Crystal Palace he expressed unbounded admiration, think- ing the triumph of Paxton, its architect, perfect, and heralding a revolution. " Depend on it," said he, " stone and timber will have to stand back for iron and glass hereafter, to an extent not yet conceivable." Of the Exhibition itself he spoko in the highest terms. The space allotted to America for arti- cles was not filled, whereupon The Times, Punch, and other journals went to disparaging the contributions of the United States on account of their meagreness and poverty. This was characterized by Mr. Greeley as " meanly invidious and unde- served." It was chiefly by reason of his own efforts that'a gratifying change took place in the current of opinion with regard to American invention and its results. The triumph of our ploughs and reapers was universally acknowledged, while Mr. Hobbs, an American bank-lock manufacturer, went through all the locks, " the invincible Chubb " inclusive, with great ease and dispatch. In gew-gaws, tissues, dainty carv- ings, rich mosaics, and articles of finery, the American portion of the Exhibition did not, of course, compare with that of many countries of Europe. But, as Mr. Greeley said, " One such plain, odd-looking concern as McCormick's Reaper, though it makes no figure in the eyes of mere sight-seers, in compari- son with an inlaid table or a case of Paris bonnets, is of moro practical account than a Crystal Palace full of those, and so will ultimately be regarded." And thus London and the world 284 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. became convinced that the American department of the Exhi- bition, though less showy than others, was nobly creditable to the inventive genius and practical skill of our countrymen. "When Mr. Greeley reached London, he found that he had been selected as Juror representing the United States in the Jury on Hardware, of which he was chosen Chairman. His duties in this position required much time and labour which he cheerfully gave. They enabled him to see much more of the Exhibition and to come in contact with more eminent persons than might otherwise have happened. The Duke of Wellington the Duke, then more than eighty years old was a privileged visitor of the Crystal Palace during morning hours, when the Juries were making their examinations. Him Mr. Greeley often met, and describes him as " simply and eminently a gentleman," and one of the first to proclaim the eminent and remarkable success of the American quarter, while the London journals were jeering at the alleged poverty and shabbiness of the department. The journals changed their tune. The Duke of Argyle he describes as "a small, slight, sandy-haired person, gentle in manner, modest in bearing." He mentions very few of the English nobility, however; and it is perfectly clear that for persons of rank, merely as such, lie had no respect, giving his admiration to men of personal merit, of whatever station. One of the privileges enjoyed by Mr. Greeley on account of his chairmanship of an Awarding Jury, was an invitation to a banquet given the commissioners of foreign countries at Rich- mond, over which Lord Ashburton presided, and which was attended by many persons of rank and those distinguished in science and letters from many portions of the world. "The feast," says Mr. Greeley, "was of course superb; the speaking fair; the music abundant and faultless. Good songs were capitally given by eminent vocalists; well sustained by instru- ments, between the several toasts with their responses a fashion which 1 suggest for adoption in our own country, especially with the condition that the speeches be shortened to give time for the songs." The speakers were Lords Ash- burton and Granville, Messrs. Grace and Paxton, of England, SPEECH AT THE WORLD'S FAIR BAKQUEf. 23ft Baron Dupin, of France, Messrs. Yan de Weyer, of Belgium, Yon Yiebhan, of Prussia, and Horace Greeley. Mr. Greeley had gone to the banquet at the pressing request of Lord Ash- burton, who desired that an American should propose the health of Mr. Paxton, and Mr. Kiddle, Commissioner of the United States, had designated him for that service. He spoke about five minutes, as follows: " In my own land, my lords and gentlemen, where Nature is still so rugged and unconquered, where Population is yet so scanty and the demands for human exertion are so various and urgent, it is but natural that we should render marked honour to Labour, and especially to those who by invention or discovery contribute to shorten the processes and increase the efficiency of Industry. It is but natural, 'therefore, that this grand conception of a comparison of the state of Industry in all Nations, by means of a World's Exhibition, should there have been received and canvassed with a lively and general interest, an interest which is not measured by the extent of our contributions. Ours is still one of the youngest of Nations, with few large accumulations of the fruits of manu- facturing activity or artistic skill, and these so generally needed for use that we were not likely to send them three thousand miles away, merely for show. It is none the less certain that the progress of this great Exhi- bition, from its original conception to that perfect realization which we here commemorate, has been watched and discussed not more earnestly throughout the saloons of Europe, than by the smith's forge and the mechanic's bench in America. Especially the hopes and fears alternately predominant on this side with respect to the edifice required for the exhi- bition the doubts as to the practicability of erecting one sufficiently capacious and commodious to contain and display the contributions of the whole world the apprehension that it could not be rendered impend ous to water the confident assertions that it could not be completed in season for opening the Exhibition on the first of May as promised all found an echo on our shores ; and now the tidings that all these doubts have been dispelled, these difficulties removed, will have been hailed there with unmingled satisfaction. " I trust, gentlemen, that among the ultimate fruits of this Exhibition we are to reckon a wider and deeper appreciation of the worth of Labour, and especially of those ' Captains of Industry' by whose conceptions and achievements our Race is so rapidly being borne onward in its progress to a loftier. and more benignant destiny. We shall not be likely to appreciate less fully the merits of the wise Statesmen by whose measures a People's thrift and happiness are promoted of the brave Soldier, who joyfully pours out his blood in defense of the rights or in vindication of the honour of his Country of the Sacred Teacher, by whose precepts and example our steps are guided in the pathway to heaven if we render fit honour 236 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. also to those ' Captains of Industry ' -whose tearless victories redden no river and whose conquering march is unmarked by the tears of the widow and the cries of the orphaa. I give you, therefore, "T?te Health of Joseph Paxton, Esq., Designer of the Crystal Palace Honour to him whose genius does honour to Industry and Man !" This speech, so admirable in tone and happy in expression, \\as not included in the newspaper report of the banquet, nor was Mr. Greeley's presence even mentioned! Whether the cause of this omission was the genuinely democratic spirit of the speech, without a shadow of reference to kings, lords, and such things, or whatever was the reason, it gave Mr. Greeley a fair opportunity to demolish a recent boast of The Times that the dear English papers were superior to the cheap American press in fidelity in reporting. Mr. Greeley also attended the annual meeting of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, where he listened to addresses in severe condemnation of American Slavery and unmixed glorification of England. The orators were two negroes, one from New- York, the other from Boston. By the time they were done, Mr. Greeley " was very ready to accept the Chair- man's invitation to say a few words." In doing so, he urged upon British Abolitionists: 1. Energetic and systematic exertions to increase the reward of Labour and the comfort and consideration of the depressed Labouring Class here at home; and to diffuse and cherish respect for Man, as Man, without regard to class, colour, or vocation. 2. Determined efforts for the eradication of those Social ills here which are appealed to and relied on by slaveholders and their champions as justi- fying the continuance of slavery. 3. The colonization of the American Slave States by thousands of moral, industriouSj intelligent free Labourers. An excellent speech certainly and a timely, but it threw a very large wet blanket over the excessive self-complacency produced by the preceding oratory. lie greatly enjoyed the annual festival of the " Ancient and Honourable Company of Fishmongers," which was a sump- tuous entertainment not only, but attended by a number of distinguished persons whom he was gratified to know. Among THE POOR OF LONDON. 23'< these were Phones Noon Talfourd, author of "Ion." Dr. Lushington, Lord Palmerston, and Joseph Hume. An agree- able evening was spent with Robert Owen, now celebrating his eightieth birthday, still a hale and hearty man. Mr. Greeley attended a play given at the town house of the Duke of Devonshire, in aid of The Guild of Literature and Art, a society then recently established with the object of making some provision for unfortunate authors and artists. The play given was Bulwer's "Not so Bad as we Seem," writ- ten expressly in aid of the "Guild." The male performers were literary amateurs, the ladies being actresses by profession. Charles Dickens had the principal character, Douglas Jerrold representing a young Mr. Softhead, "and seemed quite at home in the character." It was better played than Dickens's; but in a comic afterpiece the great novelist came out splen- didly. " I am sure," said Mr. Greeley, " the raw material of a capital comedian was put to a better use when Charles Dickens took to authorship." Horace Greejey could not be long in London without look- ing into the condition of the Labouring Classes and of the Poor. He believed that he saw day-break of the future of Labour in certain cooperative establishments of the great metropolis; and these he visited and studied with as much attention as his time would allow. He thus visited the original Model Lodging-House, in the heart of St. Giles's ; a "Working Association of Piano-Forte Makers ; a second Model Lodging- House, near Tottenham Court Road; a third establishment of the same nature, but for families, as the others were for single persons; and a large Bathing and "Washing house, where par- ties could come and do washing and ironing, everything but soap being supplied, at very low rates. All these establish- ments of a cooperative nature, and especially the Lodging- Houses, were successful. A knowledge of their operations was food for much thought in Mr. Greeley's after years. He never lost faith in the idea that the future great amelioration of the condition of Labour lay in Cooperation a term then comparatively unknown, now well nigh as familiar as Partner- ship, or Company. A visit to a " Ragged School " in Carter's- 238 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. field Lane, Smithfield, impressed him with profound sorrow. "There are not many hogs in America," he said, "who are not better lodged than these poor human brethren and sisters." He could not long endure the pitiable spectacle, but, leaving a contribution of money, hastened away in unspeakable sadness. Very few generous natures can witness such scenes as this, or know that they exist in every great city, without thinking there is something radically vicious in our social institutions. Such was the nature of Horace Greeley's " sight-seeing " in London for the most part. No chasing after royalty, and aristocracy, and the Horse Guards in bloodless review here. He did, indeed, spend an hour or two, one evening, in trying to find "William and Mary Howitt, but signally failed, though they lived, happy old Quaker couple of authors, at No. 28 Upper Avenue Road, and he found Numbers 27, 29, 30, and 31, also Nos. 5 and 16 near by, but no 28. At last, with help of a guide, he found it in a distant part of the street. Such are the intolerable intricacies of London street-numbering. He visited Westminster Abbey too, attending divine worship in that venerable pile, and was not favourably impressed either with the building or the manner of worship. About this latter there was a great deal too much of " an Eleventh -century air," he thought, for good healthy religious respiration. He thought there were ten churches in New- York superior to the Abbey for purposes of worship. Mr. Greeley expressed great admiration of " the imperial growth " of London, but his general description of the city was of a very practical nature. The buildings, he observed, were generally superior to those of New- York; the streets were better paved, cleaned, and lighted, but sadly worse in respect to names, there being half a dozen streets and places of the same name, and the numbering of many absurdly vicious; the police " were omnipresent and efficient." But the hotels were decidedly inferior to those of New- York; cabs and carriages for hire far ahead ; omnibusses better governed ; while the parks, squares, and public gardens of London "beat us clean out of sight." Whereupon, Mr. Greeley says that New- York ought to have made provision, long before, for a series of MS. GEEELEY ON ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS. 239 parks and gardens extending quite across the island between Thirtieth and Fiftieth streets. It is now too late for that, he adds, and asks, " where is to be the Public Garden of New- York? where the attractive walks and pleasure-grounds of the crowded denizens of the Eastern "Wards ? These must be pro- vided, and the work cannot be commenced too soon." The magnificent Central Park, most beautiful and attractive pleasure-grounds of America, has answered Horace Greeley's questions of 1851, and complied with his wise demand. When Mr. Greelej arrived in England, the discussion of " the taxes on knowledge " which had for some time attracted much attention from the general public had reached Parlia- ment, where the repeal of such taxation had many friends. A committee, of which the Rt. Hon. T. Milnor Gibson was chair- man, and the celebrated Richard Cobden one of the members, had the subject in charge, and requested Mr. Greeley to appear and give them the results of his experience and observation. He was examined at great length by the committee. The taxes complained of *were an impost upon advertisements, and a stamp-tax of one penny per copy on every newspaper. The substantial portions of Mr. Greeley's examination were as follows: Your duty is the same on the advertisements in a journal with fifty thousand circulation, as in a journal with one thousand, although the valut of the article is twenty times as much in the one case as in the other. The duty operates precisely as though you were to lay a tax of one shilling a day on every day's labour that a man were to do ; to a man whose labour is worth two shillings a day, it would be destructive ; while by a man who earns twenty shillings a day, it would be very lightly felt. An advertise- ment is worth but a certain amount, and the public soon get to know what it is worth ; you put a duty on advertisements and you destroy the value of those coming to new establishments. People who advertise in your well-established journals, could afford to pay a price to include the duty; but in a new paper, the advertisements would not be worth the amount of the duty alone; and consequently the new concern would have no chance. Now, the advertisements are one main source of the income of daily papers, and thousands of business men take them mainly for those adver- tisements. For instance, at the time when our auctioneers were appointed by law (they were, of course, party politicians), one journal, which was high in the confidence of the party in power, obtained not a law, but an understanding, that all the auctioneers appointed should advertise in that 240 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. journal. Now, though the journal referred to haa ceased to be of that party, and the auctioneers are no longer appointed by the State, yet that journal has almost the monopoly of the auctioneers' business to this day. Auctioneers must advertise in it because they know that purchasers are looking there; and purchasers must take the paper, because they know that it contains just the advertisements they want to see; and this, without regard to the goodness or the principles of the paper. I know men in this town who take one journal mainly for its advertisements, and they must take the Times, because everything is advertised in it ; for the same reason, advertisers must advertise in the Times. If we had a duty on advertisements, I will not say it would be impossible to build a new con- cern up in New- York against the competition of the older ones ; but I do say, it would be impossible to preserve the weaker papers from being swallowed up by the stronger. Mr. COBDEN Do you then consider the fact, that the Times newspaper for the last fifteen years has been increasing so largely in circulation, is to be accounted for mainly by the existence of the advertising duty ? Mr. GREELET Yes ; much more than the stamp. By the operation of the advertisement duty, an advertisement is charged ten times as much in one paper as in another. An advertisement in the Times may be worth five pounds, while in another paper it is only worth one pound ; but the duty is the same. Mr. RICH The greater the number of small advertisements in papers, the greater advantage to their proprietors? Mr. GREELET Yes. Suppose the cost of a small advertisement to be five shillings, the usual charge in the Times; if you have to pay a shilling or eighteen pence duty, that advertisement is worth nothing in a journal with a fourth part of the circulation of the Times. CHAIRMAN Does it not appear to you that the taxes on the press are hostile to one another ; in the first place, lessening the circulation of papers by means of the stamp duty, we diminish the consumption of paper, and therefore lessen the amount of paper duty; secondly, by diminishing the sale of papers through the stamp, we lessen the number of advertisements, and therefore the receipts of the advertisement duty ? Mr. GREELEY I should say that if the government were, simply as a matter of revenue, to fix a duty, say of half a penny per pound, on paper, it would be easily collected, and produce more money; and then, a law which is equal in its operation does not require any considerable number of officers to collect the duty, and it would require no particular vigilance ; and the duty on paper alone would be most equal and most efficient as a revenue duty. CHAIRMAN It is clear, then, that the effect of the stamp and advertise- ment duty is to lessen the amount of the receipts from the duty on paper ? Mr. GREELEY Enormously. I see that the circulation of daily papers in London is but sixty thousand, against a hundred thousand in New- York; while the tendency is more to concentrate in London than in ON ENGLISH JOURNALS. 241 New-York. Not a tenth part of our daily papers are printed in New- York. CHAFRMAN When a person proposes to publish a paper in New- York, he is not required to go to any office to register himself, or to give security that he will not insert libels or seditious matter? A newspaper publisher is not subject to any liability more than other persons? Mr. GKEELEY No; no more than a man that starts a blacksmith's shop. Mr. COBDEN From what you have stated with regard to the circulation of the daily papers in New- York, it appears that a very large proportion of the adult population must be customers for them ? Mr. GREELEY Yes; I think three-fourths of all the families take a daily paper of some kind. Mr. COBDEN The purchasers of the daily papers must consist of a dif- ferent class from those in England; mechanics must purchase them? Mr. GREELEY Every mechanic takes a paper, or nearly every one.' Mr. COBDEN Do those people generally get them before they leave home for their work ? Mr. GREELEY Yes; and you are complained of if you do not furnish a man with his newspaper at his breakfast ; he wants to read it between six or seven usually? Mr. COBDEN Then a ship-builder, or a cooper, or a joiner, needs hia daily paper at his breakfast-time ? Mr. GREELEY Yes ; and he may take it with him to read at his dinner between twelve and one ; but the rule is, that he wants his paper at his breakfast. Mr. COBDEN After he has finished his breakfast or his dinner, he may be found reading the daily newspaper, just as the people of the upper classes do in England ? Mr. GREELEY Yes. Mr. EWART Is scurillity or personality common in the publications of the United States? Mr. GREELEY It is not common; it is much less frequent than it was; but it is not absolutely unknown. CHAIRMAN As the demand is extensive, is the remuneration for the ser- vices of the literary men who are employed on the press, good ? Mr. GREELEY The prices of literary labour are more moderate than in this country. The highest salary, I think, that would be commanded by any one connected with the press would be five thousand dollars the highest that could be thought of. I have not heard of higher than three thousand. CHAIRMAN Are your leading men in America, in point of literary abil- ity, employed from time to time upon the press as an occupation ? Mr. GREELEY It is beginning to be so, but it has not been the custom. There have been leading men connected with the press ; but the press has not been usually conducted by the most powerful men. With a few ex- ceptions, the leading political journals are conducted ably, and they are 16 242 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. becoming more so; and, with a wider diffusion of the circulation, the press is more able to pay for it. CHAIRMAN Do not you consider that newspaper reading is calculated to keep up a habit of reading? Mr. GREELEY I think it is worth all the schools in the country. 1 think it creates a taste for reading in every child's mind, and it increases his interest in his lessons; he is attracted from always seeing a newspaper and hearing it read, I think. CHAIRMAN Supposing that you had your schools as now, but that your newspaper press were reduced within the limits of the press in England, do you not think that the habit of reading acquired at school would be frequently laid aside ? Mr. GREELEY I think that the habit would not be acquired, and that paper reading would fall into disuse. Mr. EWART Having observed both countries, can you state whether the press has greater influence on public opinion in the United States than in England, or the reverse ? Mr. GREELEY I think it has more influence with us. I do not know that any class is despotically governed by the press but its influence is more universal ; every one reads and talks about it with us, and more weight is laid upon intelligence than on editorials; the paper which brings the quickest news is the thing looked to. Mr. EWART The leading article has not so much influence as in Eng- land? Mr. GREELEY No ; the telegraphic dispatch is the great point. Mr. COBDEN Observing our newspapers and comparing them with the American papers, do you find that we make much less use of the electric telegraph for transmitting news than in America ? Mr. GREELEY Not a hundredth part as much as we do. Mr. COBDEN An impression prevails in this country that our newspaper press incurs a great deal more expense to expedite news than you do in New- York. Are you of that opinion? Mr. GREELEY I do not know what j'our expense is. I should say that a hundred thousand dollars a year is paid by our association of the six leading daily papers, besides what each gets separately for itself. Mr. COBDEN Twenty thousand pounds a year is paid by your association, consisting of six papers, for what you get in common ? Mr. GREELEY Yes; we telegraph a great deal in the United States. As- suming that a scientific meeting was held at Cincinnati this year, we should telegraph the reports from that place, and I presume other journals would have special reporters to report the proceedings at length. "We have a reoort everv day, fifteen hundred miles, from New Orleans; from 8t. Louis, too, and other places. The Committee then adjourned. From this time forth the unpopularity of "the taxes on knowledge" rapidly increased, and they were at length re- CROSsraa THE CHANNEL. 243 pealed. The people of England are very greatly indebted for having the Cheap Press so soon as they did to the Founder of The New- York Tribune. Having spent not quite two months in London, in which few weeks he had been able to confer valuable renown upon his country and to aid the cause of human progress, Mr. Greeley proceeded to Paris. The journey by rail from London to Dover, a very mean, old town, as he thought, suggested to his mind, seeing so little attention to fruit culture, the busi- ness of exporting dried fruit, especially peaches, from America to England. And he told exactly how the business ought to be done in order to be profitable. The steamboat in which he crossed the Channel " was one of those long, black, narrow scow contrivances, about equal to a buttonwood 'dug-out,' which England appears to delight in. * In this wretched concern, which was too insignificant to be slow, we went cobbling and wriggling across the Channel (27 miles) in something less than two hours, often one gunwale nearly under water and the other ten or twelve feet above it, with no room under deck for half our passengers, and the spray frequently dashing over those above it, three-fourths of the whole number deadly sick (this individual of course included), when with a decent boat the passage might be regularly made, in spite of such smartish breeze as we encountered, in comparative comfort." The Channel is noted for making one discharge one's atrabilarious- ness. " We were detained/' he says, " a long hour in Calais a queer old town, with little trade and only a historical impor- tance although GIT baofg-agj was not examined there, but sealed up for oustom-liousu _/:rutiny at Paris. They made a few dollars out of rs by charging for extra baggage, one of them out of me, thorgh i^y trunk contained only clothing and three or four book?, fema 1 .! business this for a railroad, though it will do in stage ir^Aepoitaticn. Oui passports were scruti- nized, we (the green ones) oHained an execrable dinner for 37 cents, and changed some sovereigns for French silver at a shave which was not atrocious. ^mall""", we wer3 all let go." And away they went over the flat marshy country to the world's fashionable metropolis, not arriving there rii'lil 2 244 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. o'clock Sunday morning, instead of 10 the previous evening, according to advertisement. Here Mr. Greeley made his " first attempt at mouthing French," and a friend (not of the " green ones "), having drilled him, he bravely sang out " sauk- on-du" for his trunk (52-cinqttante-deux by number) and eucceeded in making himself intelligible. He found shelter but no bed at the Hotel Choiseul, Rue St. Honorc, the city being overcrowded with visitors. After breakfast he repaired to the famous Church of Madeleine, reputed one of the finest in Europe. The service, much of it being " inexplicable dumb show " to him, was not pleasing, but he quoted: " Peace be with all, whate'er their varying creeds, With all who send up holy thoughts on high." That which appeared to strike Mr. Greeley most forcibly in the social life of Paris was the general, almost universal, pur- suit of amusement. The Frenchman's pleasures, he thought, were all social. " To eat, drink, or spend the evening alone would be a weariness to him : he reads his newspaper in the thoroughfare or the public gardens: he talks more in one day than an Englishman in three: the theatres, balls, concerts, etc., which to the islander afford occasional recreation, are to him a nightly necessity: he would be lonely and miserable without them. Nowhere is Amusement more systematically, sedu- lously sought than in Paris ; nowhere is it more abundant or accessible. For boys just escaped from school or paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and untroubled by conscience or forecast, this must be a ra--e city. It? people, as a com- munity, have signal good cMia'iti^s and grave defects: they are intelligent, vivacious, com tec u::, obliging, geneious, and humane; eager to enjoy, bat willing chat all the world should enjoy with them; while at the s?m' * A me they are impulsive, fickle, sensual, and irreverent. Paris ?'s f he Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not cf Happiness. Nowhere are Youth and its capacities mere prodigally lavished ; nowhere is old age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thou- sands who would eagerly pour out their hearts' blood for liberty and human progress, but no class or clan who ever FRAJTCE A REPUBLIC. 245 thought of denying themselves wine and kindred stimulants in order that the masses should be rendered worthier of liberty and thus better fitted to preserve and enjoy it." The want of respect for Marriage he thought was productive of great demoralization. " In no other nominally Christian city is the proportion of the unmarried so great as here," said he; "nowhere else do families so quickly decay ; nowhere else is the proportion of births out of wedlock so appalling." In line, Mr. Greeley placed a very low estimate upon Parisian morals. Some writers have said that Mr. Greeley's judgment of the political situation in France was exceedingly erroneous; his forecast of the future especially wrong. He said, " alike by its own strength and by its enemies' divisions, the safety of the Republic is assured ; and time is on the popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Eepublic." Still again: "I marvel at the obliquity of vision whereby any one is enabled, standing in this metropolis, to anticipate the sub- version of the 'Republic and the restoration of Monarchy." Those who have criticised Mr. Greeley as herein misjudging have, it would appear, misjudged him. In the sentences quoted and other similar expressions he intended to express the opinion that France had become genuinely Republican, and that such would continue to be the permanent form of gov- ernment. But he also expressly stated that the Republic was in great danger on account of certain evil laws, and might thereby suifer temporary disaster. In the letter in which occurs his strongest asseveration of the permanency of the Republic, he says : " The French have great faults of char- acter which imperil the immediate fortunes of the Republic but cannot affect its ultimate ascendency* Impulsive and egotistic, they may seem willing to exchange Liberty for Tranquillity or Security, but this will be a momentary caprice, soon past and forgotten The Na f ion can ae. T ei more be other than Republican, though the p^ c sPf.ors cf power, controlling the Press, the Bureaus, .the As&STobly, and tb.e A"mv. ciay fancy that their personal interests would be promoted bv a less popular system, and so be seen for 3. Deason following 24:6 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. strange gods. This delusion and apostacy will speedily pass, leaving only their shame behind," He not only saw an immediate peril to the Republic, in the great faults of char- acter of the French, but also in the arbitrary disfranchisement of nearly one-half the democratic voters, the manacled condi- tion of the press, the denial to the people of the right of public assemblage, and the betrayal of the enormous power and patronage of government into the hands of the Aristo- cratic party. In consideration of these things, he clearly saw " the immediate peril of the Republic " in the election which would take place in May of the following year. The Republic might "be then engulfed, but it would not be for long. Such was the whole of Mr. Greeley's opinion in 1851. Those who treated it lightly about 1854, might have changed their minds inside of twenty years. Mr. Greeley looked farther into a quarter of a century to come than they did. Before his departure for Lyons he visited several of the late Royal, then and now National Palaces of France, and though acknowledging their beauty and splendour, it is very clear that the sight of them impressed him unfavourably; that he would rather have contemplated a prosperous potato-patch than the bewildering " glories " of Versailles. He thought some of these palaces ought to be converted into Hospitals, Libraries, Galleries of Art, etc. Versailles, however, was a bad bargain, and " could not be sold as it stands, for a tenth of its actual cost!" Clearly, these " Royal Palaces " abated no whit of the democracy of this man of the people. "Pe^hap,? it will be best, therefore," he said, " to convert ail tne others into direct uses and preserve Versa'lles for public inspection as a perpet- ual memorial cf the reckless prodigality and all-devouring pomp of Kings, an: 1 , as a w?,rr.ing to Nations never again to entrust their aes'Inies to men whc, from their very education and the influences surrounding .'aem through life, must be led to consider the 'roiling Millions as mainly created to pamper tbdr appetites, to granfj t v eir p~ide, and to pave with their corf SGo 1 h e:r road to extended dominion." He spent a good pit of cwo c : &yc, howeve^, ?n the Louvre, whose galleries, he ON DILIGENCE TO TURIN. 24:7 said, "contain more strikingly good paintings than I shall iver again see under one roof." He proceeded by rail from Paris to Chalons on the Saone, but on account of bad management at depots and by omnibus men, he did not reach the landing in time to take the steam- boat for Lyons. Getting a good room, however with a clean bed, and plenty of water (for France) and there being no sleep- ing accommodations on the departed boat, he philosophically concluded, "I was rather glad we had been swindled than otherwise." The voyage on the Saone to Lyons was pleasant, but the scenery tame, he thought, in comparison with that of the Con- necticut or the Hudson. Lyons, notable for its manufacture of silks, the focus of Democratic Socialism, was at the time in a situation of commercial depression. Whereupon Mr. Greeley indited a brief essay undertaking to show that " it is not best for themselves nor for mankind that 100,000 silk-workers should be clustered on any square mile or two of earth." They ought to be scattered widely over the world, in the interest of Industry. He carried the Protectionist argument for Diversity of Industry to an extreme which may be called, not to be too reverent, the Scatteration of Industry. And it certainly would be very convenient if Lyons silks, as well as California gold mines, South African diamond fields, and such, were distrib- uted around a little more generously than they are. Until they shall be, it may be regarded as inevitable that trade and commerce meet with occasional " depressions." At Lyons, Mr. Greeley turned aside from the general route thence to Italy, and booked himself for a ride across the Lower Alps by diligence to Turin. He took a seat in the banquette, on top of the diligence, and away the lumbering vehicle sped, drawn by four horses, first over a level, productive country to the frontiers of Savoy, where began the country of mountains. "They rose before and around us," he writes, "from the moment of our crossing the boundary, grim, rugged, and precipitous, they formed a striking contrast to all of Europe I had hitherto seen." All through Savoy, he was ever in sight of snow-covered peaks. He saw quite as many women as men 24:8 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. at work in the fields, and did not like the sight. At Cham- bery, the capital of ancient Savoy, the diligence made a halt, and the passengers were allowed twenty-five minutes for break- fast, which would have been very well but that the time required for cooking most of the breakfast had to come out of it. Mr. Greeley gives this account of his Savoyard breakfast: " There was enough, and good enough to eat, wine in abundance without charge, but tea, coffee, or chocolate, must be ordered and paid for extra. Yet I was unable to obtain a cup of chocolate, the excuse being that there was not time to make it. I did not understand, therefore, why I was charged more than others for breakfast ; but to talk English against French or Italian is to get a mile behind in no time, so I pocketed the change offered me and came away. On the coach, however, with an Englishman near me who had travelled this way before and spoke French and Italian, I ventured to express my ignorance as follows : " ' Neighbour, why was I charged three francs for breakfast, and the rest of you but two and a half? ' " ' Don't know perhaps you had tea or coffee.' " ' No, sir don't drink either.' " ' Then perhaps you washed your face and hands.' " 'Well, it would be just like me.' " ' O, then, that's it ! The half franc was for the basin and towel.' 44 ' Ah, out, 0Mt.' So the milk in that cocoanut was accounted for." Over Mount Cenis, up by slow travel, the diligence now drawn by eight horses, down at breakneck speed, two horses and the brakes sulficing, and daylight found the traveller in the valley of the Po, the great plain of Upper Italy, with breakfast June 20 in Turin before 9 o'clock. Mr. Greeley was much pleased with Turin, which, under the liberal govern- ment of Yictor Emmanuel, was at this time rapidly increasing in industry and population. But he thought Genoa, which he visited next, superior in most respects if not in all. " I never saw," he says, in a letter of June 22d, "so many churches so admirably constructed and so gorgeously, laboriously orna- mented as the half dozen I visited yesterday and this morning." He was greatly pleased with the modest, graceful monument to Christopher Columbus, the Genoese discoverer of America, and charmed with the costly, beautiful architecture of the city. His bed-room at the " Hotel des Londres," was larger, with ROME, 249 more lofty ceilings, than most American parlours or drawing- rooms. Mr. Greeley carefully studied the political situation in the Kingdom of Sardinia, and considering that the King had nobly redeemed his promise "to rear free institutions in the midst of surrounding ruins," by the establishment of religious freedom and a Free Press, lie thought those were in this instance in the right who held fast by King and Constitution, the Monarch being most zealous in the cause of progress and reform. He regretted the necessity of an army of fifty thou- sand men, and another, not necessary, of sixty thousand priests (and no common schools!); nevertheless, lie predicted Italy's future as a Federal Republic. It seems probable already that he herein correctly saw the coming events; and his bright vision of United Italy has for many years been realized. But he was less confident after he had seen more of Italy. From Genoa Mr. Greeley proceeded to Leghorn in a "wretched old apology for a steamship," and thence wrote a letter in which he' " blew up " the Yankee consuls, the Tuscan police, and French government steamships in the Mediter- ranean, but it never came to hand. He visited Pisa, and thought the wonderful Leaning Tower worthy of all the fame it has acquired. The day before his visit was the anniversary of the Patron Saint of Pisa, which was this year celebrated with great pomp, $100,000 being expended for fire-works, "though Pisa cannot afford," he dryly remarks, " to sustain free com- mon schools or make any provision for the education of her children. Of course she can afford to die, or is certain to do it, whether she can afford it or not." Returning to Leghorn, he went thence by steamer to Civita Yecchia, where he saw four sorts of men only, namely, officials engaged in fleecing travellers, priests, soldiers, and beggars. Thus his entrance into the Papal States impressed him very unfavourably, and the ride of twenty -five miles by diligence to Rome, through a country in a condition showing utter shift- lessness, added to his disappointment. But Rome "is mighty even in her desolation. I knew,' he continues, "the world had nothing like her, and yet tho 250 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. impression she has made on me, at the first view, is unexpect- edly great." He remained in the city but a -week. He thought the churches of Rome richer in sculpture, porphyry, mosaic, carving, tapestry, etc., than anything elsewhere well can be; but not equal in architecture to the finest churches in Genoa, the Cathedral at Pisa, and, externally, to Notre Dame at Paris. As to sculpture and painting, he was tempted to say that "if mankind were compelled to choose between the destruction of what is in Rome or that of all the rest in the world, the former should be saved at the expense of the latter." But he was not impressed with the superiority of ancient over modern art; and was decidedly of opinion that Rome has been unwisely grasping with regard to works of art. Upon this subject he gave some excellent practical suggestions which would be found valuable to this day. St. Peter's he regarded as " the Niagara of edifices, having the same relation to other master-pieces of human effort that the great cataract bears to other terrestrial effects of Divine power." Time and genius, he thought, may produce other structures as admirable in their own way and regarded in con- nection with their uses; but viewed as a temple, St. Peter's will ever stand unmatched and unapproachable. His first visit was in the early morning, and he found no time when the great structure was so impressive. It is doubtful whether there have been any more genuine appreciative descriptions of St. Peter's than Horace Greeley's. "Go very early," lie advises, " if you would see St. Peter's in its calm and stately grandeur." "With the Coliseum he was also greatly impressed. It seemed to him as majestic and impressive in its utter deso- lation as it ever could have been in in its grandeur and glory. He says: " We were fortunate in the hour of our visit. As we slowly made the circuit of the edifice, a body of French cavalry were exercising their horses along the eastern side of it, while at a little distance, in the grove or garden at the south, the quick rattle of the drum told of the evolutions of infantry. At length the horsemen rode slowly away to the southward, and our attention was drawn to certain groups of Italians in the interior, who were slowly marching and chanting. We entered, and were witnesses of a strange, impressive ceremony. It is among the traditions of Rome A 8INGULAE CEREMONY. 251 fliat a great number of the early Christians were compelled by their heathen persecutors to fight and die here as gladiators, as a punishment for their contumacious, treasonable resistance to the ' lower law ' then in the ascendant, which the high priests and circuit judges of that day were wont in their sermons and charges to demonstrate that every one was bound as a law-abiding citizen to obey, no matter what might be his pri- vate, personal convictions with regard to it. Since the Coliseum has been cleared of rubbish, fourteen little oratories or places of prayer have been cheaply constructed around its inner circumference, and here at certain seasons prayers are offered for the eternal bliss of the martyred Christians of the Coliseum. These prayers were being offered on this occasion. Twenty or thirty men (priests or monks I inferred), partly bare-headed, but as many with their heads completely covered by hooded cloaks, which left only two small holes for the eyes, accompanied by a large num. ber of women, marched slowly and sadly to one oratory, chanting a prayer by the way, setting up their lighted tapers by its semblance of an altar, kneeling and praying for some minutes, then rising and proceeding to the next oratory, and so on until they had repeated the service before every one. They all seemed to be of the poorer class, and I presume the cere- mony is often repeated or the participators would have been much more numerous. The praying was fervent and I trust excellent, as the music decidedly was not ; but the whole scene, with the setting sun shining redly through the shattered, arches and upon the ruined wall, with a few French soldiers standing heedlessly by, was strangely picturesque, and to me affect, ing. I came away before it concluded, to avoid the damp night-air; but many checkered years and scenes of stirring interest must intervene to efface from my memory that sun-set and those strange prayers in the Coli seum." He paid several visits to the Vatican with which he was greatly pleased, but failed to see some of the most precious works of art which are there preserved, whereupon, he wished " the Papal government would frankly exact, as I for one would most cheerfully pay. a fair price for admission to the most admirable and unrivalled collections which are its prop- erty." He expressed unbounded admiration of the princely families of Rome, whose palaces and immense collections of paintings and sculptures are almost daily open to strangers without charge, save the trifle that you choose to give the attendant who shows you through them. " What American," he asks, " ever thought of spending half an immense fortune in the collection of magnificent galleries ot pictures, statues, etc., and then quietly opening the whole to the public without expecting a word of compliment or acknowledgement in re 252 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. turn? Without being personally known to those whom he thus benefitted? We have something to learn of Rome in this respect." The common people of Rome seemed to Mr. Greeley to be an intelligent, vivacious race, and he credited the opinion that they were mentally superior to most other Italians. He rarely met a face indicating mental imbecility, or even low mediocrity among the Romans. The women did not dress well, he observed, but were ready at repartee, self-possessed, energetic, with flashing eyes and countenances often indicating a depth of emotion and character. He did not think such pictures as abound in Rome could have been painted where the women were common-place and unideal. But he had an unfavourable opinion of the moral qualities of the Romans, including therein patriotism and all the civic virtues. He thought they were quite commonly sensual, selfish, indolent, fickle, dishon- est, vicious. Their want of genuine religious and civic virtues he attributed to the unfavourable operation of "religious machinery," and execrable civil government. Such a thing as enterprise, he said, is utterly unknown south of Genoa. From Rome Mr. Greeley proceeded to Venice, by Civita Vecchia, thence by sea to Leghorn, and then by Florence, Bologna, Ferrera, and Padua. His stay in Florence was brief, and he spent most of the time, under guidance of good Amer- ican friends, in looking through the galleries devoted to paint- ings and statuary in the two famous palaces of the reigning family and in the Academy. His expectations were not fully realized, a fact which he attributed to late illness at sea and his recent acquaintance with the immense and multiform treas- ures of art at Rome. But he found no such exquisite pleasure at R >me as he derived from the hour he spent in the studio of the distinguished American sculptor, Hiram Powers. "I defy," he exclaims, " antiquity to surpass I doubt its ability to rival his ' Proserpine ' and his 'Psyche' with any mod- els of the female head that have come down to us; and while I do not see how they could be excelled in their own sphere, I feel that Powers, unlike Alexander, has still realms to conquer, and will fulfil his destiny." He also saw Hart, Gait, and AN ADVENTURE. 253 Rogers. Greenough lie had previously met at Turin on his way to America. Of American painters, he met only Page. Hastening onward he crossed the Apennines mainly in the night. They seemed to him a little higher than the Green Mountains of Vermont, though they were far more precipitous and sterile. Passing out of Tuscany into the Papal territory again, all the baggage had to be overhauled, and passports re-scrutinized "two processes," he says, "to which I am becoming more accustomed than any live eel ever was to being skinned. The time consumed was but an hour and the pecu- niary swindle trilling." The only thing he saw at Bologna, to extract a practical remark from, was an awning of sheeting or calico spread over the centre of the main street on a level with the roofs of the houses for the distance of half a mile or more. He distrusted its standing a strong gust, but if it would, thought the idea worth borrowing. The chief business of Bologna seemed to be " watching gates and visaing passports." From Bologna to Padua by diligence, with plenty of stupid stoppages and temptations to use the energetic idmm. He thought the diligence travelling in Italy must have been organized " on purpose to afford the least possible accommoda- tion at the most exorbitant cost." An amusing incident of the journey between Bologna and Venice is thus related: "As midnight drew on, I grew weary of gazing at the same endless diversity of grain-fields, vineyards, rows of trees, etc., though the bright moon was now shining; and, shutting out the chill night-air, I disposed myself on my old great-coat and softest carpet-bag for a drowse, having ample room at my command if I could but have brought it into a straight line. But the road was hard, the coach a little the uneasiest I ever hardened my bones upon, and my slumber was of a disturbed and dubious character, a dim sense of physical discomfort shaping and colouring my incoherent and fitful visions. For a time I fancied myself held down on my back while some malevolent wretch drenched the floor (and me) with filthy water; then I was in a rude scuffle, and came out third or fourth best, with my clothes badly torn ; anon I had lost my hat in a strange place, and could not begin to find it! and at last my clothes were full of grasshoppers and spiders, who were beguiling their leisure by biting and stinging me. The misery at last became unbearable and I awoke. But where? I was plainly in a tight, dark box that needed more air; I soon recollected that it was a stage-coach, wherein I had been making my \\ ay from Ferrara to Padua. I threw open the door and looked out. Horses, 254 LIFE OF IIOKACE GEEELEY. postilions, and guard were all gone ; the moon, the fields, the road were gone: I was in a close court-yard, alone with Night and Silence; but where ? A church clock struck three ; but it was only promised that we should reach Padua by four, and I, making the usual discount on suck promises, had set down five as the probable hour of our arrival. I got out to take a more deliberate survey, and the tall form and bright bayonet o* an Austrian sentinel, standing guard over the egress of the court-yard were before me. To talk German was beyond the sweep of my dizzies ambition, but an Italian runner or porter instantly presented himsell From him I made out that I was in Padua of ancient and learned renown and that the first train for Venice would not start for three hours yet. > followed him into a convenient ca//, which was all open and well lighted where I ordered a cup of chocolate, and proceeded leisurly to discuss it When I had finished, the other guests had all gone out, but daylight was coming in, and I began to feel more at home. The cafi tender was asleep in his chair; the porter had gone off; the sentinel alone kept awake ofi his post. Soon the welcome face of the coach-guard, whom I had borne company from Bologna, appeared ; I hailed him, obtained my baggage, hired a porter, and, having nothing more to wait for, started at a little past four for the Railroad station, nearly a mile distant; taking observa- tions as I went. Arrived at the dpot, I discharged my porter, sat down and waited for the place to open, with ample leisure for reflection. At Biz o'clock I felt once more the welcome motion of a railroad car, and at eight was in Venice." If Mr. Greeley had been delighted with the valley of the Po> a great portion of which he had now traversed, he was enrap tured with Venice. "Venice!" he exclaims. "Queen of the Adriatic! 'City of the Heart!' how can I ever forget thee? Brief, too brief was my halt amid thy glorious structures, but such eras are measured not by hours, but by sensations; and my first day in Venice must ever hold its place among the most cherished recollections of my .life." Every tourist falls in love with Venice, and, as is the case quite generally in the matter of falling in love, very few can give satisfactory accounts of the phenomenon. A most charming time did Mr. Greeley have in Venice, ever under the resistless fascination ; but, having left the presence of the charmer, he returned to his philosophy and wrote: " Full of interest as is everything in Venice, I do not remembfv to have detected there the effectual working of a single idea of the last century, save in the railroad, which barely touches without enlivening her. the solitary steamboat belonging to Trieste, and two or three larger gondola* UPSET ! 255 marked ' Omnibus ' this or that, which appeared to be conveying good loads of passengers from one end of the city to the other for one-sixth or eighth of the price which the same journey solus cost me. The omnibus typifies Association the simple but grandly fruitful idea which is des- tined to renovate the world of industry and production, substituting abundance and comfort for penury and misery. For man, I trust, this quickening word is yet seasonable; for Venice it is too late. It is far easier to found two new cities than to restore one dead one. Fallen Queen of the Adriatic ! a long and mournful adieu 1" From Venice Mr. Greeley returned to London by Milan, crossing the Alps by the pass of St. Gothard, Lucerne, Basle, Cologne, Brussels, arid Paris, being less than a fortnight on the whole journey, but writing instructive and eminently practical letters to The Tribune in description of Lombardy, Switzerland, a portion of Germany, Belgium, and Northeastern Franca American agriculture, he asserted, had just two arts to learn from Lombardy irrigation and tree-planting. And he proceeded to demonstrate his proposition very much as though he were delivering a capital agricultural address at an American State Fair. But then, on the other hand, he thought one of Italy's great wants was a good deal of sub-soil plough- ing on the American plan. Switzerland, he averred, could not afford to be a Kingdom, the expense of a Court and Royal Family would famish her people. Yet everywhere he saw frugal thrift and homely content, and only two beggars during his journey through the country. Descending the Alps at the usual rapid rate, the diligence upset. The incident is thus related: "I was just thinking that though every one should know his own business best, yet if I wore to drive down a steep mountain in that way I should expect to break my neck, and suspect I deserved it, when, as we turned a sharp zig-zag on a steep grade at a stiff trot, our carriage tilted, and over she went in a twinkling. Our horses behaved admirably, which in an upset is always half the battle. Had they started, the diligence managers could only have rendered a flemish account of that load. As it was they stopped, and the driver, barely scratched, had them in hand in a minute. I was on the box seat with him and fell under him, catching a bad strain of the left wrist on which I came down, which disables that hand for a few days nothing broken and no great harm done. But I should judge that our heads lay about three feet from the side of the road, which was a precipice of not more than twenty feet, but the rocks below 256 LDTE OF HOHACE GREELEY. particularly jagged and uninviting. Our four inside passengers had been a good deal mixed up, in the concussion, but soon began to emerge neriatim, from the side door which in the fall came uppermost only one of them much hurt, and he by a bruise or gash on the head nowise dan- gerous. Each, as his or her head protruded through the aperture, began to 'let in' on the driver, whose real fault was that of following bad examples. I was a little riled at first myself, but the second and last lady who came out put me in excellent humour. She was not hurt, but had her new silk umbrella broken square in two, and she flashed the pieces before the delinquent's eyes and reeled off the High Dutch to him with vehement volubility. I wished I could have understood her more pre- cisely. Though not more than eighteen, she developed a tongue that would have done credit to forty." Mr. Greeley had often met Germans, of course, but thought they were seen to the best advantage at home. He heartily acknowledged their uniform courtesy (" save in the detestable habit of smoking "), and was greatly pleased with the deference of members of the same family to each other. " The Swiss," he observed, " are freemen, and wear the fact unconsciously but palpably on their brows and beaming from their eyes. The Germans submit passively to arbitrary power which they see not how successfully to resist, but they render to rank or dig- nity no more homage than is necessary their souls are still free, and their manners evince a simplicity and frankness which might shame or at least instruct America." Mr. Greeley had but a short stay in Belgium. "Writing of it, he speaks of the state of agriculture; women working in the fields; radical railroads, etc.; but not a word of Waterloo, which was then overdone into a very dry crisp. His route from Paris to London was by Rouen and Dieppe, instead of by Calais. But the trip across the Channel was even more dis- agreeable than the former one, and the wretched boats came in for a heavy discharge of execration. From Paris he wrote of the expected defeat of Louis Napoleon's reelection, therein misjudging the situation. When he reached London, the Universal Peace Congress was in session, largely attended by delegates, among them many men of distinguished renown. Mr. Greeley had great respect for the cause, but could not help thinking there would have to be some more hard fighting before it could prevail. THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. 257 Before returning to America, he visited Scotland and Ire- land, but had not much time to spend in either of those countries. He was especially pleased with Edinburgh. He "never saw so many good houses with so few indifferent;" but he spent most time of all in the Palace of Holyrood, " which, though unwisely located, never gorgeously furnished and long since abandoned of Royalty to dilapidation and decay> still wears the stamp of majesty and will be regal even when crumbled into ruins." Of course, like all other generoua souls, which are inevitably captivated even by the memory of female loveliness, he passed into heroics when speaking of Mary Queen of Scots. From Edinburgh, he went to Glasgow, which he describes as more American than any other city he had seen in Europe ; thence by the Clyde to Greenock, and from there across the North Channel to Belfast, Ireland. He only had a few days in Ireland. He visited Dublin, Galway, and Limerick, but did not have time to see Cork. His observations upon the sad condition of Ireland were intended to be of practical- value. He thought the country should have a Parliament of its own; that the customs of land-tenantry were vicious and ruinous; that nowhere on earth could more good be accomplished than by the establishment of manufactures, the building of rail- ways, and advancing the price of Labour. He manifested deep interest in Galway, trusting " that a new Liverpool is soon to arise here; and that, should I ever again visit Europe, I shall first land on the quay of Galway." Perhaps the candour of Mr. Greeley, though often exhibited in the most admirable manner, was never more finely illus- trated than in his expression of opinion of the English people, some of whose representative men and journals had treated him unjustly and discourteously. He says: "I do not wholly like these cold and stately English, yet I think I am not blind to their many sterling qualities. The greatness of England, it is quite confidently asserted, is based upon her conquests and plunder- ings on her immense commerce and unlimited foreign possessions. I think otherwise. The English have qualities which would have rendered them wealthy and powerful though they had been located in the centre of Asia instead of on the western coast of Europe. I do not say that these 17 258 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. qualities could have been developed in Central Asia, but if they Jiad been, they would have insured to their possessors a commanding position. Personally, the English do not attract nor shine ; but collectively they are a race to make their mark on the destinies of mankind." Their distinguishing characteristics, he thought, were indus- triousness, method, economy, practicality, benevolence, gravity. Of English women, he spoke with discriminate praise. They avoided peculiarity of apparel or speech, but were unsurpassed in physical development, and were about the best mothers on earth. Against the good qualities the English set off some disagreeable ones awkwardness ; too sharp an eye to business, whereby courtesy is destroyed; overweening self-conceit. Yet the better qualities, he thought, decidedly preponderate. They naturally love justice, manly dealing, fair play; and though cold and even repulsive out-of-doors, the Englishman is tender and truthful in his home. He took passage for New-York on the same steamer by which he had crossed the ocean in April, embarking at Liver- pool on the 6th of August, having been absent from home not quite four months. On shipboard, in the harbour of the commercial mart, he finished his last letter from Europe, concluding: e ' " But I must not linger. The order to embark is given; our good ship Baltic is ready ; another hour and I shall have left England and this con- tinent, probably forever. With a fervent good-bye to the friends I leave on this side of the Atlantic, I turn my steps gladly and proudly toward my own loved Western home toward the land wherein Man enjoys larger opportunities than elsewhere to develop the better and the worse aspects of his nature, and where evil and good have .a freer course, a wider arena for their inevitable struggles, than is allowed them among the heavy fetters and cast-iron forms of this rigid and wrinkled Old World. Doubt- less, those struggles will long be arduous and trying ; doubtless, the dic- tates of duty will there often bear sternly away from the halcyon bowers of popularity; doubtless, he who would be singly and wholly right must there encounter ordeals as severe as these which here try the souls of the would-be champions of progress and liberty. But political freedom, such as white men enjoy in the United States, and the mass do not enjoy in Europe, not even in Britain, is a basis for confident and well-grounded hope; the running stream, though turbid, tends ever to self-purification, the obstructed, stagnant pool grows daily more dank and loathsome. Believing most firmly in the ultimate triumph of Good over Evil, I rejoice HOME AGAIN. 259 In the existence and diffusion of that liberty, which, while it intensifies thr> contest, accelerates the consummation. Neither blind to her errors, noi a panderer to her vices, I rejoice to feel that every hour henceforth till I see her shores must lessen the distance which divides me from my country, whose advantages and blessings this four months' absence has taught me to appreciate more dearly and to prize more deeply than before. With a glow of unwonted rapture I see our stately vessel's prow turned toward the setting sun, and strive to realize that only some ten days separate me from those I know and love best on earth. Hark ! the last gun announces that the mail-boat has left us, and that we are fairly afloat on our ocean journey ; the shores of Europe recede from our vision ; the watery waste is all around us; and now, with God above and Death below, our gallant bark and her clustered company together brave the dangers of the mighty deep. May Infinite Mercy watch over our onward path and bring us safely to our several homes ; for to die away from home and kindred seems one of the saddest calamities that could befall me. This mortal tenement would rest uneasily in an ocean shroud ; this spirit reluctantly resign that tenement to the chill and pitiless brine; these eyes close regretfully on the stranger skies and bleak inhospitality of the sullen and stormy main. No ! let me see once more the scenes so well remem- bered and beloved ; let me grasp, if but once again, the hand of Friend- ship, and hear the thrilling accents of proud Affection, and when sooner or later the hour of mortal agony shall come, let my last gaze be fixed on eyes that will not forget me when I am gone, and let my ashes repose in that congenial soil which, however I may there be esteemed or hated, is still 4 My own green land forever.' " CHAPTEE XV. ON THE PLATFORM REVISITS EUROPE. Mr. Greelcy On the Platform Ills First Lecture: "Human Life" His Style of Public Speaking Publishes a Volume of Lectures and Es- says, Entitled " Hints Towards Reforms " Declines to Address a Literary Society Characteristic Letter A Letter Misinterpreted Does Not "Fail to Connect" Agricultural Addresses The Indiana Agricultural Fair of 1853 Mr. Greeley 's Address A Night Ride on a Hand-car Revisits Europe Several Weeks of Leisure Two Days in a French Prison His Amusing Account of His Incarceration Switzerland and the Glaciers A Presentiment Return to America. HORACE GREELEY early entered the lecture field. The plat- form became a means of influence and of profit about cotem- poraneously with his rising fame. He appears to have taken advantage of it rather to extend his usefulness than to increase his income or his reputation. He chose topics of a practical nature, and discussed them in a practical manner, his chief ambition being to interest the public in behalf of Labour and to devise ways and means tor its elevation and honour. His first lecture was delivered on January 3d, 1843. It is thua announced in The Tribune: Horace Greeley will lecture before the New- York Lyceum at the Taber- nacle, this evening. Subject, " Human Life!" The lecture will commence at half past 7, precisely. If those who care to hear it will sit near the desk, they will favour the lecturer's weak and husky voice. The Tabernacle was admirably designed as a place for public speaking. A large, circular building, with slanting floor, and galleries rising, one above another, nearly to the ceiling, it would seat some three thousand persons in plain view and easy hearing distance of the speaker. At the appointed time, Mr. Greeley appeared, and making his way to the platform, looked over the audience, which did not crowd the auditorium, wi th his benignant expression. There was momentary applause, FIRST LECTURE. 2C1 after which in his thin, though penetrating voice, he began: " To the piercing gaze of an unfettered spirit, unmindful of space, which should scan it from the central orb of our system, this fair globe must afford a spectacle of strange magnifi- cence and beauty. Rolling on, ever on, in her appointed round, the earth must present new scenes of interest and grandeur with every hour of her revolving progress: now the swarming vales of China and Japan, the sultry plains of India, with its tiger-hunted jungles, relieved by the gaunt, bleak piles of the Himmalehs, piercing the very skies with their pinnacles of eternal rock and ice; then appear the more allur- ing and variegated glades of southern and middle Europe, and with them the scorched and glowing deserts of Africa, shining in silvery worthlessness and desolation. The broad, green belt of the billowy Atlantic now unfolds itself, and then appears the deeper green of this immense luxuriant forest, America, with the achievements of three centuries of advancing, strug- gling civilization, barely sufficing to dot irregularly its eastern border, and hardly equalling in extent those prairie openings in its centre which nature, or rather the Red Man's annual conflagration, has sufficed through many ages to hollow out by imperceptible gradations. From amid the all-embracing foliage shine forth with steady radiance, with deep serenity, the mirror-like surfaces of the Great Lakes the last surpassing in size, profundity, and beauty the slender threads of the Father of Waters and his" far-stretching tributaries are seen disparting vales whose exuberant fertility has known no par- allel since Eden; while farther on the temendous chains of the Andes, the Rocky Mountains heave up their scathed and rugged sides through the surrounding seas of verdure, as if in grim and haughty defiance to the utmost fury of the lightning and the hurricane, or in scornful exultation over the crouching world at their feet. Soon the broad, placid surface of the vast, unvexed Pacific presents itself sprinkled with isles of deepest emerald where flowers perennial bloom. And still the earth rolls on, and every hour shall bring to view fresh marvels to awaken the soul to a consciousness of the Infinite, to deepen the fervour of piety, and exalt the glory of the Great Supreme. 262 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELET. " Yet beyond doubt, the central figure of this vast -wonder- work of creation, around which all other entities and seem ings cluster and revolve, is MAN. He is the presiding genius the lord of the heritage. It is his presence which gives signifi- cance and interest to the landscapes, which elevates fertility and beauty above barrenness and decay." Such were the opening sentences of Horace Greeley's first lecture. " Give me a cup of sack," says Falstaff r " to make mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in king Cambyses' vein." It is difficult to imagine Horace Greeley starting forth in those paths of flowery display. And yet a lecture may be highly meritorious, as spoken, and not elicit unmixed admira- tion when read. "Does it read well?" Fox used to ask when one praised a speech. " Yes." " Then," he would say, " it was not a good speech." The voice, the associations, the want of time to stop and criticise, give to spoken essays a character wholly different from that which belongs to those intended only to be read. In this instance, the lecturer became less stilted as he proceeded. He designed to show that human life was capable of more goodness and greatness, in individuals, and in the race, than was commonly supposed, and in order that the most might be made of life, sundry reforms for the elevation of the minds of the people were necessary. He concluded: Such thoughts as these are already familiar to many generous hearts, and the number is daily increasing. Let us not fear that they will long remain unacted. Let none accuse me of the enthusiast's common error the presumption that the world is to be transformed in a day. I know well how great the interval which ever divides the perception of a noble idea by a few earnest minds from its hearty acceptance, its practical realization, by the great mass of mankind. I know how any such idea must ever suffer from the errors or imperfections of its apostles, from the faithlessness of the selfish and undiscerning, from its perversion and corruption by many on whom it makes an impression. But, on the other hand, I will not close my eyes to the decided progress which Society has made during the last two centuries, nor to the direction of that progress. When I perceive that unity of effort, resting on community of interest, has checkered Christendom with roads, bridges, canals, railroads, and before unimagincd facilities for the inter- ON THE PLATFORM. 263 change of products and of thought; when I see Universal Education, so recently regarded as a benevolent chimera, now admitted in theory to be essential and attainable, though but distantly approached in practice; when I find the right of the destitute to a support at the public expense admitted and acted upon blindly, imperfectly, if you please, but still at so serious a cost and with such a uniformity both in time and space as to forbid the idea that it rests on any other foundation than that of acknowl- edged and imperative duty ; when I consider that so few generations have passed since the ignorant and the destitute were left to live in darkness and die by unheeded famine, no man questioning its rightfulness, and the learned, the affluent, the noble blasphemously pronouncing all this the order of Providence! I will not doubt that all these meliorations of the hard lot of the unfortunate are but slight precursors of the vast Reform which is yet to embosom all other reforms which is to secure Education and Bread even to the deepest poverty and darkest misfortune, by simply making the sinews, the exertions, of any intelligent child of Adam worth the cost of his instruction and subsistence which shall replace all our miserable and too often pernicious public and private alms to the vigour- ous, by a system of undegrading and self-sustaining General Industry, in which a place shall be open to every one who needs or asks it. Happy he who shall be enabled to show forth in his own what human life should be, unpolluted by evil passions, uncorroded by sordid cares, unchafed by the disappointment of selfish aspirations, ever shielded from the access of temptation and error by finding delight in duty, and a tran- quil joy in the widest diffusion of blessings. Happy beyond the power of evil destiny shall he be whose life flows on in one calm, full current of active goodness of unceasing benevolence to Man, of unbounded reliance on God. Looking back in the evening of his days through the dissolving mists of the past, he shall discern in every trial, Discipline ; in every sor- row, the salutary chastening of a Divine beneficence. And when the bowed frame and feeble limbs shall admonish him of failing power to execute the dictates of a still loving heart, he shall need no farther witness of the benignity of that dispensation which sin recoils from as Death, but, pillowed on that blessed Book, whose promises have lighted the dim path- way to millions, shall sleep to be awakened in Heave^nT The ideal of human life here pictured, who ever reached among men if Horace Greeley did not? As a lecturer, public speaker, Mr. Greeley constantly im- proved with years. He had no time, let us hope no inclination, to practice the art of delivery, mouthing his piece before a looking-glass. But frequent exercise of his voice in lectures and addresses which he delivered subsequently to his initiation on the platform of " Human Life," gave it volume, while the same efforts tended to destroy his awkwardness of manner. 264 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. But he never acquired any of the " tricks of oratory." Though some of his speeches, as we shall see before concluding this volume, were among the most admirable exhibitions of argu- ment, statesmanship, eloquence, they were delivered as one talks who simply speaks right on, trusting to the truth of his state ments and the value of his ideas, without calling to his aid the art of elocution. Had Mr. Greeley studied the art of deliv- ery, for which he did not have time, it seems certain that he might have become as distinguished as an orator as he did as a journalist. As it was, his style, though ever perfectly natu- ral, and, therefore, interesting, was not impressive and added nothing to the truths he advocated. Early in 1850, the Messrs. Harpers Brothers published a volume by Horace Greeley which was entitled " Hints Towards Reforms." It consisted of the lectures, and written addresses, he had up to that time delivered, and a number of essays on topics of reform which had appeared in The Tribune and other publications. The subjects treated in this volume were vari- ously named: "The Emancipation of Labour;" "Life the Ideal and the Actual;" "The Formation of Character;" "The Relations of Learning to Labour;" "Human Life;" "The Organization of Labour;" "Teachers and Teaching;" "La- bour's Political Economy;" "Alcoholic Liquors their Nature and Effect:" "The Social Architects Fourier;" "The Union of Workers;" " Strikes and their Remedy," etc., etc. Never- theless, the leading object throughout appears the presentation of a plea in behalf of working-men. To elevate Labour; to banish poverty fsom the earth, such is the plain design of Mr. Greeley's " Hints Towards Reforms." If there be in some of the lectures an ornate style which his severe taste of later years would have condemned, they nevertheless show a rich- ness of thought a generous philanthropy characteristic of his mind and heart; and they may, therefore, be yet read with interest and profit. In the preface to this volume, Mr. Greeley says: * But this work has a loftier and worthier aim than that of fine writing. It aspires to be a mediator, an interpreter, a reconciler, between Conserva- tism and Radicalism to bring the two into such connection and relation "HINTS TOWARDS EEFOKMS." 265 that the good in each may obey the law of chemical affinity, and abandon whatever portion of either is false, mistaken, or outworn, to sink down and perish. It endeavours so to elucidate and commend what is just and prac- tical in the pervading demands of our time for a social Renovation that the humane and philanthropic can no longer misrepresent and malign, them as destructive, demoralizing, or infidel in their tendencies, but must joyfully recognize in them the fruits of past and the seeds of future Pro- gress in the history of our race. Defective and faulty as these " Hints " may be found or judged, I feel confident that their tendency is to prac- tical beneficence, and that their influence, however circumscribed, can not be otherwise than wholesome. In the absence of any reasonable ground of hope for personal gain or popularity, this trust must justify my intru- sion upon the public, for the first and perhaps the last time, as the author of a book. The great truths that every human being is morally bound, by a law of our social condition, to leave the world somewhat better for his having lived in it that no one able to earn bread has any moral right to eat with- out earning it that the obligation to be industrious and useful is not invalidated by the possession of wealth nor by the generosity of wealthy rela- tives that useful doing in any capacity or vocation is honourable and noble, while idleness and prodigality in whatever station of life are base and contemptible that every one willing to work has a clear social and moral right to opportunity to labour and to secure the fair recompense of such labour, which society can not deny him without injustice and that these truths demand and predict a comprehensive Social Reform based upon and molded by their dictates these will be found faithfully if not forcibly Bet forth and elucidated in the following pages. 1 It was not very long after the publication of " Hints Towards Reforms " that, as I stepped into the post-office at Crawfords- ville, Indiana, one day I was then a student in Wabash College Major Calfee, the postmaster, said: "Look here, Ingersoll, I wish you'd decypher the hyroglyphics on a letter for me." And he handed me a letter over which he had been worrying for a week. " Why," said I, " that is a letter from Horace Greeley, and it very plainly says: T. M. Green, Esq., Corresponding Secretary Calliopean Society, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana,' and, as Mr. Green is out of town, and 1 A number of extracts from the lectures and essays in this volume will be found in the Appendix. They may be profitably studied by all who would clearly understand Mr. Greeley's principles upon a subject of the greatest moment to all men ; and almost every one will find them inter- esting and instructive reading. 266 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELET. I have succeeded him in that office, I will take the epistle." It was a brief, characteristic letter: "SiR. Your letter inviting me to address the Calliopean Society of Wabash College in July next is received. I shall have to decline the invi- tation. I think I have made about as many public addresses as my reputation can well afford. If your society should wish to know my views on subjects now receiving public attention, it will find them in a volume entitled ' Hints Towards Reforms,' published by Harpers & Brothers. Price, f 1. Yours, &c., "Mr. F. M. Green, "HORACE GREELEY." " Cor. Sec., etc." The town of Sandwich, Illinois, is a place of great progres- sive spirit as well as the home of many intelligent people. It has a lecture association, of course. Mr. M. B. Castle, banker and luml>er-merchant as his letter-heads plainly indicated, and also the proper officer of the association, wrote to Mr. Greeley inviting him to lecture at Sandwich. His letter, as published by the newspapers, should have read as follows: " DEAR SIR. I am overworked and growing old. I shall be 60 next Feb. 3. On the whole, it seems I must decline to lecture henceforth, ex. cept in this immediate vicinity, if I do at all. I cannot promise to visit Illinois on that errand certainly not now. " Yours, HORACE GREELEY. " M. B. Castle, Esq., Sandwich, 111. " Mr. Castle, with the aid of Sandwich experts, decyphered Mr. Greeley 's letter on the wrong rule, and replied as follows: " SANDWICH, 111., May 12. " HORACE GREELEY: Dear Sir. Your acceptance to lecture before our association next winter came to hand this morning. Your penmanship not being the plainest, it took some time to translate it ; but we succeeded ; and would say your time ' 3d of February,' and terms ' $00,' are entirely satisfactory. As you suggest, we may be able to get you other engage- ments in this immediate vicinity; if so, we will advise you. " Yours respectfully, M. B. CASTLE." Mr. Greeley's rejoinder to this letter was discovered to be emphatic, but it still awaits a literal " translation." Still another letter on the lecturing business, and we have done. He was engaged to lecture at Indianapolis, Indiana, in AT LA FAYETTE, INDIANA. 267 Felruaiy, 1857, but, not arriving, it was supposed he had missed railway connections. A friend wrote to him upon the subject, and he replied: " NEW- YORK, March 4, 1857. "DEAR SIR. I only 'failed to connect 'at Indianapolis because I did not try to. I telegraphed on the 16th from Chicago to Mr. S. V. Morris, who had engaged me at Indianapolis, offering to lecture for him on the 19th, and requesting an answer. He did not send any ; so I did not go near him, but came home. " My engagements and business will prevent my return to the West this season at least. "Yours, HORACE GREELEY. "J. L. Fisk, Esq." In addition to a great many lectures, Mr. Greeley also delivered, after about the year 1848, very many addresses before agricultural societies in various parts of the country. There was scarcely a State in the Union which had a more suc- cessful Agricultural Society than Indiana, from about the year 1851 onward. The Hon. Joseph A. Wright, Governor of the State, afterwards United States Senator and then Minister to Prussia, was scarcely less ardently devoted to agriculture than was Mr. Greeley himself. Differing with him in general politics, he was also like Mr. Greeley in that he was an enthu- siastic friend of the cause of Total Abstinence from intoxicat- ing drinks. Long President of the Agricultural Society of Indiana, Governor Wright invited Mr. Greeley to deliver the annual address in the year 1853. Mr. Greeley accepted the invitation. The Fair was held near the city of LaFayette in the month of October. The fame of Mr. Greeley brought thither an immense gathering of people. All portions of the State were, of course, represented at the Fair, but on the day of the Address by Mr. Greeley all the railways leading to the city were tested to the utmost of their capacity in carrying passen- gers. Institutions of learning within a radius of a hundred miles gave their students free leave to go hear the Editor of The New- York Tribune discourse upon the subject of farming. There were at least 50,000 persons present, all of whom tried to hear Mr. Greeley's address. Perhaps as many as 25,000 268 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. heard every word of it. The writer of this volume, though he had then recently begun to feel the annoyance of the afflic- tion of deafness, stood far enough from Mr. Greeley to be at the circumference of an audience of some ten or twelve thou- sand persons. He distinctly heard every word of the address except the first few sentences. The memorable concluding passages he heard as well as though he had stood upon the platform. They were: " As for me, long tossed on the stormy waves of doubtful conflict and arduous endeavour, I have begun to feel, since the shades of forty years fell upon me, the weary, tempest-driven voyager's longing for land, the wanderer's yearning for the hamlet where in childhood he nestled by his mother's knee, and was soothed to sleep on her breast. The sober down- hill of life dispels many illusions, while it develops or strengthens within us the attachment, perhaps long smothered or overlaid, for ' that dear hut, our home.' And so I, in the sober afternoon of life, when its sun, if not high, is still warm, have bought a few acres of land in the broad, still country, and, bearing thither my household treasures, have resolved to steal from the city's labours and anxieties at least one day in each week, wherein to revive as a farmer the memories of my childhood's humble home. And already I realize that the experiment cannot cost so much aa it is worth. Already I find in that day's quiet an antidote and a solace for the feverish, festering cares of the weeks which environ it. Already my brook murmures a soothing even-song to my burning, throbbing brain ; and my trees, gently stirred by the fresh breezes, whisper to my spirit something of their own quiet strength and patient trust in God. And thus do I faintly realize, though but for a brief and flitting day, the serene joy which shall irradiate the Farmer's vocation, when a fuller and truer Education shall have refined and chastened his animal cravings, and when Science shall have endowed him with her treasures, redeeming La- bour from drudgery while quadrupling its efficiency, and crowning with beauty and plenty our bounteous, beneficent Earth." Mr. Greeley delivered many excellent agricultural addresses, but I doubt whether he ever more profoundly impressed an audience than he did at LaFayette. It was not a month till portions of the address were made exercises in declamation in half the colleges of the State. I even heard S. V. Morris, referred to in the letter of Mr. Greeley last above quoted, undertake to imitate Mr. Greeley's voice and manner, in de- claiming the passage just given, and with notable success. On the evening of the same day, Mr. Greeley made a Tern- REVISITS EUROPE. 269 perance speecli to a large audience. He was announced to speak at half-past 7 o'clock. The hall was packed long before this time, and sundry local celebrities held forth. At the appointed moment, Mr. Greeley entered. His speech was strong in argument, and rich in humour and anecdote, every anecdote being also an argument. He was to proceed, making, meantime, a visit to Indian- apolis, on the night train northward, having an engagement to lecture at LaPorte. For some reason, the train did not stop at one of the depots, and when Mr. Greeley reached the other, he found himself without the means of getting on. He expressed his feelings with astonishing energy. After some miles travel on a freight train, a hand-car and a number of Irishmen to work it were given him, and he was thus enabled, by a cold night ride, to meet his appointments in northern Indiana. Eeturning to New- York, Mr. Greeley had plenty to do during the following year, as we shall presently see, in fight- ing the Kansas-Nebraska bill and Know-Nothingism. But before we recur again to an account of his political life, let us consider a little further of his individual adventures, which about this time were decidedly singular and interesting. In the Autumn of 1854, his wife, with their two surviving children, took passage for Europe, he promising to join them early in the following year. As the children were less than six and four years old respectively, Mr. Greeley doubted the wife's courage to start on a journey without him to a continent where she had scarcely an acquaintance; but he at length said to her, " If you are really going, I must engage your passage;" she replied, " Engage it then," and he forthwith did so. Mrs. Greeley proceeded to London, where she spent the winter, and where Mr. Greeley joined her in April, 1855. In a few days he ran over in advance to Paris, and there hired a little cottage just outside of the then western barrier 1'Etoile or octroi gate, which separates the Avenue Champs Elys6es from the street outside, that leads to the Bois de Boulogne. Here Mrs. Gree- ley soon rejoined them with the children, two female friends, and the husband of one of them; and here was the little home of all for some two months, a period of sight-seeing. 270 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. On this voyage to Europe Mr. Greeley sailed in the Canard steamship Asia. The weather was more pleasant than when he had before crossed the ocean, and he suffered less from sea- sickness. Nevertheless, the voyage was a tedious bore to him. In a letter to The Tribune, written soon after his arrival in Paris, he describes the voyage out. I quote a passage which is both biographical and characteristic: I got one extra glimpse of sea-life by reason of the lack of a barber ru the Asia in common with all the Cunarders Unschooled in the art ton- sorial, I had gone unshaved more than a week, and met the remonstrances of friends with a simple averment that what they urged was impossible. In this I was at length overheard by a seaman on deck, who interpleaded that if 1 would follow him I should be speedily and satisfactorily rendered beardless. I could hardly back out; so I followed him into the ship's forecastle, took my seat on a rough bench without a back, whereupon a rougher tar, with an instrument which he seems to have mistaken for a razor, performed the operation required, and pocketed a quarter therefor without grumbling. I did not offer him more, for my face was smarting at the time ; but the sights and smells of that forecastle were richly worth a dollar. When we consider that there, in a space not cubically larger than two average prison-cells, some thirty or forty men live and sleep, without a crevice for ventilation, and in a reek of foul effluvia so dense as to defy description, how can we wonder that sailors often act like beasts on shore if they are' forced to live so like beasts on water ? Ah, Messrs. Merchant Princes of New- York! before you waste one more dollar on attempts to improve the moral and religious condition of seamen, be entreated to secure them a chance to breathe pure air on board your own vessels, to sleep at least as heathfully and decently as your hogs ! Until you do this, preaching to them, scattering tracts and Bibles among them, and even building sailors' homes for them on land, though all excellent in their time and place, will be just so much cash and effort thrown away In another letter Mr. Greeley stated that he met no one who believed the empire would survive Napoleon III. No one spoke of the Emperor's patriotism or disinterestedness, even by way of joke, but the journalist observed that there was a general trust in his ability and confidence in his energy. " He is probably," said Mr. Greeley, "the most active, untiring ruler now living, and in this respect at least reminds the French of ' Napoleon le Grand.' He has, besides, the undoub* * 1 courage, inscrutable pur-pose, and unwavering faith in his THE PARIS EXPOSITION. 271 * star,' which befit the heir of the first Bonaparte." Accord- Ing to Mr. Greeley's conviction, the Empire was France in a state of transition from monarchical to republican government. He observed that the intelligent workmen, the skilful artificers, the thinkers, the teachers, the observing, aspiring youth, were almost to a man republicans. Mr. Greeley was not nearly so favourably impressed with the Paris Exposition as he had been with the World's Fair at London four years previously. In his Recollections of a Busy Life, he says: " I spent much time in the Exposition, trying to comprehend it; but I was not a juror, as I had been in London four years previously, and I did not feel required to study this Exposition so persistently, so systematically, as I had studied the former. Besides, it did not impress me~so favourably nor interest me so deeply as that did. The edifice was of stone; hence, far more massive, gloomy, crypt-like, than the Hyde Park marvel; and the French seemed to me inferior in the skill required for lucid arrangement and classification. This judgment may have been the dictate of prejudice or igno- rance; I only speak a's I felt, and record an abiding impression. Two hours of impulsive wandering and gazing in the Paris Exposition fatigued me more than four hours' steady work as a juror in its London precursor; and I learned immeasura- bly more from that of '51 than I did from that of '55. In fact, the only point on which my little all of knowledge seems to have been permanently enlarged by the latter is that I think I obtained here some faint, rude conception of the peculiarities and merits of the school of art termed 'pre-Raphaelite,' I cannot say how aptly. I was deeply, though not altogether favourably, impressed by the works of J. E. Millais, Holman Hunt, and other apostles of this school, whose works here first arrested my attention; and I now recall a picture of 'The Dead Ophelia' (by Millais, if I rightly remember), which evinced a pains-taking fidelity, and made a vivid, though un- pleasant, impression. I trust that this school has not yet attained its fulness of development, or at least had not in 1855; if it had, the grand achievements of Raphael, of Titian, and of Murillo are in little danger of being eclipsed or super- 272 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. seded by those of its disciples or devotees. Still, the fact remains, that, of the many pictures exhibited in the Fine Arts division of the Paris Exposition, I remember none beside so distinctly, so vividly, as those of the British pre-Eaphaelites, so called, though several of the French painters of our day evince decided merit." In a letter to The Tribune he thus takes leave of the Expo- sition: I bid adieu to the World's Exhibition of 1855 in the conviction that I have not half seen it, and that nine-tenths of its visitors are even more ignorant of its contents than I am. Its immensity tends to confuse ana bewilder; the eye glances rapidly from one brilliant object to another, while the mind fixes steadily upon none ; so that he who wanders, fitfully gazing from court to court, from gallery to gallery, may carry away noth- ing positive but a headache. You will see hundreds jostling and crowding for a peep at the Imperial diamonds, crowns, &c., which are said to have cost several millions of dollars (by whom earned? how taken from them?), where a dozen can with difficulty be collected to witness the operation of a new machine calculated to confer signal benefits on the whole civilized world. Who looks at the self-adjusting windmill, which was first exhibited in our country last year? Yet that, if it prove what it promises, will do mankind more service than all the diamonds ever diverted from their legitimate oflBce of glass-cutting to lend a false, deceitful glitter to the brows of Tyranny and Crime. Here is a poor French artisan with a very simple contrivance for taking the long, coarse hairs from rabbit-skins, leaving the fine, soft fur to be removed by itself, the machine possibly coating twenty francs, and the dressing therewith of each skin hardly a cent, while the value of the fur is thereby doubled. This is a very small matter, which hardly any one regards; yet it is probably worth to Europe more than the annual cost of either of its royal families, or twenty times the value of them all. Mr. Greeley writes characteristically of his visit to The Invalides, "a great establishment," he says, "erected in the southwest quarter of Paris by Louis XIV., as a hospital or home for maimed, disabled, or worn-out soldiers surviving victims of the bloody phantom, Glory. * * Opposite the entrance of this church (that for the Invalides) rises the grand altar, resplendent in gold, and lighted by side-windows with such art that, even in a dark, raining day, the whole seems to bask and blaze in the richest sunlight; and behind thig, in what would seem to be an extension of the church, is the tomb TOMB OF NAPOLEON I. 273 of Napoleon I. Though you are within a few feet of this structure when near the grand altar in the church, you are compelled to go half a mile around to enter it, and I am not quite sure that the journey is repaid to those whose admiration of military or other despots is not stronger than mine. Here marble and porphyry, painting and sculpture, gilding and mosaic, have been lavished without stint, and some two millions of dollars wrested from the scanty earnings of an overtaxed peasantry to honour the bones of him who while living was so prodigal alike of their treasure and their blood. The author of this squandering idolatry was Louis Philippe, who thought he was ingratiating himself with the French people by pandering to the worship of the military Jugger- naut, and whose family now live, as he himself died, in exile and humiliation, while the vast estates he left them have been seized and confiscated by the nephew and heir of the Corsican he thus helped to defy. "Who can pity the schemer thus caught in his own snare? Who can marvel that France, not yet fully cured of that passion for glory which exults over a victory because our side has won, and not because the universal sway of justice and equity has been brought nearer thereby, should find herself ground under the heel of a fresh despot, who tears their youth from their beloved homes and useful labours to swell the unripe harvest of death on the battle-field? I forget the name of the French Democrat who observed that hia country could never enjoy true liberty until the ashes of Napoleon shall be torn from this costly mausoleum and thrown into the Seine, but I fully concur in his opinion." A very remarkable adventure had Mr. Greeley during this visit to Paris, being nothing less than his incarceration for two days in a French prison. He told the story with great fulness in his letters to The Tribune, but his lengthy account of it in his Recollections of a Busy Life is, perhaps, eyen better: In the years 1853-53, an association of mainly wealthy and public-spirited New-Yorkers undertook to imitate, if not rival, the first great Exposition of the World's Industry at London in 1851. So they subscribed capital, ' obtained a charter from the State, and a plot of vacant ground from tho city, employed architects and builders, and at length constructed oik ' 18 274 UFE OF HORACE GREELEY. Reservoir Square (Sixth Avenue and Fortieth to Forty-second streets), by far the most symmetrical and spacious edifice which our country has yet seen. The materials employed were almost wholly iron and glass, as in the case of the London prototype ; but though the British was a superb structure, ours was still more graceful and imposing. I doubt that many are yet born who will see New- York graced by a finer building than was her Crystal Palace, until destroyed by fire in 1858. Yet the Exhibition was doomed to failure from the start. It was located much too far up town, as much out of the way as it would to-day be at Harlem or Hoboken, it was but half finished, and nowise ready, when opened, and it steadily dragged, after the first few days, until, at the close of the season, it was found that the million or more of capital stock was all sunk, and the half-million bonds a very dubious investment. A desperate effort was made to retrieve its fallen fortunes next Spring ; and I, with others, was then induced to take a hand in it as a director and (in a small way) bondholder. Mr. P. T. Barnum was our most active, effi- cient leader in this desperate effort at resurrection. There were several more directors who did their very best ; but the year (1854) was one of pecuniary pressure and revulsion, which combined with other influences to render success impossible. I gave much hard work and a little money to the attempt, while Mr. Barnum gave much more, but to no purpose; we barely paid our heavy current expenses ; and the Exposition closed with the season, nearly as bankrupt as when we undertook to resuscitate it. I went to Europe the next Spring (1855) without a suspicion that *1 should there be held accountable for our inability to wrest victory from defeat; yet, about 4 p. M. of the 2d day of June, after I had returned from a day's observation in the French " Palace of Industry," I was waited on at my little cottage by four French strangers, who soon gave me to under- stand that they were officers of the law, bearing a writ issued by Judge de Belleyrne, of the Court of Premier Instance, at the suit of one M. Lechesne, a Parisian sculptor, who swore that he had contributed to our New- York Exhibition a statue (in plaster) which had there been broken, or mutilated ; for which he claimed of me, as a director, " represontant et solidaire," of the Exhibition, "douze mille francs," or $2,500 in gold. When we had, by the help of my courier, arrived at some approach to a mutual understanding, one element of which was my refusal to pay to M. Lechesne $2,500, or any sum whatever, they said that I must enter their carriage and accompany them forthwith to the Judge, some three miles away ; which, attended by my courier, I did. We had to call for Lechesne and his lawyer by the way, which consumed nearly an hour, they being in no hurry; and, when we had told the Judge our respective stories, I proposed to go to the American Legation and persuade Don Piatt, Esq., Secretary of Legation, to guarantee my appearance for trial when wanted. The Judge pronounced this sufficient; so we set forth on another long ride to the Legation ; where not only Judge Piatt, but another friend, Maunsel B. Field, Esq., offered himself as security for my appearance at court; but now Lechesne and his lawyer refused, on the ground of Mr. Piatt'^ exemp- IN A FRENCH PRISON. 275 lion from arrest on civil process, to take him as security, or (in fact) to take anything but the cash they were intent on. High words passed, and a scuffle was imminent, when I insisted on being driven at once to prison, my guardians having affected a fear that I* would escape them. Crossing the Avenue Champs Elysee, densely thronged at that hour (6 P. M.), our carriage came into violent collision with another, and was disabled ; when a very superfluous display of vigilance and pistols was made by my keep- ers, who could not be persuaded that I was intent on sticking to them like a brother. At last, a little before 7 p. M., we reached our destination, and I was admitted, through several gigantic iron doors, with gloomy crypts between them, to the office of the prison, where I was told that I must stay till 9^ p. M., because the Judge had allowed me so long to procure bail. Here my guardians left me in safe-keeping, while I ordered a frugal dinner, instead of the sumptuous public one at the Trois Freres, given by Mr. M. B. Field, which I had been invited, and had fully expected, to attend ; and I sent my courier home to quiet the apprehension of my fam- ily, who as yet knew only that some strangers had called for me, and that I had gone off with them. Very soon, Judge Mason (John Y.), our Ambassador, called, and was admitted to see me, though it was now too late by the regulations. I explained the matter to him, assured him that I wanted nothing but a good lawyer, and insisted on viewing the whole matter in a more cheerful light than it wore in his eyes. " But your wife will surely be distressed by it," he urged ; " she being an utter stranger here, with two young children." No," I replied; "a trifle might annoy her; but this matter looks serious, and it will only calm and strengthen her. I have sent our courier to assure her that it is all right, and request her to keep away from this, and go on with her visiting and sight-seeing, as though nothing had happened." " I have heard you called a philosopher, and I now see that you deserve the distinction," was the Judge's rejoinder, as, at my request, he left me. Half an hour had scarcely passed, giving me barely time to eat my din- ner, when my wife was ushered in, accompanied by Mrs. Piatt and our little son, whose eyes were distended with grave wonder at the iron bar- riers through which he had reached me. " Good woman," I observed to Mrs. Greeley, " I have been bragging to Judge Mason how quietly you would take this mischance; but here you are in jail at nightfall, when visitors are not allowed, as though you were addicted to hysterics." " But con- sider," she urged in mitigation, "that I first heard of your position from Francis [our courier], who comes flying home to assure me that there is nothing serious, to urge me not to be frightened, when he is trembling all over with anxiety and terrour. Hardly had he left the room, when Mrs. Piatt comes in equal haste to beg me to fear nothing, that all is but a trifle, and sJie is quite as agitated and panic-stricken as Francis. Neither of them seems to understand the matter ; so I thought I must come to you for an explanation." This I gave ; when they departed ; and I was at last allowed to go up to my lodging, which I find thus described in my letter thence to The Tribune : 276 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. " By 10 o'clock, each of us lodgers had retired to our several apartments (each eight feet by five), and an obliging functionary came around and locked out all rascally intru- ders. I don't think I ever before slept in a place BO perfectly secure. At 6 this morning, this extra protection was withdrawn, and each of us was thenceforth required to keep watch over his own valuables. We uniformly keep good hours here in Clichy, which is a virtue that not many large hotels in Paris can boast of. " The bedroom appointments are not of a high order, as is reasonable, since we are only charged for them four sous (cents) per night, washing extra. The sheets are rather of a hickory sort, but mine were given to me clean; the bed is indifferent, but I have slept on worse; the window lacks a curtain or blind, but in Its stead there are four strong upright iron bars, which are a perfect safeguard against getting up in the night, and fall- Ing or pitching out, so as to break your neck, as any one who fell thence would certainly do. (I am in the fifth or highest story.) Perhaps one of my predecessors was a som- nambulist. I have two chairs, two little tables (probably one of them extra, through some mistake), and a cupboard which may once have been clean. The pint washbowl, half-pint pitcher, rushed down stairs to greet my return, will not soon be forgotten. Ho had been told that it was all right, when he found and left me in prison, and had tried hard to believe it ; but my return, unattended and unguarded, he knew to be right. I had a tedious legal squabble thereafter, for my liberation did not, of course, abate M. Lechesne's suit against me, and had to send to New-York for documents and affidavits ; meantime going to Switzerland with my family, as I have already related, and I was signally aided in my defense by Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, who happened to be in Paris at the time; but, as there was really no case against me, I was at length enabled to demonstrate that fact to the satisfaction of the functionary who had been deputed to hear and report on the suit to the Tribunal of Com' merce, before whom I had been cited by Lechesne, a proceeding wholly illegal, my lawyers asserted, as neither party to the action was a merchant. My counsel wished to demur to the jurisdiction, saying that the Tribunal was not a court of law, and always decided for a Frenchman against a foreigner, no matter how unjustly. At length, however, when my docu- ments arrived from New- York, they could hold off no longer, but went before the officer in question, where my opponents were most reluctant to meet them, asking for time to send to America for documents also! We understood that this was only a pretext to avoid a judgment for costs, they THE GLACIERS. 281 did not really want to send to America, and did not send. We let them off on that excuse, however, and I came away, leaving the suit stone dead I rejoice that imprisonment for debt was recently abolished in France, I trust forever. I doubt that it ever made one debtor even outwardly honest ; I am sure it often compelled the relatives and friends of prodigals to pay debts which should never have been contracted. It is wrong it is immoral to trust those who do not deserve credit, it is doubly wrong to impose the payment of such debts upon some frugal uncle or brother of the debtor, in pity for that debtor's weeping wife and children. "Let every tub stand on its own bottom," is a sound rule, which imprisonment for debt tends strongly to subvert. Men are trusted who should not be, on the calculation, " I can get my pay out of his relatives by putting him into jail ;" hence tavern-scores and merchants' accounts where cash down would have precluded extravagance and dissipation. The civilized world is not yet prepared for the repeal of all laws designed to enforce the col- lection of simple debts (not trusts) ; but this reform must come in due time, when mankind will wonder why it could so long have been resisted. False credit credit to those who do not deserve, and will be rather harmed than helped by it is the bane of our civilization. Every second man you meet is struggling with debts which he never should have con- tracted. We need a legal reform, which will greatly dimmish our current facilities for running into debt. In the latter part of June, Mr. Greeley visited the Alps again, this time with his family. The journey and the stay at Chamonix are thus described: On my later visit to Europe, I left Paris with my family in June ; trav- elled by rail to Dijon, capital of the kingdom of Burgundy that was, the palace of whose kings is now a museum of deeply interesting relics of that monarchy, and, after spending a bright day there, we took diligence at 9 P. M., were toiling up the Jura next forenoon, and were soon rattling down their southeastern slope, whence we reached Geneva before night. Passing thence up the valley of the Arve to Chamonix, we spent five days there in deeply interested observation of the adjacent peaks and glaciers. I gave one day to a visit to Montanvert and the Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice), across which cattle are annually driven a practical path being first made by cutting ice and filling crevices to a sunny southern slope ("the Gar- den"), 9,000 feet above tide level, on an adjacent mountain, where they are pastured till snow falls and lies, and then driven back to the valley whence they came. The ice of the Mer de Glace is so frequently seamed with deep cracks and crevices as to afford most unsafe footing for novices in Alpine pedestrianism ; and I, for one, was glad to turn about, when I had gone but half-way across it, and regain the solid ground I had eagerly left. You climb thence nearly a thousand feet to a perch known as Montanvert, whence a good view is had, in clear-weather, of several lofty peaks, Mont Blanc included ; and when I had thence made my way down to Chamonix LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. (you ascend on horse or mule back, but descend slowly on foot), I was aa weary as any one need wish to be. During my absence on this trip, my wife had undertaken to visit, with our children, the Glacier de Boissons, which seems scarcely a mile distant from the hotels at Chamonix, and easily accessible ; but she had failed to reach it, lost her way and been obliged to hire a peasant-woman to pilot her, and carry our fagged-out younger child, back to our hotel. I laughed at this misadventure when we met, and volunteered to lead the party next morning straight up to the glacier aforesaid, so that they might put theii hands on it; but, on trying it, I failed miserably. So many deep ravines and steep moraines were found to bar our way, where all seemed smooth and level from our hotel, and the actual was so much greater than the apparent distance, that I gave up, after an hour's rugged clambering, and contented myself with asserting that I could reach the glacier by myself, as I still presume I could, though I never tried. Either of the great gla- ciers is so large that it dwarfs everything around it; belittling obstacles and distances to an extent elsewhere incredible. The Glacier des Bois is said to measure over fifty miles from the giant snow-drift wherein it originates, filling an indentation or gully leading down the east side of Mont Blanc, to the very bed of the Arve in the Chamonix valley. Indeed, the Her de Glace itself may be considered a branch, if not the principal source, of the little river, and is approaches by following up the bed of the stream for a couple of miles or so above the village, then stepping from one to another of the giant boulders, brought down by the glacier from the icy region above, and which here fill the spacious bed of the stream. I spent a forenoon here, watching the gradual dissolution of the ice by the warm breath of the valley, and noting how moraines are made. A moraine is a ridge or bank of earth and stones, averaging four to eight feet high, and perhaps ten to twenty in width at the base, which is uni- formly found bordering a glacier on either side, with one far larger oftener two or more at its lower extremity. It is so unfailingly sepa- rated by distances of ten to twenty feet from the glacier, that the green observer finds it difficult to comprehend that it is naturally formed of the points and fragments of rock broken off by the giant masses of ice in their imperceptible, yet constant progress at the average rate of six feet or so per day_ from the snow-drifts cradled between the higher peaks to the deep valleys, green with grass, and crimson with Alpine flowers. But steady observation detects a constant wearing away, in warm weather, of the lower part of the glacier facing the valley, and a conse- quent formation of cavities and channels therein, whereby the stones are loosened and allowed to precipitate themselves. But, while the waterfalls directly downward, the stones fall outward, or, striking a lower slope of ice, are so deflected from the perpendicular that they rest at last at some distance outward from the base of the glacier. Hence moraines. We were in Chamonix, I believe, from the 20th to the 25th of June, too early by a month. Snow fell repeatedly, though lightly; rain fre- LONDON. 283 quently and heavily ; the mountain tops were usually shrouded in cloud and fog; and we only caught a clear view of the summit of Mont Blanc on the morning of our departure. Swamp Alder (a large shrub with us) here attaining the size of a considerable tree, so that it is frequently split into fence-rails; and stretches of meadow, carpeted and blazing with the deep scarlet of innumerable flowers, are among my recollections of that lofty, high-walled valley, so deeply embosomed in the Alps, and so rich in everything that renders the vicinage of mountains attractive to civilized man. Returning to Geneva, the party took steamboat on Lake Leman to Lusanne, whence they journeyed by diligence to Berne. Thence they intended to journey to Interlachen and the Bernese Oberland, but the sudden illness of one of the children prevented. They hastened back to the lovely little city of Lusanne, where Mr. Greeley left his family, and by ' Neufchatel, Basle, and Strasburg, proceeded to Paris. There he remained two or three weeks, and then went to London. His letters from London show that he thought vastly more of that city than of Paris. " London," he said, " deepens its impressions upon me with each visit; nay, I rarely spend a day within its vast circumference without increasing wonder and admiration. It is the capital, if not of the civilized, cer- tainly of the commercial world, civilized and otherwise. To her wharves the raw produce of all climes and countries, to her vaults the gold, of California and Australia, to her cabinets the gems of Q-oloo^da <, i;d Brazil, insensibly gravitate. From this mighty heart radiate the main arteries of the world's trade; a great crash here brings down leading and long-established houses in the South Pacific or the Yellow Sea. I dropped in to- day on an old friend whom 1 had known ten or fifteen years ago as a philosophic radical and social reformer in America. I found him in a great sugar-house under tiie shadow of the Bank, cor- recting a Price Current whi^h he edits, having just made up a telegraphic dispatch for his house's correspondents in Bombay. I found him calm and wise as ever; more practical, some would say, but still hopeful of the good time coming; he had been several years with that house, and he told me his income was quite satisfactory, and that his eldest son was doing very well in Australia. * * * There is much mistaken pride and 284 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. false dignity in England; but if a Briton insists on being proud of London, I shall not quarrel with him on that head/' He thought that the better order of speaking in the House of Commons surpassed that of the American House of Rep- resentatives, but that the average ability in London as evinced in speaking was below that of Washington City. The English, he thought, were unskilful in varnishing vice. Of Paris he said: Paris is the Paradise of thoughtless boys with full pockets ; but I, if ever thoughtless, had ceased to be a boy some time ere I first greeted the " gay, bright, airy city of the Seine." I presume I could now enjoy a week of the careless, sunny life of her mob of genteel idlers; but a month of it would sate and bore^ me. To rise reluctantly to a late breakfast; trifle away the day, from noon to 5 p. M., in riding and sight-seeing; dine elabo- rately; and thenceforward spend the evening at theatre, opera, or party, is' a routine that soon tells on one who is indurated in the habit of making the most of every working-hour. I envy no man his happiness; I envy least of all the pleasure-sekeer, who chases his nimble, coquettish butter- fly, year in, year out, along the Boulevards and around the " Places " of the giddy metropolis of France. He embarked at Liverpool under the deep impression that something had gone wrong with his family, a presentiment which gave him solicitude throughout the homeward voyage, which, on account of sea-sickness, was one of even unusua. torture. Upon reaching New- York, he learned that his mother had died upon the day of his departure tVore. liverpool. CHAPTER XVI. CAMPAIGN OF 1853 THE WHIG PARTY EXIT. The Dawn of a New Political Era The Political Canvass of 185$ The Nominations Mr. Greeley Mildly Supports General Scott, and "Spits Upon the Platform" His Individual Platform A Lively Campaign Terminating in Utter Rout. HORACE GREETXT bad now cooperated with the Whig party since its organization, but from the year 1848 with diminished zeal. Theretofore, his " abstractions " had been upon subjects other than political; his "visions" had turned his eyes upon other scenes. His philanthropy, broad and earnest as it ever was, had not been practically exercised in behalf of the slave. He had thought closely, worked with singular fervour in behalf of the labouring man. That which was called his Socialism was, with Jiim, the Emancipation of Labour; that which was derisively called his " Fourierite bill " was the germ of the beneficent Homestead policy. Herein he was so far in advance of his times, until at last he dragged the times up to him, that, as is usual in such cases, he was. the common butt of satire and obloquy. But in politics, he was extremely practical. He doubtless considered the abolitionists " fanatics." He surely saw the dawn of a new political era almost as early as any one. If this be claiming too much, it will be agreed that, almost as soon as any one, he saw the sun go down on the old era with abiding trust that it would soon again shine forth in a brighter, better day. With him the political canvass of 1852 was the night between the old era of small issues and the, new one of great questions, upon the settlement of which depended the cause of freedom and the eventual happiness of all mankind. This presidential campaign, so far as the two great political parties were concerned, was a fraud. The people were delib- erately deceived by both those parties, as after events demon- 286 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELET. strated. The Democratic partj was the first to meet in con- vention. The meeting occurred at Baltimore on the 1st of June, and after a long struggle, no less than forty-nine ballots, resulted in the nomination of General Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, as candidate for President. On the second ballot, Senator William !R. King, of Alabama, was selected as the candidate for Yice-President. Mr. Pierce was a man of amiable character and respectable talents, but was little known to the country. Mr. King was a sagacious statesman of the pro-slavery school; a gentleman of noble nature, but sinking under a load of physical disease, which laid him low in death before he could assume the duties of th> office to which- he was elected. ^' f '^ * The Whigs held their convention in the same city, on "tlie 16th of the same month. They had made a great deal of run' of the Democrats for being so long unable to agree upon a candidate. They were too fast; for, though their rules only required a majority to nominate, they could not agree upon a candidate until more than fifty ballots had been taken. Gen- eral Winfield Scott was successful, his principal competitors being President Millard Fillmore, and the illustrious states- man Daniel Webster. Hon. William A. Graham, of North Carolina, was nominated for Vice-President. General Scott appeared to Mr. Greeley a preposterous candidate; and Mr. Greeley does not seem to have been in the wrong. A great soldier, General Scott was wonderfully unfitted for the conduct of civil affairs. The convention of the Free-Soil Democracy was held at Pittsburgh in August. Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, after- wards the distinguished Senator and Vice-President of the United States, presided. An eloquent orator, a faithful friend of freedom and of the labouring man, and ever believed to be a person of unflinching pluck until his courage and much of his manhood oozed out at the ends of his fingers when con- fronted by that black knight called Credit Mobilier, Mr. Wilson had at this time recently entered upon a career of fame and usefulness, whose sad ending must be forever lamented. The convention over which he presided nominated John P. A PRIVATE PLATFORM. 287 Hale, of New Hampshire, for President, and George W. Julian, of Indiana, for Yice-President. The former became one of the most famous of Senators, and the latter won more substantial and enduring if less brilliant renown in the House of Repre- sentatives. The convention adopted a platform of ringing principles worthy of a great party, whereas the platforms ol the Whigs and Democrats, were trifling, subservient, and worse. Mr. Greeley's logical position in this campaign was with the Free-Soilers. Nevertheless he supported the Whig candidates, but spat upon the platform. He assigned these reasons for supporting Messrs. Scott and Graham: "1. They can be elected, and the others can't. "2. They are openly and thoroughly for PROTECTION TO HOME IN- DUSTRY, while the others (judged by their supporters) lean to Free Trade. " 3. Scott and Graham are backed by the general support of those who hold with us, that government may and should do much positive good." It is clear that at this time Mr. Greeley thought the claims upon statesmanship of a few manufactures entitled to greater consideration than a v,ast system of nameless wrongs enslaving three millions of persons. His own platform was tersely set forth in an article in The Tribune: " OUR PLATFORM. " I. As to the Tariff: Duties on Imports specific so far as practicable, affording ample protection to undeveloped or peculiarly exposed branches of our National Industry, and adequate revenue for the support of the government and the payment of its debts. Low duties, as a general rule, on rude, bulky staples, whereof the cost of transportation is of itself equiv- alent to a heavy impost, and high duties on such fabrics, wares, etc., as come into depressing competition with our own depressed infantile or endangered pursuits. " II. As to National Works ; Liberal appropriations yearly for the improvement of rivers and harbours, and such eminently national enter- prises as the Saut Ste. Marie canal and the Pacific railroad from the Mis- sissippi. Cut down the expenditures for forts, ships, troops, and warlike enginery of all kinds, and add largely to those for works which do not ' perish in the using,' but will remain for ages to benefit our people, strengthen the Union, and contribute far more to the national defence than the costly machinery of war ever could. " III. As to Foreign Policy: 'Do unto others [the weak and oppressed 288 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. as well as the powerful and mighty] as we would have them do unto us.' No shuffling, no evasion of duties nor shirking of responsibilities, but a firm front to despots, a prompt rebuke to every outrage on the law of Nations, and a generous, active sympathy with the victims of tyranny and usurpation. " IV. As to Slavery : No interference by Congress with its existence in any slave State, but a firm and vigilant resistance to its legalization in any national Territory, or the acquisition of any foreign Territory wherein slavery may exist. A perpetual protest against the hunting of fugitive slaves in free States as an irresistible cause of agitation, ill feeling, and alienation between the North and the South. A firm, earnest, inflexible testimony, in common with the whole non-slaveholding Christian world, that human slavery, though legally protected, is morally wrong, and ought to be speedily terminated. " V. As to State Eights : More regard for and less cant about them. " VI. ONE PRESIDENTIAL TERM, and no man a candidate for any office while wielding the vast patronage of the national executive. " VII. REFORM IN CONGRESS : Payment by the session, with a rigour- ous deduction for each day's absence, and a reduction and straightening of mileage. We would suggest $2,000 compensation for the first (or long), and $1,000 for the second (or short) session; with ten cents per mile for travelling (by a bee-line) to and from Washington." The campaign was an animated one. Many Whigs were deceived, sincerely believing" that General Scott would be elected. The Tribune warmed up during the canvass, and made a spirited fight for the success of the party, not even manifesting disgust upon the receipt of the reports of a few public addresses delivered by General Scott, the ill taste of some of whose expressions gave the opposition great food for laughter and his friends large excuse for a free use of energetic epithets. The result was overwhelming defeat of the Whigs, ' General Scott receiving the votes of only four States Massa- chusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Had the Free- Soil votes which were cast for Mr. Hale been cast for Scott, he would even then have received only the votes of Connecticut and Ohio in addition. Mr. Greeley correctly regarded this utter rout as decisive of the fate of the Whig party. The Tribune soon began to speak of " the late Whig party;" and it was not long till The Tribune Almanac took the place of that which for many years, under the name of The Whig Almanac, had been the best compen- THE NEW ERA. 289 dium of political statistics of the country, recognized as an authority by the intelligent of all parties. For the cause of Labour, for Free Homes, for Temperance, for Protection, for a wider freedom of opinion and of speech than conventional trammels had yet allowed, for the Slave, Mr. Greeley and his journal now laboured more efficiently than before. lie had enlisted under a better banner, and in the great conflicts of the new political era, took position at the front and maintained it to the last. 19 WHITELAW REID. Sec page 183. CHAPTEK XVII. MR GREELEY AND THE NEW POLITICAL ERA. Review of Mr. Greeley's Past Political Life Of the Parties of the Times The Day of Small Things The Compromise Measures of 1850 Mr. Greeley's Opinion of Them Renewed Agitation of the Slavery Question The Political Influence of Mrs. Stowe's Novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin " Of the Public Press Mr. Greeley Departs on the NCTT Departure. MR. GREELEY'S political life, thus far, had been passed most of the time in the minority. From the time lie cast his first vote up to the dissolution of the Whig party, he had been on the losing side at every election except two. The untimely death of President Harrison, followed by the apostacy of Presi- dent Tyler, made the magnificent triumph of 1840 something worse than a barren victory. He only brought up the rear in the campaign which resulted in the success of General Taylor. If he had not been on the winning side in respect of men, he could show very little, in the recognized policy of the nation, for which, up to this time, the nation was indebted to his mind or his influence. In truth, the two parties, forming the bulk of the people, which contended for the possession of power during these years, were all the time in dispute over abstract questions of government, in which the Democracy were quite generally in the right, and over practical questions, the settlement of which, one way or the other, would have made no great difference, perhaps, in respect of the develop- ment of the country and the permanent establishment of free institutions. "We are told to not despise the day of small things. Perhaps this was about the only wise injunction the political disputants of the times under review generally obeyed. It is astonishing how much eloquence was poured forth in behalf of dredging the sand out of harbours and of removing the snags out of rivers. There was no end of caustic invective SMALL ISSUES. 291 against the government of the United States for sins which were justly chargeable against drunken pilots or sleepy com- manders of vessels. What was supposed to be the beginning of a magnificent system of internal improvements, was inau- gurated by august ceremonies, the President of the United States himself " breaking ground " on a " National Road," by the side of which men may now travel by rail, and look in vain upon that obsolete thoroughfare for so much evidence of domestic commerce as might be shown by a pea-nut cart, drawn or driven by an exile of Erin. Great ingenuity was exhibited in the discussion of the tariff question, that of national banks, and other similar topics. Vituperation was elevated into one of the Coarse Arts. It makes one ashamed of his race and his country to read what the Whigs said and wrote about Andrew Jackson, and what the Democrats said and wrote about Henry Clay; what the Democrats said of Harrison, and what the Whigs said of Yan Buren. Thus were the minds of the people occupied upon trivial topics, and their attention called away from that great wrong whose baleful influence was as subtle as it was prodigious. But if the abuse of ach other by the great contending parties were so disrepu- table, what shall be said of the treatment of the abolitionists by both these parties! The most abused of all men of the republic were those who best represented republicanism ; who were devoted most wisely to the true interests of the nation; whose principles embraced truths of paramount importance, of moral and political grandeur, the constant subversion of which by the republic, was unspeakably shameful; the constant hatred of which by the political parties of the times was simply horrible. Amid the tintinabulations of all the little political bells, the ear of the nation was distracted from the deep and awful rumbling of the coming earthquake. Men went on mobbing abolitionists quite as of. course, and all was peace. Mr. Greeley's singular devotion to the policy of Protection and to Henry Clay particularly, closed his eyes against the issue upon which the life of the nation hung. Even the Com- promise Measures of 1850 did not wholly undeceive him. He 292 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. failed to see even then that all that there was of permanent importance in those measures, the Fugitive Slave Law, was an unconditional surrender of the republic to the Slave Power. And at so late a period in his life as that in which he wrote " The American Conflict," he is evidently reluctant in con- necting Mr. Clay's reputation with a corrupt monstrosity in legislation and morals which even the great name of his favourite statesman' should not be permitted to shield from lasting opprobrium. 1 It may well be inferred that if Mr. Greeley would speak of one of Mr. Clay's measures as deserving of lasting oppro- brium, and this after yearn of reflection, he did not at the time speak in honeyed phrase of it. The whole country was agitated, indeed, upon the subject of slavery, and the people of the North, after the passage of the Compromise Measures, gradually cut loose from former political ideas and began to place themselves in readiness for a revolution. One of the most potent influences in the creation of a thorough anti-slavery sentiment among the people was a work 1 See The American Conflict, Vol. 1, Chap. XV. " It was entirely proper," he here says, " that Congress should provide at once for the temporary gov- ernment of all the territories newly acquired from Mexico ; and there waa no radical objection to doing this in one bill, if that should seem advisable. As the establishment of a definite boundary between New Mexico and Texas was essential to the tranquillity and security of the Territory, that object might fairly be contemplated in the act providing a civil government therefor. But why Texas should be paid ten millions of dollars for relinquishing her pretensions to territory never possessed by nor belonging to her, territory which had been first acquired from Mexico by the forces and then bought of her by the money of the Union is not obvious; and why this payment, if made at all, should be a make- weight in a bargain covering a variety of arrangements with which it had no proper connection, is still less explicable. And when, on the back of this was piled an act to provide new facilities for slave-catching in the Free States, ostensibly balanced by another which required the slave- traders of Washington to remove their jails and auction-rooms across the Potomac to that dull old dwarf of a city which had recently been retro- ceded to Virginia, as if on purpose to facilitate this arrangement, the net product was a corrupt monstrosity in legislation and morals which even the great name of Henry Clay should not shield from lasting oppro- brium." "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN." 293 of America's most illustrious female writer. I can only refer to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." This was first published as a serial in The National Era news- paper, a weekly journal of the National Capital, edited with great ability and sublime courage by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey. The story ran through considerable portions of the years 1851 and 1852, and attracted wide interest from the beginning. Upon publication in book form it had a vast popularity. The sensation it created has never been approached by an American literary work. So eager were persons to get the thrilling story of " Uncle Tom," that one copy of the book served the purpose of many copies, by being read aloud to parties congregated for the purpose, the demand for the novel being, during many weeks, perhaps months, immensely greater than the supply. This most masterly plea for humanity which genius has pro- duced was unable to lift the nation at once out of the slough of trifling and wrong into which it had been cast by political parties, but it created an anti-slavery sentiment so intense and widely spread, that further encroachments of the Slave Power were thereafter impossible except by means of armed revolu- tion. To the genius of Mrs. Stowe more than to any other one cause, the origin of the Republican party may be assigned. And by this time, the influence of the public press, as the educator of the masses of the body politic had become palpa- bly manifest. Undoubtedly the means of popular education supplied to most of the children of the republic at the lightest possible cost, to the poor especially, had done incalculable service in behalf of general intelligence. But it is certainly true that the fact of the adult population, in a few years after the remarkable development of the press consequent upon the invention of the electric telegraph and the wonderful journal- istic enterprise which followed, rapidly reaching a high piano of intelligence and manly independence of thought, it is undoubtedly true, that this magnificent fact is largely due to the influence of the public press. As the people became more intelligent, more independent in opinion, the power of party, of course, correspondingly diminished. When the press took position above party it became at once more influential 294 TJFE OF HORACE GREELEY. with the people and more truly representative of them. And as amongst an intelligent people there is always more of wis- dom and statesmanship than amongst all the politicians, and as they now had representative journals, it did not take them long to perceive that old parties had become obsolete; boy- clothes into which it would have been impossible for the now puissant nation to place itself without making of itself a ridic- ulous spectacle. Nor will there be any to deny this claim of magnificent power on the part of the press, when they once seriously reflect upon the nature of its operations; its simple yet majestic means of influence. All will readily agree that if a skilful orator were to address large audiences of willing hearers every day, he would acquire vast influence. A great journal speaks to more persons every day of the week, every day of the year, than could be heard by any orator though he had the voice of Jupiter Tonans. And this not upon a single topic but upon a variety of topics, many of which must of necessity be of great value and interest to all the people. Libri cibus animo. News- papers have become the daily intellectual food of all the citizens of enlightened Christendom. The orator, except by thfe aid of the press, can only influence those who stand round about him. The journalist has a greater immediate audience, but his words reach afar off, as weighty in the uttermost parts of the land or of the earth, as in the deep basement where they issue from that marvel of modern machinery, the Hoe Press. This orator, with this vast audience, is of a generous nature, and comes to you instead of requiring you to come to him. Thus with the rising and the setting of the sun he visits the hearthstone of every intelligent family a welcome visitor. When we con- sider, therefore, the great and varied contents of most of our public journals, and the marvellous means of their diifusion among the people, we cannot help agreeing that the newspaper press is, and must of necessity be, among the greatest of edu- cators. Horace Greeley, though he finally yielded support to the Whig candidates in the presidential campaign of 1848, did much efficient service against party thraldom. He performed "THE NEW DEPARTURE." 295 similar service in 1852, though again supporting the regular nominations. But as we have seen he spat upon the platform and upheld one of his own. He was leading the people on the "new departure;" a departure which eventually led to the formation of the political organization which controlled the affairs of the nation through the most momentous era of its history, conferring vast and lasting benefits upon the republic, but at length undertaking to be scarcely less arbitrary in its trammels than the parties which it had displaced, received, as he deemed was just, his hearty and eminent opposition. But between the time when the Whig party was dissolved and that when the Republican party was organized, grave questions arose, the agitation of which did much to dismember the Democracy, and prepare the way for a new and better era. Of this formative period of the new era, and the part taken therein by Mr. Greeley, and in the early history of the Rep*bli- can party, I shall speak in the next chapter. HARRIET CEECHER STOWE. See page 293. CHAPTER XVIII. 1854 TO 18GO. Mr. Greeley in the Political Contests of the Time The Renewal of Slavery Agitation The Kansas-Nebraska Struggle Messrs. Sumner, Chase, Wade, Seward, Fcssenden The Know-Nothing Party Mr. Greeley opposes it "The Banks Congress" Mr. Greeley Assaulted General Banks Organization of the Republican Party The Fre- mont-Buchanan Campaign Defeat of the Republicans The Kansas War "Lecompton" Senator Douglas Defends Popular Sovereignty Senator David C. Broderick, of California Edward D. Baker The Lincoln-Douglas Debates The Tribune on the Side of Douglas Mr Greeley Travels Overland to California Extracts from His Letters Buffaloes, Prairie-Dogs, and Indians Life at Denver in 1859 Brig, ham Young and Mormon ism Honours in California Receptions and Addresses The Yosemite The Pacific Railroad Return John Brown. AFTER the dismemberment of the Whig party came chaos. The dissolving elements at first settled nowhere. The organ- ization was for a time maintained, but it had become fossilized and all attempts to ressurect it and breathe therein a living soul were vain. Its mourners went about the streets under- taking reconstruction; but the silver gray cord was loosed, the golden bowl was broken. The day of small things had not been despised, but it had passed away forever. Mr. Greeley looked on all attempts to revive the Whig party with philo- sophical indifference", and upon most of the self-constituted architects who proposed to rebuild, using the old materials, with good-natured contempt. It was not long until Mr. U. Gratz Brown, if my memory is not at fault, very correctly described " an old-line Whig " as "a very respectable gentle- man who took his juleps and voted the Democratic ticket regularly." During this chaotic period of parties, the Temperance reform was forced upon the people as a political question. The State of Maine led off with what was called a Prohibitory Liquor "SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY." . 297 Law, an enactment utterly prohibiting the sale of intoxica- ting liquors as a beverage. This policy was adopted in other portions of the country, and "the Maine law" was enacted by a number of States. To this policy Mr. Greeley gave earnest adhesion, and continued to believe in its wisdom and efficiency. In some portions of the country men opposed to the party in power attempted to unite under the name of "Union men;" in other sections the name of "People's Party," was adopted; in others still, that of " the Fusion Party." After a while, too, men called themselves "anti-Nebraska Whigs," others, "anti- Nebraska Democrats." But for some time there appeared no common bond of union, and to the casual observer the Demo- cratic party had gained an indefinite lease of power. If one had observed closely, he would have perceived a certain coming danger to that organization. "Uncle Tom" had created hundreds of thousands of friends of the slave; as many earnest enemies of the system of slavery. The people declined to accept the Compromise measure as a finality. They insisted upon their right to discuss the slavery question ; and they did discuss it till the agitation was about to become universal, and an anti-slavery party t once formed, when events occurred which postponed for a short period the organization of such a party. , These were the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska bill in Congress by Senator Douglas^ and the rapid spread of " Know- nothingism" about the same time, and, to a great extent, in consequence thereof. The Kansas-Nebraska bill dismembered the Democratic party. Its objectionable provision was the repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1819-20. In lieu of that measure, which forbade slavery in all the territories of the United States north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, the bill provided that the question of slavery be decided by the people of the territories themselves. Ex-Senator Benton, of Missouri, declared with coarse vigour that in making this provision, Mr. Douglas had but " injected a stump speech into the belley of the bill." What the author of the measure called the principle of popular sovereignty was in ridicule called " squatter sovereignty " by those who opposed it. They charged that it was a reopening 298 UFE OF HORACE GKEELET. of the slavery question; that it was a deliberate attempt of the Slave Power, to desecrate to slavery an immense domain which by the solemn faith of the nation had been consecrated to freedom. The bill was instantly attacked in the Senate and by the public journals of widest influence, whether of one party or another, and the people soon became greatly agitated. The North was fairly aroused to wrath against the bill, in every part of which indignation meetings were held, Democrats as well as others taking part in the proceedings. Eminent statesmen in the Senate took every advantage of the popular excitement, and gave powerful impulse to the rapidly-growing anti-slavery sentiment of the country. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, was at this time a comparatively new member of the Senate. He has since done more than any of his co tem- poraries to increase the renown of American statesmanship, give dignity, power, beneficence to eloquence, and to make all men bow with willing and respectful deference before great genius and vast learning; but, perhaps, he never more ably and earnestly served his countrymen than during the long, fierce contest over the Nebraska bill. The State of Ohio was then represented in the Senate by Salmon P. Chase and Benja- min F. Wade. The former afterwards became Secretary of the Treasury, and then Chief Justice of the United States. To conduct the financial affairs of the republic during the period Mr. Chase was Secretary was a task of incomparable difficulty; but Mr. Chase performed it with incomparable success. Yet it may be said that even this grand achievement of adminis- trative ability was not greater than the forensic talents he displayed in the Senate during the Nebraska struggle. His colleague, "Bluff Ben. Wade," or " Old Ben. Wade," as he was familiarly called by people and press, rushed into the conflict with his accustomed abandon, and dashingly drove the enemy into confusion. Senator Seward's sublime serenity and sublime courage, his chivalric bearing, and his tremendous strength of statement were never more superbly manifested. He undoubt- edly saw the present defeat and the future victory of freedom with equal clearness. Senator Fessenden, of Maine, who alone THE KNOW-NOTinNO PARTY. 299 could cope with Mr. Douglas in readiness and strength of argument in a running debate, and who surpassed the great Illinoisan in culture and in the use of wit and humour, gave zest, liveliness, piquancy to a discussion to which the whole country listened with eager interest. The press gave to the exciting question fullness and inde- pendence of treatment which, perhaps, no question of politics had previously received. All the Northern States which had general elections in 1854, voted anti-Nebraska. Illinois received Mr. Douglas, when he went home to spend the recess, with indignation. And though it is due to him to say that he was not at all alarmed, he keenly felt the loss which he had himself given to his great popularity. Mr. Greeley at this time thought that Mr. Douglas was simply bidding for the Presidency. The Tribune assailed him with great energy of expression, and did more, no doubt, to give him the temporary odium which attached to his name than all his other assailants. Now was the time for the formation of an anti-slavery party. It happened, however, in the chaotic state of affairs, that a prescriptive organization sprang up and rapidly over- ran the country. This 'was the Know-Nothing party. Based upon religious and political bigotry, it had nothing whatever to commend it to the approval of liberal and intelligent minds. Its doctrines were, simply, hatred of Roman Catholics and hatred of men not born in America. A political creed so nar- row could, under ordinary circumstances, have had only few adherents. But the party was a secret society. It had solemn oaths to administer to its members, pass-words, grips, etc. As a political organization it was fairly entitled to unmixed con- demnation, except in one respect. Its discipline was excellent. And there was no political discipline extant in the country except in the Democratic party and in this. Vast numbers of men, therefore, for the simple purpose of organization, w r ent into the Know-Nothing party because they had no other party, with organization, into which they could go, save only the Democratic, which they detested. One cannot record the fact without blushing for his country, but it is probably true 300 LITE OF HORACE GREELEY. that a pluralty, may be a majority, of American voters joined this Know-Nothing party in 1854 and 1855. Mr. Greeley fought its narrow doctrines and its secret organ- ization from the beginning. lie disliked Democracy, as repre- sented by the political party of that name, much, but he disliked political bigotry and religious intolerance more. In his general views at this time, both Mr. Seward and Mr. "Weed undoubtedly sympathized, but Mr. Weed was willing to -do more to defeat the Democracy, simply for what he esteemed the good of defeating that party, than Mr. Greeley. Hence arose suspicion and distrust in Mr. Greeley 's mind, which culminated in the noted letter dissolving the firm of " Seward, Weed & Greeley," of which we shall have occasion to speak more at length by and by. The elections for Representatives in Congress in the year 1854: were disastrous to the Democratic party, but did not result in the selection of a majority of members belonging to any one party. The consequence was the famous contest in the House which continued some two months, and finally resulted in the election of Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachu- setts, as Speaker, through the operation of the plurality rule. Mr. Greeley, having returned froni Europe, proceeded to Washington some time before the meeting of Congress, and by telegraph and letter posted The Tribune daily with intelli- gence from the scene of general interest. This struggle for the organization of the House, so long, bitter, and exciting, was participated in throughout by Mr. Greeley, who constantly advised with members. He was willing that the free-soil members should support an anti-Nebraska "American"; but the "Americans" from the South refused to sustain any one of "Republican" principles, the free-soilers now beginning to be known as Republicans, and, quite generally, with the prefix "Black." Wherefore, Mr. Greeley determined that he for one would fight it out on the Republican line. "Stick to Banks " became his motto, because Mr. Banks represented the Repub- lican idea, and from this judgment he never for a moment swerved. The caucus candidate of the Democrats was Mr. William A. THE THIRTY-FOURTH CONGRESS. 301 Richardson, of Illinois, a devoted friend of Judge Douglas, a shrewd politician, a popular stump-orator, and the only gentle- man of the House, perhaps, who could chew tobacco like a saw-mill. The opposing parties made no caucus nominations. The Southern "Americans" supported Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky, but Henry M. Fuller, of Pennsylvania, received a number of votes from this source. Mr. Banks received a larger number of votes than any ol Mr. Richardson's competitors, on the first ballot, except Mr. Marshall and Mr. L. D. Campbell, of Ohio. Mr. Campbell was at this time in the prime of man- hood, and had probably been defeated for Congress more frequently than any of his co-members. Small in stature, he was known in Ohio as " the Butler Pony." A strong speaker, long a Whig of decidedly free-soil proclivities, he had passed into the " American " party in the general pressure in that direction. That he was an able debater is shown by the fact that he often met the celebrated Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, and beat him in argument. Mr. Campbell was elected to Congress as a Democrat in 1870 beating Robert C. Schenck but by this time age and ill health had under- mined his energies, and 'he manifested in the House none of his old lire and power. His highest vote for Speaker of the XXXI Vth Congress known as "the Banks Congress" was 81 votes. At length he refused to permit the use of his name, from which time Mr. Banks steadily increased in strength, until his election on the 133d ballot, he receiving 103 votes; William Aiken, of South Carolina, 100; Mr. Fuller, 6; all others 5. The National Capital has not often been in a higher state of excitement than it was throughout this long contest. And the country fully sympathised with the political metropolis. Horace Greeley was thoroughly aroused. He thundered in The Tribune as he seldom thundered before or afterwards. He was thus " terribly in earnest " because he believed the election of Mr. Banks would greatly aid in the successful organization of the Republican party, and the speedy extinguishment of Know-Nothingism. All sorts of stratagems, disreputable and otherwise, were 302 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. resorted to with the object of defeating Mr. Banks. Mr Albert Rust, of Arkansas, on the 21st of January, 1856, offered a long preamble and resolution the upshot of which was that Mr. Banks must be withdrawn as a candidate! Other candidates were named, of course, but Mr. Banks was the man Mr. Rust's party proposed to drive off the track. Mr. Greelcy spoke of this shameful manosuvre in as energetic Anglo-Saxon as he knew how to use, and he was long distinguished in that regard. There was nothing coarse in his criticism upon Rust's resolution. Its truthfulness and keenness cut that member very deeply, however, and he responded in the then fashion- able Southern manner, namely, with fist and bludgeon, pistols and knives in reserve. Mr. Greeley gave a full account of the affair in The Tribune of January 26th: "I have heard since I came here a good deal of the personal violence to which I was exposed, but only one man has offered to attack me until to- day, and he was so drunk that he made a poor fist of it. In fact, I do not remember that any man ever seriously attacked me till now. "I was conversing with two gentlemen on my way down from the Capitol, after the adjournment of the House this afternoon, when a stranger requested a word with me. I stopped, and my friends went on. The stranger, who appeared in the prime of life, six feet high, and who must weigh over two hundred, thus begun : " ' Is your name Greeley ?' " ' Yes.' " ' Are you a non-combatant ?' " ' That is according to circumstances.' " The words were hardly out of my mouth when he struck me a stun- ning blow on the right side of my head, and followed it by two or three more, as rapidly as possible. My hands were still in my great-coat pockets, for I had no idea that he was about to strike. He staggered me against the fence of the walk from the Capitol to the Avenue, but did not get me down. I rallied as soon as possible, and saw him standing several feet from me, with several persons standing or rushing in between us. I asked, 'Who is this man! I don't know him,' and understood him to answer, with an imprecation, ' You '11 know me soon enough,' or ' You '11 know me hereafter,' when he turned and went down toward the street. No one answered niy inquiry directly, but some friends soon came up, who told me that my assailant was Albert Rust, M. C. from Arkansas. He gave no hint of any cause or pretext lie may have had for this assault, but I must infer that it is to be found in my strictures in Monday's Tribune (letter of Thursday evening last) on his attempt to drive Mr. Banks out of the field as a candidate for Speaker, by passing a resolution inviting all N. P. BANKS. 303 the present candidates to withdraw. I thought that a mean trick, and said so most decidedly; I certainly think no better of it, now that I have made the acquaintance of its author. "The bully turned and walked down alone; I followed, conversing with two friends. Crossing Four-and-a-half street, they dropped behind to speak to acquaintances, and I, walking along toward the National Hotel, soon found myself in the midst of a huddle of strangers. One of these turned short upon me I saw it was my former assailant and said, ' Do you know me now ?' I answered, ' Yes ; you are Rust of Arkansas.' He said something of what he would do if I were a combatant, and I replied that I claimed no exemption on that account. He now drew a heavy cane, which I had not seen before, and struck a pretty heavy blow at my head, which I caught on my left arm, with no other damage than a rather severe bruise. He was trying to strike again, and I was endeavouring to close with him, when several persons rushed between and separated us. I did not strike him at all, nor lay a finger on him ; but it certainly would have been a pleasure to me, had I been able to perform the public duty of knocking him down. I cannot mistake the movement of his hand on the Avenue, and am sure it must have been toward a pistol in his belt. And the crowd which surrounded us was nearly all Southern, as he doubtless knew before he renewed his attack on me. * * * * " I presume this is not the last outrage to which I am to be subjected. I came here with a clear understanding that it was about an even chance whether I should or should not be allowed to go home alive ; for my busi- ness here is to unmask hypocrisy, defeat treachery, and rebuke meanness, and these are not dainty employments even in smoother times than ours. But I shall stay here just so long as I think proper, using great plainness of speech, but endeavouring to treat all men justly and faithfully. I may often judge harshly, and even be mistaken as to facts, but I shall always be ready to correct my mistakes and to amend my judgments. I shall carry no weapons and engage in no brawls ; but if ruffians waylay and assail me, I shall certainly not run, and, so far as able, I shall defend myself." Mr. Greeley declined to prosecute Rust for the assault. The respectable press of the country expressed disapprobation of Rust's ruffianism, one journal saying that " the fellow who would strike Horace Greeley would strike his mother." Writing of this long contest for the organization of the House years afterwards, in his Recollections of a Busy Life, Mr. Greeley speaks of the successful man as follows : Mr. Banks, though then in his second term, proved an excellent Speaker, prompt, vigorous, decided, and just. Though a majority remained politically hostile to him, and the waves of party passion ran very high, I believe but one of the many decisions made by him as Speaker 304 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. was overruled; and the House, on calmer consideration, reconsidered its overruling vote. Abler men may have filled that difficult post; but no man, I judge, ever gave himself more unreservedly to the discharge of its arduous duties. I have heard that Mr. Banks was a schoolmaster in his youth, and his manner in the chuir often countenanced the tradition. If he had a fault, it was that of overdoing, impelled by absorbing anxiety to keep in order a body essentially turbulent, and inclined to resent and baffle any attempt to draw the reins too tightly." The temptations to an opposite course are very strong, and presiding officers far oftener err on the side of laxity than on that of rigour. Though Mr. Banks was never surpassed, perhaps, as presiding officer of the House, the praise is of no great value. The quali- ties of an auctioneer rather than others are there most called into exercise. In after years he became the most influential man on the floor, and the only member of the XLIId Con- gress 1871-'73 who always received universal attention the moment he pronounced " Mr. Speaker." Of that Congress he was by far the greatest orator, and was second to none in gen- eral influence. His retirement at its close may justly bo regarded as a public calamity. As Mr. Greeley had foreseen, the blunder of Know-Nothing ism postponed the organization of a political party with an anti-slavery creed. It was impossible, however, long to pre- vent the people from finding the position in which they of right should be placed. Whether previously of one party or another, they had gravitated toward anti-slavery since the Compromise of 1850. Mrs. Stowe's popular novel greatly increased the movement. The Kansas-Nebraska bill, manifest- ing a design to extend the domain of the slave power, added^ new impetus. The Know-Nothing party checked the move- ment, but it was impossible to stay its progress. It cannot be justly claimed that statesmen or journalists had most to do with the formation of the Republican party. It was the spontaneous movement of the people against a threatened danger. Statesmen and journalists who had been eminent in the Democratic party and those who had been eminent in the Whig party sympathized alike with the political revolution. Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, though a Whig, became no more sincere Republican than Mr. Hamlin, a Democrat. Mr. Seward, THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 305 a Whig, was no more earnest in the new party than Mr. Pres- ton King, a Democrat, a man, let it be said in passing, of solid understanding, like his physical structure, and of dis- positions so amiable that his personal influence in the Senate and the government has rarely been equalled. Henry S. Lane, of Indiana, was not earlier to adopt the faith of Repub- licanism, than Oliver P. Morton. In Illinois, Trumbull and Lincoln clasped hands, and Ray andWentworthand Judd and many others who had been influential Democrats bade " the Little Giant" a long farewell. Mr. Greeley and Mr. Bryant never could forget the fierce conflicts of the past, but against the common danger they stood shoulder to shoulder for years, and though ever in debate upon minor issues, made common warfare against the aggressive enemy of the republic. Of such elements, hitherto discordant, was the Republican party formed. It had one idea. This was enough; and pre- cisely one more than any other party had. That idea was The Restriction of Slavery. By it were embraced National Faith, Political Morality, Progress, Reform. It was, therefore, both a broad and an elevated creed. In its logical development it was sure to become Abolition of Slavery, and national salva- tion. The people saw this very clearly. Few public men saw it more clearly than Horace Greeley. Nowhere else were the wrongs of slavery more abundantly, clearly, and constantly shown than in The Tribune. Upon such topics Mr. Greeley wrote what would make many volumes, if printed in books. And it was upon such themes that Mr. Congdon, an associate editor, wrote a series of articles continuing through several years, which were the best exhibitions of humourous satire yet shown by an American writer, writing in the English lan- guage. The first general campaign into which the people led the leaders of the Republican party resulted in a defeat. This was in the year 1856. The first national convention of the year was that of the " American " party, being the debris of the Know-Nothing organization, which had passed into a state of ruin. Millard Fillmore was nominated for President, and Andrew J. Donelson, of Tennessee, for Vice-President. This 20 306 LIFE r>7 HORACE GREELEY. ticket was afterv- ^s (September) endorsed by an assemblage of amiable r^ntlemen who called themselves a Whig National Convention, over which Mr. Edward Bates, of Missouri, pre- sided. Having endorsed the "American" ticket, and called up the ghosts of dead patriots to shake their gory locks at " sectional " parties, the amiable gentlemen departed about their business, and as "WTiigs appeared again nevermore. But before this the Democratic convention had assembled at Cincinnati, and nominated James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, and John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for President and Vice-President respectively. The competitors of Mr. Buchanan were Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, President Pierce, and General Cass. The contest was very animated, but resulted in the choice of the least worthy of the candidates, and the ill disguised wrath of many of the best men of the party. It was known to them that Mr. Douglas would at least give fair play to freedom in the territories, and that Mr. Buchanan would not. The candid will agree that the juggling platform gave him who was elected much excuse for his betrayal of free Kansas after he became President, a betrayal which might have succeeded at once in producing untold ills but for the brave and patriotic course of fcenator Douglas. The Republicans met in their first national convention at the city of Philadelphia on the 17th of June. Henry S. Lane, of Indiana, presided. Upon taking the chair, he delivered a speech of stirring eloquence, which fairly electrified the vast audience, and succeeded in giving that gentleman high reputa- tion as an orator throughout the country. Many of the delegates were favourable to the nomination of Judge McLean, of Ohio. He had for many years been a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, where he had shown great dignity, learning, and ability. Others preferred a younger man, and among these was Mr. Greeley. These united upon Colonel John C. Fremont, of California, whose adventurous, dashing career had given him great popularity. Mr. Greeley correctly thought Fremont would be especially strong with young men, who formed a very large proportion of the new party. These views prevailed, and Fremont was chosen on the first ballot THE FREMONT CAMPAIGN. 307 Associated with him as candidate for Yice-President was William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, whose strongest compet- itor for this position was Abraham Lincoln, ol Illinois, then but very little known except in the West. The campaign was one of excited interest throughout, but resulted in the election of Buchanan and Breckinridge by a large majority of electoral votes and a considerable plurality of the popular vote. Nevertheless, the Republican candidates had an immense majority in the Free States, and an aggregate pop- ular strength of 1,341,514 votes. Mr. Greeley threw his whole soul into this campaign. Other matters were treated in the platform but the issue joined was that of Slavery. Civil war was practically raging in the Ter- ritory of Kansas. The aggressions of the Slave Power were there so unmistakably and wickedly shown that no man could deny the fact. Citizens of the border counties of Missouri invaded the Territory in behalf of Slavery. In the vigorous language of the times they were called " Border Humans." Associations were formed in the Free States with the object of colonizing the Territory in the interest of Freedom. These, by the advice of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher himself, and others of scarcely less pacific principles in general, were hand- somely supplied with Sharpe's rifles. The war in bleeding Kansas went bravely on, supplying the friends of j ustice with many unanswerable arguments and irresistible appeals. The Tribune, which ever fought a magnificent fight when it had once entered upon an active canvass, never more gallantly engaged the enemy than during the Fr6mont-Buchanan cam- paign. During most of the canvass it had a powerful ally in The Herald, whose editor and Mr. Greeley laid aside their long personal discussions, and met in friendly recognition. 1 The final defeat was not unexpected by Mr. Greeley; and, though he greatly lamented it, he thought he saw in the result auguries 1 Henry S. Lane said in some of his speeches during this campaign something like this : " You all know, my countrymen, there are three things that a candidate for President must have, in order to be elected ; and Fremont has them all the women (God bless them !), the young men, and the New- York Herald !" 808 LITE OF HORACE GREELEY. of coming triumph. " Americanism " certainly had received mortal wounds; many of the States were strongly Republican ; the Senate of the United States was certain to become anti slavery. But even if Mr. Greeley had not seen cause of much gratu- lation in the positive strength of the Republicans, he had grounds of hope in the dissensions, sure to come, of the Dem- ocratic party. It was certain that either the South or the North had been deceived by the Cincinnati platform. In the North, " popular sovereignty" was part of Democracy, pro- claimed by every orator. In the South, popular sovereignty was derided. Whether President Buchanan should take one position or the other a dismemberment of the Democracy was inevitable. Thus the first notable result of the Kansas- Nebraska bill was the formation of a powerful anti-slavery party. The next notable result of that measure was the dis- memberment of the Democratic party, whereby the Eepublicans were in due time able to achieve a great, momentous victory. The first instance of rupture grew out of the attempt to fasten slavery upon the people of Kansas through a fraudulent State Constitution, called the Lecompton Constitution, from the place where it was concocted. This pretended fundamental law was passed by a body of men elected by means which would have rendered the whole affair the most laughable and grotesque of burlesques but for its wicked purpose. Ballot- boxes were stuffed with ballots voted by the batch in the names of persons recorded on obsolete directories of eastern cities. " Lecompton " might possibly have been the will of some of the citizens, dead and alive, of the city of Cincinnati ; by no possibility could it have been pronounced the will of the people of Kansas. Nevertheless, in the interests of the Slave Power, President Buchanan sustained it. In view of the popular feeling against it, he at first demurred, and, as stated by Mr. Greeley, it was currently reported that his less scrupu- lous Secretary of the Treasury, Ilowell Cobb, of Georgia, being asked by a visitor what was the matter, carelessly replied, "O, not much; only Old Buck is opposing the administration." But he speedily gave in his adhesion. SENATOR BRODERICK. 309 Senator Douglas openly declared in favour of popular sover- eignty. He opposed "Lecompton" in the Senate with that persistent pluck for which he was more remarkable than any other of his cotemporary statesmen. He was removed from the position he had long held, Chairman of the Committee on Territories, and his influence with the administration was destroyed. Nevertheless he kept up the fight with most admirable gallantry and with increasing earnestness, richly earning the approbation of his countrymen and receiving the hearty plaudits of the Republicans. Among eminent men of the Democratic party who sustained Mr. Douglas, was Senator David C. Broderick, of California. Mr. Broderick had risen from an humble position in life. He spent his youth and early manhood in the city of New-York, where his natural talents and courageous spirit gave him large influence. Removing to California not long after the war with Mexico, he became a prominent politician in the new State, and rapidly grew in intellectual and moral stature. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1856, and there his com- manding presence, chivalric bearing, and brilliant parts as a debater at once gave him prominence and influence. Unless it were by the ruffianly assault upon Senator Sumner, in 1856, by a Representative from South Carolina, the utter barbarism of the Slave Power was not more conspicuously illustrated than in the case of the accomplished and generous Broderick. The Slave Power doomed him to destruction, and he fell in a duel in September, 1859, slain by the Chief Justice of the State which this victim of a horrible custom had done so much to honour. The death of Mr. Broderick gave occasion to one of the noblest exhibitions of American eloquence, in the appreci ative, majestic, and profoundly pathetic funeral oration by Edward D. Baker, afterwards United States Senator, a Brigadier- General of the Union army, who met his death in battle, gal- lantly contending against the same power at whose command Broderick himself had fallen. No Republican looked upon the contest waged against " Lecompton " by Senator Douglas and his sympathizers in the Democratic party with more unmingled satisfaction than 310 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. Horace Greeley. Former severe criticisms, just though they were supposed to be, were forgotteu ; mere partizan ties were entirely unloosed ; and the Great Editor came out in fervent approval of the Great Debater. The journalist afterwards expressed his deliberate judgment of the statesman in these words : " Mr. Douglas was the readiest man I ever knew. He was not a hard student; if he had been, it would have been difficult to set limits to his power. I have seen him rise in the Senate quite at fault with regard to essential facts in controversy, and thence make damaging blunders in debate; but he readily caught at and profited by any suggestion thrown out by friend or foe; and no American ever excelled him in olr-hand dis- cussion : so that, even if worsted in the first stages, he was apt to regain his lost ground as he went on. Once, as I sat with the senior Francis P. Blair and one or two others outside the bar of the Senate in 1856, he made us the text of an amusing dissertation on the piebald, ring-streaked, and speckled materials whereof the new Republican party was composed; and, passing us soon afterward, he hailed me familiarly with the interro- gation, 'Didn't I give you a good turn just now?' At a later day, when the Lecompton struggle was in progress, a mutual friend, remembering that my strictures on Mr. Douglas in former years had been of a very caustic sort, inquired of him whether he had any objections, on account of those strictures, to meeting me on a friendly footing. 'Certainly not,' was his instant response; 'I always pay that class of debts as I go along.' Our country has often been called to mourn severe, untimely losses ; yet I deem the death of Stephen A. Douglas, just at the outbreak of our great Civil War, and when he had thrown his whole soul into the cause of the country, one of the most grievous and irreparable." * The Eepublicans of the State of Illinois, though cordially approving the course of Senator Douglas, most emphatically non-concurred in the suggestion that he should be returned to the Senate, a suggestion which Mr. Greeley deemed sensible and wise at the time, and never changed his opinion in that regard. So much opposed, indeed, were the Illinois Repub- licans to continuing Mr. Douglas in the Senate, that they made a contest against him unusual in form, unparalleled in earnest- ness, and unapproached in the forensic ability and universal interest which it produced by any similar contest in the history of American politics. The Republican convention of the year 1858, convened at * Recollections of a Busy Life, pp. 358-59. LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS. 311 Springfield for the purpose of nominating candidates for the various State olfices to be filled at the November election, not only did this, but nominated Abraham Lincoln as the candi- date of the Republicans for United States Senator. Upon this occasion Mr. Lincoln delivered a masterly, memorable speech, which was never answered, though very many times replied to, beginning with the forcible illustration from Holy Writ, that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Afterwards, he and Mr. Douglas met in joint discussion at a number of cities and towns in different parts of the State, and were list- ened to with lively interest by hundreds of thousands of citi- zens in the aggregate. The debates were fully reported and published the morning following each debate in The Chicago Tribune and The Times of that city, the latter of which was edited at this time, if my memory does not err, by Mr. James W. Sheahan, one of America's ablest journalists, and the biog- rapher of Mr. Douglas. The Associated Press published lengthy reports of the discussions; several metropolitan jour- nals had special reporters. Thus the people of the whole country were kept fully informed of all the sagacious strata- gems, the masterly manoeuvres, the general engagements of this intellectual war of the Illinois giants. The eyes of the nation looked toward Illinois; the ear of the body politic was turned in that direction, intently listening. The State itself was aglow with excitement, the like of which was never seen even in the most animated Presidential campaign. Popular sovereignity could not have been more forcibly expounded than it was by Mr. Douglas; Republicanism was never more eloquently, wisely, logically, placed before the public mind than in the speeches of Mr. Lincoln, who now and here attained a reputation for thoughtfulness and statesmanship which after events amply demonstrated that he deserved. It would be difficult to say which of the great disputants exhibited the greater intellectual power. If Mr. Lincoln were superior in comprehensiveness of view and statement; if his patriotism appeared to be of a nobler type, embracing the good of all men in its beneficent purpose; yet was Mr. Douglas the quicker in reply and the more ready to demolish an unexpected argn- 312 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. ment. If Mr. Lincoln were the more versatile and captivating in illustration, perhaps Mr. Douglas was closer in his reason- ings. But it must be admitted that Mr. Lincoln's imperturbable good-nature contrasted pleasantly against the occasional out- bursts of ill temper on the part of Mr. Douglas. Singularly enough, the result was a victory to either; for though Mr. Douglas had a majority of the members of the Legislature, and was returned to the Senate, a majority of the people were represented by the friends of Mr. Lincoln. No one was more profoundly impressed with the ability shown by Mr. Lincoln during this remarkable canvass than Horace Greeley. He completely sympathized with the Repub- licans of Illinois in their love and admiration of their chosen leader, but doubted the political wisdom of their course. He says it was long before they forgave him for this difference of judgment. In truth, the Republicans of Mr. Lincoln's State judged the somewhat persistent interference of The New- York Tribune in the management of their own domestic politics in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, as a trifle impertinent. It is due to Mr. Greeley's position to say that, upon the whole, he preserved his temper much better than they did. Political events which speedily followed erased all recollection of the unpleasantness. In the summer of 1859, Mr. Greeley made a journey over- land from New- York to the Pacific coast. A railway to the Pacific had been early advocated by him as a national necessity alike in its political and its commercial aspects. While others, he says, "were scoffingly likening it to a tunnel under the Atlantic or a bridge to the moon, I was pondering the proba- bilities and means of its early construction. I resolved to make a journey of observation across the continent, with reference to the natural obstacles presented to, and facilities afforded for, its construction." He left home on the 9th of May, and reached New-York on his return near the close of September, a period of his busy life of notable interest, and of great usefulness to his country then and afterwards. Proceeding by way of Cleveland, Chicago, Quincy, Illinois, and St. Joseph, Missouri, by rail, he went thence by steamer GOOD-NIGHT TO CIVILIZATION. 313 to Atcliison, Kansas. He made quite a tonr of the Territory and delivered therein a "number of political addresses. He observed in one of his letters that " the twin curses of Kansas, now that the border-ruffians have stopped ravaging her, are land-speculation and one-horse politicians." He also remarked that it took three log houses to make a city in Kansas, but they begin calling it a city so soon as they have staked out lots. But he liked the Territory better than he had expected to, and his descriptions of the country, the cities and towns, were in the main highly favourable. But he could not for- get the "land-sharks" and one-horse politicians aforesaidJftr "Adieu," he said at Manhattan, "to friendly greetings and. speakings! Adieu for a time to pen and paper! Adieu to bed-rooms and wash-bowls! Adieu (let me hope) to cold rains and flooded rivers! Hurrah for Pike's Peak! " In his next letter, dated at " Station 9, Pike's Peak Express Co., Pipe Creek, May 28, 1859," he gives the progress he had recently made toward primitive simplicity as follows: " I believe I have now descended the ladder of artificial life nearly to its lowest round. If the Cheyennes thirty of whom stopped the last ex- press down on the route we must traverse, and tried to beg or steal from it shall see fit to capture and strip us, we shall probably have further experience in the same line; but for the present the progress I have made during the last fortnight toward the primitive simplicity of human exist- ence may be roughly noted thus : " May 12th. CHICAGO. Chocolate and morning newspapers last seen on the breakfast-table. "23d. LEAVENWORTH. Room-bells and baths make their disappearance. "24th. TOPEKA. Beef-steak and wash-bowls (other than tin) last visible. Barber ditto. "26th. MANHATTAN. Potatoes and eggs last recognized among the blessings that 'brighten as they take their flight.' Chairs ditto. "27th. JUNCTION CITY. Last visitation of a boot-black, with dissolv- ing views of a board bedroom. Beds bid us good-by. "28th. PIPE CREEK. Benches for seats at meals have disappeared, giving place to bags and boxes. We (two passengers of a scribbling turn) write our letters in the express-wagon that has borne us by day, and must supply us lodgings for the night. Thunder and lightning from both south and west give strong promise of a shower before morning. Dubious looks at several holes in the canvass covering of the wagon. Our trust, under Providence, is in buoyant hearts and an India-rubber blanket. Good- night." 314 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. Here he came into the buffalo country. He was struck with amazement at the immense number of these animals. He was confident he saw a million in a single day. He pro- nounced the prairie-dog the funny fellow of those parts, and admitted that he and the owl lived amicably together in the same hole, but he indignantly denied " that the rattlesnake is ever admitted as a third partner." But he speedily retracted. In his very next letter he says: " Speaking of rattlesnakes I hasten to retract the skepticism avowed in a former letter as to the usual and welcome residence of these venomous . serpents in the prairie-dog's burrow. The evidence of the fact is too direct and reliable to be gainsayed. It is idle to attempt holding out against facts; so I have pondered this anomaly until I think I clearly comprehend it. The case is much like that of some newspaper establish- ments, whose proprietors, it is said, find it convenient to keep on their staff ' a broth of a boy ' from Tipperary, standing six feet two in his stockings and measuring a yard or more across the shoulders, who stands ready, with an illegant brogue, a twinkle in his eye, and a hickory sapling firmly grasped in his dexter fist, to respond to all choleric, peremptory customers, who call of a morning, hot with wrath and bristling with cow- hide, to demand a parley with the editor. The cayota is a gentleman of an inquiring, investigating turn, who is an adept at excavation, and whose fondness for prairie-dog is more ardent than flattering. To dig one out and digest him would be an easy task, if he were alone in his den, or with only the owl as his partner; but when the firm is known or strongly sus- pected to be Prairie-Dog, Rattlesnake, & Co., the cayota's passion for subterranean researches is materially cooled. The rattlesnake is to the concern what the fighting editor is to the journalistic organizations afore- said. And thus, while my faith is enlarged, is my reason satisfied." While crossing the Desert, Mr. Greeley met with an accident from an upset whereby he received a cut on his left cheek, and " a deep gouge " in his left leg below the knee, " with a pretty smart concussion generally, but not a bone started nor a tendon strained." So off he started on a brisk walk through a scene of utter desolation to the next station. He arrived at Denver on the morning of June 6. "A true picture of gold-seekers," he says, " setting out from home, trim and jolly, for Pike's Peak, and of those same gold-seekers, sober as judges, and slow-moving as their own weary oxen, dropping into Denver, would convey a salutary lesson to many a sanguine soul. Nay, I have in my mind's eye an individual who rolled out of DENVER IN 1859. 315 Leavenworth, barely thirteen days ago, in a satisfactory rig, and a spirit of adequate self-complacency, but who though his hardships have been nothing to theirs dropped into Den- ver this morning in a sobered and thoughtful frame of mind, in dust-begrimed and tattered habiliments, with a patch on his cheek, a bandage on his leg, and a limp in his gait, altogether constituting a spectacle most rueful to behold." Mr. Greeley remained at Denver several days, and visited the "diggings" round about. At Gregory's Diggings, he made a speech to some fifteen hundred or two thousand people. He told the audience many plain truths, speaking of postal and express facilities, the Pacific railroad, the then proposed Rocky Mountain State, and did not fail to condemn the vices of gambling and intemperance. Mr. Greeley thought that the Rocky Mountains, with their grand, aromatic forests, their grassy glades, their frequent springs, and dancing streams of the brightest, sweetest water, their pure, elastic atmosphere, and their unequalled game and fish, were destined to be a favourite resort and home of civilized man. He saw a great many Indians and hence " learned to appreciate better than hitherto, and to make more 'allowance for, the dislike, aversion, contempt, wherewith they are usually regarded by their white neighbours, and have been since the days of the Puritans." He judged that the only practicable mode by which the In- dians could be made clean, industrious, and civilized, would be by special attention to the education of the women. Denver, now a large, thriving city, with daily newspapers and all the evidences of progress and civilization, was then a collection of huts. On the opposite bank of Cherry Creek, fust before it is lost in the South Platte, was Auraria rival "city." In a letter to The Tribune, Mr. Greeley describes life in Denver in 1859: " Of these rival cities, Auraria is by far the more venerable some of its structures being, I think, fully a year old, if not more. Denver, on the other hand, can boast of no antiquity beyond September or October last. In the architecture of the two cities there is, notwithstanding, a striking similarity cotton-wood logs, cut from the adjacent bottom of the Platte, roughly hewed on the upper and under sides, and chinked with billets of split cotton-wood on the inner, and with mud on the outer side, forming 31G LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. the walls of nearly or quite every edifice which adorns either city. Across the center of the interior, from shorter wall to wall, stretches a sturdy ridge-pole, usually in a state of nature, from which ' shooks,' or split saplings of cotton-wood, their split sides down, incline gently to the trans- verse or longer sides; on these (in the more finished structures) a coating of earth is laid ; and, with a chimney of mud-dauhed sticks in one corner, a door nearly opposite, and a hole beside it representing or prefiguring a window, the edifice is complete. Of course, many have no earth on their covering of shooks, and so are liable to gentle inundation in the rainy season; but, though we have had thunder and lightning almost daily, with a brisk gale in most instances, there has been no rain worth naming such here for weeks, and the unchinked, barely shook-covered houses, through whose sides and roofs you may see the stars as you lie awake nights, are decidedly the cooler and airier. There is a new hotel nearly finished in Auraria, which has a second story (but no first story) floor; beside this, mine eyes have never yet been blessed with the sight of any floor what- ever in either Denver or Auraria. The last time I slept or ate with a floor under me (our wagon-box and mother earth excepted) was at Junction- City, nearly four weeks ago. The ' Denver House,' which is the Astor House of the gold region, has walls of logs, a floor of earth, with windows and roof of rather flimsy cotton-sheeting; while every guest is allowed as good a bed as his blankets will make. The charges are no higher than at the Astor and other first-class hotels, except for liquor twenty-five cents a drink for dubious whiskey, coloured and nicknamed to suit the taste of customers being the regular rate throughout this region. I had the honour to be shaved there by a nephew (so he assured me) of Murat, Bonaparte's king of Naples the honour and the shave together costing but a paltry dollar. Still, a few days of such luxury surfeited me, mainly because the main ordrinking-room was also occupied by several blacklegs as a gambling-hall, and their incessant clamour of ' Who '11 go me twenty? The ace of hearts is the winning card. Whoever turns the ace of hearts wins the twenty dollars,' etc., etc., persisted in at all hours up to midnight, became at length a nuisance, from which I craved deliverance at any price. Then the visitors of that drinking and gambling-room had a care- less way, when drunk, of firing revolvers, sometimes at each other, at other times quite miscellaneously, which struck me as inconvenient for a quiet guest with only a leg and a half, hence in poor condition for dodg- ing bullets. So I left. " * How do you live in Denver?' I inquired of a New- York friend some weeks domiciled here, in whose company I visited the mines. ' O, I've jumped a cabin,' was his cool, matter-of-course reply. As jumping a cabin was rather beyond my experience, I inquired further, and learned that, finding an uninhabited cabin that suited him, he had quietly entered and spread his blankets, eating at home or abroad as opportunity might sug- gest. I found, on further inquiry, that at least one-third of the habitations in Denver and Auraria were desolate when we came here (they have been gradually filling up since), some of the owners having gone into the BKIGHAM YOUNG. 317 mountains, digging or prospecting, and taken their limited supply of household goods along with them ; while others, discouraged by the poor show of mining six weeks ago, when even the nearer mountains were still covered with snow and ice, rushed pell-mell down the Platte with the wild reflux of the spring emigration, abandoning all but what they could carry away. It is said that lots and cabins together sold for twenty-five dollars so long as there were purchasers; but these soon failing, they were left behind like camp-fires in the morning, and have since been at the service of all comers. "So, in company with a journalizing friend, I, too, have 'jumped a cabin,' and have kept to it quite closely, under a doctor's care, for the last week or ten days. It is about ton feet square, and eight feet high, rather too well chinked for summer, considering that it lacks a window, but must be a capital house for this country in winter. I board with the nearest neighbour; and it is not my landlady's fault that the edible resources of Denver are decidedly limited. But even these are improving. To the bread, bacon, and beans, which formed the staple of eveiy meal a short time age, there have been several recent additions ; milk, which was last week twenty-five cents per quart, is now down to ten, and I hear a rumour that eggs, owing to a recent increase in the number of hens, within five hundred miles, from four or five to twelve or fifteen, are about to fall from a dollar a dozen to fifty cents per dozen. On every side, I note signs of progress improvement manifest destiny: there was a man about the city yesterday with lettuce to sell and I am credibly assured that there will be green peas next month actually peas ! provided it should rain soakingly meantime whereof a hazy, lowering sky would seem just now to afford some hope. (P. S. The hope has vanished.) But I already sadly behind, and nearly able to travel again must turn my back on this promise of luxuries, and take the road to Laramie to-day, or at furthest to- From Denver, Mr. Greeley proceeded to Salt Lake City, by way of Laramie, the South Pass, Big Sandy, and Fort Bridger. On the afternoon of July 13, he had, by appointment, a long interview with Brigham Young, upon Mormonism generally, which he thus reports in a letter to The Tribune: My friend Dr. Bernhisel, late delegate in Congress, took me this after- noon, by appointment, to meet Brigham Young, President of the Mormoii Church, who had expressed a willingness to receive me at two p. M. We were very cordially welcomed at the door by the president, who led us into the second-story parlour of the largest of his houses (he has three), where I was introduced to Heber C. Kimball, General Wells, General Ferguson, Albert Carrington, Elias Smith, . and several other leading men in the church, with two full- grown sous of the president. After some ur'mpor- tant conversation on general topics, I stated that I had coi^ '- quest of 318 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. fuller knowledge respecting the doctrines and polity of the Mormon Church, and would like to ask some questions bearing directly on these, if there were no objection. President Young avowing his willingness to respond to all pertinent inquiries, the conversation proceeded substan- tially as follows : H. G. Am I to regard Mormonism (so-called) as a new religion, or as simply a new development of Christianity? B. Y. We hold that there can be no true Christian Church, without a priesthood directly commissioned by, and in immediate communication with the Son of God and Saviour of mankind. Such a church is that of the Latter-Day Saints, called by their enemies Mormons ; we know no other that even pretends to have present and direct revelations of God's will. H. G. Then I am to understand that you regard all other churches pro- fessing to be Christian as the Church of Rome regards all churches not in communion with itself as schismatic, heretical, and out of the way of salvation ? B. Y. Yes, substantially. H. G. Apart from this, in what respect do your doctrines differ essen- tially from those of our Orthodox Protestant Churches the Baptist or Methodist, for example ? B. Y.- We hold the doctrines of Christianity, as revealed in the Old and New Testaments also in the Book of Mormon, which teaches the same cardinal truths and those only. H. G. Do you believe in the doctrine of the Trinity? B. Y. We do ; but not exactly as it is held by other churches. We oelievc in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as equal, but not iden- eical not as one person [being].* We believe in all the Bible teaches on kim subject. R. . Do you believe in a personal devil a distinct, conscious, spiritual . We hold to such a gathering together of God's people, as the Bible fo^tells, and that this is the place, and now is the time appointed for i'* consummation. 'I am quit* sure that President Young used here the word "person" as I have it; but I am not a \\aie that Christians of any denomination do regard tins Futher, Son snd Holy up hit, u one person. " MORMONISM." 319 B il. The predictions to which you refer, have usually, I think, been andt rstood to indicate Jerusalem (or Judea) as the place of such gathering. B. Y. Yes, for the Jews not for others. II. G. What is the position of your church with respect to slavery? B. Y. We consider it of divine institution, and not to be abolished until the curse pronounced on Ham shall have been removed from his descendants. H. G. Are any slaves now held in this territory ? B. Y. There are. H. G. Do your territorial laws uphold slavery? B. Y. Those laws- are printed you can read for yourself. If slaves are brought here by those who owned them in the States, we do not favour their escape from the service of those owners. H. G. Am I to infer that Utah if admitted as a member of the Federal Union, will be a slave State?' B. Y. No ; she will be a free State. Slavery here would prove useless and unprofitable. I regard it generally as a curse to the masters. I my- self hire many labourers, and pay them fair wages; I could not afford to own them. I can do better than subject myself to an obligation to feed and clothe their families, to provide and care for them in sickness and health. Utah is not adapted to slave-labour. H. G. Let me now be enlightened with regard more especially to your church polity ; I understand that you require each member to pay over one-tenth of all he produces or earns to the church. B. Y. That is a requirement of our faith. There is no compulsion as to the payment. Each member acts in the premises according to his pleasure, under the dictates of his own conscience. H. G. Vhat is done with the proceeds of this tithing? B. Y. Part of it is devoted to building temples, and other places of worship ; part to helping the poor and needy converts on their way to this country ; and the largest portion to the support of the poor among the saints. H. G. Is none of it paid to bishops, and other dignitaries of the church ? B. Y. Not one penny. No bishop, no elder, no deacon, no other church officer, receives any compensation for his official services. A bishop is often required to put his hand into his own pocket, and provide therefrom for the poor of his charge ; but he never receives anything for his ser- vices. H. G. How, then, do your ministers live ? B. Y. By the labour of their own hands, like the first apostles. Every bishop, every elder, may be daily seen at work in the field or the shop, like his neighbours; every minister of the church has his proper calling, by whi^h he earns the bread of his family ; he who cannot, or will not do the church's work for nothing is not wanted in her service; even our law- yers (pointing to General Ferguson and another present, who are the regular lawyers of the church), are paid nothing for their services; I am the only person in the church who has not a regular calling apart 320 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. from the cnurch's service, and I never received one farthing from her treasury; if I obtain anything from the tithing-house, I am charged with, and pay for it, just as any one else would; the clerks in the tithing-store are paid like other clerks; but no one is ever paid for any service pertain- ing to the ministry. We think a man who cannot make his living aside from the ministry of Christ unsuited to that office. I am called rich, and consider myself worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; but no dollar of it was ever paid me by the church, nor for any service as a min- ister of the everlasting Gospel. I lost nearly all I had when we were broken up in Missouri, and driven from that State. I was nearly stripped again, when Joseph Smith was murdered, and we were driven from Illinois; but nothing was ever made up to me by the church, nor by any one. I believe I know .how to acquire property, and how to take care of it. H. G. Can you give me any rational explanation of the aversion and hatred with which your people are generally regarded by those among whom they have lived and with whom they have been brought directly in contact ? B. Y. No other explanation than is afforded by the crucifixion of Christ and the kindred treatment of God's ministers, prophets and saints in all ages. H. G. I know that a new sect is always decried and traduced that it is hardly ever deemed respectable to belong to one that the Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, Universalists, etc., have each in their turn been regarded in the infancy of their sect as the offscouring of the earth ; yet I cannot remember that either of them were ever generally represented and regarded by the older sects of their early days as thieves, robbers, mur- derers. B. T. If you will consult the cotemporary Jewish account of the life and acts of Jesus Christ, you will find that he and his disciples were accused of every abominable deed and purpose robbery and murder included. Such a work is still extant, and may be found by those who seek it. H. G. What do you say of the so-called Danites, or Destroying Angels, belonging to your church ? B. Y. What do you say? Lknow of no such band, no such persons or organization. I hear of them only in the slanders of our enemies. H. G. With regard, then, to the grave question on which your doctrines and practices are avowedly at war with those of the Christian world that of a plurality of wives is the system of your church acceptable to the majority of its women? B. Y. They could not be more averse to it than I was when it was first revealed to us as the Divine will. I think they generally accept it, as I do, as the will of God. H. G. How general is polygamy among you ? B. Y. I could not say. Some of those present (heads of the church) have each but one wife; others have more: each determines what is his individual duty. " MORMONISM. " 321 H. G. What \s the largest mimber of wives belonging to any one man? B. Y. I have fifteen ; I know no one who lias more; but some of those sealed to me are old ladies whom I regard rather as mothers than wives, but whom I have taken home to cherish and support. H. G. Does not the Apostle Paul say that a bishop should be " the hus- band of one wife ?" B. Y. So we hold. We do not regard any but a married man as fitted for the office of bishop. But the apostle docs not forbid a bishop having more wives than one. H. G. Does not Christ say that he who puts away his wife, or marries one whom another has put away, commits adultery ! B. Y. Yes; and I hold that no man should ever put away his wife except for adultery not always even for that. Such is my individual view of the matter. I do not say that wives have never been put away in our church, but that I do not approve of the practice. H. G. How do you regard what is commonly termed the Christian Sabbath ? B. Y. As a divinely appointed day of rest. We enjoin all to rest from secular labour on that day. We would have no man enslaved to the Sab- bath, but we enjoin all to respect and enjoy it. Such is, as nearly as I can recollect, the substance of nearly two hours conversation, wherein much was said incidentally that would not be worth reporting, even if I could remember and reproduce it, and wherein others bore a part ; but as President Young is the first minister of the Mormon church, and bore the principal part in the conversation, I have reported his answers alone to my questions and observations. The others appeared uniformly to defer to his views, and to acquiesce fully in his responses and explanations. He spoke readily, not always with gram- matical accuracy, but with no appearance of hesitation or reserve, and with no apparent desire to conceal anything, nor did he repel any of my questions as impertinent. He was very plainly dressed in thin summer clothing, and with no air of sanctimony or fanaticism. In appearance, he is a portly, frank, good-natured, rather thick-set man of fifty-five, seeming to enjoy life, and to be in no particular hurry to get to heaven. His asso- ciates are plain men, evidently born and" reared to a life of labour, and looking as little like crafty hypocrites or swindlers as any body of men I ever met. The absence of cant or snuffle from their manner was marked and general ; yet, I think I may fairly say that their Mormonism has not impoverished them that they were generally poor men when they embraced it, and are now in very comfortable circumstances as men averaging three or four wives apiece certainly need to be. Mr. Greeley judged of the Mormon religion and Mormon society with philosophical impartiality. The spirit of the religion appeared to him Judaic rather than Christian. Nei- ther from the pulpit, he heard two lengthy sermons, nor 21 322 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. elsewhere from a Mormon did lie hear a single spontaneous, hearty recognition of the essential brotherhood of the human race, or one generous prayer for the enlightenment and salva- tion of all mankind. The Book of Mormons he discovered to be treated as of equal authority and importance with the Old and New Testaments. He did not regard the great body of the Mormons as knaves and hypocrites, but as dupes only. The great mass of the people, he believed, meant to be honest, just, and humane, but they were before and above all things else, Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, and in the name of religion, members of the community had committed the greatest of crimes and been shielded from just punishment by religious means. He did not find a single Mormon woman who approved of polygamy by word or look, and he believed the Mormons would soon receive a "revelation" causing them to give up this institution. They were generally industrious and frugal, and had no outcasts among them. But upon the whole, evil so much predominated over good in Mormon society, in Mr. Greeley's judgment, which was certainly based upon careful and generous observation, that he made it the occasion of a vigorous and lively attack upon " Popular Sovereignty." During his stay in Salt Lake City, Mr. Greeley attended a meeting of the Deseret Typographical Association. Not only printers, but noted " Saints " took part in the meeting, and in their speeches said little except to extol Mormonism. Mr. Greeley being called out, after properly referring to the oppres- sion, of which some of the " Saints " had spoken, mentioned the gigantic oppression of slavery, and very pointedly condemned Mormon silence and indifference upon that subject. At a later hour in the evening, some one arose and requested that Mr. Greeley make a speech setting forth his views upon Woman's flights! Whereupon, it being about time for supper, he spoke as follows: " Mr. President, I can make the speech our friend required in just one minute. I hold it the right of every woman to do any and every thing that she can do well, provided it ought to be done. If it ought not to be done at all, or if she cannot do it, then she has no right to do it; but if it ought to be done, and she can do it, then her right to do it is, to my ES CALIFORNIA. 323 mind, indisputable. And that is all that I have to say, now or ever, on the subject of Woman's Rights." From the city of Saints he proceeded to Sacramento, by Camp Floyd, where he observed certain abuses in the Army to which he invited the attention of Congress; down the Hum- boldt, the desolation of which region struck him as greater than that of the American Desert, and where, he says, " famine sits enthroned, and waves his sceptre over a dominion exprsssly made for him;" on by Carson City, to the Capital of our new El Dorado. On reaching California, Mr. Greeley discovered that the mili- tary authorities of Mexico were in arms against him. Some paper had published a burlesque statement, at the time the journalist was travelling over the plains, that he was coming to California to take command of all the filibusters, and to invade and conquer Mexico! The Mexican commander at Mazatlan took this hoax as a matter of dead earnest, and issued a solemn proclamation warning the people against this Horace Greeley "a most diabolical, bloodthirsty, and unmerciful man." "This dangerous man," continued the Mexican, "is not of the common school of filibusters: they wish for plunder, he for blood and murderous deeds." Meantime, Mr. Greeley proceeded from Placerville as the honoured guest of the Golden State. The following account of this portion of the journey and of his reception at the Capital, is full of excellent biographical matter. It appeared in The Sacramento Union of August 2, 1859, a journal then as now conducted with enterprise, ability, and notable vivacity: " On Sunday the committee of arrangements held an informal meeting, and the committee of reception detailed to meet him at Folsom were put in telegraphic communication with the master of ceremonies at Placer- ville; the result of which was an agreement, on the part of friends of the distinguished stranger in the latter city, to deliver him on Monday after- noon, in good order and sound condition, by private conveyance, to such of his friends in Sacramento as should be in waiting at Folsom. J. P. Robinson, Superintendent of the Sacramento Valley Railroad, placed a special train at the service of the committee, with the freedom of the road to all they should invite to accompany them. " Horace Greeley passed the night, or such portions of it as he wa 324 LIFE OF HORACE OREELEY. allowed to have to himself, at the Gary House, and left Placerville at 11.20 A. M., in company with G. W. Swan of that city, in an open-front, two- horse carriage. At Mud Springs, about one hundred and fifty of the townspeople and miners had assembled to greet him, under a banner stretched across the street. Greeley did not, however, leave his seat, but exchanged salutations with the citizens at the door of the carriage. On the way down the mountains, Mr. Swan's lively and observant companion noticed with frequent exclamationg of wonder the enterprise and labour evinced in mining operations, and the miners' apparatus for conveying water: spoke of the barrenness of the hillsides, but thought it strange that the fertile spots in the valleys should be left unoccupied by tillers of the soil after the miners had denuded the hillsides of gold ; expressed great surprise, as all new-comers do, at the fine appearance of our cattle contrasted with the apparent lean and dry pasturage; thought the fruit in the gardens by the roadsides looked astonishingly thrifty ; and after some further observations of the same character, and partaking with a good appetite of the dinner served for him and his companion at Padurah, the head of the great American press sank quietly back in one corner of the carriage, and was prone to indulge in such unrefreshing slumber as a warm day over a dusty and tiresome road can alone inspire. "While the editor of The New- York Tribune slept his friends were wide awake in the ' City of the Plains.' At 2.30 p. M. the reception committee, and about twenty -five or thirty others whom they had invited, stepped into a special car, and, under the convoy of Superintendent Robinson, were soon flying on their road to Folsom. The committee reached Folsom in forty minutes by the Superintendent's watch, and learned, on arriving, that the 'man with the white coat' had not yet made his appearance. The receptionists strolled about the interesting town of Folsom, and, their hospitable ardour communicating to sundry of the inhabitants, the cannon was brought out, and soon a thundering report, which must have wakened Greeley a mile distant, if he had slept until that time, announced that the friends of the great expected were ready to receive him with open arms. At a quarter to four, a carriage drawn by a pair of roan-coloured ponies drove at a pretty smart pace down the main street, and straight up to the depot. By this time most of the committee had wandered off in the vicin- ity of the bridge, so that when the proprietor of a little old glazed travelling-bag, marked ' H. GREELEY, 154 Nassau Street, New- York, 1855,' a very rusty and well-worn ichite coat, a still rustier and still more worn and faded blue-cotton umbrella, together with a roll of blankets, were deposited from the carriage, there was no one present of the committee to take him by the hand. The crowd about the depot, however, closed in so densely that Greeley was fain to make for the first open door that presented itself. This, unfortunately, happened to be the bar-room attached to the ticket-office ; and here some of the committee found him, with his back turned defiantly against the sturdy rows of bottles and decanters, talking informally with some friends who had been beforehand : and here the *>minittee seized their guest, and with considerable trepidation hurried IN CALIFORNIA. 325 bini across to the hotel over the freight depot, followed by a large and increasing crowd. Greeley was escorted to an upper room, Avhere J. McClatchy, on behalf of the committee, found opportunity to welcome him in set phrase, in about the following language: " 'MR. GREELEY: This committee, chosen by the citizens of Sacramento without regard to party, have waited upon you to bid you welcome to the capital of the State. The people of our city have long looked upon you as one of the noblest friends of California. They desire to show their appreciation of your labours in its behalf by giving you a cordial wel- come. Arrangements have been made in our city to receive you and make your stay agreeable, and we are ready at your leisure, to escort you to the friends who are waiting your coming. In their name, and in the name of this, their committee, I welcome you to our city.' "Mr. Greeley replied very nearly as follows: " ' I should have been glad, if I could have had my choice, to have avoided a formal reception, because it looks like parade, and gives an idea of seeking for glory, which is not a part of my plan in coming to Cali- fornia. I shall be happy, however, to go with you, and to-night I would like to say something about the Pacific Railroad. I am at your service, gentlemen, this evening, but I've got my business affairs to tend to after- ward. I have not yet seen my letters : they are waiting for me in your city. I have other places to visit, and wish to see all I can, and meet all the friends I can here and elsewhere.' "These remarks were delivered in the peculiar off-hand manner of the great Reformer, and in the high' key and slender and wavering tones which are characteristic of his public speaking. When he had finished there was a little pause, as though each of the committee was cogitating what next was to be done, when Greeley broke in with the bluntness so often ascribed to him, 'Well, I'm ready to go when you are.' O. C. Wheeler, Secretary of the State Agricultural Society, now extended an invitation to him to accompany the visiting committee on their rounds of visits among the farms and orchards of the State, setting out next week ; which invitation Greeley thought he would accept, but must take it under consideration. After several persons had been introduced, Greeley was escorted back to the depot, followed by 'all Folsom for four miles back,' as one of the crowd declared. Near the ticket-office, having signified to the committee that he would like to say something to the people, Mr. Mooney of the Folsom Express enjoined silence, and Greeley said: "' FELLOW-CITIZENS: I know very well that occasions like this are not such as a person should choose for the purpose of making a speech, and I d ) not wish to be regarded as having come among you for speech-making. 1 have come to your far-off land as an American comes to visit Americans. I don't have time to read books, and I want to learn what I can of the men and country I have come to see by practical observation. I want to see the land which, during the last ten years, has furnished gold enough to check, if it could not entirely overcome, the tide of reverse following the commercial extravagance of the East. One of the objects of n?y visit 326 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. has been to see what it is practicable to accomplish for the Pacific Kail, road. [Cheers.] I know that great difficulties and obstacles lie in the way, but I also know that every addition of wealth and population on this side lessens those difficulties, every one hundred thousand souls you receive into your State increases, not the necessity, for that has all along existed, but the imminence of that necessity, so to speak. It is a work which must be done in our day, and, if we live the ordinary lives of men, we shall see it accomplished. Every wave of emigration to your shores will beat down an obstable. I entreat you then, fellow-citizens, to go on and draw around you the means for this great fulfilment of the noble plan. Let us build up an American Republic, not as now, the two sides of a great desert, but let us make a concentrated and harmonious whole. Those who come to join you here should not pursue the journey as now, wearily, sadly, and by slow degrees, over these great plains. We must work with all our energies for the prosperity of the Pacific Railroad. [Cheers.] I thank you for the manner in which you have welcomed me, and I shall return home to labour with increased vigour for the road and for the suc- cess of the Union.' "This short speech was greeted with hearty applause by over one hun- dred and fifty persons, who had assembled to catch a sight of the flaxen locks and benevolent face of Horace Greeley. At its close he was con- ducted into the car, and the committee and their guest were soon on their way to this city at a rattling pace. "The committee of arrangements had prepared seven carriages to be in waiting at the depot, on the arrival of the car containing their guest. A telegraphic despatch announced the moment of his departure from Folsom. In less time than it had taken to go out, the whistle was heard announcing that the train was coming down the levee. As the car approached the city, the committee, who had up to this time been acting without much concert or regularity, found a rare subject for a concurrence of speech, at least, in Greeley's old white coat and umbrella. Some of the ragged parts of the coat were converted into little mementos by the more enterprising members of the committee. 1 It was about five o'clock when the train reached the depot. Greeley was handed into a carriage, accom- panied by the committee distributed through the other vehicles, and waa driven to the St. George Hotel, where rooms have been in keeping for him several days. In the parlour of this hotel a large crowd soon began to gather, and H. L. Nichols, President of the Board of Supervisors, making his appearance, with other members of the general committee, was intro- duced to their guest by D. Meeker. Dr. Nichols then made the following address : " ' MR. GREELEY: It is with pleasure, sir, that, on behalf of the citizens of Sacramento, I welcome you to our city. It is probable that but few of us have had the honour of your personal acquaintance ; but, sir, you are not unknown to us. You are known to us as you are known to the world at large; but more particularly are you known to us as "the true friend of California, and as such we are ever proud to acknowledge you. We thank SACRAMENTO. 327 you that you have taken sufficient interest in our welfare to leavw your home in the great metropolis of the East and wend your way across the vast plains and rugged mountains that separate us, to visit us in oui West- ern home. We trust that, while you travel through our State, you may not be disappointed with the progress which our citizens have made dur- ing the short time allowed them. Perhaps you may be aware, sir, that the place which you now behold as the city of Sacramento was but little more than ten years ago a vast plain, with here and there a few cloth tents, which were occupied by the hardy pioneers of the State. We to-day in size claim to be the second city on the Pacific coast; our inhabitants number not less than 15,000; we have a "property valuation of nearly $10,000,000; we have erected comfortable dwellings for our families, and houses for places of business; reared numerous and ample churches dedi- cated to the worship of Almighty God, and established schools for the education of our children, in fact, we enjoy most of the blessings that our sister cities in the East may laj^ claim to. The hospitalities of this our city I extend to you, and trust that during your sojourn here we may be enabled to make your stay pleasant and agreeable, so that when you return to your home in the East, and may have occasion to refer in mem- ory to the few days spent with us, your feelings may be rather of pleasure than of regret. Now, sir, permit me again, in my own behalf and in behalf of my fellow-citizens, to bid you a hearty and cordial welcome to the City of the Plains, the capital city of the Golden State.' " The address was followed by a round of applause, after which Mr Greeley spoke as follows : " ' MR. CHAIRMAN : It was observed by a great Southern statesman that the American Revolution was not that unnatural or chance struggle, not that abnormal thing which we were disposed to think it. The Colony that stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock were no longer a Colony, but a State, from that hour. It is thus that American genius and American cultivation go before, and improvise the arts and a nation's polity. Ten years ago you were here familiar with hangings and mob law. I was in London, and I well remember the remark of a British nobleman, that your course was the proper working out of the old English law. Men must obey the voice of the community, which is the law, in all cases; and, if they do not, they must suffer the penalty of their offending equally in orderly as well as in disorderly states of government. The progress you have made in carrying out your principles of government successfully is your highest triumph. Better than your gold or your thrift is the fact that here is a population, made up of New-Englanders, men of the South, foreign-born, natives of China and almost every part of the globe, which gradually, through periods of disorder, you have reduced to the best forms of enlightenment, crystallizing them, so to speak, in a perfect and durable shape. I do think this is better than gold, for that the savages can dig. "'Your schools, your churches, and your obedience to the laws are your greatest wealth. And the secret of your success is, that labour here meets 328 LEFE OF HORACE QREELEY. its just reward. California labour rejoices in that assurance. I heard them talk of the ' want of capital ' in California. I do not think capital is necessary. When people want labour, and can get it, it is better than capital. [Applause.] Your gold product gives assurance that the labour will always find this reward. At the same time your gold gives an impulse to civilization, and I think it is safe to promise that your State will increase until it becomes the most populous in the Union. [Applause.] I came this long way not to see California alone. I wanted to see those interesting spaces where the most primitive forms of life can be viewed and contrasted within the borders of our own Republic with the highest civilization. I wish to study men as I can see them in their cabins, and to improve by observation what I have been denied acquiring through books and the essays of wise men. I would gladly have come to your city as any stran- ger, satisfied with meeting here and there an old acquaintance, and so passed along without formality and public attention. I was aware that I knew some among you, but I had no idea of meeting so many old friends. And though J would have been glad to avoid a reception, still I cannot refuse to meet you in such a way as you think proper. Gentlemen, I thank you for your kindness. I have done.' [Applause.] " A large number of citizens, at the conclusion of his speech, were introduced to Mr. Greeley. All who have known him in the East remark that he has never appeared so hearty and well as at present. lie looked somewhat, jaded and dusty from his long ride, but showed no signs of weariness. The crowd left him at 5%, and he was not disturbed until he was waited upon to accompany a portion of the committee to a very handsome dinner. About twenty guests sat down at 6%, and, after dis- patching the meal in a business-like way, Greeley was permitted to retire, and make ready for the evening's address. From the rapidity with which this was done, it is fair to presume that he had only to get his hat. A few minutes after eight he was on his way to 'Benton's Church.' At the church he delivered a very able and telling speech upon the Pacific Railroad." The same journal thus speaks at length of Mr. Greeley's visit and the influence it would be likely to have in the great enterprise in which California was so deeply interested: "Gree.tyhas come and gone. He was here a little short of thirteen hours, during which time he held an informal levee, made a reception speech, partook of a special dinner, delivered an address, saw something of the city, opened and read his letters, partly arranged the programme of his journey through the State, and took a sufficient night's rest to enable him to be up at five the next morning, and take his seat in the stage which left the next hour for Grass Valley, a journey of between sixty and seventy miles over a wearisome mountain road. This despatch is characteristic of the man. His prompt, business-like method, and his skill in crowding events into a narrow compass, not less than his facility of compressing AMONG THE MINES. 329 facts and arguments in a short, off-hand speech, would commend him to popular admiration in this country, if he had no other qualities to support his fame. His brief personal intercourse with our citizens while here, and his practical suggestions on the Pacific Railroad, accompanied by the earnest and forcible manner of their delivery, have made a favourable impression in the community. At Folsom, where he was received by the committee sent from this city, and where he volunteered a short address, the crowd were at first sensibly moved to attempt a little good-humoured joking at the quaint personal appearance of the philosopher and his odd style of oratory, but before he had finished his second or third sentence, their attention was very earnestly on the speaker, and he was interrupted as well as complimented at the close, by hearty cheering. This good opin- ion appears to extend to all classes, if we except the ultra Southern politicians; and a general wish is felt to hear further from this editor, who writes for, and is believed by 220,000 ' subscribers,' and who has taken the field in person and in our midst, a Peter the Hermit in enthusiasm for the Pacific Railroad. While this ' abolition editor,' this ' wretched fanatic,' according to that moderate Lecompton organ, the ' San Francisco Herald,' is appealing to our national sympathies on this railroad question, declar- ing that it is not a question of localities; that, 'whether it runs to New- York, or to San Antonia, Texas (the favourite route of the 'San Francisco Herald '), it would be all the same,' the contrast presented by our Demo- cratic Senator and Congressmen who are now addressing the people is peculiarly striking. The one, strong in honest purpose, and full of ner- vous energy, pressing the need of this road, and the duty of our citizens toward the government ; the others not deigning to give even an explan- ation of their view's and the policy of thousands of our countrymen in the East. Neither the views nor the personal influence of our Lecompton delegates to the next Congress will be of any practical benefit to the road, admitting (which we do not) that they are its sincere and disinterested friends. "The notable circumstance that the editor of The Tribune is endeavour- ing to arouse the country in behalf of a Pacific Railroad immediately on his arrival at the end of his long journey, almost before he has brushed the dust of travel from his garments, will carry greater weight with it in the East than all Gwin has ever said, or can say, in Congress. It will be personal testimony in favour of the enterprise of the strongest kind." Mr. Greeley spent about a week among the mines and miners of El .Dorado, Placer, and Nevada counties, being the heart of the auriferous region of California. He devoted most of his time to the study of mining operations, but made in this region as well as elsewhere a number of Republican speeches which had much to do with giving the State to Lincoln in the follow- ing year. After the gold-region, the Yosemite. His letter of 330 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. August 1 4, describes the scenes which the genius of Bierstadt has also so sublimely illustrated: "Descent into the Yosemite is only practicable at three points one near the head of the valley, where a small stream makes in from the direction of the main ridge of the Sierra, down which there is a trail from the vicinity of Water River, Utah a trail practicable, I believe, for men on foot only. The other two lead in near the outlet, from Mariposas and Coulterville respectively, on opposite banks of the Merced, and are prac- ticable for sure-footed mules or horses. We, of course, made our descent by the Mariposas trail, on the south side of tlte little river which hero escapes from the famous valley by a canon which water alone can safely, if at all, traverse, being shut in by lofty precipices, and broken by suc- cessive falls. " My friends insisted that I should look over the brink into the profound abyss before clambering down its side; but I, apprehending giddiness, and feeling the need of steady nerves, firmly declined. So we formed line again, and moved on. " The night was clear and bright, as all summer nights in this region are ; the atmosphere cool, but not really cold ; the moon had risen before 7 o'clock, and was shedding so much light as to bother us in our forest-path t where the shadow of a standing pine looked exceedingly like the substance of a fallen one, and many semblances were unreal and misleading. It was often hard to realize that the dark, narrow curtain-like passsge to the left was our trail, and not the winding, broader, moonlighted-opening on the right. The safest course was to give your horse a free rein, and trust to his sagacity or self-love for keeping the trail. As we descended by zigzags the north face of the all but perpendicular mountain our moonlight soon left us, or was present only by reflection from the opposite cliff. Soon, the trail became at once so steep, so rough, and so tortuous, that we all dis- mounted ; but my attempt at walking proved a miserable failure. I had been riding with a bad Mexican stirrup, which barely admitted the toes of my left foot; and continual pressure on these had sprained and swelled them, so that walking was positive torture. I persevered in the attempt, till my companions insisted on my remounting, and thus floundering slowly to the bottom. By steady effort, we descended the three miles (four thousand feet perpendicular) in two hours, and stood at night by the rush- ing, roaring waters of the Merced. " That first full, deliberate gaze up the opposite height! can I ever forget it? The valley is here scarcely half a mile wide, while its northern wall of mainly na"ked, perpendicular granite is at least four thousand feet high probably more. But the modicum of moonlight that fell into this awful gorge gave to that precipice a vagueness of outline, an indefinite vastness, a ghostly and weird spirituality. Had the mountain spoken to me in audible voice, or began to lean over with the purpose of burying me beneath its crushing mass, I should hardly have been surprised. Ita whiteness, thrown into bold relief by the patches of trees or shrubs which THE YOSEMTTE. 331 fringed or flecked it wherever a few handfuls of its moss, slowly decom- posed to earth, could contrive to hold on, continually suggested the presence of snow, which suggestion, with difficulty refuted, was at once renewed. And, looking up the valley, we saw just such mountain preci- pices, harely separated by intervening water-courses (mainly dry at this season) of inconsiderable depth, and only receding sufficiently to make room for a very narrow meadow inclosing the river, to the furthest limit of vision. "We discussed the propriety of camping directly at the foot of the pass, but decided against it, because of the inadequacy of the grass at this point for our tired, hungry beasts, and resolved to push on to the nearest of the two houses in the valley, which was said to be four miles distant. To my dying day, I shall remember that weary, interminable ride up the valley. We had been on foot since daylight; it was now past midnight; all were nearly used up, and I in torture from over twelve hours' steady riding on the hardest trotting horse in America. Yet we pressed on, and on, through clumps of trees, and bits of forest, and patches of meadow, and over hillocks of mountain debris, mainly granite bowlders of every size, often nearly as round as cannon balls, forming all but perpendicular banks to the capricious torrent that brought them hither those stupen- dous precipices on either side glaring down upon us all the while. How many times our heavy eyes I mean those of my San Francisco friend and my own were lighted up by visions of that intensely desired cabin vis- ions which seemed distinct and unmistakable, but, which, alas ! a nearer view proved to be made up of moonlight and shadow, rock and trees, into which they faded one after another. It seemed at length that we should never reach the cabin; and my wavering mind recalled elfish German stories of the Wild Huntsman, and of men who, having accepted invita- tions to a midnight chase, found on their return that said chase had been prolonged till all their relatives and friends were dead, and no one could be induced to recognize or recollect them. Gladly could I have thrown myself recklessly from the saddle, and lain where I fell till morning, but this would never answer, and we kept steadily on. 4 Time and the hour wear out the longest day.' "At length the real cabin-+-one made of posts and beams, and whip- sawed boards, instead of rock, and shadow, and moonshine was reached, and we all eagerly dismounted, turning out our weary steeds into abun- dant grass, and stirring up the astonished landlord, who had never before received guests at that unseemly hour. (It was after one A. M.) He made us welcome, however, to his best accommodations, which would have found us lenient critics even if they had been worse ; and I crept into my rude but clean bed so soon as possible, while the rest awaited the prep- aration of some refreshment for the inner man. There was never a dainty that could have tempted me to eat at that hour. I am told that none ever before travelled from Bear Valley to the Yosemite in one day I am con- fident no green-horns ever did. The distance can hardly exceed thirty 332 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEr. miles by an airline; but only a bird could traverse that line, while, by way of Mariposas and the South Fork, it must be fully sixty miles, with a rise and fall of not less than twenty thousand feet. " The fall of the Yoseruite, so called, is a humbug. It is not the Merced River that makes this fall, but a mere tributary trout-brook, which pitches in from the north by a barely once-broken descent of two thousand six hundred feet, while the Merced enters the valley at its eastern extremity, over falls of six hundred and two hundred and fifty feet. But a river thrice as large as the Merced, at this season, would be utterly dwarfed by all the other accessories of this prodigious chasm. Only a Mississippi or a Niagara could be adequate to their exactions. I readily concede that a hundred times the present amount of water may roll down the Yosemite fall in the months of May and June, when the SM;>\VS are melting from the central ranges of the Sierra Nevada, which bound this abyss on the east; but this would not add a fraction to the wonder of this vivid exemplifica- tion of the divine power and majesty. At present, the little stream that leaps down the Yosemite, and is all but shattered to mist by the amazing descent, looks like a tape-line let down from the cloud-tapped height to measure the depth of the abyss. The Yosemite Valley (or Gorge) is the most unique and majestic of nature's man-els, but the Yosemite Fall is of little account. Were it absent, the valley would not be perccptibty less worthy of a fatiguing visit. " We traversed the valley from end to end next day, but an accumula- tion of details on such a subject only serves to confuse and blunt the observer's powers of perception and appreciation. Perhaps the visitor who should be content with a long look into the abyss from the most con- venient height, without braving the toil of a descent would be wiser than all of us; and yet that first glance upward from the foot will long haunt me as more impressive than any look downward from the summit could be. " I shall not multiply details, nor waste paper in noting all the foolish names which foolish people have given to different peaks or turrets. Just think of two giant-stone towers, or pillars, which rise a thousand feet above the towering cliff which form their base, being styled 'The Two Sisters!' Could anything be more maladroit and lackadaisical? 'The Dome' is a high, round naked peak, which rises between the Merced and its little tributary from the inmost recesses of the Sierra Nevada already instanced, and which towers to an altitude of over five thousand feet above the waters at its base. Picture to yourself a perpendicular wall of bare granite nearly or quite one mile high! Yet there are some dozen or score of peaks in all, ranging from three thousand to five thousand feet above the valley; and a biscuit tossed from any of them would strike very near its base, and its fragments go bounding and falling still further. I certainly miss here the glaciers of Chamonix; but I know no single wonder of nature on earth which can claim a superiority over the Yosemite. Just dream yourself for one hour in a chasm nearly ten miles long, with egress save for birds and water, but at three points, up the face of the precipices from three thousand to four thousand feet high, the chasm scarcely more BAN FRANCISCO. 333 than a mile wide at any point, and tapering to a mere gorge, or canon at cither end, with walla of mainly naked and perpendicular white granite, from three thousand to five thousand feet high, so that looking up to the sky from it, is like looking out of an unfathomable profound and you will have some conception of the Yosemite." After visiting the Yosemite, Mr. Greeley remitted nothing of his busy life. He visited the country of "the big trees," Colonel Fremont's mines, Marys ville, and other portions of California, taking careful notes of the resources of the State, delivering political and agricultural addresses, and " making himself generally useful." He arrived at San Francisco the Golden Gate about the middle of August, and was received with the utmost hospitality. The guest of the city, he deliv- ered addresses to institutes, schools, the public. There was a Pacific Railroad meeting in his honour, of which The Bulletin newspaper gave the following account: "The Grand Pacific Railroad mass meeting, which took place on the evening of 17th August, in front of the Oriental, on the occasion of the public appearance in San Francisco of the Hon. Horace Greeley, was an imposing demonstration, and in all respects a decided success. By 7J o'clock the people had collected invast numbers, and the plaza and street in front of the hotel were crowded. There must have been, at a fair com- putation, five thousand people present, and all manifested much interest in the great object for which the meeting was called, and in the man who was to address them. "The Oriental Hotel was brilliantly illuminated for the occasion Between the pillars of the veranda were hung many Japanese lanterns, and the balustrades were filled with lamps. As it was known many ladies would be present, seats were placed on the balcony for them ; and long before the speaking commenced, these and the windows and rooms open- ing upon them were filled. "At 8 o'clock Ira P. Rankin stepped forward upon the platform and nominated a president and officers of the meeting. "As soon as the meeting was organized, Mr. Greeley made his appear, ance upon the stand which had been erected in front of the hotel, and was raised about six feet above the street. His appearance was greeted with prolonged cheers. Colonel Crockett stepped forward for the purpose of introducing the speaker; but the crowd was so anxious to see and hear Mr. Greeley, that for a few minutes he could not be heard. The more distant portions of the assembly cried, 'We cannot see Mr. Greeley,' 'Take the balcony,' ' We want to see him.' Colonel Crockett replied that Mr. Greeley protested that he could not be heard from the balcony. The crowd Bcmed determined that they would see the speaker, and hurrahed and 834 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELET. vociferated until the president stated that Mr. Greeley would compromise by standing on the table. At this proposition there was great applause, and order being restored, after a few words of introduction by the presi dent of the meeting, Mr. Greeley mounted the table and stood up before the people, at which there was again hearty and repeated cheers. Several firemen's torches were so disposed on the stand as to throw their light upon him. " The personal appearance of Mr. Greeley is familiar to many of our readers. He is above the medium height, rather thin, and has a slight stoop. His head is bald, with the exception of light flaxen locks at the sides and back. Though nearly fifty years of age, there are no wrinkles in his face; on the contrary, his features, except for his baldness, would indicate quite a young man. There is a peculiar brightness in his eyes, and the general expression of his face is mildness and benignity. His dress, last evening, after drawing off his drab overcoat (from which the mountaineers cut off all the buttons), was plain black with a light neck- cloth. The famous white hat had been exchanged for one of dun-colored wool. His late journey across the plains, although it fatigued him much, lias made him weigh more than ordinarily, and has given him a fresh and hale appearance." The speech which Mr. Greeley delivered "from the table" IB described by the journals as one of great power and real elo- quence. His address before the Mechanics' Institute was profoundly thoughtful. He insisted that Labour, in order to accomplish its true and sublime destiny, must be educated. " The new idea of our time," he said " is founded upon a better understanding of the law of God and humanity. It recognizes all useful labour as essentially laudable and honourable, the greater honour where there is the greater proficiency. The digger who makes the thousandth part of a canal is not of honour equal to the scientific engineer who fully accomplishes the work of its construction. More honour with greater intel- ligence, but honour to each in his degree, but the larger honour is due to him who accomplishes the greater result. Simple manual labour can never achieve the highest reward, nor command the greatest regard. Hand and head must work together. To accomplish great results the labourer must be intelligent and educated. In this country, the price of labour is comparatively high, and yet it is a question whether it is not, on the whole, cheaper in the end than else- where. Nicholas Biddle, and other distinguished thinkers JOHN BROWN. 335 npon the subject, asserted that American labour at a higher price was cheaper than the labour of Spain or most other countries at almost nominal rates. In building the bed of a railroad, for instance, it is found cheaper with American labour, or labour under their guidance and direction, than with any- other. This is proved by the fact that railroads can be built in America at one-sixth part of the cost of constructing them in Italy, and I believe, in Ireland also. Labour, as it becomes better educated, will also become more effective, and when it receives its double reward, it will be more profitable." Mr. Greeley returned to New-York by way of Panama. His letters from California to The Tribune had created renewed interest in that wonderful portion of our republic, but after his return he wrote still another, which was an unanswerable summing up of the arguments in behalf of a Pacific Railroad. The letter concluded: " Men and brethren ! let us resolve to have a railroad to the Pacific to have it soon. It will add more to the strength and wealth of our country than would the aquisition of a dozen Cubas. It will prove a bond of union not easily broken, and a new spring to our national industry, prosperity, and wealth. It will call new manufactures into existence, and increase the demand for the products of those already existing. It will open new vistas to national and to individual aspiration, and crush out filibusterism by giving a new and wholesome direction to the public mind. My long, fatiguing journey was undertaken in the hope that I might do something toward the early construction of the Pacific Railroad ; and I trust that it has not been made whollv in vain." Had Mr. Greeley not visited California, the Pacific Railroad would have been built; not, indeed, so soon as it was. Per- haps he would have been gathered to his fathers before the success of the enterprise; but sooner or later its success was inevitable. He hastened its construction by many years. This is the praise to which he is entitled in this regard; no more, no less. It is precisely the same with every reformer. He anticipates great events, hastens them, does not create them. This latter is the work of God and the people. Mr. Greeley had about rested from his journeyings when an event occurred which aroused the nation. This was the capture of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, by John Brown, aided by a few 336 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. men and pikes. The incident has been related with historic fulness and need not be here enlarged upon. Mr. Greeley was among those who were not alarmed on account of this unex- pected event. He deemed the attempt of John Brown to free the slaves of Virginia ill advised and rash, but he honoured the grand old man's motives, and paid respectful deference to his intense hatred of slavery and of all injustice. Years of reflection served only to increase his admiration of the man who so rashly undertook a sublime work of emancipation, who so heroically died because of unfortunate failure; and, perhaps, the finest chapter of " The American Conflict " is the chapter upon "John Brown." To no other name among men is a chapter of that historical work devoted. GENERAL EDWARD D. 15AKER. See page 309. CHAPTER XIX. THE QUADRILATERAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860. The Division of Parties in 1860 Rupture of the Democratic National Convention at Charleston, South Carolina The Chicago Convention Popular Enthusiasm Mr. Greeley a Delegate from Oregon Sup- ports Edward Bates for President He Defeats Mr. Seward's Nomina- tion "Greeley at the Tremont, Weed at the Richmond House" Mr. Weed's Chagrin Eminent Men of the Convention: Thomas Corwin; David Wilmot; William M. Evarts; Joshua R. Giddings; Carl Schurz; John A. Andrew; Cassius M. Clay; and others The Imbroglio Among New- York Politicians Mr. Raymond, from Auburn, Assails Mr. Greeley The Famous Letter Dissolving the Firm of "Seward, Weed and Greeley" Mr. Weed's Wisdom Two Democratic Tickets Norn- inated The "Bell-Everett" Ticket The Candidates The Cam. paign Success. THE political campaign of I860 was remarkable on many accounts, and especially in this, that there were no less than four regularly nominated tickets before the people, each con- taining candidates for President and Vice-President, and each claiming to be representative of a national organization, or of ideas which ought to be maintained by organized eifort in all parts of the republic. The Democratic party, being in power, met in regular con- vention of delegates at the city of Charleston, South Carolina, in the latter part of April. Events to which reference has already been made as causing a wide difference of opinion in the party upon the issue of paramount interest, reached their logical conclusion at Charleston in an open rupture. Delegates from several of the States withdrew from the convention, set up a seceding body of their own, and adjourned to meet at Richmond, Virginia, on the llth of June following. The remaining delegates, belonging mainly to the "Douglas wing" of the party, having authorized a call to the States of the seceding delegates for new delegations, adjourned to meet at Baltimore, June 18. 00 338 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. Shortly after tliis schism, and in the midst of Democratic confusion worse confounded, the National Convention of the Republicans met in an immense wigwam prepared for the pur- pose in the city of Chicago. There surely never has been a party national convention held in our country amid such popular enthusiasm as that which met the delegates on their arrival at Chicago, surrounded them during their whole stay in the city, and accompanied them to their homes. The build- ing of the great " wigwam " had been the subject of many telegrams and letters sent all over the country, which created a popular interest to see it. It was at the time when the grade of the city was being changed, and immense buildings were being raised several feet higher than their original founda- tions. Thousands took advantage of the occasion and the temporary cheap fares to visit the city. The " outside attend- ance " was simply immense. Not the Coliseum at Rome could have given standing-room to the visitors within and around the famous " wigwam," during the sessions of this conven- tion. Among the delegates were many men of distinguished name, statesmen, authors, journalists, politicians, but un- questionably the observed of all observers was Horace Greeley. He was a delegate from Oregon. Not in popular favour, but in political importance and ceaseless activity, the man who stood next to Mr. Greeley in this great gathering of repre- sentative men was ThurlowWeed. It did not take the curious long to discover that Mr. Greeley was at the Tremont House, Mr. Weed at the Richmond. Indeed, there were placards con- spicuously posted saying: " Greeley at the Tremont, Weed at the Richmond House." From those headquarters emanated the finest strategy and grandest contest ever witnessed on any American theatre of political war. Mr. Greeley was for the nomination of Edward Bates, of Missouri, subsequently Attorney-General of the United States. He afterwards stated his reasons for this preference in these words: " My choice was Edward Bates, of St. Louis. He had been sole Repre. sentative of Missouri in Congress fully thirty years before, when lie had DR. CHARLES H. RAT. 339 heartily supported the administration of John Quincy Adams. He had since been mainly in retirement, save that he had presided with eminent ability over the River and Harbour Convention held at Chicago in 1847, and had held a local judgeship. Born in Virginia, a life-long slaveholder, in politics a Whig, he was thoroughly conservative, and so held fast to the doctrine of our Revolutionary sages, that Slavery was an evil to be restricted, not a good to be diffused. This conviction made him essen- tially a Republican ; while I believed that he could poll votes in every Slave State, and, if elected, rally all that was left of the Whig party therein to resist Secession and Rebellion. If not the only Republican whose elec- tion would not suffice as a pretext for civil war, he seemed to me that one most likely to repress the threatened insurrection, or, at the worst to crush it. I did not hesitate to avow my preference, though I may have withheld some of my reasons for it." l Mr. Seward was the strongest candidate at the beginning, and many believed he would be nominated on the first ballot. But Abraham Lincoln had many friends among the delegates. They were enthusiastic, straight-forward, aggressive, and un- purchasable. They were sustained by an immense, omnipres- ent outside pressure, and powerfully strengthened by The Chicago Tribune, then and since one of the strongest journals in the republic, at this time edited by Dr. Charles H. Ray, the ablest and most accomplished journalist of the West, with whom was associated Mr. Joseph Medill, since the distin- guished reformer of the law of elections, and Mayor of Chi- cago. Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, had considerable strength, and Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, received the support of not quite the whole delegation from his State, and had a very few friends from other States. These, with Judge Bates, Judge McLean, and others, had a majority of the delegates. There was not the remotest possibility of nominating Judge Bates. But Mr. Greeley clung to him with unyielding pertinacity. He visited, by invitation, a number of State delegations, addressing them in behalf of his favourite. Those addresses were marvels of diplomacy and political sagacity. No unkind word toward Mr. Seward escaped him; many sentences of praise of that statesman fell from his lips. Nevertheless, he was killing Seward all the time, and with the only means which it was possible effectively to use. 1 Recollections or a Busy Life, p. 389. 340 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. Had Mr. Greeley wavered for an instant in his support of Mr. Bates, or been goaded into the expression of any ill opin- ion of Mr. Seward, Mr. Lincoln, or the other candidates, Mr. Weed would have won the game. He gave hope and encour- agement to all, and it was impossible for Mr. Weed to bring about any desertions. Weed remained nearly all the time in his own rooms, but knowing everything that was going on in every delegation in the city. His devoted friends, the devoted friends of Mr. Seward, used every argument, resorted to every means, to bring about their desired result. On the night before the ballot, they had a grand " Seward demonstration," processions with banners, music, torch-lights; addresses; all possible appliances to overcome the tremendous outside pres- sure and " the influence of The Chicago Tribune " for Mr. Lincoln. Eight here, perhaps, was where Mr. Greeley manifested his greatest power and skill in political management. The demon- stration had been gotten up utterly " regardless of expense." New-York merchants contributed with princely liberality, and were generously seconded by the Seward delegates and their friends in the Garden City. It was an imposing affair; a magnificent demonstration. It was imposing in more respects than one. It imposed upon the Seward men. They were fairly wild with excitement. It was, perhaps, the only time in his life when Thurlow Weed was greatly deceived. There was a world of reality in this splendid display, this sublime outpour- ing ol enthusiasm. There was also a world of sham in it. Dr. Ray, who was never deceived by any sham, great or small, privately pooh-poohed it. " Why," said he, " Chicago can get up that sort of thing any time with five thousand dollars sub- scribed." While the Seward men were demonstrating, the Lincoln men especially were hard at work, and went to bed rather late the next morning those who went to bed at all confident of success; but willing, indeed anxious, to have Mr. ' r eed and his advisers, errand- and minute-men suppose that Mr. Seward would now go through with a rush. Col. Webb and Mr. Raymond telegraphed to their respective journals the sure success of Mr. Seward. And Horace Greeley did like- WILLIAM H. SEWARR MB. GKEELEY AT CHICAGO. 341 wise! When a Seward man of prominence proposed to Mr. Greeley to suggest a person who would be satisfactory to him for Vice-President, he said, "O, never mind; fix up the whole ticket to suit yourselves." It is highly probable that Mr. Weed would have succeeded in procuring the nomination of his friend but for the mistaken estimate of his strength formed upon the great demonstration of this beautiful Thursday nigl It seems hardly possible that Mr. Greeley, in constant am. confidential intercourse with Western men who estimated the whole thing at its proper worth, could have been for a moment deceived by it. If Thurlow Weed had not met his match in Horace Greeley, he had met it in Horace Greeley, backed by the best minds, the most skilful politicians, and the most powerful and dauntless public journal, of the Northwest. 3 The result is well remembered by all. Mr. Seward failed by sixty votes to receive a majority on the first ballot, and after that there was not a shadow of a chance for him. Abraham Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot amid a scene of enthusiastic excitement which a similar event has never pro- duced before or since. The vast wigwam, packed Math men and women, might almost have -had its roof blown up by the concussion of the cheers. The thousands outside, nearly all Lincoln men, were frantic with joy. Cannons were fired from the neighbourhood, the very smoke of which penetrated the wigwam, and brought out more cheers. It was a long time before order could be restored; not, in fact, it might seem, until the very throats of the people could for the time being be used no more. * I think I am not mistaken in thus representing Mr. Greeley as allow- ing Mr. Weed to deceive himself, and most adroitly helping him in that hehalf. I was present in the Convention sitting near Col. Webb, of The Courier and Enquirer during all of its sittings, and at the Tremont House the rest of the time. I was in constant communication with Henry 8. Lane, of Indiana, Governor Kirkwood, of Iowa, and other strong friends of Lincoln in the West. When, on the night of the demonstration, Col. Webb sent word to his paper that Mr. Seward would be nominated, I sent word to the country journal for which I was corresponding that Mr. Lin- coln would be nominated. Horace Greeley knew more than I did. But .f I had been he, I should have said " it looks like the game is up " too. 'Jilaia Uio Seward men quit work too soon. 34:2 J.TFK OF HORACE GREELEY. It is cieditable to Mr. Weed to say that lie felt deeply pained and chagrined at the defeat of Mr. Seward. It was said at the time that when the result was announced to him at his apartments he was observed to shed tears. Whether this be so or not, it is certain that his long, ever faithful devotion to Mr. Seward must be regarded as making a beautiful relief in the almost universal selfishness of our politicians' careers. Nor is it unreasonable to conclude that he who inspired such friendship on the part of a mind so acute, so observant, so comprehensive, must have been possessed of much more than usual personal nobility of character as well as genuine great- ness. Mr. Greeley met at the Chicago Convention many men of distinguished reputation then and since. Thomas Corwin was there, aged indeed, and in feeble health, but with mind as clear and strong as when he spoke as rarely man has spoken "for Tippecanoe and Tyler too." David Wilmot, the author of the famous anti-slavery proviso, was temporary chairman of the Convention. William M. Evarts, since greatly celebrated, here first won national renown. He was a devoted friend of Mr. Seward, and chairman of the New York delegation. His speech, on seconding the motion to make the nomination of Mr. Lincoln unanimous, was surpassingly eloquent. With touching, manly, dignified words, he announced his own sorrow and that of the delegates of the great State of New York, over the defeat of their beloved statesman, and then with a discriminating yet generous eulogium upon Mr. Lincoln, and with a courtesy scarcely less than sublime, seconded, in the name of New York, the motion of unanimous nomination. Here, too, was the venerable Joshua R Giddings, whose long anti-slavery record had made him a general favourite, so that he could not appear on the stage without being greeted with a storm of applause. Carl Schurz, our most eloquent philosophical orator, laboured earnestly and well for Mr. Seward, but yielded to defeat with abundant magnanimity. His speech in seconding the motion to make the nomination unanimous, was surpassed only by that of Mr. Evarts, if surpassed at all. The Hon John A. Andrew, of Massachusetts, made a most favourable impression " SEWARD, WKED, AND GRKKOT." 843 in the Convention and upon Western people, which was more than borne out by his subsequent usefulness and eminence in the old Bay State. Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, was a dele- gate, but being named as a candidate for Yice-President, did not attend the sittings of the Convention. Henry S. Lane, of Indiana, who had presided at Philadelphia four years before^ was now a delegate, labouring night and day for Mr. Lincoln's nomination. He was powerfully aided by Caleb B. Smith, afterwards Secretary of the Interior, always an eloquent speaker, with a lisp rather pleasant than otherwise. O. II. Browning, of Illinois, also afterwards Secretary of the Interior, stood at the head of the Illinois delegation, and, overwhelmed by feel- ings of gratification, made the only poor speech of his life in acknowledgement of Mr. Lincoln's nomination. Montgomery Blair, subsequently Postmaster General, was a quiet but influ- ential member ol the Convention. Among these and other magnates of the Republican party, delegates to the Convention or lookers-on ir Venice, Mr. Greeley was preeminent in influ- ence and popularity. It was conceded that he had defeated Mr. Sewa.'i's nomination. Indeed this fact led to a controversy, which caused much comment, ?nd brought out the publication of the famous letter from Mr. Greeley to Mr. Seward, by which the former gave notice of his retirement from the firm of " Seward, Weed and Greeley.'' Col. Webb, of the Courier and Enquirer, and Mr. Raymond of The New-York Times, were ^nyHe to preserve that serene composure in defeat which more '.-n '^ly than almost anything else characterizes greatness of sou 1 .. Any one should be able to stand a victory; but a great mL*.-. will manifest no unseemly agitation in the midst of even the most unexpected disaster. Profoundly sorrowful he may be, ought to be, for the irisfortunes of a friend; never spiteful that he has been worstad in a conflict where no wrong means were used to bring victory to the opposing side. After the convention, Mr. Raymond and Col. Webb kept up a ne//spaper war on Mr. Creeley, fitributing to him gross duplicity at Chicago. Viri - 1 '' ~ Mr. Seward at his home in Auburn, socn affrr the 3 ./ 'Y.oii, Mr. Raymond thence wrote 34:4 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. a letter to The Times, in which he acknowledged that Mr. Greeley had been the means of defeating Mr. Seward, and attributed to him unworthy motives. The more important portions of this letter follow: " I observe that to-day's Tribune contains a long personal explanation from Mr. Greeley of the part which he took in the action of the Chicago Convention. It is never easy for a public man to be the historian of his own exploits. If he be a vain man, he will exaggerate his personal influence ; if he be an over-modest one, he will underrate it. It is scarcely necessary to say that Mr. Greeley has fallen into the latter mistake. With the gene- rosity which belongs to his nature, and which a feeling not unlike remorse may have stimulated into unwonted activity, he awards to others the credit which belongs transcendently to himself. The main work of the Chicago Convention was the defeat of Governor Seward ; that was the only specific and distinct object towards which its conscious efforts were directed. The great point aimed at was Mr. Seward's defeat ; and in that endeavour Mr. Greeley laboured harder, and did ten-fold more, than the whole family of Blairs, together with all the gubernatorial candidates, to whom he modestly hands over the honours of the effective campaign. He had special qualifications, as well as a special love for the task, to which none of the others could lay any claim. For twenty years he had been sustaining the political principles and vindicating the political conduct of Mr. Seward, through the columns of the most influential political newspaper in the country. He had infused into the popular mind, espe- cially throughout the Western States, the most profound and thorough devotion to the anti-slavery sentiments which had given character to Mr. Seward's public career ; be had vindicated his opinions upon naturaliza- tion and upon the organization of the Know-Nothing party from the assaults made upon, ta^nt ; he had urged his reelection to the Senate ir the face of all the teitiments which had made him obnoxious to a portion of his constituent-,; no had gone far beyond him in expression of hostility to slavery, in p'Jlvuon of armed attempts for its overthrow, and it assaults upon that clause of the Constitution which requires the surrender of fugitive slaves; anu he was known to have been for more than twenty years his personal friend and political supporter. These things gave him a hold upon the Republican sentiment of the country, and a weight of authority in everything relating to Governor Seward to which neither ' old Blair of the Globe,' a's Mr. Greeley styles him, nor both his sons, could for a moment lay claim. His voice was potential precisely where Governor Seward was strongest, because it was supposed to be that of a friend, strong in his personal attachment -nd devotion, and driven into opposi- tion on this occasion solely by the despairing conviction that the welfare of the country and the triumpn of the Republican cause demanded the sacrifice. He laboured persona.i_. : * v the elegates as they arrived, commending himself always to tuel t ' d T ce by prjfessions of regan MB. RAYMOND'S ATTACK. 345 and the most zealous friendship for Governor Seward, but presenting defeat, even in New York, as the inevitable result of his nomination. " Mr. Greeley was largely indebted to the forbearance of those upon whom he was waging this warfare for the means of making it effectual. While it was known to some of them that, nearly six years ago in November, 1854 he had privately, but distinctly, repudiated all further political friendship for and alliance with Governor Seward, and menaced him with his hostility whenever it could be made most effective, for the avowed reason that Governor Seward had never aided or advised his elevation to office ; that he had never recognized his claim to such official promotion, but had tolerated the elevation of men known to be obnoxious to him, and who had rendered far less service to the party than he had done, no use was made of this knowledge in quarters where it would have disarmed the deadly effect of his pretended friendship for the man upon whom he was thus deliberately wreaking the long-hoarded revenge of a disappointed office-seeker. He was still allowed to represent to the delegates from Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio, Indiana, and other States known to be in favour of Governor Seward's nomination, that, while he desired it upon the strongest grounds of personal and political friendship, he believed it would be fatal to the success of the cause. Being thua stimulated by a hatred he had secretly cherished for years, protected by the forbearance of those whom he assailed, and strong in the confidence of those upon whom he sought to operate it is not strange that Mr. Greeley's efforts should have been crowned with success. But it is per- fectly safe to say that no other man certainly no one occupying a position less favourable for such an assault could possibly have accomplished that result. "We deem it only just to Mr. Greeley thus early to award him the full credit for the main result of the Chicago Convention, because his own modesty will prevent his claiming it, at all events until the new Republi- can administration shall be in position to distribute its awards. It is not right that merit so conspicuous should remain so long in the shade. Even the most transcendent services are in danger of being forgotten, in the tumult and confusion of a contested election; and we cheerfully tender, for Mr. Greeley's use, this record of his deserts, when he may claim at the hands of his new associates that payment for lack uf which he has deserted and betrayed his old ones." The assertion made in Mr. Raymond's letter that Mr. Greeley was a disappointed office-seeker, wreaking at Chicago long- hoarded revenge on Mr. Seward, was echoed and reechoed by many journals, and believed by large numbers of persons. The principal proof of Mr. Greeley's hostility to Mr. Seward was said to lie in a letter of the former, written in 1854. The 346 UFE OF HORACE GREELEY. publication of that letter Mr. Greeley demanded from day to day in The Tribune, and it being at last produced, was pub- lished. It is as follows: " NEW- YORK, Saturday eve., Nov. 11, 1854 V "GOVERNOR SEWARD: The election is over, and its results sufficiently ascertained. It seems to me a fitting time to announce to you the dissolu- tion of the political firm of Seward, Weed, and Greeley, by the withdrawal of the junior partner, said withdrawal to take effect on the morning after the first Tuesday in February next. And, as it may seem a great pre sumption in me to assume that any such firm exists, especially since the public was advised, rather more than a year ago, by an editorial rescript in The Evening Journal, formally reading me out of the Whig party, that I was esteemed no longer either useful or ornamental in the concern, you will, I am sure, indulge me in some reminiscences which seem to befit the occasion. "I was a poor young printer and editor of a literary journal, a very active and bitter Whig in a small way, but not seeking to be known out of my own ward committee, when, after the great political revulsion of 1837, I was one day called to the City Hotel, where two strangers intro- duced themselves as Thurlow Weed and Lewis Benedict of Albany. They told me that a cheap campaign paper of a peculiar stamp at Albany had been resolved on, and that I had been selected to edit it. The announce- ment might well be deemed flattering by one who had never even sought the notice of the great, and who was not known as a partisan writer, and I eagerly embraced their proposals. They asked me to fix my salary for the year; I named $1,000, which they agreed to; and I did the work required to the best of my ability. It was work that made no figure and created no sensation ; but I loved it, and I did it well. When it was done, you were Governor, dispensing offices worth $3,000 to $30,000 per year to your friends and compatriots, and I returned to my garret and my crust, and my des- perate battle with pecuniary obligations heaped upon me by bad partners in business and the disastrous events of 1837. I believe that it did not then occur to me that some one of these abundant places might have been offered to me without injustice; I now think it should have occurred to you. If it did occur to me, I was not the man to ask you for it; I think that should not have been necessary. I only remember that no friend at Albany inquired as to my pecuniary circumstances, that your friend (but not mine) Robert C. Wetmore was one of the chief dispensers of your pat- ronage here ; and that such devoted compatriots as A. H. Wells and John Hooks were lifted by you out of pauperism into independence, as I am glad I was not; and yet an inquiry from you as to my needs and means at that time would have been timely, and held ever in grateful remembrance. " In the Harrison campaign of 1840 I was again designated to edit a "SEWARD, WEED, AND GREELEY." 347 campaign paper. I published it as well, and ought to have madt some thing by it, in spite of its extremely low price ; my extreme poverty was the main reason why I did not. It compelled me to hire press-work, mailing, etc., done by the job, and high charges for extra work nearly ate me up. At the close, I was still without property and in debt, but this paper had rather improved my position. " Now came the great scramble of the swell mob of coon minstrels and cider-suckers at Washington, I not being counted iu. Several regiments of them went on from this city; but no one of the whole crowd, though I say it who should not, had done so much toward General Harrison's nom. ination and election as yours respectfully. I asked nothing, expected nothing; but you, Governor Seward, ought to have asked that I be post- master of New- York. Your asking would have been in vain; but it would have been an act of grace neither wasted nor undeserved. " I soon after started The Tribune, because I was urged to do so by cer- tain of your friends, and because such a paper was needed here. I was promised certain pecuniary aid in so doing; it might have been given me without cost or risk to any one. All I ever had was a loan by piecemeal of $1,000 from James Coggeshall, God bless his honoured memory! I did not ask for this, and I think it is the one sole case in which I ever received a pecuniary favour from a political associate. I am very thankful that he did not die till it was fully repaid. "And let me here honour one grateful recollection. When the Whig party under your rule had offices to give my name was never thought of; but when, in 1843-43, we were hopelessly out of power, I was honoured with the party nomination for State Printer. When we came again to have a State Printer to elect as well as nominate, the place went to Weed, as it ought. Yet it is worth something to know that there was once a time when it was not deemed too great a sacrifice to recognize me as-belonging to your house- hold. If a new office had not since been created on purpose to give its valuable patronage to H. J. Raymond and enable St. John to show forth his 'Times' as the organ of the Whig State Administration, I should have been still more grateful. " In 1848 your star again rose, and my warmest hopes were realized in your election to the Senate. I was no longer needy, and had no more claim than desire to be recognized by General Taylor. I think I had some claim to forbearance from you. What I received therexipon was a most humil- iating lecture in the shape of a decision in the libel case of Redfield and Pringle, and an obligation to publish it in my own and the other journal of our supposed firm. I thought and still think this lecture needlessly cruel and mortifying. The plaintiffs, after using my columns to the ex- tent of their needs or desires, stopped writing, and called on me for the name of their assailant. I proffered it to them, a thoroughly responsible name. They refused to accept it, unless it should prove to be one of the four or five first men in Batavia! when they had known from the first who it was, and that it was neither of them. They would not accept that wh ieh they had demanded; they sued me instead for money, and money you were 34:8 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. at liberty to give them to your heart's content. I do not think you wer at liberty to humiliate a:e in the eyes of my own and your ' public as you did. I think you exalted your own judicial sternness and fearlessness unduly at my expense. I think you had a better occasion for the display of these qualities, when Webb threw himself untimely upon you for a par- don which he had done all a man could do to demerit. (His paper is paying you for it now.) " I have publicly set forth my view of your and our duty with respect to fusion, Nebraska, and party designations. I will not repeat any of that. I have referred also to Weed's reading me out of the Whig party, my crime being, in this as in some other things, that of doing to-day what more politic persons will not be ready to do till to-morrow. " Let me speak of the late canvass. I was once sent to Congress for ninety days, merely to enable Jim Brooks to secure a seat therein for four years. I think I never hinted to any human being that I would have liked to be put forward for any place. But James W. White (you hardly know how good and true a man he is) started my name for Congress, and Brooks's packed delegation thought I could help him through ; so I was put on behind him. But this last spring, after the Nebraska question had created a new state of things at the North, one or two personal friends, of no po- litical consideration, suggested my name as a candidate for Governor, and I did not discourage them. Soon, the persons who were afterward mainly instrumental in nominating Clark came about me, and asked if I could secure the Know-Nothing vote. I told them I neither could nor would touch it; on the contrary, I loathed and repelled it. Thereupon they turned upon Clark. " I said nothing, did nothing. A hundred people asked me who should be run for Governor. I sometimes indicated Patterson; I never hinted at my own name. But by and by Weed came down and called me to him, to tell me why he could not support me for Governor. (I had never asked nor counted on his support.) " I am sure Weed did not mean to humiliate me ; but he did it. The upshot of his discourse (very cautiously stated) was this: If I were a candidate for Governor, I should beat, not myself only, but you. Perhaps that was true. But as I had in no manner solicited his or your support, I thought this might have been said to my friends rather than to me. I sus- pect it is true that I could not have been elected Governor as a Whig. But had he and you been favourable, there would have been a party in the State ere this whicli could and would have elected me to any post, without injur- ing itself or endangering your re-election. " It was in vain that I urged that I had in no manner asked a nomination. At length I was nettled by his language well intended, but very cutting as addressed by him to me to say, in substance, 'Well, then, make Patterson Governor, and try my name for Lieutenant. To lose this place '"If I am not mistaken, this judgment is the only speech, letter, or document addressed to the public in which you ever recognized my exist* ence. I hope I may not go down to posterity as embalmed therein." u EEWAED, WEED, AND GREKLEY.'' 349 is a matter of no importance ; and we can see whether I am really so odious.' " I should have hated to serve as Lieutenant-Governor, but I should have gloried in running for the post. I want to have my enemies all upon me at once ; I am tired of fighting them piecemeal. And, though I should have been beaten in the canvass, I know that my running would have helped the ticket, and helped my paper. " It was thought best to let the matter take another course. No other name could have been put on the ticket so bitterly humbling to me as that which was selected. The nomination was given to Raymond; the fight left to me. And, Governor Seward, / have made it, though it be conceited in me to say so. What little fight there has been I have stirred up. Even Weed has not been (I speak of his paper) hearty in this contest, while the journal of the Whig Lieutenant-Governor has taken care of its own inter- ests and let the canvass take care of itself, as it early declared it would do. That journal has (because of its milk-and-water course) some twenty thou- sand subscribers in this city and its suburbs, and, of these twenty thousand, I venture to say more voted for Ullmann and Scroggs than for Clark and Raymond; The Tribune (also because of its character) has but eight thousand subscribes within the same radius, and I venture to say that of it3 habitual readers nine-tenths voted for Clark and Raymond, very few for Ullmann and Scroggs. I had to bear the brunt of the contest, and take a terrible responsibility in order to prevent the Whigs uniting upon James W. Barker in order to defeat Fernando Wood. Had Barker been elected here, neither you nor I could walk these streets without being hooted, and Know-Nothingism would have swept like a prairie-fire. I stopped Barker's election at the cost of incurring the deadliest enmity of the defeated gang; and I have been rebuked for it by the Lieutenant-Governor's paper. At the critical moment, he came out against John Wheeler in favour of Charle? H. Marshall (who would have been your deadliest enemy in the House), and even your Colonel General's paper, which was even with me in insist- ing that Wheeler should be returned, wheeled about at the last moment and went in for Marshall, The Tribune alone clinging to Wheeler till the last. I rejoice that they who turned so suddenly were not able to turn all their readers. " Governor Seward, I know that some of your most cherished friends think me a great obstacle to your advancement; that John Schoolcraft, for one, insists that you and Weed shall not be identified with me. I trust, after a time, you will not be. I trust I shall never be found in opposition to you; I have no further wish but to glide out of the newspaper world as quietly and as speedily as possible, join my family in Europe, and if pos- sible stay there quite a time, long enough to cool my fevered brain and renovate my overtasked energies. All I ask is that we shall be counted even on the morning after the first Tuesday in February, as aforesaid, and that I may thereafter take such course as seems best without reference to the past. " You have done me acts of valued kindness in the line of your profea 350 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. sion: let me close with the assurance that these will ever be gratefully remembered by Yours, "HORACE GREELEY. " HON. WILUAM H. SEW ARC, present." Mr. Greeley's comments upon the publication of this letter were manly and independent. "The moral I would incul- cate," said he, " is a trite one but none the less important. It is summed up in the Scriptural injunction ' Put not your trust in princes.' Men, even the best, are frail and mutable, while principle is sure and eternal. Be no man's man, but Truth's and your country's. You will be sorely tempted at times to take this or that great man for your oracle and guide, it is easy and tempting to lean, to follow, and trust, but it is safer and wiser to look ever through your own eyes, to tread your own path, to trust implicitly in God alone. Tho atmosphere is a little warmer inside some great man's castle, but the free air of heaven is ever so much purer and more bracing. My active political life may be said to have begun with Governor Seward's appearance on the broader stage; for I edited my first political sheet (The Constitution) in 1834, when he was first a candidate for Governor, and I very ardently laboured in 1854 to secure his re-election to the Senate. Thenceforward I have had no idol, but have acted without personal bias as the highest public good has from time to time seemed to me to demand. I have differed frankly with Gover- nor Seward on some financial points; but I think have uttered more praise with less blame of him than of any other living statesman. And if ever in my life I discharged a public duty in utter disregard of personal considerations, I did so at Chi- cago last month. I was no longer a devotee of Governor Seward; but I was equally independent of all others; and if I had been swayed by feeling alone, I should have, for many reasons, preferred him to any of his competitors. Our per- sonal intercourse, as well since as before my letter herewith published, had always been frank and kindly, and I was never insensible to his many good and some great qualities, both of head and heart. But I did not and do not believe it advisable that he should be the Republican candidate for President; and "SEWAKD, WEED, AND GKEELET." 351 I acted in full accordance with my deliberate convictions. Need I add, that each subsequent day's developments have tended to strengthen my confidence that what I did was not only well meant, but well done?" Mr. Weed had a long, excellent article on the subject in The Evening Journal, which concluded as follows : "One word in relation to the supposed 'political firm.' Mr. Greeley brought into it his full quota of capital. But were there no beneficial results, no accruing advantages, to himself? Did he not attain, in the six- teen years, a high position, a world-wide reputation, and an ample for- tune? Admit, as we do, that he (Mr. Greeley) is not as wealthy as we wish he was, it is not because The Tribune has not made his fortune, but because he did not keep it, because it went, as other people's money goes, to friends, to pay indorsements, and in bad investments. " We have both been liberally, nay, generously sustained by our party. Mr. Greeley differs with us in regarding patrons of newspapers as con. ferring favours. In giving them the worth of their money, he holds that *.hc- account is balanced. "We, on the other hand, have ever held the rela- tion of newspaper editor and subscriber as one of fraternity. Viewed in this aspect, the editors of The Tribune and Evening Journal have manifold reasons for cherishing grateful recollections of the liberal and abiding confidence and patronage of their party and friends. " In conclusion, we cannot withhold an expression of sincere regret that this letter has been called out. Having ^remained six years in 'blissful ignorance ' of its contents, we should much preferred to have ever remained so. It jars harshly upon cherished memories. It destroys ideals of dis- interestedness and generosity which relieved political life from so much that is selfish, sordid, and rapacious." It is very evident that Mr. Weed had nothing to do with fishing out this letter from Mr. Seward, and we may safely conclude from the reluctance with which he gave it up, that he regretted if he did not condemn the public use which had been made of a paper evidently intended for his eye alone. It is only necessary to add that the public press of the poli- tical party to which Mr. Greeley belonged very generally spoke in favourable terms of his letter, and in approbation of the course he had pursued at Chicago. The heated partisans of Mr. Seward were unfortunate, rather than really blame- worthy. They failed fully to understand that one may be a sincere friend to another and yet have opinions of his own. It was impossible for Horace Greeley to become a toady, or a 352 LIFE OF HOEA.CE GREELEY. mere tail to any kite. He never was so wholly devoted to Mr. Seward as he was to Henry Clay; and he did not labour more zealously to defeat Mr. Seward at Chicago, in 1860, than he had done to defeat Mr. Clay's nomination at Harrisburgh in 1839. In this instance, he was potentially aided by Mr. Weed, who was no less friendly to Clay than he. In the case of Clay, there was a mutual understanding; in that of Seward, a mutual misunderstanding. Hence crimination and recrimin- ation; estrangement; something of error on either side; nothing, so far as the old firm of " Seward, Weed, and Greeley " is concerned, which should not be forever contemplated more in sorrow than in anger. Let us now return to the scene whence originated the pub- lic discussion of misunderstandings which, but for too prying a curiosity, and too generous, confiding a nature, would have been allowed to repose in the quiet of personal confidence. The convention nominated Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, its candidate for Yice-President. Before the nominations, how- ever, the platform had been adopted, amid great enthusiasm and with perfect unanimity. Of the committee preparing this declaration of principles, Mr. Greeley was a most laborious member. It is quite generally conceded that it was a model of this kind of composition, being not only wise in statement of dogmas, but terse, strong, and polished in expression. For this Mr. Greeley is doubtless entitled to no little credit, but he awarded special praise herein to Mr. John A. Kasson, of Iowa, afterwards First Assistant Postmaster General, and sub- sequently a Eepresentative in Congress. It is a curious fact showing the adroitness with which one portion of the platform was framed, that Mr. Greeley sustained it from the standpoint of " Protection " no less heartily than Mr. Bryant sustained it as a Free-Trader. Thus with a popular ticket and a popular platform, both to great extent due to the influence and labours of Horace Greeley, the party destined to secure success, entered upon the active operations of the campaign. The signs of the times did not indicate that it would be a year of jubilee for the Demoe racy. Their two conventions met, according to adjournment, SENATOR DOUGLAS. 353 one at Baltimore, the other at Richmond, the latter soon adjourning to Baltimore. The disagreements were irrecon- cilable, and each body put forth a ticket and announced a platform. By those whom it will be thought proper to call "the regulars," Senator Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, waa nominated for the Presidency, and Senator Benjamin Fitzpat rick for the Vice-Presidency. The latter declining, the Hon. llerschel Y. Johnson, of Georgia, was substituted in his place. The seceders nominated the Hon. John C. Breckinridge, then Vice-President of the United States, for President, and Hon. Joseph Lane, of Oregon, for Vice-President. Meantime, a convention of the " American " party, so called, IAICUS a non lucendo, because there was nothing in it especially entitled to be styled American, had been held in Baltimore, May 19, which had nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, for President, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, for Vice- President. These delegates now adopted the name of the " Constitutional Union " party, and expressly declared that it was the part of patriotism and of duty to recognize no polit- ical principle other than the Constitution, the Union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws. This party improved on the ancient adage, and in its intense conservatism, demanded that we must let dead enough alone, and not even bury it out of sight. All of the candidates for President were men of ability and character. Mr. Lincoln, as we have seen, had recently won national renown by his powerful debates with Judge Douglas, many speeches in Illinois, and profoundly thoughtful addresses in other States. Mr. Douglas was wonderfully popular with the Democratic masses of the North. Like Mr. Lincoln, he had long struggled to win position and fame by virtue of his talents and energies alone; and, in the party of the majority in his State, had greatly succeeded. He was both a great debater and a great organizer. No public man was ever more faithful to his friends; none ever had more devoted adherents. It is probably true that no American statesman, unless it be Andrew Jackson himself, ever had such hosts of friends not only ready but anxious to fight for him, as Stephen A. Doug- 23 354 LIFE OF HORACE OREFJ.ET. las. His personal magnetism was unequalled. Judge Douglas was short in stature, though most compactly built; so that ho was as strong physically as he was powerful in debate. Hence his sobriquet of "'The Little Giant" was unusually appro- priate. He seemed to stand so firmly on his feet that it would be impossible to uptrip him. Mr. Breckinridge was a gentleman of brilliant parts, and one of the most pleasing of public speakers. Genial, warm-hearted, he too had vast numbers of devoted adherents in the South, and was correctly esteemed in the country generally as among the most creditable representatives of those who were said to form "the Southern chivalry." Mr. Bell was a statesman of many years' experience in public life, was justly entitled to the general respect, but in this campaign occupied a negative, unaggressive position. lie afterwards quailed before the threatening attitude of the South against the Union, and, in Horace Greeley's opin ion, became entitled to severer condemnation than Jefferson Davis himself. In this opinion history will probably concur, relating with indignant sadness the melancholy end of a life which, but for its late mistakes, might have been placed among those by which the republic had been blessed and saved. Of the candidates for Vice-President, Mr. Everett was the only one of illustrious name. A statesman of the old school, he had dropped behind his age, but not without having added renown to his country's statesmanship and diplomacy, and greatly extended the influence and . good report of American literature. Mr. Hamlin, the candidate of the Republicans, had not been greatly distinguished, but at the time of his nomina- tion was a respected member of the Senate. He had left the Democratic party in 1856, in a speech in the Senate of remarka- ble power and eloquence, which received all the more praise from the public because it was the first and last great speech in that chamber by him. He came near being called " Single Speech Hamlin," in imitation of a similar thing in the history of an English politician. Mr. Johnson, associated on the ticket with Mr. Douglas, was a man of respectable talents and excellent character; a little too eruptive, per- THE ELECTION OF 1860. 355 haps, of "Southern fire," but without much unfortunate record. Mr. Lane was an "intense pro-slavery Democrat;" a man who had had greatness thrust upon him; was wonder- full y ignorant; and was even charged with writing the name of Deity with a little g. Such dead-wood frequently drifts into the stream of politics; and whence it cometh or whither it goeth no man can tell. The campaign was exceedingly animated, on the part of the Republicans, from the moment of Mr. Lincoln's nomination. As with General Harrison, there appeared to be something in his homely life and character to bring out the affections and enthusiasm of the people. The nominations at Baltimore but increased the excitement. Senator Douglas soon in person went upon the hustings, and, addressing vast concourses of people, aroused the enthusiasm of his friends to the highest pitch. It was certainly the liveliest presidential campaign in the history of our country, excepting only that of 1840. Com- panies of " Wide- A wakes " were formed by Republicans in every neighbourhood, followed by " Hickory-shirt Boys " on the part of the Douglasites in many portions of the North. It was astonishing, too, how much noise the " Bell-Everettites " made even in communities where they were outvoted ten, twenty, fifty, or even a hundred to one. All the orators and all the journals of each party undoubt- edly did their best. Speak as they might, write as men might on other topics, the issue of the campaign was the question of Human Slavery. It was a dread issue, in which might be involved appalling results, but it was ably, conscientiously, and bravely met. This year The New- York Tribune fairly surpassed itself. Mr. Greeley had been assailed, as we have seen, by men in high standing in his own party at the very inception of the campaign. This appears to have aroused his ambition and energies to their best endeavour; and it is certain that The Tribune in all its editions was one of the most poten- tial means in bringing about the result. In the election Mr. Lincoln carried every free State except New Jersey, and even a portion of the electoral vote of that State. Next in popular strength was Mr. Douglas, then Mr. 356 TJFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. Breckinridge, and lowest of all Mr. Bell. But ic electoral votes Mr. Douglas had only 12, Mr. Bell receiving 39, Mr. Breckinridge 72, and Mr. Lincoln 180. The great success of the candidates and principles which Horace Greeley had been so largely instrumental in placing before the people, was forthwith tortured into the inauguration of opposition to the Union, resulting in that terrible civil war of which he became the most impartial historian who has yet narrated its momentous events. JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG. See pages 183, 458, etc. CHAPTER XX. HOME LIFE. Horace Greeley at Home An Unpretending Household Margaret Ful- ler's Description of Mr. Greeley's Home His Personal Habits Toilet Food His Hospitality Tenderness for His Children The Death of "Pickie" His Taste as to Home Adornments Buys a Farm. ONE of the apparently necessary results of journalism is that it leaves little time to the editor for social or home enjoy- ments. This is especially the case where the journal is a daily paper. For, no matter what happens, the paper must come out. It can stop neither on account of joy, or misery, or sick- ness, or death, or private or public calamity. Clouds may obscure the sun, but storms must not repress the daily journal. It is our intellectual daylight, and cannot be shut out from the world. Life justly became " a demnition grind " to the accom- plished Mr. Mantilini (a highly accomplished fraud, that is), of Dickens's greatest story. The life of a daily journalist is an eternal grind. The demands upon his labour and study are ceaseless. The time may come, perhaps, when more leisure shall be allowed the journalist. In that event, journalism will be the means of even greater good than it now is. Mr. Greeley, as we have seen, had been some years married before he became the founder of The New-York Tribune. But he had commenced his unusually busy life some years before his marriage. Circumstances, already referred to, occurred soon after that event, which prevented him from securing many hours of leisure, even had he been so inclined. The latter years of The New-Yorker, it will be recollected, were years of embarrassment and the pressing weight of debt. To keep himself afloat at all almost constant toil was necessary. When Mr. Weed, in the interview which resulted in Mr. Greeley's engagement as editor of The Jeffersonian at Albany 358 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. enquired if lie had a family, Mr. Greeley replied, " I have a wife, but she keeps school, and is no hindrance to the enter, prise." Both master and mistress of the family, it will be seen, were hard workers. The wife was devoted to teaching and to the acquisition of knowledge. Such a woman is often described as having "a mind of her own," the fact intended to be made known by this description being that she has opinions and ideas besides those which gurgle along in the old-time channels; channels which would be astonished out of all propriety at a storm or a freshet. It may well be supposed, therefore, that Mr. Greeley's household, in the earlier years of life in his own home, was sufficiently unpretending. Himself ever a man of the people, he never acquired luxurious tastes. He delighted, as he says himself, in bare walls and rugged fare. And the taste of Mrs. Greeley, at least for many years, was even more severe than his own, particularly as regards the matter of rugged fare. Her rigid conscientiousness upon the subject of food prevented any lavish hospitality. From the time Mr. Greeley went to New- York until after the presidential campaign of 1844, he had always lived, much of the time boarded, within half a mile of the City Hall. There was not in the whole metropolis, perhaps, a more unpretending home than that of Horace Greeley at a time when he was working harder and doing more for the Whig party than any one of his co temporaries. When the great struggle of the canvass just mentioned was over, says Mr. Greeley, " and I the worst beaten man on the continent, worn out by incessant anxiety and effort, covered with boils, and thoroughly used up, I took a long stride land- ward, removing to a spacious old wooden house, built as a country or summer residence by Isaac Lawrence, formerly President of the United States Branch P>ank, but which, since his death, had been neglected, and suffered to decay. It was located on eight acres of ground, including a wooded ravine, or dell, on the East River, at Turtle Bay, nearly opposite the southernmost point of Blackwell's Island, amid shade and fruit trees, abundant shrubbery, ample garden, etc.; and, MR. GRKELEt's HOME. 359 though now for years perforated by streets, and in good part covered by buildings, was then so secluded as to be only reached by a narrow, devious private lane, exceedingly dark at night for one accustomed to the glare of gas-lamps; the near- est highway being the old ' Boston Road ' at Forty -ninth street; while an hourly stage on the Third avenue, just beyond, afforded our readiest means of transit to and from the city proper." 1 Mr. Greeley had become so accustomed to the ceaseless noises of the city, that the stillness of his new home was at tirst oppressive. It appeared to him sepulchral, unearthly, and it was some time before he could be as cheerful in his country home as in the old house down town, or the one on Broome street. It was here, in the home opposite the lower end of Blackwell's Island, that Margaret Fuller for a long time made part of Mr. Greeley 's household. She says of it: This place is to me entirely charming; it is so completely in the country, and all around is so bold and free. It is two miles or more from the thickly settled parts of New- York, but omnibusses and cars give me constant access to the city, and, while I can readily see what and whom I will, I can command time and retirement. Stopping on the Harlem road, you enter a lane nearly a quarter of a mile long, and going by a small brook and pond that locks in the place, and ascending a slightly rising ground, get sight of the house, which, old-fashioned and of mellow tint, fronts on a flower garden filled with shrubs, large vines and trim box borders. On both sides of the house are beautiful trees, standing fair, full- grown, and clear. Passing through a wide hall you come out upon a piazza, stretching the whole length of the house, where one can walk in all weathers. She thought the beauty of the place by moonlight was fairly transporting. " I enjoy it greatly," she says, " and the genius loci receives me as to a home." This place continued to be Mr. Greeley's home for some years. But he had a house in the city for a considerable period after he had bought the Chappaqua farm. Mr. Parton in his biography publishes a letter written by a "Western journalist in the winter of 1853-'4, descriptive of a visit at Mr. Greeley's 1 Recollections of a Busy Life, p. 176. . V 360 . UFE OF nORACE GREELEY. town house, which gives a clear insight into many of his intel- lectual and personal habits and his home life. This writer says: " In point of pretension, Horace Greeley's house is about midway between the palaces of the Fifth Avenue and the hovels of the Five Points. It is one of a row of rather small houses, two and a half stories high, built of brick and painted brown; the rent of which, I was told, is likely to be about seven hundred dollars a year. It was a chilly, disagreeable even- ing. I went early, hoping to have a little talk with the editor before other company should arrive. I rang the bell and looked through the pane at the side of the door. The white coat was not upon its accustomed peg, and the old hat, stuffed with newspapers, was not in its usual place at the bottom of the hat-stand. Therefore I knew that the wearer of these articles was not at home, before the girl told me so ; but upon her informing me that he was expected in a few minutes, I concluded to go in and wait. The entrance-hall is exceedingly narrow, and the stairs, narrower still, begin at a few feet from the door, affording room only for the hat-stand and a chair. The carpet on the stairs and hall was common in pattern, coarse in texture. A lady the very picture of a prosperous farmer's wife, with her clean delaine dress and long, wide white apron, stood at the head of the stairs, and came down to meet me. She lighted the gas in the parlours, and then, summoned by the crying of a child up stairs, left me to my observations. " Neither I nor anybody else ever saw parlours so curiously furnished. There are three of them, and the inventory of the furniture would read thus: One small mahogany table at the head of the front parlour; one lounge in ditto; eleven light cane-chairs in front and back parlours; one book case of carved black walnut, in the small apartment behind the back parlour; and, except the carpets, not another article of furniture in either room. But the walls were almost covered with paintings; the mantel- pieces were densely peopled with statuettes, busts, and medallions; in a corner on a pedestal stood a beautiful copy of Powers's Proserpine in marble ; and various other works of art were disposed about the floor or leaned against the walls. . Of the quality of the pictures I could not, in that light, form an opinion. The subjects of more than half of them were religious, such as, the Virgin ; Peter, lovest thou me ? Christ crowned with thorns; Mary, Joseph and Child; Virgin and Child; a woman pray- ing before an image in a Cathedral ; Mary praying ; Hermit and skull ; and others. There were some books upon the table, among them a few annuals containing contributions by Horace Greeley, volumes of Burns, Byron, and Hawthorne, Downing's Rural Essays, West's complete analysis of the Holy Bible, and Ballou's Voice of Universalism. " I waited an hour. There came a double and decided ring at the bell. No one answered the summons. Another and most tremendous ling brought the servant to the door, and in a moment the face of the master of the house beamed into the room. He apologized thus: 'I ought to MB. GREELEY AT HOME. 361 have been here sooner, but I couldn't.' lie flung off his overcoat, hung it up in the hall, and, looking into the parlour, said, 'just let me run up and see iny babies one minute ; I haven't seen 'ern all day, you know ;' and he sprung up the stairs two steps at a time. I heard him talk in high glee to the children in the room above for just one minute, and then he rejoined me. He began to talk something in this style : " ' Sit down. I have had a rough day of it, eaten nothing since break- fast, just got in from my farm, been up the country lecturing, started from Goshen this morning at five, broke down, crossed the river on the ice, had a hard time of it, ice a good deal broken and quite dangerous, lost the cars on this side, went dogging around to hire a conveyance, got to Sing Sing, went over to my farm and transacted my business there as well as I could in the time, started for the city, and as luck would have it, they had taken off the four o'clock train, didn't know that I should get down at all, harnessed up my own team, and pushed over to Sing Sing again, hadn't gone far before snap went the whiffletree, got another, though, and reached Sing Sing just two minutes before the cars came along, I've just got in, my feet are cold, lets go to the fire. 1 " With these words, he rose quickly and went into the back room, not to the fireplace, but to a corner near the folding-door, where hot air gushed up from a cheerless round hole in the floor. His dress, as I now observed, amply corroborated his account of the day's adventures, shirt all crum- pled, cravat all awry, coat all wrinkles, stockings about his heels, and general dilapidation. " I said it was not usual at the West to go Into a corner to warm one's feet; to which he replied by quoting some verses of Holmes which I did not catch. I entreated him to go to tea, as he must be hungry, but he refused ' pine blank.' The conversation fell upon poetry. He said there was one more book he should like to make before he died, and that was a Sony-Book for the People. There was no collection of songs in existence which satisfied his idea of what a popular song-book ought to be. He would like to compile one or help do it. He said he had written verses himself, but was no poet; and bursting into a prolonged peal of laughter, he added, that when he and Park Benjamin were editing The New-Yorker, he wrote some verses for insertion in that paper, and showed them to ' Park,' and ' Park ' roared out, ' Thunder and lightning, Greeley, do you call t?tat poetry ?' Speaking of a certain well-known versifier, he said: ' He's a good fellow enough, but he can't write poetry, and if had remained in Boston, he would have killed him, he.takes criticism so hard. As for me I like a little opposition, I enjoy it, I can't understand the feelings of those thin-skinned people. " I said I had been looking to see what books he preferred should lie on his table. 'I don't prefer,' he said; 'I read no books. I have been trying for years to get a chance to read Wilhelm Meister, and other books. Wat Goethe a dissolute man ?' To which I replied with a sweeping negative. This led the conversation to biography, and he remarked : How many utooden biographies there are about. They are of no use. There are not 3G2 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. half a dozen good biographies in our language. You know what Carlyle gays : ' I want to know what a man eats, what time he gets up, what colour his stockings are.' (His, on this occasion, were white, with a hole in each heel.) 'There's no use in any man's writing a biography unless he can tell what no one else can tell.' Seeing me glance at his pictures, he said he had brought them from Italy, but there was only one or two of them that he boasted of. " A talk upon politics ensued. He said he had enough of party politics. He would speak for temperance, and labour, and agriculture, and some other objects, but he was not going to stump the country any more to promote the interests of party or candidates. In alluding to political persons he used the utmost freedom of vituperation, but there was such an evident absence of anger and bitterness on his part, that if the vituperated individuals had overheard the conversation, they would not have been offended, but amused. Speaking of association, he said, 'Ah! our workingmen must be better educated ; we must have better schools ; they must learn to confide in one another more ; then they will associate.' Then, laughing, he added, ' If you know anybody afflicted with democracy, tell him to join an association; that will cure him if anything will; still, association will triumph in its day, and in its own way.' In reply to Q 's definition of "Webster as ' a petty man, with petty objects, sought by petty means,' he said, ' I call him a ; but his last reply to Hayne was the biggest speech yet made ; it 's only so long,' pointing to a place on his arm, 'but it is very great.' Another remark on another subject elicited from him the energetic assertion that ' the invention of the key was the Devil's masterpiece.' Alluding to a recent paragraph of his, I said I thought it the best piece of English he had ever written. 'No,' he replied, ' there 's a bad repetition in it of the word sober in the same sentence; I can write better English than that.' I told him of the project of getting half a dozen of the best men and women of the country to join in preparing a series of school reading-books. He said, 'They would be in danger of shooting over the heads of the children.' To which I replied, 'No; it is common men who do that; great men are simple, and akin to children.' " A little child four years old, with long flaxen hair and ruddy cheeks, came in and said, ' Mother wants you up stairs.' He caught it up in his arms with every manifestation of excessive fondness, saying, ' No, you rogue, it 's you that want him;' and the child wiggled out of his arms and ran away. "As I was going, some ladies came in, and I remained a moment longer at his request. He made a languid and quite indescribable attempt at introduction, merely mentioning the names of the ladies with a faint bob at each. One of them asked a question about Spiritualism. He said, ' I have paid no attention to that subject for two years. I became satisfied it would lead to no good. In fact I am so taken up witli the things of this world, that I have too little time to spend on the affairs of the other.' She said, ' A distinction ought to be made between those who investigate IN "FULL DEESS." 363 the phenomena as phenomena, and those who embrace them fanatically.' 'Yes,' said he, 'I have no objection to their being investigated by those who have more time than I have.' ' Have you heard,' asked the lady, ' of the young man who personates Shakespeare ?' ' No,' he replied, ' but I am satisfied there is no folly it will not run into.' Then he rose and said, ' Take off your things and go up stairs. I must get some supper, for I have to go to that meeting at the Tabernacle to-night' (anti-Nebraska). "As I passed the hat-stand in the hall, I said, 'Here is that immortal white coat.' He smiled and said, ' People suppose it 's the same old coat, but it isn't.' I looked questioningly, and he continued, 'The original white coat came from Ireland. An emigrant brought it out; he wanted money and 1 wanted a coat ; so I bought it of him for twenty dollars, and it was the best coat I ever had. They do work well in the old countries ; not in such a hurry as we do.' "The door closed, and I was alone with the lamp-post. In another hour, Horace Grccley, after such a day of hunger and fatigue, was speak- ing to an audience of three thousand people in the Tabernacle." Mr. Greeley never became heartily addicted to " full dress." The last time the writer of these words saw him was in 1870, on the Capitol steps in "Washington City. He stopped and talked for, perhaps, half an hour, though the day was broiling hot. I recollect that he M-as dressed in faultless style, and of afterwards remarking to Mr. Hawkins Taylor, with whom he walked up the avenue, that "Horace Greeley was the best dressed man I had seen in Washington." His cravat was not adjusted precisely in the mode, his hat was evidently worn as a hat, not as an ornament, and his boots were not thin-soled; but his whole toilet was that of careless elegance, befitting a distinguished gentleman, who spent no great amount of time in front of his looking-glass. The many thousands who have seen him on lecturing tours and on other occasions when he was off editorial duty, when not being driven before the tempestuous winds of his busy life, can scarcely credit the numerous accounts we have had of his carelessness as to dress. Yet they are correct in the main. His marching suit was not the same as that he wore on dress parade and the grand review. And it is certain that he never bestowed much time in getting himself into his best clothes, Several years before his death, he lectured on one occasion at the city of Hamilton, Ohio. A barber was sent for to shave him, and act as temporary valet de chambre, by whose elaborate labours 364: LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. Mr. Greeley appeared in the faultless fashion of an exquisite. lie surveyed himself in the glass a moment, and exploded. Re-tying his cravat and jerking his standing collar about with energy of manner and of idium, while the valet vanished out of the storm, the lecturer appeared in due time with his wear- ing gear a little awry about the neck, but otherwise without violation of the mode. He has been seen on the -streets of New- York wearing a coat literally out at elbows. For many years of his life he was absolutely indifferent as to his dress, and at no time did he have the desire or the patience to give special attention to his personal appearance. That he came to be a passably well-dressed gentleman on occasions when not hard at work is a fact which we may in justice rather credit to the genius of his tailor than his own. If there has been one man who gave less attention to his toilet, as toilet, than any other, that man was, most likely, Horace Greeley. And yet no man ever lived who was more scrupulously clean. He believed in both internal and external applications of cold water. His usual time of sleep, in bed, was five or six hours. He was exceedingly skilful in catching naps where rer they were to be found, at church, the opera, the theatre, wherever he might happen to be with nothing of his own work to do. 8 He usually retired about an hour after midnight, and arising at 7 o'clock in the morning, the first thing in order always was a vigorous bath. He invariably, when it was possible, bathed once daily, and not seldom twice. Two or three times in his life he was sorely afflicted with boils, the result, doubtless, of over- work and over-bathing Mr. Greeley had the habit of vituperation. He was, in language, an abusive man. This habit sometimes broke out * Nevertheless, Mr. Greeley seemed to be asieep, rather tnan actually slept, on such occasions. An old Washington friend of his, Mr. E. L. Stevens, tells me that he often saw Mr. Greeley at church while he was a member of Congress, He would come in, enter his pew, and soon be apparently sound asleep eyes closed, and his whole body motionless, except the steady breathing. Mr. Stevens several times asked Mr. Greeley what he thought of the sermon, and was astonished to find that in every instance he recapitulated the substance of the whole of it with great accuracy. u VITUPERATION." 365 in his editorials. He once began an editorial: "You lie villain! willfully, wickedly, basely lie!" This was in reply to an article in a respectable newspaper. In a letter to an official of the State of New York he dubbed a rival editor a " little villain." Akin to this was his profane swearing. It is at last established that on certain great occasions of wrath, George Washington exploded with bursts of profanity. lie did not have the excuse that Mr. Greeley had; for Washington never was called upon to read what printers call "dirty proof." I doubt if there is anything so exasperating as this. It is true that Mr. Greeley did not write the most legible hand in the world, but he made good manuscript for a printer. His letters were awkwardly made, but they were all made ; and his punctuation was always perfect. A short study of his writing should have made any bright printer able to put it into type without gross blunders. But let this be as it may, the manu- script was perfectly plain to Mr. Greeley, so that when a proof or a revise came to him, wherein his wisdom was metamor phosed into nonsense, his terse expressions into horrible plati- tudes, he boiled over. I think the Recording Angel, when he charges up a burst of profanity against an editor, and then looks upon the "dirty proof" which brought it forth, will erase the charge. I should, if I were the Recording Angel. 1 would let him off on the easiest possible terms. Having thus acquired the habit, in a way which entitles it to so much palli- ation, Mr. Greeley sometimes exploded vigorously when ther was no foul proof to tempt him. 3 1 A story is told, and with substantial truth, as I know, of the Hon. Thomas W. Clagett, editor of The Kookuk (Iowa) Daily Constitution. Noted for his public spirit and generosity, he was also known as one who made a free use of the energetic idiurn. Upon one occasion a friend lectured him on the subject, concluding a lengthy homily with eulogising Hon. J. B. Howell, then Judge Clagett's rival editor, since a Senator of the United States, a Commissioner of Southern Claims, and ever a^good and noble man at heart. "There," said the lecturer, "is our friend, Brother Howell, of The Gate City. He not only does not swear, but he is a Chris- tian man; a praying man. I heard him make an excellent prayer at the meeting last evening." "Well, well, Sir," replied the Judge, "there is not so much difference between Brother Howell and me as you think there is I don't mean anything, Sir, by my swearing; and Brother Howell don't mean anything by his praying!" 366 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. Mr. Greeley's vituperation in conversation was not malig- nant. His bark \vas "waur than his bite." Though free from malice and bad hcartedncss, entirely so, it was incon- sistent with personal dignity. Horace Greeley always had a vigorous appetite. This he exercised at home, leaving his vigorous language to be exer- cised elsewhere. 13ut lie never acquired a great fondness for rich viands. He ate to live. To "How are you, this morning, Mr. Greeley?" he would reply, "Stout," most generally. He ate a hearty but plain breakfast at home, but usually dined down town about four or live o'clock. His dinner was sub- stantial, eaten with astonishing vigour and some awkwardness of manner, finished with a glass of cold water. He detested state dinners, and though he participated in many such festive occasions, presiding at some public dinners of historic interest, he enjoyed everything else better than the viands. It is related of him that calling to visit a friend one evening, he found several persons in the parlour, and concluded to sit a while, though he had not yet dined. The hostess brought in a great plate filled with doughnuts and passed it to Mr. Greeley. Placing the plate on his knees, and becoming intently engaged in the conversation, he ate away at the doughnuts until the last one had vanished. Though he had eaten about a half-peck of concentrated "richness" and lard, no ill result followed. The hostess thought he might even have safely disposed of another dish full, and that without knowing it himself. Excessive devotion to hospitality is the renowned virtue of Arabs and of American Indians. It is impossible for men of greatly active lives to squander much time in mere amenities and agreeabilities. To them life is real, life is earnest. Hospi- tality abounds most among those who have others to labour for thejn. It is, indeed, a pleasant rite; and the one thing most needful of all in the enjoyable exercise of the rite, is an elegant cook of versatile genius and accomplishments. And this must be in the person of the female head of the house- hold. Otherwise some things will go wrong in some way or at some place between the kitchen and the dining-room. Mrs. IHS LOVE OF CniLDKEN. 367 Greeley was not a versatile and accomplished cook. She might have been, no doubt; for in a matter of so much importance as civilized eating. Providence lias wisely ordained that one may become a great cook simply by putting one's mind to it. A hundredth part of the time given by American ladies quite generally to the study of the subject of their head-gear would enable every one to direct the cooking of an excellent breakfast or dinner. Mrs. Greeley's principles upon the subject of food prevented her from becoming popular as a dispenser of hospi- tality, though she never was devoted to external head-gear. And it hence happened that Mr. Greeley never became cele- brated for the excellence of his dinners. Such hospitality as he dispensed was from a frugal board, but the guest was gener- ously welcomed and most kindly and unaffectedly entertained. Such natural welcome, such homely entertainment might Cin- cinnatus have extended to the visiting citizens of Rome whose homes he had saved from sack and pillage. If Mr. Greeley's hospitality, during many years, was not great in the dining rooms, it was ever great, genial, and most agreeable in the drawing-rooms. One of his most beautiful characteristics, ever spreading sunshine and warmth throughout his home, was his tender love of his children. He had a warm side in his nature for all children, and could not see one in sorrow without being visibly affected, " O, poor little fellow!" he would say to some crying urchin on Broadway, who had been hurt or imposed upon, "go buy what you want with that," handing him a liberal gift. But at home with his own children, he was himself a child again, simple, joyous, playful, rolicking. I suppose he never was angry with a child in all his life. As he was so intensely devoted to his children, so were they most devotedly attached to him. They always took liberties with him. He wept with them when they wept, and rejoiced when they rejoiced. The early death of all but two of his children cast an unending shadow upon his soul, but intensified to a degree almost super- natural his affection for the two daughters who survived him. If there is anything in English literature more touching, 368 MFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. more beautiful, more reverential ; more demonstrative of tenderness and benignity of soul, than his account of his own family dead, I have never seen it. The man who can read the account of the death of "Pickie" without emotion, is greatly to be pitied. Let me sanctity this volume with Mr. Greeley's own description: 4 My son, Arthur Young (" Pickio "), born in March, 1844, was the third of seven children, whereof a son and daughter, severally born in 1838 and in 1843, scarcely opened their eyes to a world which they entered but to leave. Physically, they were remarkable for their striking resemblance in hair and features to their father and mother respectively. Arthur had points of similarity to each of us, but with decided superior- ity, as a whole, to either. I looked in vain through Italian galleries, two years after he was taken from us, for any full parallel to his dazzling beauty, a beauty not physical merely, but visibly radiating from the soul. His hair was of the finest and richest gold; "the sunshine of pic- ture " never glorified its equal ; and the delicacy of his complexion at once fixed the attention of observers like the late N. P. Willis, who had traversed both hemispheres without having his gaze arrested by any child who could bear a comparison with this one. Yet he was not one of those paragons sometimes met with, whose idlest chatter would edify a Sunday school, who never do or say aught that propriety would not sanction and piety delight in, but thoroughly human, and endued with a love of play and mischief which kept him busy and happy the livelong day, while rendering him the delight and admiration of all around him. The arch delicacy wherewith he inquiringly suggested, when once told a story that overtaxed his credulity, " I 'pose that aint a lie ?" was characteristic of his nature. Once, when about three years old, having chanced to espy my watch lying on a sofa as I was dressing one Sunday morning, with no third person present, he made a sudden spring of several feet, caught the watch by the chain, whirled it around his head, and sent it whizzing against the chimney, shattering its face into fragments. " Pickie," I inquired, rather sadly than angrily, "how could you do me such injury?" " 'Cause I was nervous," he regretfully replied. There were ladies then making part of our household whose nerves were a source of general aa well as personal discomfort; and this was his attestation of the fact. There were wiser and deeper sayings treasured as they fell from his lips; but I will not repeat them. Several yet live who remember the graceful gayety wherewith he charmed admiring circles assembled at our house, and at two or three larger gatherings of friends of Social Reform in this city, and at the N. A. Phalanx in New Jersey; and I think some grave seigniors, who were accustomed to help us enjoy our Saturday afternoons in our rural suburban residence at Turtle Bay, were drawn thither as much by their admiration of the son as by their regard for his parents. 4 Itecollections of a Busy Life, p. 426, et seq. DEATH OF "PICKEE." Meantime, another daughter was given to us, and, after six months, withdrawn ; and still another born, who yet survives ; and he had run far into his sixth year without one serious illness. His mother had devoted herself to him from Jiis birth, even beyond her intense consecration to the care of her other children; had never allowed him to partake of animal food, or to know that an animal was ever killed to be eaten ; had watched and tended him with absorbing love, till the perils of infancy seemed fairly vanquished ; and we had reason to hope that the light of our eyes would be spared to gladden our remaining years. It was otherwise decreed. In the Summer of 1849, the Asiatic cholera suddenly reappeared in our city, and the frightened authorities ordered all swine, etc., driven out of town, that is, above Fortieth street, whereas our home was about Forty-eighth street, though no streets had yet been cut through that quarter. At once, and before we realized our danger, the atmosphere was polluted by the exhalations of the swinish multitude thrust upon us from the densely peopled hives south of us, and the cholera claimed its victims by scores before we were generally aware of its presence. Our darling was among the first; attacked at 1 A. M. of the 12th of July, when no medical attendance was at hand; and our own prompt, unre- mitted efforts, reenforced at length by the best medical skill within reach, availed nothing to stay the fury of the epidemic, to which he succumbed about 5 P. M. of that day, one of the hottest, as well as quite the longest, I have ever known. He was entirely sans and conscious till near the last; insisting that he felt little or no pain and was well, save that we kept him sweltering under clothing that he wanted to throw off, as he did whenever he was permitted. When at length the struggle ended with his last breath, and even his mother was convinced that his eyes would never* again open on the scenes of this world, I knew that the Summer of ray life was over, that the chill breath of its Autumn was at hand, and that my future course must be along the downhill of life. Yet another son (Raphael Uhland) was born to us two years afterward; who, though more like his father and less like a poet than Arthur, was quite as deserving of parental love, though not eo eninently fitted t-> evoke and command general admiration. He was \vith me in France and Switzerland in the Summer of 1855 ; spending, with his mother and- sister, the previous Winter in London and that subsequent in Dresden ; returning with them in May, '56, to fall a victim to the croup the ensuing February. I was absent on a lecturing tour when apprise^ of his dangerous illness, and hastened home to find that he had died an hour before my arrival, though he had hoped and striven to av/ait my return. He had fulfilled his sixth year and twelve days over when our home wac again made desolate by his death. Another daughter ,vas born to us four weeks later, who survives; so thai we have reason to be grateful for two children left to soothe our decline, as well as for five who, having prereloc 'i' on the long journey, await ua vn the Land of Souls. 24 370 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. My life has been busy and anxious, but not joyless. Whether it shall tee prolonged few or more years, I am grateful that it has endured so long, and that it has abounded in opportunities for good not wholly unim- proved, and in experiences of the nobler as well as the baser impulses of human nature. I have been spared to see the end of giant wrongs, which I once deemed invincible in this century, and to note the silent upspring- ing and growth of principles and influences which I hail as destined to root out some of the most flagrant and pervading evils that yet remain. I realize that each generation is destined to confront new and peculiar perils, to wrestle with temptations and seductions unknown to its pre- decessors; yet I trust that progress is a general law of our being, and that the ills and woes of the future shall be less crushing than those of the bloody and hateful past. So, looking calmly, yet humbly, for that close of my mortal career which cannot be far distant, I reverently thank God for the blessings vouchsafed me in the past ; and, with an awe that is not fear, and a consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, await the opening before my steps of the gates of the Eternal World. Mr. Greeley's taste as to home adornments has been indicated in the preceding pages. He cared little, perhaps nothing, for display. His furniture was not of the finest. But in his European travels, he had met with paintings and sculptures which he liked, and though inclined to "bare walls," his home became somewhat crowded with paintings and statuary. lie had a number of really excellent paintings, and a statuette or two by Powers, with many another gem of beauty in art. There was a rustic air ever about Mr. Greeley's home; an air 01 rustic elegance. Thers was the sweet, pure, wholesome zephyrs of the country murmuring evermore through apart- ments cf unostentious refinement and the beautiful simplicity of the elder time. Indeed, Mr. Parton in his biography remarks with great truth, that in manner Mr. Greeley continued to be a rustic; that the metropolis had been able to make only little impres- sion upon him; and that he lived amid the million of his fellow-citizens, in their various uniforms, an unassimilated man. Mer of the world, happily named, for they aie invaria- Dly at bottom of th^ earth earthy, mtn of the world are never unsophisticated. I think they call it " green.'' Wise men are al'vays ''green," -nd often fail to "ripen '' during the whole course of their /jvej Socrates sobor and Alcibiades GREEN MLX. 371 drunk, would be a fine picture and an instructive. Men of the world would inevitably take off their hats to the wrong man. Carlyle was wise, but it was very " green " in him to say that " courtesy is the due of man to man, not of suit-of- clothes to suit-of-clothes." Horace Greeley was "green." As we have quoted from ]\Jr. Parton, he lived in a city of a million souls an unassimilated man. In many respects city life rasped harshly, almost cruelly, upon his nature. It was something like undertaking to make Rob Roy stamp a Broadway pavement, exclaiming, "I tread my native heath, and my name is MacGregor!" He longed for the free air, the green woods, for room in which to breathe freely. Nothing could have been more natural, there- fore, or a more proper tiling for him to do, than to become a farmer. Accordingly, he bought a farm. DR. CHARLES H. RAY. See page 339. CHAPTEE XXI. HORACE GREELEY, THE FARMER His Love of Rural Life But Not of Ox-Life His Wife's Judgment Principally Consulted as to The Farm Site Cbappaqua A Descrip- tion of the Place The First Forest Home There Mr. Greeley's Mode of Improving the Place His Practical farming The Later Home General Facts as to his Farmer-Life His Work Entitled " What I Know of Farming" The Subject of Innumerable Jests Their Effect Upon Him. " I SHOULD have been a farmer," says Mr. Greeley. " All my riper tastes incline to that blessed calling whereby the human family and its humbler auxiliaries are fed. Its quiet, its segregation from strife, and brawls, and heated rivalries, attract and delight me." And he goes on to say that, though content with his lot, and grateful for the generosity wherewith his labours had been rewarded, yet would he choose to earn his bread by cultivating the soil, were he to begin life anew. "Blessed is he," he exclaims, "whose day's exertion ends with the evening twilight, and who can sleep unbrokenly and with- out anxiety till the dawn awakens him, with energies renewed and senses brightened, to fresh activity and that fulness of health and vigour which are vouchsafed to those only who spend most of their waking hours in the free, pure air and renovating sunshine of the open country." 1 Mr. Greeley thus thought, in 1868, when these words were written, that he not only should have been a farmer, on account of abounding love of rural life, but he also asserted that he would have devoted his life to that calling, had any science of farming been known to those among whom his earlier boy hood was passed. Whilst he loved the country, was passion ately devoted to it, in fact, he fairly loathed, as we have seer in the early part of his work, the mindless pursuit of farming 1 Recollections of a Busy Life, p. 295. BUT8 A FARM. 373 as farming was wlien he was a boy. It was, he long afterwards said, a work for oxen; and for him the life of an ox had no charm. He had abandoned farm life because, though he had perceived all there was in the farmer's calling, as then con- ducted, he had not really learned much more of it, as it should be, " than a good plough-horse ought to understand." It was a quarter of a century after he gave up farm life to learn the trade of a printer, that he felt able to buy a farm. Earlier than this he had been a small farmer on his rented place of some eight acres opposite Blaekwell's Island, herein- before described. While on this little farm, he says that " one fine Spring morning, a neighbour called and offered to plough for $5 my acre of tillage not cut up by rows of box and other shrubs ; and I told him to go ahead. I came home next even- ing, just as he was finishing the job, which I contemplated most ruefully. His plough was a pocket edition; his team a single horse; his furrows at most five inches deep. I paid him, but told him plainly that I would have preferred to give the money for nothing. He insisted that he had ploughed for me as he had ploughed for others all around me. ' I will tell you,' I rejoined, ' exactly how this will work. Throughout the Spring and early Summer, we shall have frequent rains and moderate heat: thus far my crops will do well. But then will come hot weeks, with little or no rain; and they will dry up this shallow soil and everything planted thereon.' The result signally justified my prediction. We had frequent rains and cloudy, mild weather, till the 1st of "July, when the clouds vanished, the sun came out intensely hot, and we had scarcely a sprinkle till the 1st of September, by which time my corn and potatoes had about given up the ghost." 2 The fancy farming at Turtle Bay gave way to city life again, and the famous Chappaqua farm, his final and successful venture, was bought in 1853. The purchase of this property is thus described by Mr. Greeley himself: The choice was substantially directed by my wife, who said that sht insisted on but three requisites, 1. A peerless spring of pure, soft, living What I know of Farming, pp. 87-8. 374 LIFE OF HORACE OKEELEV. water; 2. A cascade or brawling brook; 3. "Woods largely composed of evergreens. These may seem light matters ; yet I was some time in finding them grouped on the same small plat, within reasonable distance from the city. I did find them, however; and those who object to my taste in choosing for my home a rocky, wooded hillside, sloping to the north of west, with a bog at its foot, cannot judge me fairly, unless they consider the above requirements. My land was previously the rugged, mainly wooded, outskirt of two adjacent farms, whereof my babbling brook formed the boundary. Nine miles above White Plains, and thirty-five N. N. E. of our City Hall, the Harlem Railroad, when nearly abreast of the village of Sing-Sing, and six miles east of it, just after entering the township of Newcastle, crosses a quite small, though pretty constant, mill-stream, named by the Indians Cliappaqua, which is said to have meant falling or babbling water, and which, here running to the southeast, soon takes a southwesterly turn, recrosses under the railroad, and finds its way into the Hudson, through the Sawmill or Nepperhan creek, at Yonkers. A highway, leading west- ward to Sing-Sing, crosses the railroad, just north of the upper crossing of the brook, and gives us, some twenty rods from the northwest corner . of my farm, a station and a post-office, which, with our modest village of twenty or thirty houses, take their name from our mill-stream. Chap- paqua is not a very liquid trisyllable, but there is comfort in the fact that it is neither Clinton nor Washington, nor Middletown, nor any of the trite appellations which have so often been reapplied, that half the letters intended for one of them are likely to bring up at some other. (How can a rational creature be so thoughtless as to date his letter merely "Green- field," or " Jackson," or " Springfield," and imagine that the stranger ho addresses can possibly guess whither to mail the answer ?) My brook has its source in wooded, granite hills, on the east southeast, and comes tinkling or brawling thence to be lost in the Chappaqua, a few rods south of the road to Pleasantville, which forms ray southwestern boundary. As to springs, there are not less than a dozen, which no drouth exhausts, breaking out along the foot of my hill, or at the base of a higher ridge which forms its crest. My woods are the pride of the farm, which without them would never have been my farm. They cover about twenty-five of the seventy-five acres which compose it; and I say to them, with Oriental courtesy, and more than Oriental sincerity, "May your shadow never be less!" For the ground they cover is in good part an irregular, sideling granite ledge, or portions of a ledge, thinly covered by a granitic, gravelly soil, which could not be made to grow anything but wood to the profit of the grower; whereas, it grows wood better than a rich Illinois or Kansas prairie often condescends to do. Its trees are mainly Hemlock and Red Cedar (my evergreens); While and Red Oak, Whitewood, Chestnut, White and Blue Beech, Dogwood, White Ash, Sugar and Soft Maple, Elm, Hickory, Tulip, Butternut, Black, Yellow, and White Birch. There were just two treea 375 that I could not name, after twenty years' absorption in the city ; one of them is known as Pepperidge, the other as Yellow Poplar. There were a good many wild Black Cherries : but these I have nearly exterminated, as they breed caterpillars to infest my Apple-trees. Of shrubs, there are many that I cannot name. Witch Hazel, Bunch Willow, Choke Cherry, Hazel, Sassafras, and Sumac, are among those that I readily recognized. Swamp Alder infested the springy, rocky, boggy ground at the foot of one of my hills, till I extirpated it, and the Dogwood is marked for speedy destruction. It beautifies nay, glorifies the woods while in blossom for a week or so early in May ; but it is of no account as timber, while it sows its seed everywhere, and tends to monopolize a good deal more ground than it will pay for. My first care, on getting possession of my farm, was to shut cattle out of the greater part of the woods, where they had been free to roam and ravage throughout the two preceding centuries that this region had felt the presence of civilized man. Pasturing woods is one of the most glaring vices of our semi-barbarian agriculture. Cattle browse the tender twigs of delicate, valuable young trees, while they leave the coarse and worthless unscathed. I have, to-day, ten times as many of the Sugar Maple, White Ash,-etc., coming on in my woods as there were when I bought and shut the cattle out of them. I have no blind horror of cutting trees. Any fairly grown forest can always spare trees, and be benefitted by their removal. But I protest most earnestly against the reckless waste involved in cutting oft' and burning over our forests. In regions which are all woods, ground must of course be cleared for cultivation; but many a farmer goes on slashing and burn- ing long after he should halt and begin to be saving of his timber. Many of our dairymen are beginning to say, " Down with the rest of our woods ! we can buy all the coal we need for fuel, with half the butter and cheese vre can make on our lands now covered with wood." Friends, that is a sad miscalculation. With one-fourth of your land in wood, judiciously covering the crests of your ridges, the sides of your ravines, your farms will grow more grass than if wholly denuded and laid bare to the scorch- ing sun. Protracted, desolating drouths, bleak, scathing winds, and the failure of delicate fruits like the Peach and finer Pears, are part of the penalty we pay for depriving our fields and gardens of the genial, hospi- table protection of forests. Of tree-planting, other than for fruit, I have as yet done little. A row of Rock Maples along the highways that skirt my farm, and a clump of evergreens just north of my garden, are nearly all I have to show. Any one can grow Sugar Maples who will try. To prove it, I need only say that I have lost but two in over a hundred, and these by accident, though my trees mainly came from Rochester, were opened on a warm, sunny day, and left thus with their roots exposed till thoroughly dry. 1 came upon the planter just then, and told him he had killed the trees; but I was mistaken. I would, however, advise no one to try the experiment of drying the roots of trees while transplanting them ; but if he will be BO 376 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. careless, he may better take the risk on the Sugar Maple than on any other tree within my knowledge. As there is a stout hill just south of my farm, my lower land is over- shadowed by hills in the two wrong directions, and so inclines to be cold. Just north of where my brook dances out of the glen which it has worn THE CLUMP OF KVKUUltlkKMi. down the face of the hill is my garden, with a slight elevation or ridge just north of it. This low ridge I have planted with evergreens, as a shelter or wind-break for the garden. Part of them are Hemlocks and lied Cedars, transplanted from the woods just at hand ; perhaps as many are Norway and other Pines, with Balsam and other Firs, obtained .from nurseries. These latter have the more luxuriant growth, but all have done well ; and the copse or clump possibly forty rods in length by three or four in width is (at ieast in Winter) the pleasautest object seen on the farm. The little green- house which nestles beneath it is flanked by strawberry beds, a few grape- vines, and room for early vegetables, which, sloping gently southward, enjoy an average temperature several degrees higher than they would if the evergreens were away ; and the acre or so of level garden farther south is also, but less considerably, warmed and sheltered by this belt of ever- greens, which not only verifies Shelley's apothegm, that "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," but is a positive reinforcement to the productive capacity of the farm. * 1 Recollections of a Busj r Life, p. 29C, et teg. A HOME IN THE WOODS. 377 A little farther on he describes how he worked among his trees in a manner which is at the same time interesting, instruc- tive, and droll: The woods arc my special department. Whenever I can save a Saturday for the farm, I try to give a good part of it to my patch of forest. The axe is the healthiest implement that man ever handled, and is especially so for habitual writers and other sedentary workers, whose shoulders it throws back, expanding their chests, and opening their lungs. If every youth and man, from fifteen to fifty years old, could wield an axe two hours per day, dyspepsia would vanish from the earth, and rheumatism become decidedly scarce. I am a poor chopper; yet the axe is my doctor and delight. Its use gives the mind just enough occupation to prevent ita falling into revery or absorbing trains of thought, while every muscle in the body receives sufficient, yet not exhausting, exercise. I wish all our boys would learn to love the axe. I began by cutting out the Witch Hazels, and other trash not worth keeping, and trimming up my trees, especially the Hemlocks, which grow limbs clear to the ground, and throw them out horizontally to such a dis- tance that several rods of ground are sometimes monopolized by a single tree. Many of these lower limbs die in the course of time, but do not fall off; on the contrary, they harden and sharpen into spikes, which threaten your face and eyes as if they were bayonets. These I have gradualty cut away and transformed into fuel. Many of my Hemlocks I have trimmed to a height of at least fifty feet; and I mean to serve many others just so, if I can ever find time before old age compels me to stop climbing. But the Hemlock so bristles throughout with limbs that it can easily be climbed by a hale man till he is seventy; and, working with a hatchet 01 light axe, you commence trimming at the top, that is as high as you choose to trim, and, without difficulty, cut all smooth as you work your way down. Limbs to the ground may be graceful in the edge of your wood ; but your tree will not make timber nearly so fast as if trimmed, and you cannot afford it so much space as it claims in the heart of youi patch of forest. If I linger proudly among my trees, consider that here most of my farm- work has been done, and here my profit has been realized, in the shape of health and vigour. When I am asked the usual question, " How has your farming paid ? " I can truthfully answer that my part of it has paid splen- didly, being all income and no outgo, and who can show a better balance- sheet than that f* Soon after buying his farm, Mr. Greeley built him a home in the woods. He says of it in the- work from which the fore- going extracts have been made: 4 Ibid. 303-4. 378 LrFE OF IIORACK GKEKLKY. In the little dell or glen through which 11x3' brook emerges from the wood -wherein it has brawled down the hill, to dunce across a gentle slope to the swamp below, is the spring, pure as crystal, never-failing, cold aa you could wish it for drink in the hottest day, and so thoroughly shaded and sheltered that, I am confident, it was never warm and never frozen over. Many springs on my farm are excellent, but this is peerless. It determined the location of my house, which stands on a little plateau or bench of level ground halfway down the hill, some twenty rods north of, and forty feet higher than, itself. I never saw a sweeter spot than was THE HOrSE IN TIIE WOODS. the little plat of grass which my house has supplanted, with tall woods all around, and a thrifty growth of young hemlocks starting thickly just west and south of it. I do not now regard this as a judicious location: it is too much shaded and shut in; it is too damp for health in a wet time; it tempts the chimney to smoke, especially when the atmosphere is so heavy that the wind beats down over the wooded hill that rises directly on the FARM WOKK. 37& north and east; but the hottest day is cool here; dust Is unknown; and no rumble from any highway disturbs meditation or piques curiosity. My house is not much, hastily erected, small, slight, and wooden, it has at length been almost deserted for one recently purchased and refitted on the edge of the village, just where my private road emerges from the farm, on its way to the station ; but the cottage in the woods it still my house, where my books remain, where I mean to garner my treasures, and wherein I propose to be "at home " to my friends at stated seasons, and "not at home " to any one when I address myself to work, and especially to the consummation of a yet unaired literary project. But these are dreams, which opportunity may never be afforded to realize. As yet, I am a horse in a bark-mill, and tread his monotonous round ; never finding time to do to-day what can possibly be postponed to the morrow. The intelligent reader may judge from the illustration that the '* house in the woods " was not only " too damp for health in a wet time," but at any time. The bane, as well as the ugliness, of too many American homes is the want of lawn. One may see many a " front-yard " of beautiful residence so over-adorned with evergreens, mountain-ash trees, shrubbery, that one can hardly see the house, but can plainly perceive from the thriftless, yellow grass, and the very odour of the dank atmosphere, that here is an utter ignorance of the might and beauty and beneficence of sunshine. Eternal shade is eternal gloom and an infallible recipe against good health and bright spirits. We have already seen how in some respects Mr. Greeley improved his farm. Originally of poor soil in portions, and a swamp where the soil was rich, he made the whole produc- tive, and became highly successful in raising wheat, Indian corn, other grains, and roots with the exception of potatoes. He was very fortunate with turnips and Indian corn a fact manifested by several premiums at agricultural fairs. But perhaps the most notable success of Mr. Greeley as a farmer was in making his marshy land (" My Swamp," as he calls it) cultivable and very productive. He gives a full account of his labours in this part of his farm-life, in a chap- ter in " What I Know of Farming," introductory to the general subject of draining. 6 Page 62 el seq. 380 LIFE OF HOKACK GKEELET. My farm is in the township of Newcastle, Westchester County, N. Y., 35 miles from our City Hall, and a little eastward of the hamlet known as Chappuqua, called into existence by a station on the Harlem Railroad. It embraces the south-easterly half of the marsh which the railroad here traverses from south to north my part measuring some fifteen acres, with five acres more of slightly elevated dry land between it and the foot of the rather rugged hill whicli rises thence on the east and on the south, and of which I now own some fifty acres, lying wholly eastward of my low land, and in good part covered with forest. Of this, I bought more than half in 1853, and the residue in bits from time to time as I could afford it. The average cost was between $130 and $140 per acre: one small and poor old cottage being the only building I found on the tract, which consisted of the ragged edges of two adjacent farms, between the western portions of which mine is now interposed, while they still adjoin each other beyond the north and south road, half a mile from the railroad, on which their buildings are located and which forms my eastern boundary. My stony, gravelly upland mainly slopes to the west; but two acres on my east line incline toward the road which bounds me in that direction, while two more on my south east corner descend to the little brook which, entering at that corner, keeps irregularly near my south line, until it emerges, swelled by a smaller runnel that enters my lowland from the north and traverses it to meet and pass off with the larger brooklet aforesaid. I have done some draining, to no great purpose, on the more level portions of my upland ; but my lowland has challenged my best efforts in this line, and I shall here explain them, for the encouragement and possible guidance of novices in draining. Let me speak first of MY DIFFICULTIES. This marsh or bog consisted, when I first grappled with it, of some thirty acres, whereof I then owned less than a third. To drain it to advantage, one person should own it all, or the different owners should coo'perate ; but I had to go it alone, with no other aid than a freely accorded privilege of straightening as well as deepening the brook which wound its way through the dryer meadow just below me, forming here the boundary of two adjacent farms. I spent $100 on this job, which is still imperfect; but the first decided fall in the stream occurs nearly a mile below me; and you tire easily of doing at your own cost work which ben- efits several others as much as yourself. My drainage will never l>e perfect till this brook, with that far larger one in which it is merged sixty rods below me, shall have been sunk three or four feet, at a further expense of at least $oOO. This bog or swamp, when I first bought into it, was mainly dedicated to the use of frogs, muskrats, and snapping-turtles. A few small water-elms and soft maples grew upon it, with swamp alder partly fringing the west ern base of the hill east of it, where the rocks which had, through thousands of years, rolled from the hill, thickly covered the surface, with springs bubbling up and around among them. Decaying stumps and imbedded fragments of trees argued that timber formerly covered this marsh as well as the encircling hills. A tall, dense growth of blackberry briers, thor- DRAINING. 381 oughwort, and all manner of marsh-weeds and grasses covered the centre of the swamp each Summer; but my original portion of it, being too wet for these, was mainly addicted to hassocks or tussocks of wiry, worthless grass ; their matted roots rising in hard bunches a few inches above the soft, bare, encircling mud. The bog ranged in depth from a few inches to five or six feet, and was composed of black, peaty, vegetable mold, diver- sified by occasional streaks of clay or sand, all resting on a substratum of hard, coarse gravel, out of which two or three springs bubbled up, in addition to the half a dozen which poured in from the east, and a tiny rivulet which (except in a very dry, hot time) added the tribute of three or four more, which sprang from the base of a higher shelf of the hill near the middle of what is now my farm. Add to these that the brook which brawled and foamed down my hill-side near my south line as aforesaid, had brought along an immensity of pebbles and gravel of which it had mainly formed my five acres of dryer lowland, had thus built up a pretty swale, whereon it had the bad habit of filling up one channel, and then cutting another, more devious and eccentric, if possible, than any of its predecessors and you have some idea of the obstacles I encountered and resolved to overcome. One of my first substantial improvements was the cutting of a straight channel for this current and, by walling it with large stones, compelling the brook to respect necessary limitations. It was not my fault that some of those stones were set nearly upright, so as to veneer the brook rather than thoroughly constrain it; hence, some of the stones, undermined by strong currents, were pitched forward into the brook by high Spring freshets, so as to require resetting more carefully. This was a mistake, but not one of MY BLUNDERS. These, the natural results of inexperience and haste, were very grave. Not only had I had no real experience in draining when I began, but I could hire no foreman who knew much more of it than I did. I ought to have begun by securing an ample and sure fall where the water left my land, and next cut down the brooklet or open ditch into which I intended to drain to the lowest practicacle point so low, at least, that no drain running into it should ever be troubled with back-water. Nothing can be more useless than a drain in which water stagnates, chok- ing it with mud. Then I should have bought hundreds of Hemlock or other cheap boards, slit them to a width of four or five inches, and, having opened the needed drains, laid these in the bottom and the tile thereupon, taking care to break-joint, by covering the meeting ends of two boards with the middle of a tile. Laying tile in the soft mud of a bog, with nothing beneath to prevent their sinking, is simply throwing away labour and money. I cannot wonder that tile-draining seems to many a humbug, seeing that so many tile are laid so that they can never do any good. Having, by successive purchases, become owner of fully half this swamp, and by repeated blunders discovered that making stone drains in a bog, while it is a capital mode of getting rid of the stone, is no way at all to dry the soil, I closed my series of experiments two years since by carefully relaying my generally useless tile on good strips of board, sink- 382 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. Jng them just as deep as I could persuade the water to run off freely, and, instead of allowing them to discharge into a brooklet or open ditch, con- necting each with a covered main of four to six-inch tile; these mains discharging into the running brook which drains all my farm and three or four of those above it just where it runs swiftly off from my land. If a thaw or heavy rain swells the brook (as it sometimes will) so that it rises above my outlet aforesaid, the strong current formed by the concentration of the clear contents of so many drains will not allow the muddy water of the brook to back into it so many as three feet at most; and any mud or sediment that may be deposited there will be swept out clean whenever the brook shall have fallen to the drainage level. MY SUCCESS. I judge that there are not many tracts more difficult to drain than mine was, considering all the circumstances, except those which are frequently flowed by tides or the waters of some lake or river. Had I owned the entire swamp, or had there been a fall in the brook just below me, had I had any prior experience in draining, or had others equally interested cooperated in the good work, my task would have been comparatively light. As it was, I made mistakes which increased the cost and postponed the success of my efforts ; but this is at length complete. I had seven acres of Indian Corn, one of Corn Fodder, two of Oats, and seven or eight .acres of Grass, on my lowland in 1869 ; and, though the Spring months were quite rainy, and the latter part of Summer rather dry, my crops were all good. I did not see better in Westchester County; and I shall be quite content with as good hereafter. Of my seven hundred bushels of Corn (ears), I judge that two-thirds would be accounted fit for seed anywhere ; my Grass was cut twice, and yielded one large crop and another heavier than the average first crop throughout our State. My drainage will require some care henceforth ; but the fifteen acres I have reclaimed from utter uselessncss and obstructions are decidedly the best part of my farm. Uplands may be exhausted ; these never can be. The experience of another season (1870) of protracted drouth has fully justified my most sanguine expectations. I had this year four acres of Corn, and as many of Oats, on my swamp, with the residue in Grass ; and they were all good. I estimate my first Hay crop at over two and a half tuns per acre, while the rowen or aftermath barely exceeded half a tuu per acre, because of the severity of the drouth, which began in July and lasted till October. My Oats were good, but not remarkably so ; and I had 810 bushels of ears of sound, ripe Corn from four acres of drained swamp and two and a half of upland. I estimate my upland Corn at seventy (shelled) bushels, and my lowland at fifty-five (shelled) bushels per acre. Others, doubtless, had more, despite the unpropitious season ; but ray crop was a fair one, and I am content with it. My upland Corn was heavily manured : my lowland but moderately. There are many to tell you how much I lose by my farming. I only say that, as yet, no one else Ins lost a farthing by it, and I do not complain. In a loss extensive way, Mr. Greelej also had noteworthy IRRIGATING. 383 success in irrigation; and also failure, of wliicli he gives char- acteristic account: When I first bought land I fully purposed to provide for irrigating my nearly level acres at will, and I constructed two dams across my upland stream with that view; but they were so badly planned that they went off in the flood caused by a tremendous rain the next Spring; and, though I rebuilt one of them, I submitted to a miscalculation which provided for taking the water, by means of a syphon, out of the pond at the top and over the bank that rose fifteen or twenty feet above the surface of the water. Of course, air would work into the pipe after it had carried a stream unexceptionably for two or three days, and then the water would run no longer. Had I taken it from the bottom of the pond through my dam, it would have run forever (or so long as there was water covering ita inlet in the pond); but bad engineering flung me; and I have never since had the heart (or the means) to revise and correct its errors. My next attempt was on a much humbler scale, and I engineered it myself. Toward the north end of niy farm, the hill-side which rises east of my lowland is broken by a swale or terrace, which gives me three or four acres of tolerably level upland, along the upper edge of which five or six springs, which never wholly fail, burst from the rocks above and unite to form a petty runnel, which dries up in very hot or diy weather, but which usually preserved a tiny stream to be lost in the swamp below. North of the gully cut down the lower hill-side by thic streamlet, the hill- side of some three acres is quite steep, still partially wooded, and wholly devoted to pasturage. Making a petty dam across this runnel at the top of the lower acclivity, I turned the stream aside, so that it should hence- forth run along the crest of ifcis lower hill, falling off gradually so as to secure a free current, and Ios;n4 ?.t? contents at intervals through variable depressions in its lower bask. Iftai and artificial water-course together cost me $90, which was about Iwvje y/h&i it should have been. That rude and petty contrivance has new been tea years in operation, and may have cost $5 per annum for oversight ?ni repairs. Its effect has been to double the grass grown on the two sxves it oer^Jitly irrigates, for which I paid $280, or more than thrice the cos*'; of my irrigation. But more: my hill- Bide, while it was well grassed in Spviug, always gave out directly after the first dry, or hot week; so th4t, when I most needed feed, it afforded none; its herbage being parched up and dead, and thus remaining till refreshed by generous rains. I judge, therefore, that my irrigation has more than doubled the product of the&e two acres, and that these are likely to lose nothing in yield or value so long as that petty irrigating ditch shall be maintained. I know this is small business. Bat suppose each of the hundred thou- sand New-England farms, whereof five to ten acres might be thus irrigated at a cost not exceeding f 100 per farm, had been similarly prepared to flow those acres last Spring and early Summer, with an average increase there- from of barely one tun of Hay (or its equivalent in pasturage) per acre. 384 LIFE OF HORACE QKEELET. The 500,000 tuns of Hay thus realized would have saved 200,000 head of cattle from being sent to the butcher while too thin for good beef, while every one of them was required for further use, and will have to be re- placed at a heavy cost. Shall not these things be considered ? Shall not .11 who can do so at moderate cost resolve to test on their own farms the advantages and benefits that may be secured by Irrigation ? ' When Mr. Greeley removed to his later farmhouse, which continued to be his home during the remainder of his life, the Chappaqua property had been vastly improved, and very much of the work had been done u ruler his direct supervision, not a little, especially in the woods awl orchard, by his own hands. The residence itself was a large, plain mansion, with wide piazzas extending along the entire front of the building. It is an exceedingly comfortable home, and, with few trees to ^hut out the sun, has an air of cheerfulness unknown to the House in the woods. Mr. Greeley's orchard became quite famous in the country, and in 1870 a great fruit year he produced more cider apples than he could sell to the vinegar-makers at fifty cents a barrel. He built a fine barn on his farm, wholly of stones gathered or blasted from the slope near the summit of which it stands. He built it in such manner that the walls are nearly solid rock, the roof being of Vermont slate. " I drive," he says, " into three stories, a basstneat for manures, a stable for animals, and a story above this for hay, while grain is pitched into the loft or 'scaffold' above, from whose floor the roof rises steep to a height of fiixtse^ to eighteen feet. There should have been more windows for light and air; but my oarn is convenient, while impervious to frost, and I am con- fident that cattle are wintered in it at a fourth less cost than when they shiver in board shanties, with cracks between the boards that will admit your hand." Thus the general facts in respect of Mr. Greeley's farmer- Mfe were: He found healthful exercise for both body and mind in the labour which he there performed. He succeeded admirably in making a considerable tract of what in many portions of the country would be thought " waste land " not Ibid. pp. 7G-7-8. "WHAT i KNOW OF FARMING. ' 385 only cultivable "but a highly valuable portion of his farm. Ho raised good crops. Year after year, his practical success herein was as good as that of his neighbours. He made an exceptionally good orchard, waging constant and exterminat- ing warfare against the caterpillars. " I lay down the general proposition," he once said, " that no man who harbours cater- pillars has any moral right to apples that each grower should be required to make his choice between them." He had tine success in drainage, and practically established the value of irrigation on a small scale. He made it clear that he could make farming reasonably and steadily profitable. We shall have occasion hereafter to speak at some length of Mr. Greeley as the author of books, and there to make special mention of the volume entitled " What I Know of Farming." It will suffice here to say that the essays which compose the work were originally contributed, in weekly installments to a public journal, under the heading which forms the title of the volume. About this time a vast deal of game was made of Mr. Greeley by the wits and wags of the press in all parts of the country. Scarcely a journal appeared that did not have some jest at his expense. One, I recollect, gravely asserted that Horace Greeley preferred the hydraulic ram to the Merino. Another asserted that for the cultivation of sardines he pre- ferred uplands to lowlands. Still another asseverated that he undoubtedly produced the best turnips in the United States, and at the trifling cost of two dollars and. eighty-seven cents apiece. There was scarcely an absurdity, indeed, but he was charged withal, and it may well be doubted whether any other topic ever served for so many newspaperial jests as Mr. Gree- ley's "What I Know of Farming." Singularly enough, not a few persons received these jokes as solemn fact's; and it may safely be affirmed that there are to this day thousands of American citizens who think that Mr. Greeley, instead of the reasonably successful farmer he was, was in that regard only fit to be laughed at. The effect of these constant jests upon Mr. Greeley was sometimes extremely laughable. The good wit or the passable waggery were amusing to him; but when he received letters 25 386 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. propounding preposterous inquiries, as he sometimes did, lie manifested less amiability. In truth, as we shall presently see, the essays which were made the cause of so much mirth and so much unintended misrepresentation, came to form a volume of exceeding practical value to farmers, and a notable illustra- tion of Mr. Greeley's hearty devotion to the elevation of Labour and the welfare of the people. %^p^^'' : '/'-'^- . ^^%^^^^s^'-^ MURAT HALSTEAD.-See page t 3 . CHAPTER XXII. THE WAR OF TIIE REBELLION BEGUN. The Election of Abraham Lincoln Made a Pretext for War Mr. Grecloy'a Opinion upon the Right of Secession He Demands a Vote of the South- crn People, Expressing a Willingness to Abide by the Result A Reply to Mr. Thurlow Weed's Assertion that Mr. Grceleywas a Secessionist A Candidate for United State Senator The Tribune During the Early Part of the War "On To Richmond!" Mr. Fitz Henry Warren's Washington Letters The Washington Extemporaneous Club of Critics The Defeat of Bull Run Its Cause Mr. Grecley "Stampeded" Messrs. Dana and Warren Retire from The Tribune Secretary Stanton His Letter to Mr. Grcclcy Organizes Victory for the Union Arms The Policy of The Tribune. Seen, as has been described, was the home life of Horace Greeley, such, as has been related, were his labours on the Chappaqua farm. But it is not to be supposed that his ser- vices in behalf of the country were any less constant, or his work any less severe, after he came in possession of his farm than before. Though his life was ever a busy one, he probably performed more and more various labours during the last twelve years of it than ever before fell to the lot of one man. The election of Abraham Lincoln in November, 1860, was made a pretext for civil war. The political leaders of the South had quite generally adopted two erroneous doctrines by which they were easily led to sanction a war against the Union. One of these erroneous doctrines was that which made the State paramount to the Republic not only as respects the domestic affairs of the commonwealth, but in all respects. The other was a belief in the political propriety and in the moral- ity of human slavery. These doctrines made secession from the Union an easy matter with those who believed in them. They readily found in the election of an anti-slavery President a pretext for war. It is to be observed that the people of the whole republic (387) 388 LIFE CMf HORACE OKEELET. were in one sense responsible for the terrible civil war of 1861-65. Slavery was not the cause of more unhappiness to the blacks than of utter demoralization to the whites. Nor were its effects worse in the often manifested barbarism of Southern politicians than in the cringing cowardice of many politicians of the North, these being held as representative of Northern sentiment generally. And not without much show of reason. A half century before the war, the nation, largely through the influence of Henry Clay, had declined to settle the question of slavery extension, but had " compromised " instead. Some twelve years afterwards, again largely throusrh the same influence, the republic had failed to settle the question of nul- lification, preferring to creep its way out of the difficulty through a " compromise." And less than twenty years after this, still again largely through the same influence, even a more humiliating "compromise" than either of the others was effected. We were, therefore, a nation of slaveholders and apologists of slavery. When the history of the times and measures to which I here refer shall be written, with truth and fulness, it will be seen that the influence of Henry Clay was more unfortunate than that of Mr. Calhoun, whilst his genius was far less lofty and admirable. The compromises which gave Henry Clay the sobriquet of " The Great Pacificator " were of incalculable detriment to the republic, and one of the most potential causes of our costly and bloody civil war. They made half the nation devoted to iniquity, the other half to iniquity and trifling. Hence it was no difficult matter for the adherents of slavery to make the election of an anti-slavery President a plausible pretext for insurrection. They claimed that such an election was an abridgement of their rights, or would necessarily so result. And they asserted that, failing to secure their rights within the Union, it was their duty to secede from it. They had plausible arguments in favour both of slavery and of seces- sion in the political history of the country; whilst in behalf of secession they made powerful appeals to the people with the argument of natural rights, the same upon which our revo- ution had been based and independence achicTed. There was ABRAHAM LINCOLN. SECESSION. 380 in all this subtle sophistry, most preposterous assumption of premises; but the conduct of the nation upon the subject of slavery had been such that the reasonings of secessionists had great apparent force. If they made the worse appear the better reason we of the North had given them the best argu- ments they were able to use on one branch of the subject. By our cowardly compromises we had actually placed slavery among our great and glorious " free institutions." The election of Abraham Lincoln was a demonstration that the North did not sanction slavery. Up to that time the North had been grossly deceived on this subject. The people had all the time been betrayed by the politicians; and, chiefly on ac- count of the powerful despotism of party, had been unable to make their true sentiments known. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was scarcely more of an argument against slavery than it wag an embodiment of preponderating Northern sentiment. The terrible mistake of the South was in supposing that the. politi- cians, instead of Mrs. Stowe and the abolitionists, were representative of the North. Nevertheless, neither Mr. Lincoln nor the Republican party thought of any unlawful or even extreme measure against sla- very. It was proposed by him and his adherents that it should be no further extended. This was all. There was no thought of interference by the national government in the policy of the Republicans. They were anti-slavery, but they were not destructives,. In the election of Mr. Lincoln, therefore, the South had no cause but only a pretext for secession and resulting war. lie and his party were blameless; secession wholly at fault. The former, when war came, were altogether in the right; the latter was wholly in the wrong. The fearful responsibility of the terrible contest must, therefore, be placed with the seces- sionists. And, though they were not sustained at first by the general public of. the South, it must be confessed they conducted their cause with consummate skill, and gave it great apparent strength even from the beginning. It is not improbable they would have given it irresistible power, or power which could 390 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. not have been resisted by the administration of President Lincoln, but for the course pursued by Horace Greeley . Mr. Thurlow Weed, in his " Recollections of 'Horace Gree- ley," says, l " We both supported Mr. Lincoln warmly, but after his election and during the war collisions and antagon- isms placed a great gulf between us. He was radical, and I was conservative. He was in favour of secession and I against it. He was in favour of peace, while I urged a vigorous prosecution of the war." The statements of active politicians may always be carefully examined before unbounded trust can be safely placed in them. Mr. Weed is perfectly correct in saying that a great gulf had been placed between him and Mr. Greeley. The "collisions and antagonisms" which formed the gulf were not created, however, after Mr. Lincoln's election and during the war. Mr. Greeley's famous letter dissolving the firm of "Seward, Weed, and Greeley" written Novem- ber 11, 1854 was much of a " collision," and the " antag- onism " of the last two of the old firm at the Chicago Convention of 1860 forms a notable event in our political history. Mr. Weed, in placing his "gulf," perpetrates a lamentable anachronism. He proceeds to say that Mr. Greeley was in favour of seces- sion, while he (Mr. Weed) opposed it. This testimony may be regarded as ample upon Mr. Weed's position upon this ques- tion, but is far from conclusive as to Mr. Greeley's sentiments. We may generously allow Mr. Weed to speak for himself upon this and other topics; and justly demand a like privilege for Mr. Greeley. It is exceedingly painful for me to come into point- blank contradiction with a gentleman so eminent as Mr. Thurlow Weed ; but it is not true that Mr. Greeley was in favour of secession. On the contrary, he was wholly opposed to it, and believed the people of the South were opposed to it. So strongly was he of the opinion that the people of the South were opposed to it, that he expressed a willingness to abide by their fair vote upon the subject. And he demanded that such 'The Galaxy magazine, March, 1873. REPLY TO THURLOW WEED. 391 a vote should be had, as due alike to the people of the South and of the North. "We dare the Fire-eaters," said he, "to submit the question of Secession or no Secession to the popular vote of their own people. They will be badly beaten in every State but South Carolina, and probably beaten in her popular vote also." This was in November, 1860. In the same con- nexion he said: "If the People (not the swashy politicians) shall ever deliberately vote themselves out of the Union, we shall be in favour of letting them go in peace." They would, he believed, do no such thing; and he instanced contests of the kind in Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas, wherein Secession had been overwhelmingly defeated by the people. So confident was he that the people of the South, if allowed to vote upon the subject, " none being coerced nor intimidated," would con- demn disunion, that he could not as an honest man fail to express a willingness to abide by the result, whatever it might be. And for this he is charged with being in favour of seces- sion! It would be no less preposterous to assert that he was in favour of the verdict against him in the Fenimore Cooper libel-suit, of which the history has heretofore in this work been related. Mr. Greeley, we thus see, in direct conflict with Mr. Weed's assertion, was not only opposed to Secession, but firmly be- lieved the people of the South were opposed to it. But because he was willing to abide by their uncoerced, unintimi- dated judgment upon the subject, we are told that he was " in favour of Secession." An asseveration more unjust or illogical could not well be imagined. Mr. Greeley judged it wise not to become un-republican in his arguments against traitorous Secession. He did not deny at this exciting epocli in our history the Right of Revolution. He but related an account of his own history from the time of the beginning of secession when, in May, 1862, he said: "We have steadfastly affirmed and upheld Mr. Jefferson's doctrine, embodied in the Declaration of American Independence, of the Right of Revolution. We have insisted that where this right is asserted, and its exercise is properly attempted, it ought not to be necessary to subject all concerned to the woes 393 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. and horrors of civil war. In other words, what one party has a right to do, another can have no right to resist." But he did not confound the Right of Revolution with that treasona- ble Secession which brought on our civil war. This he characterized as the " violent, terrorist, outrageous proceeding of Southern Jacobins." In his view, the claim that Secession was an exercise of the Right of Revolution was a monstrous pretense. And we find him condemning Secession in The Tribune, in June, 1862, in the most unmistakable terms: We utterly deny, repudiate, and condemn the pretended Right of Seces- sion. No such right is known to our Federal Constitution, nor, in fact, to any civilized framework of government. No such right was reserved, or supposed to be reserved, when the States ratified or adopted the Federal Constitution. We do not believe that a mere majority of a community may, in disregard of all existing forms, upset an existing government and put one of their choice in its place. We do not believe the whole population we will say of Nantucket or Staten Island have a right, moved by a pros pect of unlimited gains by smuggling to the main land, to break off from the Union and annex their island to Great Britain or set up for themselves. We do not believe a nation is, like a mob or mass-meeting, to be dispersed by a thunder-shower or a steam fire-engine playing upon it. The truth is, Horace Greeley's arguments, before the out break of hostilities and during the early period of the war, in behalf of the Right of Revolution, so far from showing that he was " in favour of Secession " not only prove the contrary, as we have seen, but are also a demonstration of his superior sagacity, foresight, statesmanship. For consider the situation: The closing months of President Buchanan's administration were not characterised by any vigorous policy against the threatened insurrection. Members of his Cabinet greatly assisted the disunion movement; and he himself could find no authority in the Constitution empowering him to save the Union by force of arms. He could not, he said, " coerce a State." This was but one way of saying that a State is para- mount to the Nation. It was a virtual recognition of Secession. President Lincoln entered upon his duties, therefore, with the hands of the Executive Department tied. Pacification, through compromise, was again attempted. The insurrection was far better prepared for war than the republic. It was wise to do CANDIDATE FOR SENATOR. 393 what could honourably be done to have the insurrectionists think there would be no war. Who could do this more effect- ually than Horace Greeley, through that journal which was regarded as most of all representative of Northern sentiment? How could he possibly perform the great and delicate duty, more wisely than by upholding the Right of Revolution? If we fairly consider the situation we shall not fail to be convinced that by no possibility could Mr. Greeley have done more to enable the government to save the republic than by giving the government time to make ready for the war which was inevi- table. But for this, the insurrectionists would have captured Washington and made themselves masters, de facto, of the Federal government, that of the Union becoming a government on horseback, unable, perhaps, ever to resume its lawful powers. That Horace Greeley's far-seeing efforts in prevention of a catastrophe so direful should have subjected him to obloquy, to cruel misrepresentation on the part of careless thinkers and heated politicians, it is not difficult to understand. That Mr. Tliurlow Weed should undertake to add to the obloquy and perpetuate the misrepresentation must be regarded as a proof of singular carelessness or uncommon malignity worthy of the severest rebuke. In the early part of 1861, Mr. Greeley became a candidate before the Republican caucus of the New York Legislature for United States Senator. His competitor was Mr. William M. Evarts, but the contest was in reality one between the Seward and Weed wing of the party in the State and the Greeley wing. There was a great deal of excitement in the party upon the subject, and especially among " party managers." There has never been, perhaps, so excited a Senatorial contest in New York. Albany, the Capital, swarmed with politicians, though Mr. Greeley himself did not go near. He quietly pursued his business, as though nothing unusual were going on. Mr. Weed was in Albany, and had to use all his great sagacity and political resource in order to win this " return match " with Mr. Greeley. He only succeeded so far as to defeat Mr. Greeley by consenting to the defeat of Mr. Evarts. The Hon. Ira Harris, who had received a few votes from the commence- 394 LIFE OF HORACE OEEELEY. ment, was nominated on the tenth ballot. Mr. Weed was present in the Capitol, and managed the contest with all his old vigour, imperturbability, and adroitness. At his com- mand, the Evarts men marched over to Judge Harris in full force and with military precision. Mr. Weed was among those who afterwards came to regret the election of Judge Harris. Adroit political gamesters no doubt have such regrets upon their consciences more frequently than they confess them. The course of The Tribune during the early part of the actual conflict of arms was notable for a vehement advocacy of offensive prosecution of the war. "Forward to Richmond!" was a phrase originating with The Tribune but not with Mr. Greeley. If my memory is not at fault, it originated with Mr. Fitz Henry Warren, associate editor of The Tribune, and at the time that journal's " own correspondent " at the Na- tional Capital. Mr. Warren's letters of this period were remarkable productions, remarkable on account of their caus- tic criticisms on the conduct of affairs, of public men, their brilliant style, their stinging wit, their independent spirit. If so magnificent a series of letters has appeared in modern journalism their author has escaped deserved reputation. Mr. Warren had apartments on Pennsylvania avenue, oppo- site Willards' Hotel, only a short distance from " Newspaper Row " on Fourteenth street. Here congregated, almost every evening, not a few persons, then and since highly distin- guished in the civil or military history of the republic. They formed from evening to evening a sort of extemporane- ous club of critics. On account of their free expressions of opinion touching the illustrious General then in command of the Union army, and whose mind they thought had become impaired through great age, they were often called " the cuss- ers" by irreverent reporters. Here assembled Senators of the United States, Representatives in Congress, many eminent men of the land visiting Washington. There was general acquiescence in Mr. Warren's opinion that the war ought to be short and sharp; and especially was it generally felt that the confederate capital ought not to be allowed to remain at "ON TO RICHMOND." 395 Iftchmond. "On to Kichmond ! " was, therefore, a popular phrase with the extemporaneous Club. It frequently ap- peared in The Tribune, and was made the basis of no little obloquy for Mr. Greeley after the defeat of the Battle of Bull Run in July, 1861. In truth, this disaster was the result of that very military incapacity which Mr. Warren and The Tribune had criticised. To the criticisms made upon The Tribune for its military incapacity as manifested in the " on to Richmond " strategy, Mr. Greeley replied in the famous article "Just Once," as follows: An individual's griefs or wrongs may be of little account to others; but when the gravest public interests are imperilled through personal attacks, and the coarsest imputations of base motives, the assailed, however hum- ble, owes duties to others which cannot be disregarded. I propose here to refute months of persistent and envenomed defamation by the statement of a few facts. I am charged with having opposed the selection of Governor Seward for a place in President Lincoln's cabinet. That is utterly, absolutely false, the President himself being my witness. I might call many others, but one such is sufficient. I am charged with what is called "opposing the administration " because of that selection, and various paragraphs which have from time to time appeared in The Tribune are quoted to sustain this inculpation. The simple fact that not one of those paragraphs was either written or in any wise suggested or prompted by me suffices for that charge. It is true I have no desire to conceal or belittle it that my ideas as to the general con- duct of the war for the Union are those repeatedly expressed by myself and others through The Tribune, and of course are not those on which the conduct of that war has been based. It is true that I hold and have urged that this war can not, must not, be a long one ; that it must be prosecuted with the utmost energy, promptness, and vigour, or it will prove a failure ; that every week's flying of the secession flag defiantly within a day's walk of "Washington renders the suppression of the revolt more difficult, if not doubtful. It is true that I think a government that begins the work of putting down a rebellion by forming " camps of instruction," or any thing of that sort, is likely to make a very long job of it. It is true that I think our obvious policy, under the circumstances, would have been to be cour- teous and long-suffering towards foreign powers, but resolute and ready in our dealings with armed rebels ; and it. seems to me that the opposite course has been taken. But the watchword, "Forward to Richmond," is not mine, nor any thing of like import. I wish to evade no responsibility, but to repel a personal aspersion. So with regard to the late article urg- ing a change in the cabinet. While I know that some of the best material 896 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. in the country enters into the composition of that cabinet, I yet feel that changes might be made therein with advantage to the public service. Yet I did not write, and I did not intend to have published, the article calling for a change of cabinet, which only appeared through a misapprehension. I shrunk from printing it in part because any good effect it might have was likely to be neutralized by the very course which has been taken that of assailing me as its supposed author. I have no desire in the premises but that what is best for the country shall be done. If the public judge that this great end an energetic and successful prosecution of the war will be most surely subserved by retain, ing the cabinet as it is, I acquiesce in that decision. The end being secured, the means are to me utterly indifferent. I wish to be distinctly understood as not seeking to be relieved from any responsibility for urging the advance of the Union grand army into Vir- ginia, though the precise phrase, "Forward to Richmond!" is not mine, and I would have preferred not to iterate it. I thought that that army, one hundred thousand strong, might have been in the rebel capital on or before the 20th instant, while I felt that there were urgent reasons why it should be there if possible. And now, if any one imagine that I, or any one connected with The Tribune, ever commended or imagined such strategy as the launching of barely thirty thousand of the one hundred thousand Union volunteers within fifty miles of Washington against ninety thousand rebels enveloped in a labyrinth of strong intrenchments and unreconnoitred masked batteries, the demonstration would be lost on his closed ear. But I will not dwell on this. If I am needed as a scape-goat for all the military blunders of the last month, so be it. Individuals must die that the nation may live. If I can serve her best in that capacity, I do not shrink from the ordeal. Henceforth I bar all criticism in these columns on army movements, past or future, unless somebody should undertake to prove that General Patterson is a wise and brave commander. He seems to have none to speak his praises ; so, if there is any thing to be said in his behalf, I will make an exception in his favour. Other than this, the subject is closed and sealed. Correspondents and reporters may state facts, but must for- bear comments. I know that there is truth that yet needs be uttered on this subject, but this paper has done its full share all that it ought, and perhaps more than it could afford to do and henceforth stands back for others. Only I beg it to be understood once for all that if less than half the Union armies directly at hand are hurled against all the rebel forces that could be concentrated more than double their number on ground specially chosen and strongly fortified by the traitors, The Tribune does not approve and should not be held responsible for such madness. Say what you will of the past, but remember this for the future, though we keep silence. Henceforth it shall be The Tribune's sole vocation to rouse and animate the American people for the terrible ordeal which has befallen them. The great republic eminently needs the utmost exertions of every loyal BULL RUN. 397 r heart and hand. We have tried to serve her by exposing breakers ahead and around her ; henceforth be it ours to strengthen, in all possible ways, the hands of those whose unenviable duty it is to pilot her through them. If more good is thus to be done, let us not repine that some truth must be withheld for a calmer moment, and for less troubled ears. The journal which is made the conduit of the most violent of these per- sonal assaults on me attributes the course of The Tribune to resentment " against those who have ever committed the inexpiable offense of thwart- ing Mr. Greeley's raging and unsatiated thirst for office." I think this justifies me in saying that there is no office in the gift of the government or of the people which I either hope, wish, or expect ever to hold. I certainly shall not parade myself as declining places that are not offered for my acceptance ; but I am sure the President has always known that I desired no office at his hands; and this, not through any violation of my rule above stated, but through the report of mutual and influential friends, who at various times volunteered to ask me if I would take any place whatever under the government, and were uniformly and conclu- sively assured that I would not Now let the wolves howl on. I do not believe they can goad me into another personal notice of their ravings. HORACE GREELEY. July 24, 1861. I have quoted thus fully from Mr. Greeley upon this subject not only to show that his policy, the policy of The Tribune, of "Forward to Richmond" was "Forward " and not "For- ward and Back;" but also that, in connexion with Mr. Gree- ley's statement, I may state the real cause of the defeat. General McDowell, it will be recollected, moved against the enemy from Arlington Heights. General Patterson, farther up the Potomac, with the army of the Shenandoah, had it in charge to keep the rebel General Joseph E. Johnston from reenforcing General Beauregard. Lieutenant-General Win- field Scott, in command of the Union armies, thrice sent orders, as he supposed, to Patterson to keep Johnston near the Shenan- doah by hostile demonstrations, and, if necessary, by engaging him. General Scott entrusted all these orders to a single aide, of his own name, and related to him by marriage. They were purposely withheld, that Johnston might get away from Pat- terson. It was this treason in General Scott's military family which was the direct cause of the defeat of the Union army at Bull Run. For, as is well known, the victory was with Gen- eral McDowell, in immediate command of the Unionists, till 898 LIFE OF HOBACE GREELET. these reinforcements of Beauregard changed the result. That General Scott would not have trusted such important order to a single person, had age not impaired his faculties, will not be disputed. In shame and sorrow, he at once sought to be relieved, whilst his culpable aide left America, and tried to drown his compunctions, or escape punishment, in the gayeties of the French Capital. But for this lamentable want of vigilance on the part of the Commander-in-Chief, Bull Run would have been a victory, and "On to Richmond" eulogised as the finest strategy. The cause of the failure of Patterson being unknown until long afterwards, he and others suffered greatly in consequence. But with the public Horace Greeley was made to play the character of the chief scape-goat. But even had there been no treachery at headquwters, the assaults upon Mr. Greeley and The Tribune were still inex- cusably unjust. Though General Patterson must be relieved of the blame which was cast upon him, by Mr, Greeley as well as by others, the fault should not have been placed upon The Tribune. The Union army was strong in numbers, en- thusiastic, brave. It was in all respects superior to its enemy. Three years afterwards, the country universally applauded General Grant's dispatch which said "I shall fight it out on this line if it takes all Summer," though he /ailed to fight it out on that line, and though it took much more than all Sum- mer. This famous saying cost the country immensely more life and treasure than the other: and, based upon a more thorough knowledge of our own and the enemy's resources, and ot the capacity of our troops to march and fight, it had no foundation but boastfulness, with the object to deceive. It was, therefore, well. But " On to Richmond " in 1861 was wiser than Grant's dispatch of 1864. Had Grant not been more vigilant and capable than Scott had become in 1861, he would still be fighting it out, or else peace would have been proclaimed over the ruins of the Republic, and in a terrible calamity to mankind. Had " On to Richmond " been fought for as the other saying, the rebellion would then and there have suffered utter discomfiture. SIMON CAMERON. 399 But at whatsoever conclusions we may arrive upon this sub- ject, it is certain that the result of the battle of Bull Run was received with general consternation by the North. There was, if I may so speak, a brief popular panic. One consequence of this was, to use a word whereby gentlemen in the War Department described the situation of General Rosecrans after the battle of Chickamauga, Mr. Greeley was " stampeded." The national calamity overpowered him for the time being. He became ill, and was for some time dangerously sick. We have already seen what he wrote two days after the battle. Mr. Dana and Mr. Warren, unwilling to acknowledge that any blame whatever attached to The Tribune, indignant that it should even so far recognize the popular clamour as to change its policy, retired from the paper. I suppose both those gentlemen have never ceased to think that herein and not in " On to Richmond," did The Tribune err. In truth they were in the right: but in view of the military disaster and the national consternation, it was wise in Mr. Greeley to bend to the storm. During the early part of the rebellion, Mr. Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, was Secretary of War. He was given this position in President Lincoln's cabinet, contrary to the Presi- dent's judgment, but in fulfillment of certain pledges made without authority by Mr. Lincoln's friends at the Chicago convention. There was no one man with eminent position in American affairs, who had done so much, perhaps, to corrupt politics as Mr. Cameron. He was once described in a speech by a distinguished Representative in Congress as a man of a single virtue and a thousand crimes. That Mr. Lincoln was annoyed by his presence in the Cabinet there is no doubt. That he conducted the War Office in the interest of contractors and for the furtherance of jobs there will be few to dispute. A more unfortunate head for the department of war could not easily have been selected. President Lincoln endured his incapacity so long as even his sublime good-nature could hold out, and then banished him to St. Petersburg, where he per- formed the easy functions of a minister at a friendly court. It was early in 1862 that Mr. Cameron retired from the War 400 TJint OF HORACE GEEELEY. Department. He was succeeded by Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, at tliat time not generally known throughout the country, but whose name soon became illustrious as that of the great War Secretary. Mr. Stanton had ever been in politics a member of the Democratic party. His appointment was intended not only as a recognition of his talents and patriotism but as a manifestation also of a determination on the part of the Presi- dent to give his administration a non-partisan character. And so it was gracefully accepted by a large portion of the Demo- cratic party, and by the public generally. The military operations of the year 1861 had been, upon the whole, disastrous to the Union cause. There had also appeared on th part of the government a want of earnestness ; a kind of good-natured attempt to carry on the war on peace princi- ples. General Butler and General Fremont had not been sustained in certain measures of a vigorous nature adopted by them; and, generally, we seemed to be afraid that the rebellion might be too much hurt. The treatment it received was notably mild and tender. In consequence whereof the people of the North began to be not a little disheartened. That much of the responsibility for the unfortunate situation was justly chargeable to incapacity in the management of the Department of War, there can be few to question. Mr. Cameron gave a great deal more attention to contracts for the most ephemeral of army hats than he gave to ways and means for the prosecution of the war. He acted very much as though the office of Secretary of War were identical with that of a depot quartermaster or a commissary of subsistence. Many commenced shrewdly to surmise that we were engaged not in a war, but a speculation. I do not impeach the civil capacity of Simon Cameron; but it seems as though it were hardly possible a more unfortunate selection COL id have been made for the head of the War Department in a time of war. The appointment of Mr. Stanton instantly changed and invigorated the national heart, and evoked the general patriot- ism to renewed fervour. Mr. Greeley, who had been greatly depressed in spirit for many months, at once resumed hia wonted ardour, and again The Tribune's voice rang loud and EDWIN M. STANTON. EDWIN M. OTAinON. 401 clear like a trumpet sounding the charge. The Tribune of February 18, 1862, said: While every honest heart rises in gratitude to God for the victories which afford so glorious a guaranty of the national salvation, let it not be forgotten that it is to Edwin M. Stanton, more than to any other indi vidual, that these auspicious events are now due. Our generals in the field have done their duty with energy and courage : our officers, and with them the noble democracy of the ranks, have proved themselves worthy sons of the Republic ; but it is by the impassionate soul, the sleepless will, and the great practical talents of the Secretary of War, that the vast power of the United States has now been hurled upon their treacherous and perjured enemies to crush them to powder. Let no man imagine that we exalt this great statesman above his deserts, or that we would detract an iota from that share of glory which in this momentous crisis belongs to every faithful participator in the events of this war. But we cannot overlook the fact that whereas but the other day all was doubt, distrust, and uncertainty ; the nation despairing almost of its own restoration to life; Congress the scene of bitter imputations and unsatisfactory apolo- gies; the army sluggish, discontented, and decaying; and the abyss of ruin and disgrace yawning to swallow us now all is inspiration, merri- merit, victory, and confidence. We seem to have passed into another state of existence, to live with distinct purposes, and to feel the certainty of their realization. To which Secretary Stanton replied: WASHINOTOIT, February 19, 1862. To the Editor of The New- York Tribune: SIR: I cannot suffer undue merit to be ascribed to my official action. The glory of our recent victories belongs to our gallant officers and soldiers that fought the battles. No share of it belongs to me. Much has lately been said of military combinations and organizing victory. I hear such phrases with apprehension. They commenced in infidel France with the Italian campaign, and resulted in Waterloo. Who can organize victory? Who can combine the elements of success on the battle-field ? We owe our recent victories to the Spirit of the Lord, that moved our soldiers to rush into battle, and filled the hearts of our enemies with terror and dismay. The inspiration that conquered in battle was in the hearts of the soldiers, and from on high ; and wherever there is the same inspiration there will be the same results. Patriotic spirit, with resolute courage in officers and men, is a military combination that never failed. We may well rejoice at the recent victories, for they teach us that battle? are to be won now and by us in the same and only manner that they were ever won by any people or in any age, since the days of Joshua, by boldly pursuing and striking the foe. What, under the blessing of Providence, I 26 402 LEFB OF HORACE GRKELET. conceive to be the true organization of victory and military combination to end this war, was declared in a few words by General Grant's message to General Buckner "I propose to move immediately on your toorfa." Yours, truly, EDWTO M. STANTOS. The Tribune, in response, epoke of Mr. Stanton's modesty and unaffected religious feeling. It admitted that he was right, too. The favourable change in our affairs was due t God and the people alone. Nevertheless, it said, if Mr. Stan- ton has not organized victory, he has at least unwound it and set it in motion. It might almost seem that the appointment of Mr. Stanton was a providential event. Mr. Lincoln was a man of peace. Mr. Stanton might almost be described as the incarnation of war. He was Mars modernized. No man was ever more terribly in earnest His acts were sometimes harsh, even grossly unjust in individual cases ; but harshness had become a necessity, and his injustice to persons rarely if ever resulted in ill to the country. No man ever braved unfavourable opinion as Secretary Stanton braved it. I believe he would cheerfully have welcomed obloquy if thereby he could have banished the paltering of politicians and aided to save his country. Before his dominating spirit that of President Lincoln bowed with a feeling akin to awe. By his resistless energy and sleepless vigilance the army was organized for victory. Cheering triumphs speedily followed his accession to office. The great crime of trifling was no more committed. Thoughtful men saw that the preservation of the Union through the defeat of the rebellion had become only a question of time. In this happy improvement in the posture of affairs, Mr. Greeley did not substantially change the policy of The Tribune in respect to criticism of the conduct of the war from that marked out in the article "Just Once," already quoted. The government was sustained with but little qualification and less unfriendly criticism. Scarcely any fault was found with what was done. It advocated the doing of things before they were done, but without any exhibition of unseemly temper or manifestation of croaking complaint. Aside from victories in the field, the two events of the war which coincided best with EDWIN M. 403 the policy of The Tribune, and were the most gratifying to Mr. Greeley, were the appointment of Edwin M. Stan ton as Secretary of War and the Proclamation of Emancipation. The wisdom and patriotism of that policy could hardly be more conclusively demonstrated, since these were the two deeds which, through the action of government, had most to do in bringing the terrible contest to an issue favourable to the republic and the cause of human progress. SAMUEL BOWLES. See page 183. CHAPTEK XXIII. THE WAR OF THE REBELLION CONTINUES. Correspondence with President Lincoln The Mob of 1863 Mr. Lincoln Re-elected President General McClellan the Opposing Candidate General Fremont and Montgomery Blair Withdraw Mr. Greeley's "Peace Negotiations "The Rebel " Negotiators "The Military Cam- paigns of 1864-65 under Grant and Sherman Victory The Death of President Lincoln Horace Greeley's Opinion of Him as a War Presi- dent President Andrew Johnson Mr. Greeley Undertakes to Bring About a Reconciliation Between the President and Congress The President Impeached Failure. Bur so great was the rebellion, so long had the nation trifled with its cause, and then on this account with its armed defend- ers, that even the most energetic and wise and unselfish of war secretaries, a government proclaiming freedom to millions of slaves, sustained by a vast and brave army of Volunteers, were unable to bring the conflict to a speedy termination. Indeed, there was great concern among the most thoughtful friends of the republic, that President Lincoln would so long remain tramelled by old precedents and regard for technicalities, that it might become too late to save the nation, even by the loftiest deeds of justice and the most heroic fighting. In demanding emancipation, the arming of the blacks, and this with pro- foundest earnestness, Horace Greeley truly represented the great bulk of the reflecting people of the North, and at the same time pointed out the means of national preservation. There was scarcely a day that he did not urge emancipation upon the administration, and the country. But on the 19th of August, 1862, he addressed a letter, through the columns of The Tribune, to President Lincoln, which had immediate effect. It was entitled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," and was one of the most powerful essays which ever came from the J. V pen of Horace Greeley; one of the most unanswerable argu- ments and irresistable appeals which the human mind ever (404) 405 conceived or expressed. The concluding portions of this letter were as follows: On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one disinter- ested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the Rebellion, and at the same time up- hold its inciting cause, are preposterous and futile that the Rebellion, if crushed out to-morrow, would be renewed within a year if Slavery were left in full vigour that army officers, who remain to this day devoted to Slavery, can at best be but half-way loyal to the Union and that every hour of deference to Slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union. I appeal to the testimony of your Ambassadors in Europe. It is freely at your service, not mine. Ask them to tell you candidly whether the seeming subserviency of your policy to the slaveholding, Slavery, upholding interest, is not the perplexity, the despair, of statesmen of all parties ; and be admonished by the general answer ! I close as I began, with the statements that what an immense majority of the loyal millions of your countrymen require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of the Confiscation Act. That act gives freedom to the slaves of Rebels coming within our lines, or whom those lines may at any time inclose we ask you to render it due obedience by publicly requiring all your subordinates to recognize and obey it. The Rebels are everywhere using the late anti-negro riots in the North as they have long used your officers' treatment of negroes in the South to convince the slaves that they have nothing to hope from a Union success that we mean in that case to sell them into a bitter bondage to defray the cost of the war. Let them impress this as a truth on the great mass of their ignorant and cred- ulous bondmen, and the Union will never be restored never. We can not conquer ten million of people united in solid phalanx against us, powerfully aided by Northern sympathizers and European allies. We must have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers, and choppers, from the Blacks of the South whether we allow them to fight for us or not or we shall be baffled and repelled. As one of the millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any sacrifice but that of prin- ciple and honour, but who now feel that the triumph of the Union is indispensible not only to the existence of our country, but to the well- being of mankind, I entreat you to render a hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land. Yours, HORACE GKEELEY. This letter made a profound impression upon the country, and at once. It also made a profound impression upon Presi- dent Lincoln. He perceived that it merited consideration and response. He replied to it as follows: 406 LIFE OF HORACE QKEELET. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 22, 1862. HON. HORACE GREELET: DEAR SIR: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through The New- York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in defer ence to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the TJnion will be " the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Unioa without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it ; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the coloured race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union ; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors ; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, every. where, could be free. Tours, A. LINCOLN. To which Mr. Greeley speedily responded: To THE PRESIDENT: DEAR SIR : Although I did not anticipate nor seek any reply to my former letter unless through your official acts, I thank you for having accorded one, since it enables me to say explicitly that nothing was further from my thought than to impeach in any manner the sincerity or the inten- sity of your devotion to the saving of the Union. I never doubted, and have no friend who doubts, that you desire, before and above all else, to re- establish the now derided authority, and vindicate the territorial integrity, of the Republic. I intended to raise only this question, Do you propose to do this by recognizing, obeying, and enforcing the laws, or by ignoring, disregarding, and in effect defying them ? I stand upon the law of the land. The humblest has a clear right to LETTER TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 407 invoke its protection and support against even the highest. That law in strict accordance with the law of nations, of Nature, and of God declares that every traitor now engaged in the infernal work of destroying our country has forfeited thereby all claim or colour of right lawfully to hold human beings in slavery. I ask of you a clear and public recogni- tion that this law is to be obeyed wherever the national authority is respected. I cite you to instances wherein men fleeing from bondage to traitors to the protection of our flag have been assaulted, wounded, and murdered by soldiers of the Union, unpunished and uurebuked by your General Commanding, to prove that it is your duty to take action in the premises, action that will cause the law to be proclaimed and obeyed wherever your authority or that of the Union is recognized as paramount. The Rebellion is strengthened, the national cause is imperilled, by every hour's delay to strike Treason this staggering blow. When Fremont proclaimed freedom to the slaves of rebels, you con- strained him to modify his proclamation into rigid accordance with the terms of the existing law. It was your clear right to do so. 1 now ask of you conformity to the principle so sternly enforced upon him. I ask j r ou to instruct your generals and commodores, that no loyal person certainly none willing to render service to the national cause is henceforth to be regarded as the slave of any traitor. While no rightful government waa ever before assailed by so wanton and wicked a rebellion as that of the slaveholders against our national life, I am sure none ever before hesitated at so simple and primary an act of self defence, as to relieve those who would serve and save it from chattel servitude to those who are wading through seas of blood to subvert it. Future generations will with difficulty realize that there could have been hesitation on this point. Sixty years of general and boundless subserviency to the slave power do not adequately explain it. Mr. President, I beseech you to open your eyes to the fact that the devotees of slavery everywhere just, as much in Maryland as in Missis- sippi, in Washington as in Richmond are to-day your enemies, and the implacable foes of every effort to re-establish the national authority by the discomfiture of its assailants. Their President is not Abraham Lincoln, but Jefferson Davis. You may draft them to serve in the war ; but they will only fight under the Rebel flag. There is not in New- York to-day a man who really believes in slavery, loves it, and desires its perpetuation, who heartily desires the crushing out of the Rebellion. He would much rather save the Republic by buying up and pensioning off its assailants. His " Union as it was " is a Union of which you were not President, and no one who truly wished freedom to all ever could be. If these are truths, Mr. President, they are surely of the gravest impor. tance. You cannot safely approach the great and good end you so intently meditate by shutting your eyes to them. Your deadly foe is not blinded by any mist in which your eyes may be enveloped. He walks straight to his goal, knowing well his weak point, and most unwillingly betraying his fear that you too may see and take advantage of it. God grant that hii apprehension may prove prophetic 1 408 I1FK OTT HORACE OREELEY. That you may ro f . unseasonably - ',r / 'p' Tr P fiese ~jtal truths as they will ehine forth on the pages of histot T , mai they may be read by our chil- dren irradiated by the gloiy of cur national salvation, not rendered lurid by the blood-red glow of national conflagration and ruin, that you may promptly and practically realize that slavery is to be vanquished only by liberty, is the fervent an- 1 anxious prayer of "Sours truly, HORACE GREELEY. NEW-YORK, August 24, 1862. "Within one month from the publication of this letter in The Tribune, President Lincoln issued the Prodamation of Eman- cipation. An act of greater beneficence or of graver responsibility history has rarely if ever recorded. Mr. Greeley did not over- estimate its importance in cheering the hearts of the great body of anti-slavery people. There had been much in the course of the administration to cause the large and influential class here referred to to become despondent, at times almost to despair of the republic. If they had had that responsibility which was constantly weighing upon President Lincoln, they might not, indeed, have been as wisely cautious as he, but they would have been more carefully considerate of the character of their great acts than of their great words. The President was sure that, in his endeavours to save the Union, in the man- ner marked out by his best judgment, he would be heartily sustained, though he might also be freely criticised, by anti- slavery men generally. He could not be certain of the effect a Proclamation of Emancipation might have upon many thousands who claimed to be friends of the Union, but who were not anti-slavery. Nor could he be certain of the advantage which might be taken, in the North, of such an extraordinary act, by disunionists in that section. Events justified the wisdom of Horace Greeley's policy and of President Lincoln's considerate caution. Emancipation called forth the most desperate efforts of the rebellion, and the irresistible power of a free Union. One of the most notable evidences of the desperation in which Emancipation placed the disunionists was afforded by the anti-draft, anti-negro riots which occurred in the city of New- York in July, 1863. It would appear that this destructive and bloody 6meute was UW-YORX RIOTS OF 1863. 409 ihe cuhnin&tioii of dlsr.ai.cn desperation; that desperation, feared so much by President Lincoln, which was a logical result of Emancipation. The proclamation was followed by political disaster. Ir the elections which soon took place, there seemed to be little to encourage the Union causa. New York elected Mr. Horatio Seymour its Governor over a Union General by some 10,000 majority. Several other States which had voted for Mr. Lincoln in 1860, also now went against him. In the choice of Representatives in Congress, many Republicans were ousted and Democrats elected in place of them. Men began to say that Emancipation had been a mistake; that it was not sustained by the people, after all ; that old prejudices, old party associations would belittle the sublimest act of the century and permit the republic to be lost; that in spite of right, reason, justice, the nation was not ready for freedom. These despondent citizens were not encouraged by notable mil- itary successes. The darkest period of the war was that which followed Emancipation. Mr. Greeley says in his " American Conflict:" "Perhaps the very darkest days that the Republic ever saw were the ten which just preceded the 4th of July, 1863." No one can doubt the correctness of this judgment. It was the intense darkness which precedes the dawn. There was a certain weakness in the very strength of Emancipation the weakness of faith without works. The Unionists, gratified with the acknowledgement of the grand idea, pretermitted that grand work which was still necessary for its realization. In their desperation, the disunionists left no one thing undone which they could do, whether in war or in politics, and in both seemed to be making headway against the republic and eman- cipation. It was not until they had made considerable progress and had imposed upon thousands of Union men, who were, however, not anti-slavery, that the irresistible power of Eman- cipation became manifest. Unquestionably the New- York riots did very much to demonstrate the nature of the contest in which we were en- gaged. After that terrible week there could be no mistake. And after that week, the fate of the rebellion was sealed. Its 410 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. complete suppression, and the vindication of the republic, through freedom, thenceforth was but a question of time. The pretext of this riot was the enforcement of the draft for soldiers which, in accordance with law, had been ordered by the government. The mob first assailed the building in which the drawing in one of the districts was taking place. The officers were dispersed, the building set on fire. Increasing in numbers, the rioters proceeded to commit acts of violence, arson, and bloodshed, which placed the city in general terror. The fearful work continued for four days, during which period property to the value of several millions was destroyed, and many murders, chiefly of blacks, committed under circum- stances of savage atrocity. The office of The Tribune was attacked on the evening of the first day of the riot, the count- ing-room entered, sacked, and set on fire, but energetic action on the part of the police drove off the mob, and thereafter, having procured arms and amunition in abundance, the office was able to take care of itself. It was constantly surrounded, however, by the surging, howling mob, which, unquestionably, thirsted even more for the blood of Horace Greeley than for that of the innocent negroes. Though Mr. Greeley was certainly in more danger than any white man in the city, whether of high or low degree, there was not, perhaps, in all the metropolis, a single individual who manifested more coolness than he. He related in The Tribune, not long afterwards, what occurred as to himself in these words: On the 13th of July, 1863 (the first day of the Draft Riota in our city), the editor of The Tribune was visited in his office about midday by a devoted friend, who urged and entreated him to accompany the said friend to his home, a few miles distant. That friend assured him that he knew that the life of said editor was to be taken forthwith that it had been plotted and settled that he should be an early and certain victim of the ruffian mob then howling about The Tribune office, and inciting each other to the assault, which they actually made at dusk that night, when they smashed the windows, furniture, etc., and set fire to the building, but were promptly routed and expelled by the police. Riot, arson, and pillage were then rife in different sections of our city, of which the rebel mob appeared to have undisputed possession. The editor (who writes this) informed his friend that nothing would induce him to leave the city THE ANTI-DRAFT RIOT. 4:11 fhat he was where he had a right to be, and where he should remain. That friend, after exhausting remonstrance and entreaty, left him to his fate, not expecting to see him again. About five p. M. of that day, the editor, having finished his work at the office, went over to Windust's eating-house for his dinner, passing through the howling mob for nearly the entire distance, and recognized by several of them. Two friends accompanied him, but not at his invitation or suggestion. Neither of the three was armed. At Windust's dinner was ordered and eaten exactly as on other days, but in the largest room in the house, without a shadow of conceal- ment or hiding of any kind. Dinner finished, the editor took a carriage and drove to his lodging, where he resumed writing for The Tribune, and continued it through the evening, sending down his copy to the office, and being visited thence by friends who informed him of the mob's assault, and the narrow escape of the building and contents from destruction. Remaining all night at his lodging, he returned next morning to the office (now being armed), saw from a window the mob howling in its front, hastily repair to the City Hall Park, there to listen to a harangue from Horatio Seymour, and remained there nearly to the close of the day (Tuesday), when he was finally induced to leave by the representation of the good and true soldier who commanded it as fortress, that he would prefer that the mob should not be provided with the extra inducement for assault which the known presence of Mr. Greeley in the building would afford. He returned to the office the next morning, though the first hack- man to whom he applied refused to let him enter his carriage ; and he was in the office nearly throughout each day of that memorable week up to Friday evening, when he (as usual) took the Harlem cars for his home at Chappaqua, where he spent the Saturday, as he has done nearly every Saturday, save in winter, for the last fifteen years. In an article upon Horace Greeley, in Harper's Monthly Magazine for April, 1873, Mr. Junius Henri Browne, speaking of Mr. Greeley's courage during this trying week, says: After the riot had gotten well under way he had very little doubt he would be hanged to a lamp-post by the brutal and infuriated mob, and he had actually accepted death as his inevitable portion. Messenger after messenger, friend after friend, went to him to apprise him of his imminent peril, and were surprised to find him as cool as the summit of Mont Blanc. He had entire confidence in their statements, remarking, " Well, it doesn't make much difference. I've done my work. I may as well be killed by the mob as die in my bed. Between now and next time is only a little while." The day it was expected The Tribune would be attacked, its employes, who had prepared for a desperate defense, spent several hours in trying to get him out of the office. His invariable reply was, " Never mind int', boys; I'll take care of myself." And amidst the distribution of revolvers, muskets, and hand-grenades, and the fitting of hose to the steam-pipcs, 412 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELET. the intrepid Horace sat down to his desk to write editorials for the next morning's issue. It was only after several of the staff went to him, and urged him to quit the establishment for their sake, saying his remaining would do no good and merely imperil the office, that he consented to leave. He would do for The Tribune, the darling of his heart, what ha would not do for himself. His final remonstrance was, " You might as well let me stay. If there's going to be any fun, I don't know why 1 shouldn't see it too." But at last he was borne almost bodily into a car- riage and driven off, still protesting against the proceeding as " devilish mean." It was characteristic of Mr. Greeley that he should be a non-combatant physically and a thorough gladiator intellectually. As his biographer has told us, he would not, when a boy, fight back ; but he would not run under any circumstances. If attacked, he would stand and take it. The child was father to the man. While the mob threatened to demolish The Tribune office, its chief, though not desirous of resisting, was bent upon staying by and meeting the worst. The Union having been able, through the endurance and gallantry of its armed defenders and the gracious favour of Almighty God, to repel the desperate assaults of the insurrec- tionists consequent upon Emancipation, the people again began to resume some of their wonted habits. It was soon apparent that President Lincoln would be renominated and, being renominated, would also be reelected. It was also well known to those acquainted with the opinions of Democratic politi- cians that General George B. McClellan would be the candidate of the Democrats. Meantime, no little difference of opinion had grown up among the friends of the Union who had originally sustained Mr. Lincoln, which threatened to dismember the party in power. Seldom if ever in the whole history of the world has a statesman been placed in a more difficult position, one encom- passed by such great, constant, and various perils, as President Lincoln. It might seem that he had enough to engage all the time and thought of one man, occupying the chief executive office, in the formidable rebellion which defiantly confronted the government. It might appear that he also had enough thus to occupy time and mind in the management of that singular obstruction to a vigorous prosecution of the war which at the time generally passed by the name of the Border- State policy, and in the nomenclature of wits as the water- MK. LINCOLN'S RENOMINATION. 413 gruel policy. But in addition to these appalling difficulties by which he was surrounded, there were others even more annoying if not so great. In respect to the mode of conduct- ing the war, his own party was divided, and this not only in general, but in detail. Many opposed the Border-State policy; many denounced the retention of prominent generals in im- portant commands; many criticised the orders of different generals; many demanded the removal of certain Cabinet officers, and the reinstatement of certain military officers. Many of the ablest men of the Republican party were in undis- guised hostility to the President, and some who had great influence with him were his secret enemies. There were but few, it was claimed, who were not alarmed lest the Union cause should be ruined through deference to the opinions of those whose opinions were entitled to the least consideration. These seemed to be always welcome to the Executive Mansion. The Radicals were allowed to dance attendance on the clerks and messengers in the ante-rooms. "When the National Convention of the Republicans assembled at Baltimore, in 1864, Mr. Lincoln was renominated almost with unanimity. Missouri alone voted against him. And yet it may well be doubted whether one in ten of the earnest men in Congress was of this way of thinking. President Lincoln was extremely distasteful to a large majority of Congress, not only, but to many of the most prominent Republicans of the country. Among those who opposed his renomination was Horace Greeley. He was herein in a very much larger party than is commonly supposed; but others, after renomination and reelection, covered up their previous records. Mr. Greeley published his to the world. If the inside political history of the war shall ever be written, it will make many revelations of a remarkable and exciting nature. It will be found, among other things, that Horace Greeley, in his opposition to Mr. Lincoln, had the hearty endorsement of very many representa- tive men of whom to this day it is not generally known that they were in the habit, in private, of denouncing President Lincoln's administration with scarcely less vehemence thau they had denounced that of Mr. Buchanan. 414 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. The opposition of which I now speak was of men eminent for abilities, and sprang from an intense patriotism. They did not fear that the President's ultimate conclusions would be unwise, but that the country might be ruined before, in his imperturbable deliberation, he should reach conclusions; that the Union cause might be lost while he was making up his mind upon the ways and means best to preserve it. The ways and means he finally selected were those they had advocated ; and while it seems probable the war might sooner have ended had he adopted them sooner, it is not impossible they would have been followed by temporary disaster, as was the case with emancipation. We can now clearly enough see that they were in the right in judgment, and that President Lincoln heartily agreed with them, differing from them only as to the best time when certain things should be done. The Democratic party knew perfectly well that there was division of counsel among the Republicans. This was mani- fested in a variety of ways, notably by a convention of Radicals at Cleveland, Ohio, which, in the latter part of May, 1864, nominated General Fremont for the Presidency, and General John Cochrane for the Vice-Presidency, and later, by a political manifesto from Senator Wade, of Ohio, and Representative Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, in which the administration was severely criticised. Mr. Greeley heartily assented to many considerations urged by Messrs. Wade and Davis, but was glad that President Lincoln had not approved the reconstruction bill, the defeat of which was the basis of those gentlemen's animadversions. Henry Winter Davis was one of our most eloquent orators. He was also a strong and polished writer. This document from his pen made a bill of indictment which it was extremely difficult to answer. The Democracy failed to avail themselves of the divisions among their opponents. In their National Convention, held at Chicago, General George B. McClellan was nominated for President. It has been America's unfortunate lot to have pro- duced many men who have had greatness thrust upon them. Of all these General McClellan is the most conspicuous example of deplorable inability to carry the responsibilities and perform GENERAL MC CLELLAN. 415 the duties of exalted station. Of amiable dispositions and, doubtless, of patriotic impulses, lie was by nature wholly unfit for the conduct of great affairs whether civil or military. A formidable movement or a great idea "stampeded" him. As a soldier he was masterly only in retreat. No illustrious captain of any age ever got a superior army out of the way of an inferior one with so much skill and eclat. His generals and his magnificent army won some victories in spite of him of which he declined to take the least advantage. In political affairs he was the merest tyro. One of the most melancholy mistakes with which history will charge President Lincoln's conduct of the war will be his retaining this excellent gentle- man in a military position which he was incompetent to fill. The political campaign of the year 1864 was one of earnest- ness on the part of the Republicans, but was not characterized by even the usual outward manifestations of excitement. In the midst of a terrible war, by which the South was being devastated, and the North in nearly every household mourning the long absence or, may be, the death of a citizen soldier, it had been unbecoming had the ordinary tricks, parades, and effervescence of partizan politics prevailed. A notable event of the campaign was the resignation of Mr. Montgomery Blair as a member of President Lincoln's cabinet. Mr. Blair had been Postmaster General since the beginning of Mr. Lincoln's administration. The son of a distinguished politician, the brother of another, he was himself but little known to the country when President Lincoln called him to the cabinet. He performed his official duties with energy and ability, but through certain disputes and quarrels growing out of General Fremont's operations in Missouri, in the early part of the war, and, perhaps, through other causes also, Mr. Blair had become extremely unpopular with the Radical wing of the Republican party. He was regarded as the marplot of the administration. It seemed to be necessary, certainly highly desirable, that there should be but one candidate against Gen- eral McClellan. President Lincoln, under these circumstances, felt justifiable in requesting Mr. Blair to withdraw from his cabinet. The request being instantly complied with, the with- 416 LIFE OF HORACE GEKELEY. drawal of General Fremont as a Presidential candidate speedily followed. In political logic, one withdrawal was the result of the other. A matter of more importance in respect to the war generally than to the political campaign, was an attempt by Mr. Greeley to bring authorized parties together with the object of con- cluding the war by negotiation. This he undertook even so early as January, 1863, but after weeks of endeavour had to give it up, "without having come in sight of any rebel proposition at all." In July, 1864, he received a letter from W. C. Jewett, urging further efforts in this behalf, and, unwilling to leave anything undone that might honourably be done in the interest of peace, he enclosed Mr. Jewett's letter to President Lincoln, with one of his own, as follows: t NEW- YORK, July 7, 1864. MY DEAR SIR: I venture to enclose you a letter and telegraphic dis- patch that I received yesterday from our irrepressible friend, Colorado Jewett, at Niagara Falls. I think they deserve attention. Of course, I do not indorse Jewett's positive averment that his friends at the Falls have "full powers" from Jefferson Davis, though I do not doubt that he thinks they have. I let that statement stand as simply evidencing the anxiety of the Confederates everywhere for peace. So much is beyond doubt. And, therefore, I venture to remind you that our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country also longs for peace, shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of blood ; and a wide-spread conviction that the government and its promi- ment supporters are not anxious for peace, and do not improve proffered opportunities to achieve it, is doing great harm now, and is morally certain, unless removed, to do far greater in the approaching elections. It is not enough that we anxiously desire a true and lasting peace ; we ought to demonstrate and establish the truth beyond cavil. The fact that A. II. Stephens was not permitted a year ago to visit and confer with the authorities at Washington has done harm, which the tone of the late National Convention at Baltimore is not calculated to counteract. I entreat you, in your own time and manner, to submit overtures for pacification to the Southern insurgents, which the impartial must pro- nounce frank and generous. If only with a view to the momentous elec- tion soon to occur in North Carolina, and of the draft to be enforced in the Free States, this should be done at once. I would give the safe-con- duct required by the Rebel envoys at Niagara, upon their parole to avoid observation, and to refrain from all communication with their sympathi- zers in the loyal States; but you may see reasons for declining it. But whether through them or otherwise, do not, I entreat you, fail to make the PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 417 Southern people comprehend that you, and all of us, are anxious for peace, and prepared to grant liberal terms. I venture to suggest the following PLAN OF ADJUSTMENT. 1. The Union Is restored and declared perpetual. 2. Slavery is utterly and forever abolished throughout the same. 8. A complete amnesty for all political ofl'enses, with a restoration of all the Inhabi- tants of each State to all the privileges of citizens of the United States. 4. The Union to pay four hundred million dollars ($400,000,000) in flve-per-cent United States stock, to the late Slave States, loyal and secession alike, to be apportioned pro raia, according to their population respectively, by the census of 1860, in compensation for the losses of their loyal citizens by the abolition of slavery. Each State to be entitled to its quota upon the ratification by its legislature of this adjustment. The bonds to he at the absolute disposal of the legislature aforesaid. 5. The said Slave States to be entitled henceforth to representation in the House on the basis of their total, instead of their Federal population, the whole now being free. 6. A national convention to be assembled as soon as may be, to ratify this adjustment, and make such changes in the Constitution as may be deemed advisable. Mr. President, I fear you do not realize how intently the people desire any peace consistent with the national integrity and honour, and how joy- ously they would hail its achievement, and bless its authors. With United States stocks worth but forty cents in gold per dollar, and drafting about to commence on the third million of Union soldiers, can this be wondered at? I do not say that a just peace is now attainable, though I believe it to be so. But I do say that a frank offer by you to the insurgents, of terms which the impartial would say ought to be accepted, will, at the worst, prove an immense and sorely needed advantage to the national cause. It may save us from a Northern insurrection. Yours truly, HORACE GREELEY. HON. A. LINCOLN, President, Washington, D. C. P. S. Even though it should be deemed unadvisible to make an offer of terms to the Rebels, I insist that, in any possible case, it is desirable that any offer they may be disposed to make should be received, and either accepted or rejected. I beg you to invite those now at Niagara to exhibit their credentials and submit their ultimatum. H. G. Upon the receipt of this letter, President Lincoln authorized Mr. Greeley to repair to Niagara Falls and converse with the gentlemen said to have authority to treat. These " rebel negotiators " were supposed by Mr. Greeley to be Messrs. Clement C. Clay, Jr., of Alabama, Jacob Thompson, of Missis- sippi, James P. Holcombe, of Virginia, with Mr. George ~N. Sanders attached. Mr. Thompson, however, did not appear. Messrs. Clay and Holcombe, in acknowledging a note from Mr. Greeley to them as ambassadors with full powers, and as such offering them safa-conduct to Washington, corrected that 27 418 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. opinion, stating that they had not been accredited as tlie bear- ers of propositions looking to the establishment of peace. Whereupon, Mr. Greeley telegraphed to Washington for fur- ther instructions. In response the President sent the follow ing by the hands of Major Hay : ExEctmvE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. 0., July 18, 1864. To whom it may concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which conies by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the Executive Govern- ment of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms, on other sub- stantial and collateral points, and the bearef or bearers thereof shaH have safe-conduct both ways. ABKAHAM LINCOLN. Messrs. Ilolcombe and Clay declined the safe-conduct thus offered, and in a long note to Mr. Greeley undertook to show that President Lincoln's proposition was insulting to the South and could not be entertained. They undertook again, to " fire the Southern heart," but did not meet with notable success. Mr. Greeley had no authority to negotiate, and did not undertake anything of the kind. He endeavoured to bring peace-makers together. In this he failed, but the result of his effort was strong proof of the fact that the rebel authorities would not treat except upon condition of separation. And this was beneficial to the Union cause throughout the North, whilst the President's proposition greatly cheered the friends of free and united America in Europe. It is to be observed, however, that Mr. Greeley 's proposed " plan of adjustment " as set forth in his letter to The President would have saved the nation immensely in treasure and life, without losing a single benefit that came from a further prosecution of the war. But had the government submitted this plan, it would, doubt- less, have been rejected no less cavalierly than any other which did not recognize the confederate government So the war went on. The campaigns of Generals Grant and Sherman, that of the former in Virginia, that of the latter in Georgia, were conducted with great vigour. General Grant, GENERAL GRANT. 419 tip to the early part of 1864, had all the time been in command in the West, and South. Early in 1862, he had forced the unconditional surrender of Fort Donelson. The surprise of Shiloh followed, but he turned defeat into victory, of which greater advantage would have been taken, there is little doubt, but for the caution of General Halleck, who soon assumed command. The campaigns of Vicksburgh and of Chattanooga were of inestimable value to the Union cause* Thus was the great valley of the Mississippi restored to the control of the Union government. At Chattanooga, the back-bone of the rebellion was broken. Thereafter, the Cause of the Confed- eracy was hopeless. General Grant, being transferred to the East, took command of the armies operating against Richmond. General Sherman had command of the principal armies in the South. It is the opinion of the best military critics that General Sherman's operations in Georgia manifested the greater military genius and those of Grant against the forces defending Richmond the sublimef pluck and fortitude. Sherman marched to victory; Grant fought hig way to it. Sherman seemed to place his chief reliance in his soldiers' legs ; Grant, on his soldiers' lives. Grant could not have conducted the campaign of Atlanta, nor Sherman that of Richmond. Those who have charged General Grant with a needless slaughter of troops in his operations for the capture of Richmond may be in the right, but, if so, it is because the capture of the rebel capital was not worth the sac- rifice. That was the work he was given to do, and it could only be done, after McClellan and Halleck, through " red fields of blood. " Of all our generals, Grant alone, perhaps, had the nerve to assume the dread responsibility and execute the fearful task imposed upon him; much more fearful than it need have been, but not through fault of his. In 1862, he would have lost no more lives than McClellan lost; and he would have taken Richmond. The stubborn, relentless warfare of Grant, the brilliant suc- cesses of Sherman, gave great encouragement to the Unionists. Canby and Farragut also had heroic success in Mobile Bay and then, what with General Thomas's magnificent victory of 420 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. Nashville, Sherman "slashing through the Carolinas," after his remarkable march to the sea, General Wilson's great cav- alry operations, and Grant's final movements against Richmond, the triumph of the Union was made complete. It was most fitting that the capitulation of one great rebel army should be made to Grant, the other to Sherman. After this, all that was left of the dreadful war, was like the small pattering of rain which succeeds the bursting of the thunder-cloud. Then followed the warm, bright sunshine of national rejoic- ing. The jubilation throughout the North was universal, clearly demonstrating that Mr. Greeley had been right, in his letter to President Lincoln above quoted when he said with so much emphasis that the country longed for peace. In the midst of the rejoicings, however, the President wa*s assassinated. This most horrid crime plunged the public from the height of joy to the deepest sorrow. It was impossible that the murder of so good a man at any time should not have aroused pro- found griet and indignation. Taking place as it did in the midst of national gratulations upon the return of peace, it is not surprising that it was followed by proceedings of an irreg- ular, unlawful, dangerous, and scandalous character. The great reaction destroyed the presence of mind of government and people. Certainly nothing in our history ever so greatly called forth the sorrow of the people. At the Capital, there was universal manifestation of mourning. "Within a few minutes after the announcement of death, hundreds of buildings were draped with black. Soon, nearly every house was placed in mourning. The supply of goods of this kind was completely exhausted. But perhaps the most touching manifestation of grief was on the part of the poor negroes. They knew not where to find comfort. Thousands of them lifted up their voices and wept as they walked along the public streets. The whole nation was cast down in sorrow; and if there was a feeling of revenge mingling with the finer sentiment, the nature of the good President's taking off will fully explain it. Of Abraham Lincoln, Horace Greeley deliberately wrote: PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 421 There are those who say that Mr. Lincoln was fortunate in his death as in his life; I judge otherwise. I hold him most inapt for the leadership of a people involved in desperate., agonizing war; while I deem few men better fitted to guide a nation's destinies in time of peace. Especially do I deem him eminently fitted to soothe, to heal, and to re-unite in bonds of true, fraternal affection a people just lapsing into peace after years of dig- trading desolating internal strife. His true career was just opening when an assassin's bullet quenched his light of life. Mr. Lincoln entered Washington the victim of a grave delusion. A genial, quiet, essentially peaceful man, trained in the ways of the bar and the stump, he fully believed that there would be no civil war, no serious effort to consummate Disunion. His faith in Reason as a moral force was so implicit that he did not cherish a doubt that his Inaugural Address, whereon he had bestowed much thought and labour, would, when read throughout the South, dissolve the Confederacy as frost is dissipated by a vernal sun. I sat just behind him as he read it, on a bright, warm, still March day, expecting to hear its delivery arrested by the crack of a rifle aimed at his heart; but it pleased God to postpone the deed, though there was forty times the reason for shooting him in 1860 that there was in '65, and at least forty times as many intent on killing or having him killed. No shot was then fired, however ; for his hour had not yet come. ****** * When we were at length unmistakably launched on the stormy ocean of civil war, Mr. Lincoln's tenacity of purpose paralleled his former immo- bility. I believe he would have been nearly the last, if not the very last, man in America to recognize the Southern Confederacy, had its arms been triumphant. He would have much preferred death. This firmness impelled him to what seemed to me a grave error. Because he would never consent to give up the Union, he dreaded to recognize in any manner the existence of the Confederacy. Yet such recognition, after the capture of several thousand of our soldiers, became inevitable. Had fortune uniformly smiled on our arms, we might have treated the Rebel- lion as a seditious riot ; but our serious loss in prisoners at Bull Run rendered this thenceforth impossible. We were virtually compelled to recognize the Confederates as belligerents, by negotiating an exchange of prisoners. Thenceforth (it seems to me) we were precluded from treating them as felons. And I could see no objection, not merely to receiving with courtesy any overtures for peace they might see fit to make, but even to making overtures to them, as Gfreat Britain so publicly did to our Revolu- tionary fathers in the Summer of '76. War has become so fearfully expensive, through the progress of invention and machinery, that to protract it is to involve all parties in bankruptcy and ruin. Belligerents are, therefore, prone to protest their anxiety for Peace, in most cases, sincerely. Napoleon, though often at war, was always proclaiming his anxiety for peace. It seemed to me, throughout our great struggle, that a more vigorous prosecution, alike of War and of Peace was desirable. Larger armies, in the average more energetically LIFE OF HORACE GKEELET. led, more ably handled, seemed to be the National need, down to a lat stage of the contest. And I deemed it a mistake to put aside any overture that looked to the achievement of peace. Instead of repelling such over- tures, however unpromising, I would have openly welcomed any and all, and so treated each as to prove that the continuance of war was not the fault of our side. And so, when Henry May, Col. Jacquess, and others, solicited permission to go to Richmond in quest of Peace, I would have openly granted them every facility, asking them only to state distinctly that I had not sent nor accredited them. And I judge that Mr. Lincoln slowly came to a conclusion not dissimilar to mine, since Mr. F. P. Blair'a two visits to Richmond were made with his full knowledge ; while his own visit to Fortress Monroe, there to meet Confederate Commissioners and discuss with them terms of pacification, was a formal notice to all con- cerned of his anxiety to stay the effusion of blood. I believe that this conference did much to precipitate the downfall of the tottering Confed- eracy. I doubt whether any one of Sherman's nearly simultaneous successes did more. And, while Mr. Lincoln would have been a tenacious champion of the authority and dignity of the Union and the rights and security of all its loyal people, I am sure the vanquished Rebels would have found him a generous conqueror. Mr. Lincoln died for his country as truly as any soldier who fell fighting in the ranks of her armies. He was not merely killed for her sake, because of the high responsibilities she had a second time devolved on him, and the fidelity wherewith he fulfilled them, he was worn out in her service, and would not, I judge, have lived out his official term, had no one sought his immolation. When I last saw him, a few weeks before his death, I was struck by his haggard, care-fraught face, so different from the sunny, gladsome countenance he first brought from Illinois. I felt that his life hung by so slender a thread that any new access of trouble or excess of effort might suddenly close his career. I had ceased to appre- hend his assassination, had ceased even to think of it; yet "the sunset of life " was plainly looking out of his kindly eyes and gleaming from hia weather-beaten visage. Mr. Lincoln was emphatically a man of the people. Mr. Clay was called "The Great Commoner" by those who admired and loved him; but Clay was imperious, even haughty, in his moods, with aristocratic tastes and faults, utterly foreign to Lincoln's essentially plebeian nature. There never yet was man so lowly as to feel humbled in the presence of Abra- ham Lincoln ; there was no honest man who feared or dreaded to meet him ; there was no virtuous society so rude that, had he casually dropped into it, he would have checked innocent hilarity or been felt as a damper on enjoyment. Had he entered as a stranger a logger's camp in the great woods, a pioneer's bark-covered cabin in some new settlement, he would have soon been recognized and valued as one whose acquaintance was to be prized and cultivated. Mr. Lincoln was essentially a growing man. Enjoying no advantage* in youth, he had observed and reflected much since he attained to ma*. PRESIDENT JOHNSON. 428 hood, and he was steadily increasing his stock of knowledge to the day of his death. He was a wiser, abler man when he entered upon his second than when he commenced his first Presidential term. His mental pro- cesses were slow, but sure ; if he did not acquire swiftly, he retained all that he had once learned. Greater men our country has produced ; hut not another whom, humanly speaking, she could so ill spare, when she lost him, as the victim of Wilkes Booth's murderous aim. Though I very heartily supported it when made, I did not favour his re- nomination as President; for I wanted the War driven onward with vehe- mence, and this was not in his nature. Always dreading that the National credit would fail, or the National resolution falter, I feared that his easy ways would allow the Rebellion to obtain European recognition and achieve ultimate success. But that " Divinity that shapes our ends " waa quietly working out for us a larger and fuller deliverance than I had dared to hope for, leaving to such short-sighted mortals as I no part but to wonder and adore. We have had chieftains who would have crushed out the Rebellion in six months, and restored " the Union as it was " ; but God gave us the one leader whose control secured not only the downfall of th Rebellion, but the eternal overthrow of Human Slavery under the flag of the Great Republic. 1 The Convention which had re-nominated Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency, had selected Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, as candidate for Vice-President. Upon the death of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Johnson became President by force of constitutional pro- vision. The questions which now arose for settlement by statesmanship were novel, difficult, exciting. The reconstruc- tion of States lately in rebellion: the rehabilitation of th6 Union: presented a problem of the gravest practical import- ance and upon which, as was natural, there was wide difference of opinion. Mr. Johnson entered into the office of the Presi- dency with incomparably more dignity than that with which he had been inducted into the office of the Vice-Presidency j but on either occasion his penchant for speechifying was gen- erously manifested. Upon becoming President, he seemed to be governed by an earnest desire to see severe penalties im- posed upon the late rebels in arms and their leaders. In the course of a few months, however, he fell into the arms of Mosby's guerrillas, and from that time forth there was wide difference between him and most Republicans. Mr. Greeley more than once undertook to bring about reconciliation 1 Recollections of a Busy Life, p. 404 et $eq. 424: JJFK OF HORACE GKEELET. between the President and Congress. In September, 1866, he gave an account of his efforts in this behalf: Soon after our last State election, and before the assembling of the pres- ent Congress, I went, not uninvited, to Washington, expressly to guard against such a difference. Being admitted to an interview with the Presi- dent, I urged him to call to Washington three of the most eminent and trusted expositors of Northern anti-slavery sentiment, and three equally eminent and representative Southern ex-Rebels, and ask them to take up their residence at the White House for a week, a fortnight, so long as they might find necessary, while they, by free and friendly conference and discussion, should earnestly endeavour to find a common ground whereon the North and the South should be not merely reconciled, but made ever- more fraternal and harmonious. I suggested that the President should occasionally, as he could find time, drop in on these conferences, and offer such suggestions as he should deem fit, rather as a moderator or common friend, than as a party to the discussion. A suggestion of names being invited, I proposed those of Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, Gerrit Smith of New York, and Judge R. P. Spaulding of Ohio, as three whp seemed to me fair representatives of the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, while neither specially obnoxious to nor disposed to deal harshly with, the South ; and I added that I hoped they would be met by men like General Robert E. Lee, Alexander H. Stephens, etc., who would be recognized and heeded by the South as men in whose hands her honour and true interests would be safe. But I added that I had no special desire that these or any particular men should be selected, wishing only that those chosen from either section should be such as to command their people's confidence and support. And I pledged myself to support, to the extent of my power, any adjustment that should thus be matured and agreed upon. Some two months later, after the meeting of Congress, and when the political sky had become darker, I went again to Washington, on the assurance of a mutual friend that the President desired to see me. The joint committee on reconstruction had then been appointed. At an inter- view promptly accorded, I urged the President to invite this committee to the White House, and discuss with them, from evening to evening, as friend with friends, all the phases of the grave problem of reconstruction, with a fixed resolve to find a basis of agreement if possible. I urged such con- siderations as occurred to me in favour of the feasibility of such agree- ment, if it were earnestly sought, as I felt sure it would be on the side of Congress. The vast patronage in the President's hands, the reluctance of the majority in Congress to see their friends, supporters, and nominees, expelled by wholesale from office, and their places supplied by bitter adver- saries; the natural anxiety of every party in power to maintain cordial relations with the head of the government chosen by its votes, these, and a thousand kindred considerations, rendered morally certain an agree-* RECONSTRUCTION. 425 ment between Congress and the President, without a sacrifice of principle on either hand, if the latter sould sincerely seek it. I speak only of what I said and proposed, because I have no permission and no right to speak further. That my suggestions were not followed, nor anything akin to them, the public sadly knows. And the conclusion to which I have been most reluctantly forced is, that the President did not want harmony with Congress, that he had already made up his mind to break with the party which had elected him, and seek a further lease of power through the favour and support of its implacable enemies. The difference between Congress and the President became so great that he was at last impeached by the House of Rep- resentatives for high crimes and misdemeanours. The trial of the impeachment in the Senate was conducted with notable ability both on the side of the impeachment and that of the defense. The country took profound interest in the proceed- ings, which were reported with great fullness by the daily press. Among the journals most earnestly advocating impeach- ment was The New- York Tribune, but at this time Mr. G-reeley himself was absent in the West, his journal being in charge of his then lieutenant, Mr. John Russell Young. Had Mr. Greeley himself been in charge, some of the intemperate expressions of The Tribune would never have appeared. Impeachment failed. The President was acquitted, though a large majority of members voted for conviction, to secure which a two-thirds majority was necessary. There was a tre- mendous popular clamour in the Republican party against those Senators of that party who voted against impeachment; as though a matter of this sort were subject for party disci- pline! Those Senators were sublimely in the right who main- tained their independent judgment, whether it was correct or erroneous, in a matter of this kind, and who indignantly repelled all attempts to swerve -them from their duty as they had undertaken to perform it by solemn oath. Upon the question of Reconstruction, out of which impeach- ment grew, Horace Greeley had clear and carefully considered views. They might be summed up in a single phrase, amnesty for the past, all rights for all men, white and black, now and in the future. These views will be found best stated, perhaps, in his celebrated Richmond speech, delivered on the 426 LIFE Of HORACE QREELEY. occasion of his visit to that city for the purpose of relieving the government of farther responsibility in the incarceration of Mr. Jefferson Davis. This address is printed, as reported at the time, in the Appendix to this volume. Had the views then and there announced by Mr. Greeley been forthwith adopted, there can be little doubt that much subsequent misunderstanding, heart- burning, unhappy ill will between the different sections of the restored Union might have been avoided. Herein, as was so often the case with him, he was in advance of his cotempor- aries. To adopt a figure used by Theodore Parker in his memorable address upon the death of Daniel Webster, most men pass from mountain-top to mountain-top, like the beast of burddn, by slowly trudging down into and across the valley and laboriously working their way up ; while men of genius pass swiftly over the expanse as though on the wings of the eagle. Mr. G-reeley's liberal views upon reconstruction, though at last finally adopted, at least in theory, by the government, were at the time now under consideration greatly misappre- hended. And from this resulted certain illiberal legislation, which had been entirely unnecessary had his policy been sus- tained. To this legislation he felt constrained to yield reluctant assent, whereby he was temporarily involved in apparent rather than real inconsistency. At this time, he thought it better to sustain the government, against his personal judgment, than to assail what many regarded as a necessarily harsh measure in the interest of peace. OHAPTEE XXIY. HORACE GREELEY AND JEFFERSON DAVIS. Jefferson Davis, Escaping from Richmond, Is Captured Confined at Fortress Monroe Impracticability of Trial Horace Greeley's Inter- view with Senator Wade, of Ohio, on the Subject of Bailing Mr. Davis Mr. Greeley is Dissuaded from the Project But at Length Finally Resolves to Go Upon the Bond Visits Richmond for that Purpose The Scene in the Court Room Mr. Greeley's Richmond Speech-* Effect of this Act of Magnanimity Upon the Public. TJpoK the collapse of the rebellion, Mr. Jefferson Davis, who had all the while been President of the Southern Confederacy, escaped from Richmond with his family. The Executive De- partment of the Union government offered a large reward for his capture. Nevertheless, it is probably true that in all the great solicitudes of President Lincoln's life, the greatest was that which caused him to fear Mr. Davis might be captured. Nothing is more certain than that Mr. Lincoln fervently wished the escape of the late President of the late de-facto rebel government. He is known to have said that " if Davis were taken he would be the biggest elephant on our hands we have had yet, and we have had some large-sized animals.'* The President's assassination so greatly aroused the feelings of all good people whether in one part of the country or' another, that the proclamations and speeches of his successor, breathing threatenings and slaughter, seemed to be heartily sympathized with. It was Mr. Greeley's opinion that had Mr. Davis, imme- diately after his capture, been tried by "drum-head court- martial," convicted, and put to death, the proceeding would have been generally approved at the time, whatever the sober second thought of the people might have been. But he was not tried by drum -head nor any other court-martial. Escorted under strong guard to Savannah, Georgia, he was thence taken (427) 428 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. by sea to Fortress Monroe, and placed in close confinement as a military prisoner. " An indictment for treason was found against him," says Mr. Greeley; "but he remained a military prisoner in close jail for nearly two years, before even a pre- tence was made of arraigning him for trial." The truth is, the trial of Mr. Davis, under the indictment which was found against him was impracticable. It was cer- tain that he was guilty; it seemed to be equally certain that a jury could not be empannelled in Virginia which would con- vict him, if indeed, one could be empannelled at all under the ancient rules of law which pertained to that time-honoured institution. The government had erred, if error there was in this matter, in not having Mr. Davis and a few others promptly tried under a jurisdiction where trial would have been neither a farce nor a mockery. This first error resulted in a second one, namely, the long incarceration of Mr. Davis at Fortress Monroe. If he was entitled to his life, he was entitled to a speedy trial. And this last, as we have seen, was impracticable in Virginia. If the prisoner could not be tried, he was entitled to his liberty. At length Mr. Greeley was consulted by Mr. George Shea, Mr. Davis's counsel of record in the case, upon the feasibility of procuring the names of persons on the prisoner's bond to appear for trial at the mandate of the court, who had been conspicuous Unionists throughout the war. Mr. Greeley named two such persons, eminent in the country, and, after reflection, added: "If my name should be found necessary, you may use that." Months afterwards, he was apprised by a telegram from Washington that his name was needed, and he proceeded to the Capital with the object of proffering it. Arrived at "Washington, he found many true and life-long friends who doubted the policy of his proposed action in the matter. He had a long interview with Senator Wade, of Ohio, upon the subject, after he had talked with many others. Among all our public men there has not been one more noted for plainness of speech than Benjamin F. Wade, unless it were Ilorace Greeley himself. There was very little bowing and scraping done on the occasion of this interview. It was a fair INTERVIEW WITH SENATOB WADE. 429 and square stand-up fight, if I may use a sporting figure, and Mr. Greeley at length threw up the sponge. He insisted that the longer continuance of Mr. Davis's imprisonment could result only in evil; in postponing the return of cordial relations between the people of the South and those of the North; that his confinement only made a martyr of him; that he was entitled by law, to a speedy trial or a speedy release; that humanity, magnanimity manifested toward him could only have a good effect upon the best people of the South. To these and other arguments Mr. Wade did not attempt a reply. He said that, even if all these things are so, " You, Mr. Greeley, are not the right man to go upon the bond. You must recol- lect," he urged, " that you are not a simple citizen. You are the editor of a great journal; you are a representative man of the Republican party. The people believe that Jeff. Davis ought to be tried as a traitor, convicted as a traitor, and hung as a traitor. And, whether they are right or wrong, you, as editor of The New- York Tribune, and a trusted leader of the party, cannot afford to do this thing. I tell you if you do it it will kick up such a dust as even your eyes have never been stuffed with before." Statements of this kind, and earnest appeals on the part of this then devoted friend, as well as of others, dissuaded Mr. Greeley at this time from the determina- tion he had made, and he returned to New- York, convinced of the impolicy but not of the unwisdom of the act he had con- templated. But upon still further reflection, Mr. Greeley concluded that it was his duty under the circumstances to go upon the bond, regardless of ill consequences to himself. He, therefore, pro- ceeded to the city of Richmond, for that purpose, and upon special invitation. One of our noblest philanthropists, Mr. Gerrit Smith, also signed the bond, as did John Minor Botts, a Virginian, and a Union man throughout the war, Mr. Cor- nelius Vanderbilt, of New- York, and a considerable number of other men, eminent in politics or in business. The scene in the court-room, on this memorable 13th of May, 1867, was one of great impressiveness. Mr. Greeley had scarcely laid down his pen, when the prisoner grasped his hand 430 LIFE OTf HORACiS GREELEY. and uttered a few words of grateful acknowledgement. Mr Greeley returned the greeting and in a few homely sentences expressed his gratification that he had been able to do him a service. Judge Underwood then declared: "The Marshal will now discharge the prisoner from custody," whereupon the long pent-up feelings of Mr. Davis's friends burst forth in shouts which the Marshal was utterly unable for some time to repress. Amid the excitement Mr. Greeley quietly took his departure from the animated scene which he had himself chiefly created. Before leaving Richmond, Mr. Greeley was invited to deliver a speech before the people. He accepted the invitation, and addressed the people at the African Church, very often used for political meetings on account of its great size. The im- mense building was crowded, the main body being occupied by persons of high social standing, most of whom had taken sides with the Confederacy during the war> the aisles and gal- leries being filled with coloured people. The speech delivered by Mr. Greeley, though strictly extemporaneous, was one of great thoughtfulness, power, and statesmanlike wisdom. It pandered neither to Southern whites nor Southern blacks, but showed a noble, a lofty friendship for both, and recommended reconstruction, the return of thorough peace upon principles of benignant philanthropy and universal political and civil rights. Mr. Greeley's act of magnanimity, for such, so far as he was concerned, it certainly was, had a two-fold effect; or, rather, it was followed by two series of results widely different the one from the other. In the South, it was highly applauded, and quite generally looked upon as the forerunner of thorough pacification. " Let us all show," said The Richmond Whig, "that Northern generosity is the true avenue to Southern friendship. We repeat, a great stride was yesterday taken in the line of reconstruction." " We hail the event," said an old and influential Virginia journal, " as an auspicious one, fraught with good, and recognize the present as a fortunate time for EFFECT OF BAlLOG Mfc. JbAVIS. 431 both sections of the Union to set out with a new purpose, to bury-their animosities, and meet together on a common ground of justice, peace, and fraternity." But the Richmond corres- pondent of The Baltimore Sun summed up the whole matter about as complete! y and truthfully as any other writer. Said he: The effect of Mr. Davis's release ifl all parts of the State has been not only cheering and exhilirating, but it has done more to promote good feel- ing, real cordiality, toward the North and toward the government, than any event which has occurred since the close of the war. I have not seen till now any reason to believe that the South would, for years, do more than accept the situation, and content herself with a perfunctory performance of the obligations she has assumed; but the release of Mr. Davis has touched the Southern heart, and I believe that it is at this moment beating strong to the old music of nationality and brotherly love. The appear- ance in Court, of Mr. Horace Greeley and Mr. Gerrit Smith, and their noble interposition in behalf of Mr. Davis, have had peculiar influence ia bringing about this happy result. Our people look upon them as fepf& sentative Northern men, and the hand thus stretched out to thetn they have grasped warmly. This time it is no dramatic grasp, but palpably honest, and prompted by full hearts. Similar expressions came up from all parts of the South. Unhappily Mr. Greeley and Mr. Gerrit Smith did not, on account of certain presumed party necessities, herein appear to be " representative Northern men." Immediate and noisy clamour was raised against the act. Statesmen who in private admitted the necessity of Mr. Davis's release, nevertheless added their public voice to increase the general condemnation* And thus by one means or another, the victorious North, with whom magnanimity would have been easy, was made to appear unwilling to meet the South on a common ground of justice, peace, and fraternity. The South asked ol us bread and we gave her a stone. It was in spite of Horace Greeley's earnest efforts that the North was placed in this false position. The good that he would have done was retarded, indefinitely post- poned, by many who should have bravely sustained him. The effect upon himself of this magnanimous act was then 4:32 LIFE OS HORACE GREELEY. and afterwards unpleasant and disastrous. Many .Republican journals severely criticised what he had done; few heartily endorsed the deed. He was a member of a Union League Club of New- York. Certain members thereof proposed to u discipline " him for his doings in the premises. Whereupon, he wrote an open letter in The Tribune, which not only explains his conduct, vindicates it, and tells some plain truths on the subject in hand, but also has no little historical, as well as biographical significance. Wherefore, I judge it well that it may appear here in full: BY THESE PRESENTS GREETING I To MESSRS. GEORGE W. BLUNT, JOHN A. KENNEDY, JOHN O. STONE, STEPHEN HYATT, and thirty others, members of the Union League Club: GENTLEMEN. I was favoured, on the 16th inst., by an official note from our ever-courteous President, John Jay, notifying me that a requisition had been presented to him for " a special meeting of the Club at an early day, for the purpose of taking into consideration the conduct of Horace Greeley, a member of the Club, who has become a bondsman for Jefferson Davis, late chief officer of the Rebel government." Mr. Jay continues : "As I have reason to believe that the signers, or some of them, disapprove of the conduct which they propose the Club shall consider, it is clearly due, both to the Club and to yourself, that you should have the opportunity of being heard on the subject; I beg, therefore, to aak on what evening it will be convenient for yon that I call the meet- ing," etc., etc. In my prompt reply I requested the President to give you reasonable time for reflection, but assured him that / wanted none ; since I should not attend the meeting, nor ask any friend to do so, and should make no defence, nor offer aught in the way of self-vindication. I am sure my friends in the Club will not construe this as implying disrespect; but it ia not my habit to take part in any discussions which may arise among other gentlemen as to my fitness to enjoy their society. That is their affair altogether, and to them I leave it The single point whereon I have any occasion or wish to address you is your virtual implication, that there is something novel, unexpected, astounding, in my conduct in the matter suggested by you as the basis of your action. I choose not to rest under this assumption, but to prove that you, being persons of ordinary intelligence, must know better. On this point I cite you to a scrutiny of the record : The surrender of General Lee was made known in this city at 11 p. M. of Sunday, April 9, 1865, and fitly announced in The Tribune of next morn- ing April 10th. On that very day, I wrote, and next morning printed in these columns, a leader entitled "Magnanimity in Triumph," wherein I LETTER TO UNION LEAGUE CLUB. 433 "We hear men say: 'Yes, forgive the great mass of those who have been misled Into rebellion, but punish the leaders as they deserve.' But who can accurately draw the line between leaders and followers in the premises ? By what test shall they be discrimin- ated? * * * * Where is your touchstone of leadership? We know of none. " Nor can we agree with those who would punish the original plotters of secession, yet spare their ultimate and scarcely willing converts. On the contrary, while we would revive or inflame resentment against none of them, we feel far less antipathy to the orig- inal upholders of 'the resolutions of '98,' to the disciples of Calhoun and McDuffie, to the nullifiers of 1832, and the 'State Rights' men of 1850, than to the John Bells, Humphrey Marshalls, and Alexander H. H. Stuarts, who were schooled in the national faith, and who, in becoming diaunionists and Rebels, trampled on the professions of a lifetime, and spurned the logic wherewith they had so often unanswerably demonstrated that secession was treason. * * * * We consider Jefferson Davis this day a less culpable traitor than John Bell. " But we cannot believe it wise or well to take the life of any man who shall have sub- mitted to the national authority. The execution of even one such would be felt as a personal stigma by every one who had aided the Rebel cause. Each would say to him- self, 'I am as culpable as he; we differ only in that I am deemed of comparatively little consequence.' A single Confederate led out to execution would be evermore enshrined in a million hearts as a conspicuous hero and martyr. We cannot realize that it would be wholesome or safe we are sure itwould not be magnanimous to give the overpowered disloyalty of the South such a shrine. Would the throne of the house of Hanover stand more firmly had Charles Edward been caught and executed after Culloden? Is Austrian domination in Hungary more stable to-day for the hanging of Nagy Sandor and his twelve compatriots after the surrender of Vilagos ? "We plead against passions certain to be at this moment fierce and intolerant; but on our side are the ages and the voice of history. We plead for a restoration of the Union, against a policy which would afford a momentary gratification at the cost of years of perilous hate and bitterness. * * * * " Those who invoke military execution for the vanquished, or even for their leaders, we suspect will not generally be found among the few who have long been exposed to unjust odium as haters of the South, because they abhorred slavery. And, as to the long- oppressed and degraded blacks, so lately the slaves, destined still to be the neighbours, and (we trust) at no distant day the fellow-citizens of the Southern whites, we are sure that their voice, could it be authentically uttered, would ring out decidedly, sonorously, on the side of clemency, of humanity." On the next day I had some more in this spirit, and on the 13th, an elaborate leader, entitled " Peace, Punishment," in the course of which I said : "The New-York Times, doing injustice to its own sagacity in a characteristic attempt to sail between wind and water, says : ' Let us hang Jefferson Davis and spare the rest.' * * * \yr e ,j o no t concur in the advice. Davis did not devise nor instigate the Rebel- lion; on the contrary, he was one of the latest and most reluctant of the notables of the Cotton States to renounce definitively the Union. His prominence is purely official and representative ; the only reason for hanging him is that you therein condemn and stig- matize more persons than in hanging any one else. There is not an ex-Rebel in the world no matter how penitent who will not have unpleasant sensations about the neck on the day when the Confederate President is to be hung. And to what good end? "We insist that this matter must not be regarded in any narrow aspect. We are most anxious to secure the assent of the South to emancipation ; not that assent which the condemned gives to being hung when he shakes hands with his jailer and thanks him for past acts of kindness; but that hearty assent which can only be won by mag- nanimity. Perhaps the Rebels, as a body, would have given, even one year ago, as large and as hearty a vote for hanging the writer of this article as any other man living; hence, It more especially seems to him important to prove that the civilization based on free bour is of a higher and humaner type than that based on slavery. We cannot realize 28 434 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. that the gratification to enure to oar friends from the hanging of any one man, or fifty men, should be allowed to outweigh this consideration. 1 ' On the following day I wrote again : " We entreat the President promptly to do and dare in the cause of magnanimity. The Southern mind is now open to kindness, and may be magnetically affected by gener- osity. Let assurance at once be given that there is to be a general amnesty and no general confiscation. This is none the less the dictate of wisdom, because it is also the dictate of mercy. What we ask is, that the President say in effect, ' Slavery having, through rebellion, committed suicide, let the North and the South nnite to bury the carcass, and then clasp hands across the grave.' " The evening of that day witnessed that most appalling calamity, the murder of President Lincoln, which seemed in an instant to curdle all the milk of human kindness in twenty millions of American breasts. At once insidious efforts were set on foot to turn the fury thus engendered against me, because of my pertinacious advocacy of mercy to the vanquished. Chancing to enter the Club-House the next (Saturday) evening, I received a full broadside of your scowls, ere we listened to a clerical harangue intended to prove that Mr. Lincoln had been providentially removed because of his notorious leanings toward clemency, in order to make way for a successor who would give the Rebels a full measure of stern justice. I was soon made to comprehend that I had no sympathizers or none who dared seem such in your crowded assemblage. And some maladroit admirer having, a few days afterward, made the Club a present of my por- trait, ite bare reception was resisted in a speech from the chair by your then President, a speech whose vigorous invective was justified solely by my pleadings for lenity to the Rebels. At ouce a concerted howl of denunciation and rage was sent up from every side against me by the little creatures whom God, for some inscrut- able purpose, permits to edit a majority of our minor journals, echoed by a yell of " Stop my paper ! " from thousands of imperfectly instructed readers of The Tribune. One impudent puppy wrote me to answer cate- gorically whether I was or was not in favour of hanging Jefferson Davis, adding that I must stop his paper if I were not ! Scores volunteered assur- ances that I was defying public opinion ; that most of my readers were against me ; as if I could be induced to write what they wished said rather than what they needed to be told. I never before realized so vividly the baseness of the editorial vocation, according to the vulgar conception of it. The din raised about my ears now is nothing to that I then endured and despised. I am humiliated by the reflection that it is (or was) in the power of such insects to annoy me, even by pretending to discover with surprise something that I have for years been publicly, emphatically proclaiming. I must hurry over much that deserves a paragraph, to call your attention distinctly to occurences in November last. Upon the Republicans having, by desperate effort, handsomely carried our State against a forn?idable- looking combination of recent and venomous apostates with our natural adversaries, a cry arose from several quarters that I ought to be chosen LETTER TO UNION LEAGUE CLUB. 435 United States Senator. At once, kind, discreet friends swarmed about me, whispering, " Only keep still about universal amnesty, and your election is certain. Just be quiet a few weeks, and you can say what you please thereafter. You have no occasion to speak now." I slept on the well- meant suggestion, and deliberately concluded that I could not, in justice to myself, defer to it. I could not purchase office by even passive, nega- .tive dissimulation. No man should be enabled to say to me, in truth, " If I had supposed you would persist in your rejected, condemned amnesty hobby, I would not have given you my vote." So I wrote and published, on the 27th of that month, my manifesto entitled " The True Basis of Reconstruction," wherein, repelling the idea that I proposed a dicker with the ex-Rebels, I explicitly said : ^ "I am for universal amnesty, BO far as immunity from fear of punishment or couflsca tion is concerned, even though impartial suffrage should, for the present, be defeated. I did thinly it desirable that Jefferson Davis should be arraigned and tried for treason ; and it still seems to me that this might properly have been done many months ago. But it was not done then ; and now I believe it would result in far more evil than good. It would rekindle passions that have nearly burned out or been hushed to sleep ; it would fearfully convulse and agitate the South ; it would arrest the progress of reconciliation and kindly feeling there; it would cost a large sum directly, and a far larger indirectly; and, unless the jury were scandalously packed, it would result in a non-agreement or no verdict. I can imagine no good end to be subserved by such a trial ; and, holding Davis neither better nor worse than several others, would have him treated as they are." Is it conceivable that men who can read, and who were made aware of this declaration, for most of you were present and shouted approval of Mr. Fessenden's condemnation of my views at the Club, two or three even- ings thereafter, can now pretend that my aiding to have Davis bailed is something novel and unexpected? Gentlemen, I shall not attend your meeting this evening. I have an engagement out of town, and shall keep it. I do not recognize you as capable of judging, or even fully apprehending me. You evidently regard me as a weak sentimentalist, misled by a maudlin philosophy. I arraign you as narrow-minded blockheads, who would like to be useful to a great and good cause, but don't know how. Your attempt to base a great, enduring party on the hate and wrath necessarily engendered by a bloody civil war, is as though you should plant a colony on an iceberg which had somehow drifted into a tropical ocean, I tell you here, that, out of a life earnestly devoted to the good of human kind, your children will select my going to Richmond and signing that bail-bond as the wisest act, and will feel that it did move for freedom and humanity than all of you were com- petent to do, though you had lived to the age of Methuselah. I ask nothing of yon, then, but that you proceed to your end by a direct, frank, manly way. Don't sidle off into a mild resolution of censure, bat move the expulsion which you purposed, and which I deserve, if I deserve any reproach whatever. All I care for is, that you make this a square, stand-up fight, and record your judgment by yeas and nays. I care not how few vote with me, nor how many vote against me ; for I know that the latter will repent it in dust and ashes before three years have 436 UFE OF HORACE GREELET. passed. Understand, once for all, that I dare you and defy you, and that I propose to fight it out on the line that I liave held from the day of Lee'a surrender. So long as any man was seeking to overthrow our government, he was my enemy; from the hour in which he laid down his arms, he was my formerly erring countryman. So long as any is at heart opposed to the national unity, the Federal authority, or to that assertion of the equal rights of all men which has become practically identified with loyalty and nationality, I shall do my best to deprive him of power; but, whenever he ceases to be thus, I demand his restoration to all the privileges of Ameri- can citizenship. I give you fair notice, that I shall urge the re-enfran- chisement of those now proscribed for rebellion so soon as I shall feel con- fident that this course is con&istent with the freedom of the blacks and the unity of the Republic, and that I shall demand a recall of all now in exile only for participating in the Rebellion, whenever the country shall have been so thoroughly pacified that its safety will not thereby be endangered. And so, gentlemen, hoping that you will henceforth comprehend me some- what better than you have done, I remain, Yours, HORACE GREELET. NEW- YORK, May 23, 1867. There are some expressions in this letter which it were to be wished had been omitted, but upon the whole, it was a ringing defiance and challenge which Mr. Greeley's assailants richly merited at his hands. The Club resolved that there had been nothing " in the action of Horace Greeley, relative to the bailing of Jeffarson Davis, calling for proceedings in this Club." Gracious Clnb! One of the most remarkable effects of the storm which was made to grow out of this affair, was that upon the sale of his history of the war. It had previously been very large and steady, but for a time after the bailing of Mr. Davis almost entirely ceased, thousands who had subscribed for it refusing to take their copies ! The storm having blown over, the sales of " The American Conflict " again became great and steady. There is one point in the case of Mr. Greeley's entering upon Mr. Davis's recognizance, which I have never seen properly explained. The condition of the bond was, not to get Mr. Davis released from imprisonment, but that he should appear and answer to the indictment which had been found against him, and abide the order of the court therein. If Mr. Davis had herein defaulted, or shall do so, then the bond becomes forfeit, and the money payable, and not before. There is no statute JUDGE CUFFOPO. 437 of limitations against an indictment for treason. If the gov- ernment could have wisely tried Mr. Davis, why has it not done it? He is under obligation to appear when called upon, and undoubtedly would appear, upon due summons. And this among other reasons because he would not allow Horace Greeley's bond to become forfeit. If, then, the government was relieved of culpability for a great cruelty, without harm to any right, or injury to any proceeding connected with the trial of Jefferson Davis, the government was, and still is, indebted for it all to the wisdom and courage and magna- nimity of Horace Greeley. Though it is undoubtedly true that Mr. Greeley herein rendered Mr. Davis an incalculably great and noble service, it is no less true that the service be hereby rendered the government of the United States was even greater. Having reflected as profoundly and candidly upon this subject as I know how to do, I have deliberately arrived at the conclusion, that Mr. Greeley's act in this matter was the best, the wisest, the most benignant of a long life crowded full of good, and wise, and benignant actions. And I doubt not that the children of those who non-concur herein will deliberately reverse the judgment of their fathers. OHAPTEE XXY. MORE HISTORY OP THE TRIBUNE. More of Tte Tribune's "Isms" Proudhon Endorses the Principle of the " Woman's Rights " Reform Advocates Labour Reform Asso- ciation Adopted in The Tribune Office An Era of Energetic Idium A Desciption of The Tribune Establishment How the Paper la Edited Mention of Tribune Writers The Composition Room Press Room Counting Room The "Weekly" Day Resum6 of Tribune History from Its Beginning Vitality of a Great Journal. HAVINQ accompanied Mr. Greeley through the most momen tons era of the republic's history: through scenes of high excitement and of stirring, great events, a period of the hard-won victory of great ideas: it will be appropriate now to recur to matters of a more peaceful, quiet nature. The Tribune continued to prosper, notwithstanding the fair play it gave to " isms," an " ism " being, of course, an unpopular idea. Had The Tribune lived a little while before the discovery of America by Columbus, we make no doubt it would have given full hearing to the theory of sphericalism; to the visionary notion, namely, that the earth is round. Had it been in existence so long ago as the time of Galileo, it would have allowed him at least a column a week for the advocacy of his visionary and heretical hypothesis that the world is a moving rather than a stationary planet. For such unauthorized ideas, The Tribune would have been excommunicated by the regulars, and pronounced a dangerous journal by the interested representatives of the flat and stand-still world. It might appear to have been Mr. Greeley's judgment that every new idea, correct or erroneous, advocated by a respectable mind, with a good object, was entitled to respectful considera^ tion ; and that every doctrine, dogma, and practice which he believed to be wrong and hurtful, should receive hearty con- demnati on, no matter how unpopular that condemnation might (439) 440 IJFE OF HORACE GBEELEY. be. Thus ^e find him Baying at a time when a certain political party of prescriptive creed was on the flood tide of success: "We are every day greeted by some sage friend with a caution against the certain wreck of our influence and prosperity which we defy by opposing the secret political cabal commonly known as " the Know-Nothings." One writes us that he procured one hundred of our present subscribers, and will prevent the renewal of their subscriptions in case we persist in our present course ; another wonders why we will destroy our influence by resisting the popular current, when we might do so much good by falling in with it and guiding it, and so on. To the first of these gentlemen we say: "Sir: We give our time and labour to the production of The Tribune, because we believe that to be our sphere of usefulness; but we shall be most happy to abandon journalism for a less anxious, exacting, exhausting vocation, whenever we are fairly and honourably released from this. You do not frighten us, therefore, by any such base appeals to our presumed selfishness and avarice ; for if you could induce not merely your hundred but every one of our subscribers to desert us, we should cheerfully accept such a release from our present duties, and try to earn a livelihood in some easier way. So please go ahead!" And now to our would-be friend who suggests that we are wrecking our influence by breasting the popular current: "Good sir! do you forget that whatever influence or consideration The Tribune has attained has been won, not by sailing with the stream but against it? On what topic has it ever swam with the current, except in a few instances wherein it has aided to change the current? Would anyone who conducted a journal for popularity's or pelfs sake be likely to have taken the side of liquor prohibition, or anti-slavery, or woman's rights, or suffrage regardless of colour, when we did? Would such a one have ventured to speak as we did in behalf of the anti-renters, when everybody hereabouts was banded to hunt them down unheard ? Can you think it probable that, after what we have dared and endured, we are likely to be silenced now by the cry that we are perilling our influence?'' And now, if any would prefer to discontinue The Tribune because it is and must remain opposed to every measure or scheme of proscription for opinion's sake, we beg them not to delay one minute on our account. We shall all live till it is our turn to die, whether we earn a living by making newspapers or by doing something else. More than fifteen years afterwards, in the last book of per- manent usefulness which came from his pen, when speaking of "the farmer's calling," he says: I have repeatedly been stung by the receipt of letters gravely informing me that my course and views on a current topic were adverse to public IN THE ADVANCE. 44:1 opinion : the writers evidently assuming, as a matter of course, that I was a mere jumping-jack, who only needed to know what other people thought to insure my instant and abject conformity to their prejudices. Very often, in other days, I was favoured with letters from indignant subscribers, who, dissenting from my views on some question, took this method of inform- ing me that they should no longer take my journal a superfluous trouble, which could only have meant dictation or insult, since they had only to refrain from renewing their subscriptions, and their Tribune would stop coming, whenever they should have received what we owed them ; and it would in no case stop till then. That a journalist was in any sense a public teacher that he necessarily had convictions, and was not likely to suppress them because they were not shared by others in short, that his calling was other and higher than that of a waiter at a restaurant, expected to furnish whatever was called for, so long as the pay was forth- coming these ex-subscribers had evidently not for one moment suspected. That such persons have little or no capacity to insult, is very true; and yet, a man is somewhat degraded in his own regard by learning that hia vocation is held in such low esteem by others. The true farmer is proudly aware that it is quite otherwise with his pursuit that no one expects him to swallow any creed, support any party, or defer to any prejudice, as a condition precedent to the sale of his products. Hence, I feel that it is easier and more natural in his pursuit than in any other for a man to work for a living, and aspire to success and consideration, without sacrificing self-respect, compromising integrity, or ceasing to be essentially and thoroughly a gentleman. " A very natural division of mankind," once said The Trib- une, " is that which contemplates them in two classes those who think for themselves, and those who have their thinking done by others, dead or living. "With the former class, the paramount consideration is ' What is right ?' "With the lat- ter, the first inquiry is ' "What do the majority, or the great, or the pious, or the fashionable think about it ? How did our fathers regard it ? What will Mrs. Grundy say ?' " This appears to be as thorough a description of the conservative as we can hope for. He might possibly have the reform element in him, though consulting the majority, the great, the pious, the fashionable, the shades of his ancestors; but, consulting all these and Mrs. Grundy, there is no hope for him. It was Mr. Greeley's opinion that such a conservative was "past praying for." But again: "' The world does move,' and its motive power, under God, is the fearless thought and speech of those who dare be in advance of their time who are sneered 442 LIFE OF HOEACE GREFILKT. at and shunned through their da^s of struggle and of trial an lunatics, dreamers, impracticables, and visionaries men of crotchets, of vagaries, or of ' isms.' These are the masts and sails of the ship, to which Conservatism answers as ballast. The ballast is important at times indispensable but it would be of no account if the ship were not bound to go ahead." And still again: "In a world so full as this of wrong and suffering, of oppression and degradation, there must be radical causes for so many and so vast practical evils. It cannot be that the ideas, beliefs, institutions, usages, prejudices, whereof such gigantic miseries are born wherewith at least they co- exist transcend criticism and rightfully refuse scrutiny. It cannot be that the springs are pure whence flow such turbid and poisonous currents." One might fill a volume with extracts from The Tribune showing the reform spirit, the spirit of radical reform, if you please, of its Editor. Yet it is but just to Mr. Greeley to say that he did not lay hold of every floating idea because it hap- pened to be in reach, or thrust toward, him by importunate advocates. Though his good nature, his abounding generosity, his trust in men, were not seldom sadly imposed upon, his judgment was rarely led estray. Let the sham, not man or woman, which deceived him, be named. In truth, innumerable instances of his bursting brilliant bubbles with a strong whiff from his stalwart mind might be adduced in demonstration of his skeptical nature. He would not condemn a claim or a creed unheard; and it has already become history that many of his visions of years ago are the practical and beneficent realities of the present. Pierre Joseph Proudhon, a French writer of celebrity, had risen from the ranks of Labour, and only a few years after the founding of The New- York Tribune, began to make considera- ble sensation in his own country. He assailed society with more vigorous diction, if not with stronger argumentation, than Fourier. He commenced a pamphlet entitled Qii'est-ce q^le la ProprittJ f with the sentence afterwards so celebrated. La proprittS, Jest le vol, Property is Robbery. To the " isms " of Proudhon The Tribune gave respectful hearing and candid WOMEN'S RIGHTS. 443 criticism. And, it is submitted, one of the great journals of the time, whose Editor had himself risen from the ranks of Labour, could not otherwise have received the results of a mind so acute and daring as that of Proudhon, no matter though his genius may have been erratic. It was not only to Proudhon that The Tribune extended welcome. Other "isms" received fair treatment. Among them the proposed reform of " Woman's Eights." "Women's Conventions have come to be quite in the ordinary way. They are among the common occurrences of current history; and some of them are very common indeed. But there was a time when a Woman's Convention was a new thing under the sun. There had to be, of course, the first Woman's Convention. Of this Convention, The Tribune gave a full report, and treated it throughout with respectful consideration. It endorsed with emphasis the principle underlying the proposed reform, but did not become an advocate of the measures urged by the Women's Eights party. It said: " It is easy to be smart, to be droll, to be facetious, in opposition to the demands of these Female Reformers; and, in decrying assumptions so novel and opposed to established habits and usages, a little wit will go a great way. But when a sincere republican is asked to say in sober earnest what adequate reason he can give for refusing the demand of women to an equal participation with men in political rights, he must answer, None at all. True, he may say that he believes it unwise in them to make the demand he may say the great majority desire no such thing ; that they prefer to devote their time to the discharge of home duties and the enjoy- ment of home delights, leaving the functions of legislators, sheriffs, jury- men, militia, to their fathers, husbands, brothers ; yet if, after all, the ques- tion recurs, ' But suppose the women should generally prefer a complete political equality with men, what would you say to that demand?' the answer must be, ' I accede to it. However unwise or mistaken the demand, it is but the assertion of a natural right, and as such must be con- ceded.' " It was a great deal harder to say this when it was said than it would be to say it now. We shall see, before the conclusion */ of this volume, that the women of the Women's Eight move- ment with, doubtless, some honourable exceptions returned Mr. Greeley's generous welcome with ingratitude more cold- blooded, heartless, and, I had almost said, atrocious, than, we 444 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. may fervently hope, could be possible with those usually classed as of the sterner sex. Nevertheless, the Woman's Rights " ism " was debited up against Mr. Greeley, during the whole period of its almost universal unpopularity. It was one of those distasteful things which prepared the way for The Times. During all the years Mr. Greeley was Editor thereof, The Tribune earnestly advocated Labour reform. It was not more heartily the champion of amnesty after the war of the rebel- lion than it ever was the friend of the workingman. Through the elevation of the labouring classes it sought the welfare of the whole people. The early advocate of cooperation, it ex- tended welcome to trades' unions, and to every well-considered effort made by workingmen for their improvement and advance- ment. Horace Greeley was the first eminent American to ad- vocate a reduction of the hours of labour. He admitted the wisdom of strikes in very many instances. He manifested his true regard for workingmen by uttering his opinions as one of themselves, not as a flattering, fawning demagogue. When he thought they were making a mistake in a strike or a policy, he told them so, and suggested what he conceived to be a better remedy for the ills sought to be cured than the one proposed. If the articles in The Tribune in behalf of Labour Reform were published in a volume, it would be one of large size, of many prophetic passages, and of no little value to a movement shall we cull it a revolution ? which is destined to mark an early, let us hope the next, grand step forward in the progress and the happiness of mankind. Moreover, Horace Greeley enforced the idea of Association not only by precept but by example. Only a few years after the founding of the paper, Messrs. Greeley & McElrath, then making handsome profits from The Tribune, exhibited the sincerity of their belief in the principle for the emancipation of Labour which their journal had so persistently maintained, by putting it into practice in their own establishment. The property was valued at one hundred thousand dollars. This was divided into one hundred shares of one thousand dollars each, of which Mr. Greeley and Mr. McElrath retained a majority, selling the balance to regular employe's of the estab- ASSOCIATION. 445 lishment. Tims several gentlemen of the editorial corps, the cashier, the foreman of the composition-room, and the fore- man of the press-rooms became joint-owners with the original proprietors. Speaking of this venture in an editorial in The Tribune in 1851, Mr. Greeley said: " The course of The Tribune is still onward. Commenced individually by him who has continued to be its chief editor, the number of its proprie- tors has since been gradually increased to twelve, including all those responsibly connected with its conduct, editorial, financial, or mechanical. These purpose and hope in time to make still further application of the general principle that the workman should be his own employer and director, and should receive the full reward of his labour. The quickened sense of responsibility, and the more thorough devotion of mind and muscle to the appointed work which this system induces, will be found to overbalance any incidental disadvantages, if its application be wisely made, so that the new idea and the old habits may be gradually and safely harmonized." | In 1867 The Tribune published a detailed statement of its receipts and expenditures for the years 1865 and 1866, respect- ively. The receipts in 1865 were $816,537.02, the expenditures $646,107.16, making receipts over expenditures $170,429.86, or nearly twice the total valuation of the whole property when association was adopted. In the following year the receipts were $909,417.89, but the expenditures were correspondingly heavy, amounting to $885,158.39, leaving a profit of something more than $24,000. During this year The Tribune paid $418,199.62 for printing paper; $86,609.14 for type setting; $81,775.40 for editorial services; 49,300.57 for correspondence: $58,776.04 for news by telegraph. The bills for ink amounted to nearly $10,000, and the United States tax on receipts for advertisements was $10,082.19. "VVorkingmen, printers especially, should not fail to bear in mind that The Tribune Company was not merely a joint stock corporation. It was more, the association of ownership and labour. Printers were given the opportunity to buy shares, paying therefor in work at the regular rates. I suppose the stock is now worth from five hundred to one thousand per cent, premium. That is, a printer who originally bought a ehare in The Tribune, paying therefor one thousand dollars, 446 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. could sell it for from five to ten thousand. If he owned it in 1865, his dividend thereon was about seventeen hundred dollars, a sura which he made in addition to his pay in the composition-room or the press-room, as the case might have been. But this is not all. It is undoubtedly the fact that one of the most valuable inventions ever made in the interest of great newspaper establishments was the process of stereotyping the forms. I shall speak, or rather quote, of this in some detail before concluding this chapter. Let it suffice here to say that the invention was made by an employe of The Tribune, working regularly on the paper for years, at stated wages, and who was also a stockholder in the concern. Now it may with perfect safety be urged that, no matter how skilful and careful this foreman might have been, he never would have devoted the long time and hard study which finally resulted in a great invention, except he had been animated by the desire of increasing the value of his own property. It was almost painful to him to see the types smashed by the ponderous press, because they were, in part, his own. His wages would have been the same, had the press gone on forever daily ruin- ing many types. But his dividends would have been less. So he set his mind to work in their behalf and won a handsome and a valuable victory. Association infuses mental into manual labour, with the result of increased skill, less drudgery, better pay. All which and more the history ot Horace Greeley's venture in The Tribune Company abundantly shows. We have seen that Horace Greeley often used " strong lan- guage " in social .converse with friends. Perhaps there has been no period in the history of The Tribune when it so fre- quently dealt in " the energetic idiom " as about the time association was adopted. It is only just to say that Mr. Greeley was often cruelly misrepresented and maligned; fairly goaded into overflowing indignation. No man who ever lived cared less for opposition, if carried on with truth and reasonable candour. Indeed, we have already seen, that he rather liked to be opposed, and had little sympathy for "thin skins." STRONG LANGUAGE. 447 About the time of which we speak, however, his own life was BO often and so grossly libelled; his opinions, which he sincerely believed were calculated to promote the welfare of the people, were so constantly, and as he felt, so wilfully and greatly mis- represented, that it is no wonder The Tribune was frequently more vituperative and abusive than is consistent with good taste or effective argumentation. We sometimes say a man uses strong language when but for our chivalric politeness we should say he has a vulgar vocabulary. If The Tribune occa- sionally showed that its vocabulary was unlimited, as well in the low as the high notes, we should be culpably unjust not to consider the provocation. And we have the authority of so fine a gentleman as Sir Walter Scott for the statement, that when one is persistently abused by a blackguard one may put an end to the business by knocking him down. Many who assailed Mr. Greeley were gentlemen : many who assailed him were gentlemen with some ungentlemanly habits; others, in a spirit of the loftiest courtesy, in which there is so often some- thing of irony, I will call gentlemen. To the attacks of all he replied with manly vigour, and if he now and then weakened the force of his reply by indecorous language, we may perceive that here was " poverty of the manly American sort," sure not to last long. Besides, he could hardly have been an American citizen, taking an active part in politics, without both giving and receiving blows which never should have been dealt at all. Take off the cream of high-toned discussion from the conduct of American politics, and what a dish of unpalatable skim-milk would be left! And the measurement would not have been perceptibly decreased by the removal of the cream, either. The American characteristic of exaggeration, our apparently irrepressible tendency to hyperbole, finds expression, in politics, in abuse. It is matter of regret that The New-York Tribune so ably maintained a national characteristic which is not at all creditable, at least in the development of it of which we speak, to our nationality; but, because it is a national trait, our condemnation of it in any particular instance should be made more in sorrow than in anger. One need not to reason long in concluding that the journal 448 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. founded in 1841, the proprietor starting with about a thousand dollars capital, which before the close of the decade was worth $100,000 in cash, must meantime have grown into an estab- lishment of vast proportions and extensive and varied capacities. Mr. A. J. Curnmings contributed a series of articles to Packard's Monthly magazine in 1868-69, upon the subject " How Newspapers are made," which gave a full description of The Tribune establishment at that time, with sketches of Mr. Greeley and other editors. The articles were so happily conceived and so graphically written, and upon a topic too, ot such general interest, that they had " the run of the press " pretty generally. Nevertheless, I think I could not do a more acceptable service to my readers than by reproducing much of what Mr. Cummings then wrote; for I am perfectly certain it would be next to impossible for any one to give a more accu- rate or more lively description of the editorial, the mechanical, and the business operations of the office. Mr. S. S. Packard, the editor and publisher of the magazine in question, having most kindly given me leave to make such use of that periodical as might aid me in this work, 1 I quote extensively from Mr. Cummings's graphic sketches: An immense dry-goods box, surmounted by a flag-staff, and dotted wit'u windows, stands on the corner of Spruce and Nassau streets. This, so A sign informs us, is The Tribune Building. The edifice itself is nothing but a mass of dirty -faced bricks piled along Printing-House Square. The Tribune purchased, last year, the adjoining property on Nassau street, but cannot improve it till the expiration of a lease, when it will erect a suita- ble building on the two lots. Standing on the curb of the Park, opposite i In reply to a note that I addressed to Mr. Packard, inquiring upon what terms I might make use of this interesting matter, I promptly received the following: " PACKARD'S BUSINESS COLLZQI, "No. 805, Broadway, New-York, March 25, 187S. "Mr DBAS SIR: "Tour favour is at hand. You have my free permission to use anything in Packard's Monthly which will aid you in your work. * * Yours truly, " S. S. PACKARD. u L. D. INQBBSOLL, Esq." I here publicly acknowledge grateful thanks for the portion of this work which, I cannot but think, will be more interesting than any other to my fellow-printers, and highly instructive to all general reader*. TRLBUNE BUILDINGS. old Tammany Hall, and casting your eyes to the right, surveying a portion of The Herald's palatial marble front, the skeleton mass of red sand-stone called The Express office, and the architectural piles of Nova Scotia granite and brown stone inclosing The "World and Times establishments, The Tribune seems like a small potato, indeed, and its size diminishes as the eye roams to the left, taking in The Sun office, snugly ensconced with Brick Pomeroy's Democrat beneath a Mansard roof, and the stately marble faces of The Staats Zeitung and The News. The Herald building is an architectural fop, with a cancan collar and a dress-coat, The Express office is a quasi-shabby ticket speculator, The World establishment is a nobby broker, The Times edifice is a white-chokered city clergyman, The Sun front is a Tammany politician clad in second-hand garments, The Staats Zeitung is a dapper little bald-headed Dutchman, The News is a broken down scion of Southern chivalry, clothed in white linen and wearing a Panama hat, while The Tribune pile resembles a country fanner, with patched pants, slouched hat, loose suspenders, and a dirty shirt. Carefully surveying the front of the building from the street, its sign alone attracts attention. There it is TRIBUNE. in big block letters, each eight feet long, glaring at you day and night, from a roof covering five stories and a double basement, and there it has stood twenty-three years, staring at excited crowds on election nights, gazing at gangs of infuriated rioters, looking down upon the funeral pro- cessions of Lincoln, Ellsworth, Sedgwick, Clay, and other distinguished dead patriots, smiling at the parade in honour of the Prince of Wales, frowning at the attempted coup d'etat of Fernando Wood, laughing at the great cable celebration of 1858, exulting in the joyful outpourings of the people in honour of Union victories, dancing in the atmosphere of the great Republican torchlight procession preceding President Lincoln's first election, lighted up with the illumination of the City Hall on the stormy night following the news of the capture of Fort Donelson, and observing a hundred similar events chronicled on the page of our city's history. The flickering light of a thousand metropolitan fires, destroying millions of property, has danced over the faces of these ten gilt letters. During the three nights of the draft riots they were never shrouded in darkness. Through storm and sunshine, Union victories and Rebel tri- umphs, the old sign has stood as firm as the journal which it represents. Of the twenty-six newspaper signs within our range of vision, The Tribune sign is the most conspicuous. We stand opposite the office, near the gate entering the Park. From this spot, when in his sanctum, Mr. Greeley can easily be seen. Hundreds of persons pass here every evening without imagining the white-headed man seen through the fourth and fifth windows, second story, from the comer of Spruce street, to be Mr. Greeley. Yet there he is in his editorial 29 450 LITE OF HORACE GREELEY. nest nearly every afternoon and evening, seated at his desk, his fingers nervously dancing over thin sheets of foolscap within four inches of his nose, and his white head and broad forehead made especially conspicuous by the carefully shaded gas-light above. Here he works in a gold mine that his own natural talents, indomitable energy, and unflagging industry have created. And yet there must be a screw loose somewhere, for while fifty men have made fortunes out of The Tribune, Horace Greeley, with all the attention given to outside literary pursuits, is comparatively a poor man. Ever ready to help the needy and destitute, ever easy of access, his better judgment is hourly drowned by his sympathies. There are twenty windows in front of The Tribune office. Some of them have histories. During the riots of 1863 a brass Dahlgren was masked behind the sashes of the corner window on the second story, and if the Rebel mob had made a second attempt upon the building, a death-dealing stream of hubs and old spikes would have issued from the mouth of that gun. The fifth window from the right in the fourth story, now an eye of the room occupied by John Russell Young, faced for many years the favourite corner of Wm. Henry Fry. Here, while wasting away beneath the insidious approaches of a pulmonic disease, poor Fry would sit by the hour, and gaze at the horse-cars, carts, and omnibusses crawling along the street below, and write those musical criticisms so peculiarly abstruse, or scratch off a political editorial, jointed with rivets of original sarcasm. Take the second and third windows, fourth story, from the corner of Spruce street. Between these sashes Mr. George Ripley has written the Book Reviews of The Tribune for a score of years. In former days he invaria- bly opened the window on his right to learn the time from the City Hall clock, but, time has dimmed his spectacles, and he has been compelled to purchase a watch. And clear up there in the corner, on the top floor, Old Dodge, or "Antiquated Heathen," as his comrades call him he is a stiff infidel, and takes the Boston Investigator has stuck type for a living over twenty-five years. A revolver was fired at the mob from that corner win- dow on the evening of July 14, 1863, by one of the four plucky type-setters who barricaded the door of the composing room, and determined to hurl iron " shooting-sticks," lead " side-sticks," fifty-pound " turtles," and sim- ilar printing material, on the heads of the riotors, in case they attempted to force a passage up the winding iron stairs. The row of windows on the editorial floor all have a warlike history. During the riots thirty-pound ahells were sent to the office from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and five troughs, ten feet long, were furnished, with the intention of running them out from those very windows, and of rolling the shells down upon the heads of the mob in the street below. The result would have been that the whole front of the building would have been demolished, and the warlike editors would have sustained more injury than the riotors. Every brick in the whole building seems to have its own peculiar history. Even the pave- ment sleeping in front of the counting-room has its story to tell, for dead men dropped on the flagging during that memorable evening, and barri- cades of printing-paper, four feet thick, arose thereon before daylight. THE COUNTING-ROOM. 451 We have seen the shell. Now let us look at the kernel. Crossing the street, we enter one of the four doors to the counting-room. The ceiling is not high, but the room is decently ventilated. A short counter, ending on the left in a little gate, and flanked by cash and mail desks, confronts us. Here are two dozen clerks, all busy as bees, opening letters, counting money, registering advertisements, receiving subscriptions, writing wrap- pers, mailing odd copies of the paper, and attending to twenty other similar duties. Engravings of Horace Greeley hang on the walls, and two or three dusty busts of Lincoln stand in the corners of the room. Ste*p to the counter. A white face, set with two mild blue eyes and fringed with hair inclining to a rolling curl, salutes us. This is Mr. George King, a clerk in the office over twenty years, and still working faithfully in the harness. " Is Mr. Greeley in, sir ? " King glances at us very sharply, as if suspicious that we are political vermin, sent to worry Horace Greeley into the support of some worthless office-seeker then looks at the clock in his rear, and after a squint at a half-open door on his right, answers : "Twenty minutes past four" slapping his hands on the counter "the 'Old Man's' here!" "Can we see him?" Another sharp scrutiny, and the words fly back : " In one moment, gentlemen. At present he is engaged." A dark-complexioned gentleman, with a snapping pair of black eyes, is busy at a desk on our right, scheduling advertisements and marking down subscriptions for the "Weekly and Campaign Tribunes. This is Mr. Barker, one of the old stand-byes. From him we learn that 50,000 Campaign Tribunes are being sent to Pennsylvania, 20,000 to New Jersey, over 100,000 in New York, and 300,000 to the West. While we are annoying Barker, an old man with thin straggling gray hair, and with two sharp gray eyes flashing through a pair of eye-glasses, rushes in the door, and darts through the little gate in the counter. In his hand is a bundle of checks and greenbacks. This is Mr. Jenny, the collector of the office. He looks as if he had scraped barnacles from the keel of Noah's ark. He is fre- quently mistaken by awe-stricken countrymen for Mr. Greeley himself. There is pluck in this old fellow. He was the only man who faced the riotors when a storm of brickbats flew through the counting-room win- dows. He struck boldly out from his shoulder when the mob rushed through the doors. Of course he was upset, but he only yielded when overpowered by numbers. The ferocious gang were too intent on plunder to visit him with their vengeance, or the old man's life would have paid forfeit to his courage. And near him is the little sharp-eyed Gerow, the cashier of the establishment, who seems as cross as an old thorough-bred rat terrier ; but he has a good heart, and receives and disburses the money of The Tribune without ever making a blunder. Old Gen. Watson, gray as a badger, is pouring over the mail books at the back end of the count- ing-room. These men have held their present positions for a score of years. 4:52 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. " Go right up stairs now, gentlemen. Mr. Greeley's there alone now!" says King. We walk through the little gate in the counter, turn within the open door way on our left, climb a short narrow flight of stairs, and find our- selves in a small room, ten by fifteen, furnished with a green carpet, a bed lounge, an open book-rack, a high desk, a writing desk, three arm chairs, a short-legged table, and a small marble sink. Mr. Greeley's back is toward us. He is seated at his desk. His head is bent over his writing, and his round shoulders are quite prominent. He is scribbling rapidly. A quire of foolscap, occupying the only clear space on his desk, is melting beneath his pen. A glance at the manuscript reveals two dozen knotty figures. You may be sure of a leader on the National Debt to-morrow morning. The desk itself is a heap of confu- sion. Here is Mr. Greeley's straw hat; there is his handkerchief. In front of him is a peck of newspaper clippings, not neatly rolled up, but loosely sprawled over the desk. At his left a rickety pair of scissors catches a hurried nap, and at his right a paste-pot and a half-broken box of wafers appear to have had a rough-and-tumble fight. An old-looking paper-holder is just ready to tumble on the floor. An old fashioned sand- box, looking like a dilapidated hour-glass, is half hidden under a slashed copy of The New- York "World. Mr. Greeley still sticks to wafers and sand, instead of using mucilage and blotting-paper. A small drawer, filled with postage stamps and bright steel pens, has crawled out on the desk. Packages of folded missives are tucked in the pigeon-holes winking at us from the back of the desk, and scores of half-opened letters, mixed with seedy brown envelopes, flop lazily about the table. Old papers The Charleston Mercury, The New Orleans Republican and Crescent, The St. Louis Democrat, and Republican, The Richmond Whig, and Inquirer, The Rocky Mountain News, The Albany Journal, The Philadelphia Post, The Sacramento Union, The London Times, The Portland Oregonian, The Free- Traders' Journal, The Spectator, The Augusta Chronicle, The Cincinnati Commercial, and Gazette, The Chicago Post, and Republican, The London Daily News, The Hawaiian Gazette, The Athenseum, The Detroit Post, The Mobile Register, The London Telegraph, The Boston Post (Henry Wilson carried off The Advertiser), The New- York Express, Post, Com- mercial, Mail, and twenty other papers lay gashed and mangled about his chair, the debris of a literary battle-field. A clean towel hangs on a rack to his right. A bound copy of The Tribune Almanac, from 1838 to 1868, swings from a small chain fastened to a staple screwed in the side of his desk, two other bound volumes stand on their feet in front of his nose, and two more of the same kind are fast asleep on the book-rack in the corner. Stray numbers of the Almanac peep from every nook. The man who would carry off Greeley's bound pile of almanacs would deserve capital punishment. The Philosopher could better afford to lose one of his legs than to lose his almanacs. The room is kept scrupulously clean and neat A waste-paper basket squats between Mr. Greeley's legs, but one-half the torn envelopes and boshy communications flutter to the floor instead of MR. GKEELEY AT WORK. 453 being tossed into the basket. The table at his side is covered with a stray copy of The New-York Ledger. Packard's Monthly and a dozen other magazines lay thereon. Here is an iron garden-rake wrapped up in an Independent. There hangs a pair of hand-cuffs once worn by Old John Brown, and sent Mr. Greeley by an enthusiastic admirer of both Horace and John. A champagne basket, filled with old scrap-books and pamphlets, occupies one corner. A dirty bust of Lincoln, half hidden in dusty piles of paper, struggles to be seen on the top of his desk. A pile of election tables, dirty, ragged and torn, clipped from some unknoAvn newspaper, look as if they had half a mind to jump down on the " Old Man's " bald head. A certificate of life membership in some Tract or Abolition Society, and maps of the World, New York, and New Jersey hang on the wall. A rare geological specimen of quartz rock, weighing about ten pounds, is ready to roll down a high desk to the floor on the first alarm. Dirty pamphlets are as plentiful as cock-roaches. Let us look at his office library. Here are 150 volumes. First we see five large volumes of " The Statesman's Manual," then six volumes of " The Life of Clay." Here are the lives of Lincoln, Franklin, Stephen A. Douglas, A. P. Dostie, Memoirs of Margaret Fuller, and no, surely, it cannot be! the "Life of Horace Greeley!" "McPherson's Political Manual " and a volume of " Mrs. Hemans' Poems " are hugging each other. Lanman's " Dictionary of Congress " is edging away from Carey's " Social Science." Plato's " Immortality of the Soul " is nip and tuck with the " Transactions of the American Wool Associa- tion." Perry's "Elements of Political Economy" is courting Dickens's " Mutual Friend." A volume of the Speeches of Alexander H. Stephens is making faces at Henry Wilson's " Anti-Slavery Measures in Congress." An old volume of Washington Irving's " Spanish Papers " is sandwiched between the " Handbook of Cotton Manufacture " and Seaman's " Pro- gress of Nations." A " History of Londonderry " is studying the " Trial of Surratt." " Youatt on the Horse " and Helper's "Nojoque" laugh at each other over a " History of the Whig Party." Three " Gospel Litur- gies " lay next to a half dozen " Reports on the Conduct of the War." A work on " Botanical Reports " kisses a copy of " The Federalist." "Allibone's History of Authors" is nearly smothered under a pile of " Census Reports." Volumes of Diplomatic Correspondence, State and Convention Manuals, Agricultural Reports, and scores of books on the National Debt and the Tariff, hold their own on various shelves. Mr. Greeley can lay Virginia worm fences in ink faster than any other editor in New- York city. He uses a fountain-pen, a present from some friend. He thinks a great deal of it, but during an experience of three years has failed to learn the simple principle of suction without getting his mouth full of ink, and he generally uses it with an empty receiver He makes a dash at the ink-bottle every twenty seconds, places the third finger and thumb of his left hand on his paper, and scratches away at hia worm fences like one possessed. He writes marvelously fast. Frequently the point of his pen pricks through his sheet, for he writes a heavy hand, and a snap follows, spreading inky spots over the paper, resembling a 454 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. wood-cut portraying the sparks from a blacksmith's hammer. Blots like mashed spiders or crushed huckleberries occasionally intervene, but the old veteran dashes them with sand, leaving a swearing compositor to scratch off the soil, and dig out the words underneath. Mr. Greeley's manuscript, when seen for the first time, resembles an intri- cate mass of lunatic hieroglyphics, or the tracks of a spider suffering from delirium tremens. But, by those accustomed to his writing, a remarkable exactness is observed. The spelling, punctuation, accented letters, and capitalizing are perfect. The old type-setters of the office prefer his mail uscript above that of any other Editor, for the simple reason that he writes his article as he wishes it to appear, and rarely, if ever, cuts or slashes a proof-sheet. And this punctuality is, in a great measure, a feature of his life. He is always on time, and never waits for anybody. He employs no Private Secretary, and when he receives a letter, answers it on the instant. No matter how trival the request, the next outward-bound mail will carry away one of his autographs, if he thinks an answer necessary. He knows we have entered his room, yet he continues his writing. The only sound we hear within the sanctum is the scratching of his pen. He has the power of concentrating all the strength of his mind on the subject of his editorial, and will pay no attention to any question, however import- ant, until he finishes his sentence. If the cry of "Fire!" should resound through the building, Greeley would finish his sentence and ring his bell before he would leave his room. The sentence complete, he places the forefinger of his right hand at the end of the word last written, seizes the handle of his pen in his teeth, and looks his tormentor full in the face. It is a glance of inquiry, and the questioner, intuitively conscious of this fact, repeats his interrogation. Mr. Greeley divines the question before it is finished, and answers it pithily and quickly. The pen is then snatched from his mouth, dexterously dipped into his inkstand, and his fingers again travel across his transverse sheet of foolscap like a " daddy long, legs " caught in a storm. If his questioner is importunate, and insists on wasting his time, he continues his writing, never looking up, and either answers absent-mindedly, or in a low, impatient tone, tinged with a pecu- liar boyish nervousness. If his visitor is ungentlemanly enough to still continue his teasing importunities, a storm breaks forth, and the uncour- teous person will trot out of the sanctum with an answer ringing in his ears that should bring a flush to his cheek. The popular impression of Mr. Greeley's personal appearance seems to be associated with a white hat and a white overcoat, and with one leg of his pantaloons hitched on the top of his boot-leg. This is incorrect. He is clean in his attire never wears a dirty shirt or a dirty collar, has a straw hat, a thin black frock coat, a white vest, and a pair of black doeskin pants drawn down over his boot-tops. Sometimes he wears shoes, and he has been seen with leggings. In muddy weather his boots and pants may be covered with dirt, but in pleasant days they are clean far above the average. The only mark of slovenliness about him centres in his black silk cravat, which will occasionally have a fight with his collar, and a slip TRIBUNE EDITORIAL ROOMS. 45S out of sight. Sometimes the necktie will hold its own with the collar, but the knot will jump round to the side of his chin and give him a remarkable air of absent-mindedness. The cause of this irregularity is his want of skill in using pins. They bend and prick his neck until he is glad to drop them. Mr. Greeley is five feet ten and a half inches in height, and well propor- tioned. He is fifty-seven years old. He is partly bald, has white (not gray) hair, a light complexion, small sunken blue eyes, a well-shaped mouth, and regular features. A white beard runs over his throat and flanks his chin, like a tiny chevaux-de-frise. His hands are small, and soft as those of a woman. His teeth are white and regular, and, in talking, are always observable. His feet are large and ill shaped. You can hardly say that he walks. He shuffles. The head makes a motion forward, the body follows it, as if swung on a pair of hinges at the hips, the legs then move, and the feet straggle out as if undecided whether to walk or to keep still. The fact of the business is, Horace never had time to learn to walk. He weighs a man for what he is worth, and not for what he appears to be worth. " Mr. Greeley, my friend, Mr. , who has called to pay his respects." Down goes the forefinger on his manuscript. The paper-holder quiver- ing on the edge of his desk drops to the floor. You catch the glow of his smiling face, a glance of his small blue eyes, hear his shrill treble voice roll off a few pleasant words, and we descend the stairs to the counting, room, leaving him to hack away at blighting human wrongs and follies in his own peculiar manner. * * And now for the editorial rooms. Out of the counting-room, and down Spruce street to the first iron stoop. Up a pair of winding iron stairs to the fourth story. Here is an iron door, painted in three colors, bearing the following inscription : EDITORIAL ROOMS OF THE TRIBUNE. RING THE BELL! Abraham Lincoln has clicked this bell-spring. Thackeray has peered through this netted grating. John Brown has leaned against this door- post. Kossuth has paired his finger-nails in this entry. Jenny Lind has drawn a silk skirt over this floor; and Henry Clay's silvery voice has floated about this circular iron corridor. The feet of scores of distin- guished dead have trodden these metal stairs. Here we are at the door of the editorial room. Step within this little entry, and snap a small spring fitted into the side of the door-casing. Before the distant tinkle of the bell dies away, little Johnny Weinheimer, the office boy, opens the door, and throws a suspicious glance at us from his black eyes. We are in the City Editor's room. The walls are covered with maps. A perpendicular viaduct, for communication between the counting, editorial, and composing-rooms, with speaking-pipes, copy-boxeg 456 LIFE OF HORACE QEEKLET. and bells, runs from the low ceiling through the centre of the room, like the succulent branch of a banyan tree. A small library of books relating to city affairs leans against the viaduct. A water-pail and a tin jar of ice- water occupies one corner of the room. Paste-pots and inkstands are scattered over the desks in lazy confusion. Bits of blotting-paper and scores of rusty-looking steel pens are strewn about the tables. A dozen reporters are seated at a dozen small green desks. Some are writing, a few are reading, and two are smoking briarwood pipes. The most con- spicuous reporter in the room is Col. James B. Mix, a man of magnificent physique, and a genuine Broadway lounger. He is dressed in exquisite taste, wears eye-glasses, black side-whiskers, and a mustache, and has a countenance that would create a sensation at a Sorosis dinner. The Colonel was formerly a private in the Seventh Regiment, N. G., went into the army, and soon became Captain of President Lincoln's Body-Guard. He dined Ute-d-t/te with his Excellency every morning for nearly a year. Carpenter's book can't begin with Colonel Mix in reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln. He is retailing his experiences during the Yacht-Club excursion to a small but stout-built man, with a rosy face and intelligent gray eyes. This is Mr. Barclay Gallagher, the Assistant City Editor. He has risen to his present position from the composing-room. Fred. Gedney, the author of " In the Saddle," the new serial of Putnam's, is fishing for letters in the Post-Offlce box. Zebulon White, with the pale face of a college student, is writing up a real estate report. A man of quiet ability, he is one of the most trustworthy reporters in the office. Robert W. McAlpine, formerly an editor on The Philadelphia Press and The Washington Chronicle a smooth-faced man, who might easily be taken for an interpreter for the Chinese Embassy is busily dashing off a New- York letter for a prominent Western journal. His brother Thomas is smoking over a paper-covered edition of Shakespeare. Nathan D. Urner, a heavy-built man, resembling a Mexican ranchero in pursuit of novelties, has just finished a campaign song for The Tribune, and is punctuating it, preparatory to slipping it into the Managing Editor's private box. He is the writer of the sensation report of the Barnum's Museum fire printed in The Tribune in July, 1865, and copied and recopied as an actual verity by English, Australian, and American papers. George W. Pearce, the Police Reporter, a rosy-com- plexioned, blue-eyed little gentleman, who seems as spry as a circus-rider, is hurriedly dashing off an " Immense Robbery in Wall Street," stopping suddenly to perpetrate a joke, and then growling at the late hours assigned him at Police Headquarters. Quinlan, a thin, ebon-eyed, black-mustached reporter, is accusing Meeker, an active, smooth-faced boy, fresh from the prairies of Illinois, of borrowing his paste-pot, and Ralph, in a nasal twang, is retorting by a counter accusation, involving the loss of a pair of scissors. George H. Stout, the Law Reporter of The Tribune, is con- versing with Oswald Allen, a pink-cheeked genius of twenty-one, about the relative speed of American race-horses, as compared with English stock. The door opens, and N. G. Shepherd, the poet, walks to the letter- box like a Hamlet in distress, and then dignifiedly retires with a tiny CTTT EDITOR. 45? envelope. Oliver B. Stout, for twelve years the Reporter of The Tribune at the City Hall, is telling the story of the rise and fall of Frank Boole to Curtis F. Gilbert, whose pale blue eyes snap with delight at the recital. J. E. Burke, an old New- York reporter, who has been employed on nearly every paper in the city, is squinting over an immense book in search of an assignment to duty. Thatcher, the weather man, the successor of the sage of Brooklyn Heights, enters the door, and in response to numerous ques- tions, decides that it will not rain within forty hours. The Professor is an old man of about fifty-five, dressed in a seedy, snuff-coloured suit, wearing a rusty high hat, and a heavy-soled pair of shoes. For twenty-five years he has run the telescope business during the dead hours of the night in front of St. Paul's Church. He has built himself a cabin among the clouds on the roof of a nine-story building in Duane street, and there carries on his astronomical and barometrical observations when not on guard in front of St. Paul's. Shaking hands with Cassius Morey, a boy who took root in The Tribune office twelve years ago, and has now sprouted into an efficient reporter, the Professor stumbles against Alfred Armant and retires. And such is an average daily scene in the reportorial rooms of The Tribune. The City Editor of The Tribune is held responsible for the gathering of every item of news within a radius of fifty miles from New- York. The rapid growth of the city has rendered this necessary. Over 75,000 persona doing business in New- York reside in the country, and become interested in hamlet news. The Tribune satisfies this interest by daily reports of everything occurring within fifty miles of the city. Newark and Paterson, for instance, have no morning newspapers. After their evening journals go to press, Tribune reporters ransack each city until midnight in search of news, and use either special messengers or the telegraph in forwarding their returns. The Tribune is thus a morning newspaper for such cities. The Tribune has thirty-two reporters under the order of its City Editor. Thirteen of them are paid salaries ranging from fifteen to thirty-seven dollars per week, and the remainder work by the piece. On Friday each reporter makes out his bill on a blank, giving the date of the report, the number of hours spent in obtaining it, the number of lines furnished, and the number actually printed, with a statement of expenses. The printed slips are pasted to the bill as a voucher, and it is handed to the City Editor, who carefully examines and endorses it, and then turns it over to the Managing Editor, who, after a close scrutiny, draws up a check, which is paid to the reporter in person at the counting-room. The City Editor arrives at the office at ten A. M., and immediately overhauls the morning papers, reading the advertisements with special care. Every announcement of a political meeting, lecture, horse-race, excursion, real estate sale, execution, hotel-opening, steamboat-launch, etc., is clipped out and pasted in a blank book. Special attention is given to the country papers published in the vicinity. Nothing escapes or should escape the eye of the City Editor. Notices of executions and College Commence- ments, and of all political and scientific convocations, are pasted in the book a month in advance. Having carefully gone through the papers, the 458 LIFE OF HORACE OREELET. City Editor writes the name of the reporter he wishes to employ opposite the pasted slip. At noon the reporters enter, and copy their assignments from the book, drawing a line under each of their names, to assure the City Editor that they are aware of their detail and will attend to it. Look at the book, and you will find such entries as these : John Allen's Prayer-Meeting, Water street, 12 M. White. American Geographical Society, Historical Society Rooms, 2d avenue and llth street, 8 p. M. Meeker. Grant and Colfax Meeting, Broadway and 22d street, 8 P. M. Armant. Dog Fight at Kit Burns', Water street, 9 p. M. Mix. Special service. Gilbert. See Longstreet, and have an interview with him at the New- York Hotel; make a column. Gedney. Police Headquarters. Morey. Jefferson Market Police Court. Mix. A two column article on Local Nominations. McGrew. When the City Editor has an idea of beating the other journals on a particular point of news, he marks down a trusty reporter for " special duty." Such reporter gets verbal orders from his chief, and is expected to fill them to the letter. If his assignment was given on the book, some news shark might copy it, and furnish a report for an opposition news- paper. The City Editor must necessarily be a keen judge of men. One reporter would write up a horse-race in brilliant style, but would shock- ingly butcher a fashionable ball. A religious reporter and there are such would hardly give a readable account of a cock main or a dog-fight, and a reporter posted on sporting matters would make a poor fist of it if sent to do up the consecration of a church or the ordination of a bishop. Special men are adapted to special work. The Managing Editor recognizes this fact when he selects his lieutenants, and the City Editor exercises the same discrimination when picking out his non-commissioned officers and privates. "Eh? Mr. Young? Yes, sir, he's here. Do' ye want to see 'm?" replies Johnny Weinheimer, in answer to our inquiry. " Certainly, if he is disengaged." " I'll tell you in a second." Johnny peeps through a small hole in the ground glass of the door to Young's room, then darts back to a match-safe hanging at our side, and pulls therefrom two square slips of letter-paper. " Please write your names on this paper or, if you've got your cards with you, they'll do jis as well. I'll take 'em in to Mr. Young." Our cards go in, and in ten seconds we are ushered into the presence ol the Managing Editor of The Tribune. You glance at John Russell Young and then gaze back at Johnny, as if j-ou thought he was perpetrating a joke at our expense. What! this bluereyed boy the Managing Editor of the most influential journal in America! You can hardly believe it. In personal appearance Mr. Young is the most insignificant person about the office. He is lightcomplexioned, has a large, sloping head, thatched with brown hair, a clear forehead, and a prominent nose, and is as quick of JOHN EUSSELL YOUNG. 459 motion as a sparrowhawk. He is of medium height say five feet eight His words flow from his lips in rapid succession, as if each one was strug- gling to get out of his mouth ahead of the other. And this man has flashed upon the journalists of New- York like a literary comet. Twelve years ago he was a printer's devil ; when South Carolina sprouted into secession he was a reporter in Philadelphia; one year more found him a Dramatic Critic on The Washington Chronicle ; six years ago he was the Managing Editor of The Philadelphia Press ; two years after this he was with General Banks during the Red River expedition; next we find him an agent of Jay Cooke's in 7.30 times. While at this business, in his leisure hours, he wrote editorials for The Tribune. They were unusually spicy and argumentative, attracted the attention of Mr. Greeley and Sidney Howard Gay, and now that printer's devil is a newspaper autocrat the peer of statesmen, and a potent power in the land. At first sight he appears common-place, but when you talk with him, and partly fathom the depth of that wonderful blue eye, and the decisive cut of the nose and the mouth, you recognize an impress of a peculiar intellectual vitality, a fertility of resource, a quickness of comprehension, and a nervous energy that stamps him as a steam-engine among newspaper men. His attire is neat, but not foppish. He wears one of those little round-topped hats, with a small, circular rim, and this increases his boyish appearance. His room is lined with books of reference. It is a portion of the old library of the office. Files of The New-Yorker and Greeley's old " Log Cabin " are dreaming on shelves near the floor. Files of The Tribune, Herald, World, and Times, from the date of their first publication to the present hour, all neatly bound, are at hand. Congressional Globes, Niles's Regis- ter, Encyclopedias, Concordances, Political Manuals, Rebellion Records, and hundreds of other valuable books of reference stand against the wall in martial array. Bronze statuettes and lively coloured chromos occupy various positions in the room. Young writes by spasms. He pays strict attention to the business details of the office. Every letter, every bill, every rejected communication is filed. He is able to furnish, at a moment's notice, a filed voucher for every cent of expenditure during his adminis- tration. Such strict attention to business requires a vast amount of time. But when a great national emergency arises, especially during the absence of H.G., he throws himself into the breach with characteristic energy, and the columns of The Tribune are red-hot with his short, sharp, ringing sentences, until the storm has passed. His were the stinging editorials on the Philadelphia Convention, his were the columns of invective poured over the Impeachment renegades, his were the fierce attacks upon the far- born movement to nominate Grant before the General had defined his position, and his are the showers of sarcasm launched upon John T. Hoffman. The phrase, " Impeachment is Peace," is Young's ; so are the words, " Let us have Peace." He it was who called Grant " a sashed and girded sphinx." He it was who wrote the brilliant book reviews on Buchanan's " Defence of his Administration," " Greeley's American Con- flict," and Richardson's " Life of Grant." There are no lazy hairs in his 460 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. head ; each one seems to be inspired with electric energy. As Butler waa the author of the word " Contraband," applied to the slaves of Rebels, so is Young the author of the word " Copperhead," as applied to the members of the Democratic party. He motions us to a seat. Dickens has occupied this same chair. Sickles, Sheridan, Longstreet, Meade, Pryor, Butler, Hill, Howard, Rosecrans, and fifty other generals, of more or less renown, have ground their elbows on this very table. Colfax, Ashley, Wilson, "Wendell Phillips, Sumner, Grow, Washburne, Burlingame, Griswold, Kelley, Boutwell, and a hundred other distinguished statesmen have played with this paper-cutter. Miles O'Reilly, Bancroft, Sam. Bowles, George William Curtis, Theodore Tilton, A. D. Richardson, Anthony Trollope, R. B. Rhett, E. A. Pollard, Mark Twain, Petroleum Nasby, Col. T. B. Thorpe, and three-score of well-known authors and editors have brushed their shins against this table-leg. Abraham Lincoln spent a night in this room, in a revision of his Cooper Institute speech, in the Winter of 1859. The writer of this article read the first proof-sheet, and, had he saved the manuscript, would have been, at this time, $1,000 in pocket. Edgar A. Poe used to borrow money of Horace Greeley in this apartment. John Brown, Henry Ward Beecher, and Lloyd Garrison have gazed at this library. Viscount de Chalrol, Lord Morley, Lord Camperdown, Thurlow Weed, Kossuth, Jay Cooke, Edwin Forrest, Mrs. Yelverton, Hawthorne, Webster, Clay, Chase, O'Baldwin, and Seward have all trodden this floor. Young is a strict disciplinarian. He runs the editorial department like a machine. Every cog strikes its groove with punctual regularity. When he is absent his duties fall on Mr. John R. G. Hassard. If Hassard is missing, Mr. Amos J. Cummings takes the manager's chair, and so perfect does everything jibe, that if all the editors were absent the oldest reporter, like the senior sergeant of a company destitute of commissioned officers, would take charge. An editorial council is held in the Managing Editor's room every day, between the hours of 1 and 2 p. M. Mr. Young presides. Mr. D. C. McEwcn, his private secretary, a stenographer, and one of the witnesses in the impeachment trial, sits at his side. The editors are seated about the table. Mr. Hassard, a tall, straight gentleman, with a light complexion, blue eyes, regular features, sandy mustache and side whiskers, and legs like those of President Lincoln, occupies a chair at Mr. Young's left. Mr. Hassard writes English as smooth as the music of a rippling brook, and frequently dashes off an editorial article steeped in an original solution of humour and sarcasm. In addition to his other duties, Mr. Hassard does the musical criticisms of the paper. Opposite him is Mr. Denslow, for- merly Managing Editor of The Chicago Republican. He has a dark eye, a Napoleonic nose, and a black mustache. He is the only black-ej r ed editor in the office. His opinions are firm-set, and, though his editorials occasionally conflict with the views of Mr. Greeley, they are marked with deep thought, and are carefully prepared. He usually writes on financial or reconstructive measures, though Mr. Greeley does more ">f this work AN EDITORIAL COUNCIL. 461 than any other man in the office. At the right of Mr. Hassard is Prof. A. J. Schem, the Foreign Editor, and the compiler of The Tribune Alma- nac. He is a large, smooth-faced German, with eyes of imperial blue, and a head broad and well balanced, somewhat resembling portraits of Bis- marck. His eyes are full of language. He has frequently been mistaken for Mr. Greeley. He compiles the " Foreign News," and writes the edito- rials on European and other foreign matters of interest. He has a happy faculty of catching an unconscious nap during the composition of his editorials, which greatly endears him to the Night Editor. His slight accent betrays his Teutonic origin. Mr. Cummings, the City and Political Editor, sits at the foot of the table, opposite Mr. Young. He is a pale, thin, blue-eyed man, of a nervous-sanguine temperament, and eternally at work. During the editorial councils he listens with deep interest, and fills in the interstices of time by drawing strange characters on the paper before him. He compiles the campaign and presidency columns of the paper, works up election tables, writes editorial paragraphs, dashes through the exchange papers, and takes charge of everything pertaining to poli- tical or city matters. Originally a Douglas Democrat, he now believes in God and Horace Greeley. He shudders at the very mention of the " Citi- zens' Association," and Kit Burns could stand in no greater dread of Henry Bergh than Cummings. The names of both parties suggest im- mense manuscript rolls of bad English, backed by heartrending appeals for immediate place in the columns of The Tribune. Cummings has set type in nearly every State in the Union, and was a sergeant-major in tho army. He worked at the case in the composing-room for six years, off and on, and was transferred to the Editorial Department during Mr. Guy's administration. On his right is Mr. N. C. Meeker, the successor of Solon Robinson in the Agricultural Department. Mr. Meeker is a thin, spare man, of an olive complexion, with light blue eyes, and a farmer's face, hands and dress. His desk is usually covered with patent rat-traps, purn- kin-seeds, corn-shellers, fancy potatoes, washing-machines, crab-apples, cucumber-bug killers, and similar vegetables and contrivances. For many years Mr. Meeker wrote for The Tribune those remarkable agricultural letters dated at Dongola, 111., and when the venerable author of " Hot Corn " grew mellow with age, and retired to his farm in Westchester, he was called to fill the vacancy. And well has he done so. Mr. Meeker writes the crop editorials, the Farmers' Club reports, and all agricultural articles. Next to Mr. Meeker we find Clarence Cook, the terror of artists and engravers. So trenchant are his criticisms that artists have been known to run from him on the street as they would at the sight of a mad dog, and in some artistic circles he is entirely tabooed. Writing in a vein of terrible sarcasm, Mr. Cook is singularly mild and pleasant in his demeanour. He would step into the mud to avoid crushing a worm. He has a mild, hazel eye, red whiskers, and dresses in white, wearing glasses and a bob-tailed coat. Mr. Wm. "Winter, the Dramatic Editor of The Tribune, comes in late he usually does. He is a small, thin gentleman, with straight brown hair, a soft blue eye, and an effeminate mustache 462 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. sustains a little straw hat with a big ribbon, and has not been inaptly described as looking like a German Turner going to a funeral. He suc- ceeded Ned House as Dramatic Critic. His criticisms are universally regarded as the best in the city. His contributions to the editorial page are spicy and brilliant. Last of all at the table we find Mr. Whitelaw Reid, of Cincinnati, the latest addition to the force. He looks like Theo- dore Tilton, with his angular points rubbed off. He talks very easy, and writes ditto. His articles are pithy and argumentative, and have attracted considerable attention. And such are the satellites of Horace Greeley. McConnell, the Night Editor, seldom attends these conferences. Late morning hours forbid. And this is the " staff" of The Tribune. When all are seated Mr. Young nervously dances around his desk for forty seconds, and then dumps on the table a basket piled with manuscripts, memoranda, and newspaper clippings. While these are being assorted a running fire of gossip springs up, and Jokes fly about the table. The pile being assorted, business begins. Mr. Young picks up a newspaper slip, looks at it a second, taps it with a scurvy pair of scissors, and says : " Now, this Associated Press dispatch is evidently a Rebel lie two hun- dred armed negroes attack fifty unarmed whites, and two whites are wounded and fifty negroes are killed what perfect nonsense ! Reid, you write an article on this business for to-morrow's paper, and have Dr. Wood look up the other cases in which the Associated Press dispatches are toned by the Rebels." Here the slip is crumpled up, rolled briskly into a little ball between the palms of his hands, and then tossed into the waste basket. A copy of The World goes spinning across the table to Cummings, with the remark : " I think The World beat you in its account of that murder this morn- ing." " That's very probable, but we beat them on the fire and a murder in Weehawken," Cummings replies. Young here seizes a pile of manuscript and hands it over to Hassard, without a word. On the back of the pile is written : " Mr. H., please read and report. J. R. T." Another glance at a memorandum, and McEwen is told to telegraph Smalley, in London, to send a man to Roumania immediately, to watch the insurrection there. " And ask ****, in Constantinople, if there is any truth in the report from Washington that the Turks are about to withdraw from Crete. Use the cypher." Both orders are directly filled, a bell-cord is jerked, and in one minute a Tribune boy is trottiug to the telegraph office with despatches for London and Constantinople in his pocket. A pile of foreign letters, ranging from Chili to Japan, via Europe, is tossed to Schem, accompanied with the words : " Oh, Schem, I want an editorial from you to-night on Louis Napoleon 4 ! suppression of La Lanterne I" AN EDITORIAL COUNCIL. 463 Another glance at a square slip of paper "McEwen, telegraph Jim Toung to catch Rosecrans, as he returns to Washington from White Sul- phur Springs, and freeze on to him until he gets the nature of that corre- spondence, and write McConnell (the night editor) that the news from Atlanta should have been put in leaded brevier, under a pica head, and that O'Donnell's Mexican letter should have had an Ed. head." A bundle of foolscap, all about the Pacific Railroad, is here tumbled to Denslow, with the " Read and Report " label, and an order to hunt up a copy of the Georgia State Constitution, and write an editorial on the trouble at Atlanta. Cummings is cautioned, in the same breath, to watch the Atlanta papers for a copy of Turner's speech. Meeker gets a dose of enquiries in odd bundles, asking his opinion as to the best means of keeping turnip-tops free from hen-lice; whether it is best to sow onions during a full moon ; whether children can be poisoned by locusts, and a score of similar manuscript questions. Cummings is told to write an editorial on the yachting season, and is further informed that Mr. Greeley wants a complete list of the Congress and Assembly nominations, so far as made, with the majorities in each district, published as soon as possible. McEwen is told to telegraph " our man " in San Francisco that he is behind in his Japanese and Oregon news. Hassard is given a score of short editorial paragraphs to write ; and when the mountain of manuscripts in front of the managing editor has been run through the mill, and a mushroom hill has sprung up in the front of every member of the staff, a roll of standing proofs is overhauled. Here are fifty columns of special correspondence, political and scientific articles, and news matter already in type, and struggling for a place in The Tribune. Fresh proofs of the matter left over from the last issue of the paper are pulled every morning, and are sent to the Managing Editor. He now runs over these proofs, dashing his blue crayon through the unim- portant matters, marking " absolutely must " over particular articles, and dotting the sides of the proof sheets with sentences like the following: " Send a proof of this article to Mr. Greeley ;" "get this in as soon as pos- sible;" "put this table in half measure;" "send the copy of this to J. R Y.," etc. " McEwen, send this slip to Congdon, and tell him to give us a half column sarcastic review of it, and here is something for Stockton. Mail it the first thing after the meeting." Each editor is then asked for his report of the previous day's labour, after which suggestions from every one present are in order. The meeting is then dismissed, with the words : " The Trib. would look verv well to- day were it not for the poor quality of the paper and the infernal press- work. I believe the ink is stiff. We must have book ink. Mr. Greeley will write the leader to-morrow morning, gentlemen. If he don't, I will. Mr. Cook, here is a chromo which I wish you to notice. That's all." The editors pass out the door, through the city apartment into the main editorial room, and drift to their desks. In ten minutes a half dozen pens are vigorously scratching out ideas for the next day's issue. The child 464 LIFE OF IIOKACE GREEI.CT. is in embryo, and will be born in the morning. Everything will move with the regularity of clock-work. The editorial-room resembles a lurk- ing place for owls ; the ceiling is low, the floor is dirty ; a dozen rickety cane-bottomed arm-chairs, with high backs, three cases, filled with books of reference, ten old desks, spattered with ink, two cabinets, a chained copy of The Tribune Almanac, complete, and a dozen old pictures, give an idea of a rushing business, with an occasional dash at the fine arts. "We find Mr. Ripley, the Literary Editor, hard at work, with a huge pile of books and magazines in his front. His eye is as bright as ever. He has grown more dignified and portly with the weight of years. He does his work conscientiously. No personal influence or sympathetic appeal will ever induce him to give a favourable notice of any publication unless he honestly thinks it deserves such notice. By this course he has done more to elevate the standard of American literature than any man in this country. He and Charles A. Dana entered the office over twenty years ago. " Father Ripley," as he is affectionately termed, then received five dollars a week, and for his services Dana drew twelve. Now "Father Ripley " is a stockholder, but still holds his old position, with a good many " Os " to the 5. He is pleasant and sociable with those who never blow tobacco smoke in his face, or eject saliva about his desk. He has an exquisite sense of order and cleanliness, and frequently picks up envelopes and torn pieces of paper littering the floor and tosses them into the waste basket. If he find a pool of tobacco spittle near his desk he will either order an office boy to take a brown piece of paper and scrub the floor or do it himself. He has many distinguished visitors. Sumner, Bancroft, Wilson, and scores of similar men, frequently drop in the office for an hour's chat with Mr. Ripley. A glance at his smiling face and curly iron- gray locks brings to memory the days of Hildreth, Fry, Bayard Taylor, Margaret Fuller, Gay, Cleveland, Sam. Wilkeson, Oliver Johnson, A. H. Byington, Don. Henderson, Richelieu Robinson, Doesticks, Ottarson, England, Neil, and others. May he live long, and his shadow never be less! Here is a curiosity. Let us look at the cabinet adjoining Cummings's desk. Here are fifty sliding drawers, labelled with names of the various States and Territories. They are filled with political scraps and clippings, all arranged with reference to the label distinguishing the drawer. If you wish to find out the Republican nominee for Cbngress in the Vlllth Mis- souri, or the Vth South Carolina District, or the Democratic candidate for Assembly in the lid Ulster District, or the latest figures from Colorado, Cummings is just the man for you to interrogate. He slides open a particular drawer and gives you the names of the nominees, and the majorities given at the elections within the past four years, at short order. In the bottom drawers of this cabinet we find a series of carefully written obituaries of distinguished live men, all arranged alphabetical^, and in charge of Dr. "Wood. They are curiosities in their way. Here is a bulky one, as thick and as long as your arm. It is marked "Peter Cooper." Here is a second a Lilliputian roll, small enough to go into a needle-case. We 465 find this labelled "The Life of Walt. Whitman." These obituaries are found valuable when news of a celebrated person's death is received at an early hour in the morning. Thaddcus Stevens died at Washington, at midnight, yet a four-column sketch of his life appeared in The Tribune of that morning. It had been put up in type and was " standing " when the news of his death was received. This was the case with Buchanan and Martin Van Buren, though the latter cheated the office so long that the type was distributed, and the old man, with singular perverseness, died within two days thereafter. This Biographical Bureau is, indeed, a rare feature. In a corner near the door we find a cabinet of post-office boxes, labelled "The Money Market," "Literary," "Foreign News," "The City," "The Drama," "Agricultural," "The Fine Arts," "Music," "Science," "The Fashions," "Telegraphic News," "Managing Editor," etc. Every news- paper clipping or manuscript, having any bearing on these subjects, is dropped in its specific box, taken out by the person in charge of each department, and boiled down for use in the papers. Scrap-books, Direc- tories, Dictionaries, and Corporation Manuals seem to spring up about the office like chick-weed in a Jersey garden, but, whenever a copy of the Bible or Shakespeare is wanted, a tiresome search is made before the book is found. The lymphatic gentleman on whose desk the Bible is usually found is Mr. George O. Seilhamer, who has charge of The Weekly and Semi- Weekly Tribune. He it was who went to Heart's Content when the Atlan- tic Cable was laid, and furnished the paper with an exclusive copy of the Diary of the Great Eastern, after the English Admiral at Halifax had cribbed the Associated Press report for his own personal perusal. Mr. Seilhamer is a pleasant writer, and is the author of the obituaries of Thaddeus Stevens and James Buchanan. At his side sits Mr. Clarkson Taber, a plain country-looking gentleman, who is writing out a report of the cattle-market. He is always thoroughly posted on the price of beef- steaks, and, on this account, is held in peculiar reverence by editors and reporters. Fronting Mr. Seilhamer we find Mr. S. T. Clarke, the financial editor, who has groped his way from the sewers of newspaper life to fame and fortune. Here is a quiet, black-whiskered gentleman, plainly dressed ; he has a smiling, ruddy face, and a cast in one of his brown eyes ; he is apparently about forty-five years old. This is Mr. R. W. Johnson, a native Jamaican, and formerly the leader of the Liberals in the Jamaica Parliament. He was the real head and front of the Jamaica Insurrection, in which George William Gordon lost his life. A price is fixed on Mr. Johnson's head by the pro-slavery planters of that island, and, though Governor EJTC is absent, it would hardly be safe for him to visit his home. So much for a day view of The Tribune editorial rooms. Come here at midnight and you will find little rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed, curly-headed McConnell in charge, dashing off editorial news paragraphs, stripping proofs through his fingers, wading through bulky piles of special corres- 30 466 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. pondence, and rushing about the room like a bright-eyed black-and-tan in a rat-pit. He is a born and bred newspaper man, exercises his judg- ment on the instant, and is rarely wrong. During the winter he officiates as Albany correspondent. He has a keen scent for Legislative corruption, and frequently catches thieving Assembly-men by the hind leg, and shakes them before the eyes of the astonished public, with a portion of their plunder still sticking to their claws. Then Mr. E. H. Clement, a college graduate and a Bostonian, tills Mac's place in the office. He is young in years but old in appearance. He and White are the only gentle- men connected with The Tribune who part their hair in the middle. At the desk near the door we find Dr. John B. Wood, the Night Editor, through whose hands passes all the telegraph and news matter. In his front lies a magazine of blue crayons, pen-holders, and similar writing material. Fifteen columns of telegrams for The Tribune have passed through Wood's fingers in a single night You ask me if female reporters and correspondents are employed on The Tribune. They are. Miss Dunning writes the fashion reports ; Miss Kate Field occasionally sends a letter; Miss Booth frequently vouchsafes a readable article ; Mrs. L. Q. Calhoun writes sparkling correspondence, and Olive Logan occasionally bubbles over from the Magazines into the Weekly Tribune. Year before last Mrs. Calhoun reported the grandest city balls, and her descriptions of the Arion and Leiderkranz carnivals attracted great attention. *********** Some people think and say that Greeley is The Tribune and that The Tribune is Greeley. There may be some truth in the expression. But one thing is certain, the stockholders of The Tribune are aware of Mr. Greeley'a value. They have had his life insured for from $50,000 to $100,000 many years. Mr. Greeley is paid $7,000 a year for his services. This, with his dividend of the profits of the establishment, makes quite a snug sum. He also writes for u dozen magazines and weekley newspapers, beside occa- sionally throwing off a book and making stump political speeches and lectures. One day you will hear of him speaking at a Grant meeting at Somerville, New Jersey ; the next day he will arraign the Democracy at Honesdale, Pennsylvania; next you will hear of him at a temperance meeting in New- York city; on the day following he will speak before some tariff association, then before some agricultural society, and will top off the week with an address before the Grant and Colfax Club at Chappaqua, his residence. And all the time he keeps his end up on the editorial page. Greeley, without doubt, is to-day the hardest working newspaper man in New- York city. During the past two years the old readers of The Tribune have noticed a marked improvement in the paper. Its columns have grown more sparkling and fervent, and it has conducted the present Presidential cam- paign with an energy and skill heretofore unsurpassed. The cause for this change may be found in the youthfulness of its editors. But few of them are above thirty years of age; but they are steadily growing gray in READING PROOF. 4:67 the service of the paper, and hard work and late hours cannot fail to speed- ily propitiate those of our readers of the old fogy stripe. Dream as we wih of the joys and vigour of our youth, incessant gas-light will induce the inevitable eye-glass in the end. There isn't much sun-light at the hour of going to press, but there is enough care and embarrassment to bleach the luxuriant locks of " love's young dream ; " and none can determine the exact course of that strange plow-share of time that leaves its irregular furrow in the cheek and brow. There is one consolation, The Tribune will last longer than any of us. For man and his brain-working may pass away, but the principle that inspires him, if a noble one, will endure forever. We now come to Mr. Cummings's account of the mechanical operations and last hours' work on the paper. It must be given with the least possible abridgement: We have seen the editorial rooms. Open the door, and we pass from the City Editor's room into the little entry lighted up with a solitary gas- burner, which feebly flickers night and day. A door, made of wood and ground glass, and labelled " Proof Room," is at our right. It was the pri- vate entrance to Mr. Greeley's old room. For ten years Horace composed his editorials in this apartment, until at last he was driven to his present sanctum, above the counting-room, by a steady stream of political vermin, who became familiar with his working hours and the entrances to his room, and who worried him day and night. It was in this room that the material was collected for the Scott and Graham, Fremont and Dayton, and the two Lincoln campaigns. If these half-papered walls could whisper, they would furnish many a missing and interesting chapter for the " Recol- lections of a Busy Life." This is the room in which Dana and Gay oiled the machinery for the management of The Tribune. It was in this apart- ment that the celebrated Seward letter, the equally notorious Kansas editorials, and the " Just Once " article following the battle of Bull Run were written. Mr. Greeley has passed many a weary night on the sofa within this room. As we stand at the door we hear a monotonous burr-r-r-r and whirr-r-r-r, like the complaint of a swift turning fly-wheel in an engine room. The noise is caused by John C. Robinson, who is orajly flying over his proof sheets at a 2.40 rate of speed. As the door swings open we take in the room, proof-readers and furniture, at a glance. Here are three desks, four gas- lights, hidden under green shades, a small raised platform hugging a tin copy-box, which has just descended from the composing room, and four proof-readers, with damp strips of paper, freshly printed, in their front. On our left we find Mr. Frank Cahill, once the editor of The Picayune, then a soldier who marched with Sherman to the sea, next the projector and proprietor of the National Bull Frog Show at Dodworth's Hall, in 1865 a man who has been a theatrical critic, a valued contributor to Vanity Fair, a police reporter, an editorial writer, a lecturer, a theologian, a starter *68 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. of a dozen short-lived comic magazines, and a New- York quill driver gen. erally for eighteen years. The companion of Edgar Allan Poe, Ned Wilkins, George Arnold, Thodore Winthrop, Fitz-James O'Brien, Artenius Ward, Joseph C. Neal, and others of tbat really distinctive class of Bohe- mians, Mr. Cah ill is one of the few men in this city who could -lift the yellow veil from the dead faces of that brilliant youthful literary constella- tion, now blotted out forever, paint a true pen-picture of their social habits, and tell the story of their short but eventful lives. Cahill handles a proof sheet like an expert, and mumbles the printed words into the ears of the copy-holder at his side like a drowsy bumble-bee. In the farther corner John Robinson says Ham-num- tuition, num-nnm-cation. nnm-num "N um-iiuru-olution, num-num-eration, num-nnm, in a falsetto tone, hour after hour rolling obituaries, horse races, mar- riages, buchu advertisements, Clarence Cook's art criticisms, Greeley's ponderous logic, ship news, Young's rapier-like sentences, and Bayard Taylor's and Albert D. Richardson's letters from his tongue in the same monotonous song, as if they were strung together like a medley on a hurdy-gurdy. Every twenty seconds he makes a quick gasp for breath, and the full lungs and glib tongue again send out a string of clearly enun- ciated syllables and polysyllables, like the quavers and demi-semi-quavers bubbling from the bosom and dancing from the strings of Ole Bull's vio- lin. Robinson is, without doubt, the fastest proof reader in the world. He marks his corrections on the side of the proof sheet without ceasing his reading. A quick eyed copy-holder is required to follow Robinson's tongue, even on reprint copy. Robinson himself has an eye like a hawk, and, in reading a proof sheet, his eyes are generally at least five lines beyond his tongue. I have known him to distinctly enunciate a column of fine agate type, Tribune measure, in nine minutes. In October, 1863, he was timed by Benjamin L. Glasby and S. T. Selleck, two of the best compositors ever employed on The Tribune, when he read and marked the proof sheet corrections of fourteen columns of solid nonpariel in an hour and twenty minutes. This WAS done on a wager for seven dollars. The sheets were afterwards carefully read by an experienced proof reader, and but two typographical 'blunders (botli turned s's) discovered. Robinson came to the office, a boy, in 1854, and has remained there ever since. Joe Barlow, the pleasant English-faced copy-holder at his side, has been a compositor and proof-reader in the same office for fifteen years. Eminent men have held positions in The Tribune proof room. The Hon. George Brown, once the leading member of the Canadian Parliament, Alexander Mackenzie, notorious as the leader of the Canadian Rebellion in 1839, and Dr. Palmer, a well known compiler, once held situations here. During the past year Thomas J. O'Conner, a brilliant and gifted young proof-reader, who had been in the office since boyhood, has died. A readable volume could be written on reminiscences of The Tribune proofroom. Four men are constantly employed in reading the matter put in type by the fifty-fivf FOREMAN "TOM" HOOKER. 469 compositors on the floor above. One man is required to arrange the man- uscript copy for the first reading, after which the proof is sent up stairs and corrected. A second or revise sheet of the same matter is then struck, which, with the original proof, is sent down to Tom Robinson, the MSS. arranger, who compares it with the first sheet. If the corrections have all been made he marks it " O. K." and sends it up stairs. The type is then, ready to be thrown into the paper. And now let us visit Tom Rooker. Tom has been the foreman of the composing room over twenty years. He owns five shares in the paper. We find him at his desk, within five feet of the door, writing out a general order for the government of the compositors, and giving loud orders to his assistants at the same time. He is in his shirt sleeves. A short check apron girts his body like a breast-plate, hardly reaching high enough to cover the diamond studs winking from his shirt bosom. Mr. Rooker is a man known by printers in every State in the Union. He has a clear black eye, a head of bushy iron-gray hair, and has an appearance of dignity more than commensurate with his official position. In the realm of Tribune typog- raphy his word is law. And it is universally conceded that, in point of typographical neatness, the paper is not surpassed by any journal on either continent. Rooker asks every stranger for a " chaw tobacco," and talks to his compositors like a Dutch uncle to his nephews. He is a man of inven- tions, and has spent thousands of dollars in efforts to improve the mechan- ical department of the paper. Years ago he formed the idea that a morning paper could be stereotyped the same as a book, and thus, instead of one form of the paper being worked off on one press, a half dozen forms of the same newspaper could be simultaneously thrown upon the same number of presses. Thus the public could be served with a million copies of The Tribune before daylight each morning, if necessary. Two birds could be killed with one stone for the use of a stereotype plate would prevent the fearful crushing and mashing of type which accompanied the issue of 200,000 copies of The Weekly Tribune. Year after year Rooker tinkered at h's idea, but with indifferent success. At length he heard that The London Times was printed from stereotype plates. How the plates were stereotyped was a mystery as impenetrable as the mystery of the philosopher's stone. Two Swiss brothers alone held the key of the mys- tery, and did the job for The Times under contract. Tom wrote the broth- ers, and received a reply to the effect that they would put The Tribune through their mill for $30,000 annually. Feeding a Hoe press a weekly meal of type was an expensive job, but hardly so costly as giving the Swiss brothers an annual meal of $30,000. Tom thought he could do better. He at once again began to chisel out his ideas, with varying success. For days he would wander about the office in fits of brown study, and then, fancying himself on the verge of success, would caper among the typos, and laugh at their sly insinuations at his crazy mania, like an urchin who had just learned to toss off his first soap-bubble. But success came at last. One day a stranger walked into the composing room, shook hands with Tom, and said he had come to stereotype The Tribune. The compositors 470 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. winked at one another, and suggested that the fool-killer had not lately been attending to his business; but Tom Hooker shoved a paper of "Mrs. Miller's fine cut" in his cheek, stripped off his apron, put on his Panama hat and sailed out of the office in company with the stranger. Two days after this a huge iron vat for melting lead came up the hatchway from the press robin. The compositors laughed, and said that Tom had got a coffee boiler. Another week passed, and a fly-wheel, two cog-wheels, and circu- lar saw followed the iron vat The typos chuckled and whistled, and one made the remark, " Tom's got 'em bad this time." Belts, molds, and a steam chest came next. The thing began to look as if it meant something. At last, one pleasant summer afternoon in 1860, the rush of wheels and the sharp rasp of a circular saw filled the front room, and a smoking mass of hot lead was drawn from the mold and laid upon the table. The deed was done. The first newspaper in America had been stereotyped, and Tom Hooker's heart was as light as a school-boy's. During the period of Tom's anxious experiments a practical journeyman stereotyper was chasing up the same idea, and had succeeded in inventing a peculiar kind of paper, which, when dampened, was beaten on the face of the type, then covered with blankets and dried upon a steam chest, after which it was powdered with plaster-of-paris, laid in a mold, and a plate produced which was the exact counterpart of the face of the type. The Tribune adopted the sys- tem immediately. Eighteen months afterwards the Times and the Herald followed suit. Now the leading newspapers throughout the United States are stereotyped. After the paper is issued the plates are again tossed into the furnace, the matrix or the paper mold being preserved for future use, if necessary. But Tom was not satisfied. It took nearly an hour to stereo- type the forms, and get the plates ready for the press. He began making improvements, and has now got the thing down to such a fine point that a stereotype plate is dropped on the press in from sixteen to twenty minutes from the time that the type is sent from the hands of the printers. Come into the composition room at five minutes of seven in the even- ing. The desk near the door is littered with copy. Fifty printers are lounging about the office in their shirt sleeves and aprons, smoking, dis- tributing type, correcting proofs, swearing over the poor quality of the gas, and asking what number jumped out first in the evening drawing of the Kentucky or Delaware lotteries. Each compositor has a stand and a rack, in which are four sets of cases: one for agate type, used for setting up advertisements; another filled with nonpareil, a type a size larger, in which the main body of the news matter is set ; a third filled with minion type, which is used for the special despatches from Washington, and for import- ant news despatches and correspondence ; and the fourth and last filled with brevier, in which the editorials appear. The copy which is to go in agate is cut into sections or "takes," as the compositor calls them, and strung on a hook hidden in a box labeled " agate." The brevier, nonpa- reil, and minion copy are also placed on hooks, in separate boxes, labeled with reference to the face of the type. One man is employed solely in cutting the copy into sections or " takes," and marking directions for the SETTING UP THE TRIBUNE. 471 type in which the captions and sub-captions of articles are to appear Take The Tribune of October 28, 1868, for example, and the manuscript of the first column, fresh from the hands of the copy-cutter, would read thus: THE NEW REBELLION. [Pica Caps. [Misery dash. REBEL RIOTS IN NEW ORLEANS. [Minion caps THE REBEL DEMOCRACY IN ARMS, AND SHOOTING NEGROES IN THE STREETS. [Brevier small caps. Then follows a mark, "leaded nonpareil," which means that the copy is to be leaded ; that is, that a thin piece of metal is to be inserted between each two lines of type, as is the case with this article which now appears in Packard's Monthly. A little lower down in this "New Rebellion" article we find an order from Gen. Schofleld, which is marked by the copy- cutter in "solid nonpareil." This means that the leads are to be left out until otherwise directed. And thus every strip of copy is dotted with guide posts and sign boards, so that the compositor cannot go astray. Here are twenty men carrying off twenty pieces or " takes " of one article. We will suppose it to be an editorial of Mr. Greeley's. The copy-cutter slashes it into twenty pieces of about twenty lines each. The first piece he marks with a blue crayon " 1 G," the second piece " 2 G," the third " 3 G," and so on up to " 20 G." The compositors take these pieces from the hook as fast as they are out of copy, and as soon as each piece is put in type the matter is placed on a brass galley (similar to a board with a light strip of wood on each side), and a small square piece of white paper, marked "6 G," or whatever number designates the piece just finished by the compositor, is deposited at its side. You may find "2" and "3 G" hugging each other on the galley, followed by "5," "0," and "7 G," with a space left for " 4 G " when finished. When the 20 G's are all in their places the galley of type is fastened by a curly-headed gentleman, known as "the galley slave," who strikes five proof sheets one for Mr. Greeley; a second for Mr. Clements, the editor in charge at night ; a third for the proof room; a fourth for Dr. Wood, the regular night editor; and a fifth, on yellow paper, as a voucher for the work done by each man. So Gree- ley's article is in type in half an hour, and Horace carefully marks his corrections on the proof-sheet, and saunters home with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. By the arrangement described above, a dozen or twenty articles may be in process of composition at the same time. One manuscript will be numbered " 1 XX," and so on. The commercial review generally goes out marked " Com.," the markets " Ma.," the Washington special "Wa.," Young's editorial "1 Y," &c., and Hassard's spicy criti- cisms " Has.," &c. The men in the office are numbered, and each man is known by his number. When he gets his copy he begins his composition by placing a Bietai slug, on which his number is inscribed, at the head of each piece or db72 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. " take " of manuscript drawn from the copy hook. This number is printed on the proof sheets at the head of each "take." When the proof returns from the readers Fr^nk Weinheimer seizes it, runs his eye down the mar- gin until he discovers a typographical blunder, spots the number under which it has occurred, and sings out, at the top of his voice, " Proof for No. , in a hurry." The compositor owning the number picks up the galley, and corrects it down to a point where he finds four blunders under one number, when he passes it to said number, and so the proof runs the gauntlet until all the corrections are made. It is then passed up to the " galley slave," who pulls a fresh proof the numbers having been drawn out and distributed which is sent back to the proof readers. When the revise returns the galley is passed up to the "make-up " the gentleman who places the type in its proper position in the paper. Frequently slugs of "MUST," "ABSOLUTELY MUST," and "WAIT ORDERS," are placed at the top of various articles. They explain themselves. The yellow proof-sheets used as vouchers show the quantity of type set by each compositor, and are clipped every morning, the "takes" assorted according to their num- bers, and distributed among their owners. On Friday each compositor pastes the proofs thus received together, in long strips, according to the face of the type, which are measured by ems, at 56 cents per thousand, and for which the typo receives his money on Saturday. A printer's "em" is a space equivalent to the square of the body of the letter m that letter being adopted as the unit of measurement in composition, from its convenient proportions. In a line of the finest type used in The Tribune there are 35 of these ems. In 100 lines there are 3,500. The type is measured from a schedule of 100 anes, printed thus : No. Lines. 1 No. Ems. . 35 No. Lines. 5 No. Ems. 175 No. Lines. 9 .. No. Ems. 315 No. Lines. 13 No. Ems. 455 2 70 6 210 10 350 14 490 8 105 7 ... 245 11 ...385 15 525 4... ..140 8... ..280 12... ...420 16... -.560 And so on from 16 up to 100, and from 560 up to 8,500. Of course the schedule consists of a straight column of 100 lines, the above being broken into four pieces to save space. Now a compositor hands a long string of yellow slips or "takes" pasted together to the measurer. He draws a common string over the length of the pasted slips. He then draws the string (that is, the slips as measured on the string) over the printed sched- ule, as given above. As each hundred lines is measured on the string he counts "One!" "Two!" "Three!" "Four!" "Five!" "Six!" "Seven!" That is seven lengths of string, or 700 lines. Go back to the figurei pointed above. Look at the figure 7 in the second column, headed " No. lines." Opposite the 7 you find the figures 245. Add two O's to the 245 and you have 24,500 the exact number of ems contained In the seven THE COMPOSITION-BOOM. 473 lengths of string. If you have nine lengths, go to the figure 9, and you have 31,500 ems, and so on to 10, 11, &c. Of course what is left o-ver pi 100 lines is readily measured on the schedule. This is another one of Tom Hooker's inventions. By it one man could measure the week's work of 600 type setters in ten hours, and it would hardly be possible to make a mistake. I have said that there are fifty-five compositors in these rooms. Count- ing assistants and stereotypers there are over seventy persons here. There are over 100 gas burners. The ceilings are low in some places, and though every appliance of modern ventilation has been used, the rooms are ill ventilated. With over 100 gas burners and a hot furnace fire in the stereo- type room, the thermometer, during the bottoinless-pit weather of July last, frequently at midnight stood at 108, and once reached 113. This, with the antimonial gas escaping from the stereotype room, would have been enough to kill a bluff farmer, but the pale host of type stickers held their own. The Tribune compositors, with the exception of a half dozen men who work exclusively by daylight, reach the office about 1 p. M. Three or four hours are then consumed in distributing the type for the night's work. From five to six they drop off to supper, returning about ten min- utes of seven. As the hour of seven approaches they swarm around the copy hooks like bees about a sugar cask At five minutes of seven the Chairman of the office shouts: " Well, it's time sail in ! Who's first out ? " This " first out " is an important matter. It takes in the " fattest " sli^e of copy in the office, and this frequently turns out a five or an eight dollar job, in one, two, or three hours. The " first out" goes from one number to another on each succeeding night. " Eighteen's first out ! Number Eighteen, come up to the bull ring ! " shouts the Chairman. Eighteen delicately slips his "take " from the hook and drifts to his case, amid the ironical oh's and ah's of his companions, who kindly offer him fabulous sums of money for his luck. "Number Nineteen!" cries the Chairman. Nineteen "snakes" his take from the hook. " Number Twenty ! " and Twenty follows suit, and thus they go until every man is supplied with copy. The men lay their copy on their cases, and stand, stick in hand, but not a type is picked up until at precisely 7 o'clock, when the Chairman cries "Time! S-1-i-n-g 'em ! " The type rattle in fifty -five sticks at once, and for ten minutes hardly anything is heard but the steady " click, click " of the meta) letters within the steel sticks. The proof-room bell rings, and the bell boy runs up the tin box, and. draws therefrom a proof sheet. " Proof for Number ! " yells the boy. Some droll typo remarks: "Oh, no, that can't be must be some mis- take somewhere ! " 474 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. As No. happens to be a notoriously incorrect compositor, a general laugh follows. No. retorts with an intimation that the droll typo ia suffering from an attack of the jim-jams, and a steady stream of jokes and sarcastic allusions follow, until some witty genius says, in a grave voice. "Now we'll have the opening chorus!" accompanying it with a song, usually chanted by a brother typo when on a spree, and another round of laughter follows. " Who's got 9 G ! " shouts a wiry little fellow, adding, sotto voce, " Hang the copy! I believe three weeks at a writing-school wouldn't hurt Greeley ! " " Hang your copy on the hook if you can't read it! " shouts an unsym- pathizing companion. "Oh, he can read it well enough! " chimes in another. "There's a fiit 'take' on the agate hook, and he's a lay in' for it that's what's the matter!" Here Captain Holmes, a veteran one-legged typo, opens the door, ten minutes late, as usual, and sails for his case like a weather-beaten frigate. The rattle and clatter of fifty-five sticks beating a tattoo on the cases salute him. The Captain growls like a boatswain on a man-of-war, then tosses one crutch under his cases, jerks off his coat, and propped on his remaining crutch, rolls up his shirtsleeves with the majesty of an Ajax en dJihahilU. He shakes up the few type remaining in his case, gets his copy, and immediately wants to know if "any gentleman has any lower case agate p's to give out?" " Come here, Captain," shouts a comrade, and the Captain stumps off, and returns with a fist full of letters, which he dumps in his p box. Then the Captain begins composition. In ten minutes a row breaks out The Captain discovers a nest of b's in his p box, and shouts out, "Ah, Number Twenty, what did you give me when I went to your case ?" " Gave you what you asked for, of course lower case agate b's." " Yu-ftee dam ! I asked for p's-for-putty, and you gave me b's-for-butter !" As the Captain is known as an inveterate borrower, a roar of laughter breaks from the whole room, and the Captain subsides into a low, lion-like growl. Here a comrade enters the room, and says that he knows nothing about the row, but he will bet five dollars that the Captain is right, for he never knew him to be wrong in his life. Derisive cheers follow, and the Cap- tain's indignation again flames forth, and gradually subsides into the stereotyped growl. A long silence, dotted with the " click, click " of the type, follows. At 10 o'clock Clement comes up stairs, and designates the articles to go in on the first side of the paper. Sam Walter, the old and trusty night foreman, whose Chesterfieldian qualities have endeared him to every printer who has stuck a type in The Tribune office for the last eighteen years, dumps the type in the form, amid much tribulation over the work of some " infernal blacksmith," who has corrected nonpareil type with minion, and the pages slide off to the stereotyper's room. "GOOD SIGHT." 475 Chesterfield soaps his hands with an hysteric laugh, because the form has gone in in good time, and rushes for Oliver Hitchcock's coffee and cake saloon. Dan Kimball, his assistant, rubs his bald head and begs a fresh chew of tobacco. Silence again. A noise from the stereotype room is heard. At first you think it a female spanking an undressed urchin. It is the "spat, spat" of the stereotypers' brushes. They are beating the prepared paper, described elsewhere, on the face of the type. The door of the composing room opens, and a huge basket, with a large sized coffee kettle, hanging on the arm of a venerable Scotch woman, enters. " Yere's yer coffee !" yells the bell boy. Sticks are dropped, stools are overturned, and a stampede in the direc- tion of the huge basket ensues. Old Dodge, with the exception of Cyrus Harmon and Billy Newman, the oldest compositor in the office, draws a roll of bread and butter from his overcoat pocket, mounts a stool, and for ten minutes masticates his food over an old copy of The Boston Inves- tigator. At midnight the copy gives out. Clement is sent for, and asked for copy. He has none. " Shall I let off a couple of phalanxes ?" inquires Kimball. " No, sir," is the reply ; " I expect a four column telegraphic report of Stanton's speech at Cleveland." " Bogus is in order. Put your names down on the slate as fast as you're out of copy," cries Kimball, and down go a dozen names. When copy gives out the compositors are put to work on matter never used in the paper. This is termed " bogus matter." The office allows the men this privilege, because it would be unjust to require them to hang around the office waiting for copy, in the dead hours of night, without appropriate remuneration. By 2 A. M. Stanton's speech is all in. The men are divided into seven phalanxes, which are let off, phalanx after phalanx, as their services are no longer needed. " Have you got ' good night ' from Washington yet, Clem ?" asks Kim- ball. "Yes, Jim Young* shut up an hour ago, but the Associated Press is telegraphing its usual mess of stuff about the Land Office and the Statistical Bureau. Let off four phalanxes !" Kimball shouts, " First, third, fifth, and seventh phalanxes, close up and slope !" The wearied typos drop their sticks, and totter down the iron stairs. At 2.30 A. M. Dr. Wood comes up from the editorial room, and tosses a blue tissue sheet of paper on the table, with the words " Good Night" thereon. "No more copy! Here's a proof for the Correcting Phalanx !" cornea from Sam Walter, and the work of the typo is done. The type is pitched into the pages, which must be into the stereotype room by 3 A. M., for the paper to catch the mails, and after a hard half hour's sweating, fretting, swearing and tearing, the newspaper ship is * The Washington correspondent. 476 ME OF HOKACE GEEELET. launched for the day, and by 4 A. M. a dull rumbling in the lower regions announces that the presses are masticating paper thoughts and ideas that will be scattered throughout the Union before the morning hour again rolls around. The work on the Semi or Weekly Tribune follows. The Tribune compositors earn from $20 to $35 per week. During the war bills frequently ran up to $50 and even $70 per week. The man who set the " display head-lines," over announcements of glorious victories, occasionally made the latter sum the lines measuring by ems the same as the body of the type below them. Common Councilmen, well known authors, generals, editors, and ministers have sprouted in The Tribune composing rooms. The printers who formerly stuck type at the side of Horace Greeley have died out of the office. Horace, himself, though a practical printer, rarely visits the composing room. The last time the writer saw him at work in the composition-room was at 3 o'clock in the morning following President Lincoln's election, when he ran his eye over the type of the New York election table on the editorial page, and sud- d.enly cried out : " Here, Sam, bring me a bodkin ; some infernal fool has spelled Allegany with an h !" And though the pressmen were impatiently clanging the bells for the forms, Horace deliberately drew a jack-knife from his pocket and dug the h out of Allegany before he would allow the form to go down. In Henry Clay times Mr. Greeley occasionally " made up the forms " of the paper him- self. It was rather a tough job on election nights, when the news of a Whig walloping would roll in the office, and old Major French, one of his compositors, and a sturdy Democrat, would lounge around the " make- up " and crow over the Democratic victory. Greeley would quietly chuckle, and " guess that the boot would go on the other leg next time." As a rule, thoroughly competent printers have better judgment and more discriminating newspaper tact than editors manufactured out of collegiate graduates. The majority of the printers of the Tribune office are to-day better posted on general news matters than a majority of The Tribune editors. When will newspaper managers learn to use the raw material, lying under their very noses? I have known owners of journals to run from one end of the country to the other in a vain search for a competent Managing Editor, when little fellows setting type in their own offices were fully able and competent to get out just such newspapers as were wanted in their various sections. When practical printers take editorial charge of newspapers, both newspapers and printers invariably thrive ; can the same be said of collegiate graduates ? Mr. Parton visited The Tribune office one morning before day-light. He gives a graphic description of it as it then was: FOLDING THE TBIBUKE. 477 We are in The Tribune's press-room. It is a large, low, cellar-like apart- ment, uncoiled, white-washed, inky, and unclean, with a vast folding table in the middle, tall heaps of dampened paper all about, a quietly-running steam engine of nine-horse power on one side, twenty-five inky men and boys variously em ployed, and the whole- brilliantly lighted up by jetsof gas, numerous and flaring. On one side is a kind of desk or pulpit, with a table before it, and the whole separated from the rest of the apartment by a r*il. In the pulpit, the night clerk stands, counts and serves out the papers, with a nonchalant and graceful rapidity, that must be seen to be appreciated. The regular carriers were all served an hour ago ; they have folded their papers and gone their several ways ; and early risers, two miles off, have already read the news of the day. The later newsboys, now, keep dropping in, singly, or in squads of three or four, each with his money ready in his hand. Usually, no word passes between them and the clerk ; he either knows how many papers they have come for, or they show him by exhibiting their money ; and in three seconds after his eye lights upon a newly-arrived dirty face, he has counted the requisite number of papers, counted the money for them, and throws the papers in a heap into the boy's arms, who slings them over his shoulder and hurries off for his sup- ply of Times and Heralds. Occasionally a woman comes in for a few papers, or a little girl, or a boy so small that he cannot see over the low rail in front of the clerk, and is obliged to announce his presence and his desires by holding above it his little cash capital in his little black paw. In another part of the press-room, a dozen or fifteen boys are folding papers for the early mails, and folding them at the average rate of thirty a minute. A boy has folded sixty papers a minute in that press-room. Each paper has to be folded six times, and then laid evenly on a pile ; and the velocity of movement required for the performance of such a minute's work, the reader can have no idea of till he sees it done. As a feat, nothing known to the sporting world approaches it. The huge presses, that shed six printed leaves at - a stroke, are in deep vaults adjoining the press-room. They are motionless now, but the gas that has lighted them during their morning's work still spurts out in flame all over them, and men with blue shirts and black faces are hoisting out the "forms" that have stamped their story on thirty thousand sheets. The vaults are oily, inky, and warm.* Instead of the vast folding-table seen twenty years ago by Mr. Parton, we should now find a number of folding-machines, " fed " by boys, very much as the press is " fed " by men. Into one of these machines a Tribune enters in one large sheet, and out it presently drops, folded ready for the carrier or for mailing. The immense editions of The Tribune are thus folded in an incredibly short time. Observing the wonderfully Life of Horace Greeley, pp. 392-3. 4T8 LIFE OF HORACE QEEELET. rapid, the almost miraculously delicate, exact movements of press and folding-machines, one can hardly help being impressed with the idea that they are living beings, possessed of minds; and I dare say that Mr. Fitzpatrick, long press foreman, so loves " the old machine," the press, that he has often found himself musing upon the question, whether, when it and he shall have done all their work in this world, they shall meet in heaven; and if not what he is to do with himself? The world of .New- York in the main has only to do with The Tribune counting-room It requires great business ability and tact to conduct the financial affairs of a daily journal. The disbursements of The Tribune frequently reach ten thou- sand dollars a day, and, Mr. Cummings informs us, in the articles from which we have so largely quoted, that they have exceeded $1,000,000 a year. Transactions are had with per- sons in all portions of the globe. There is in no other business with so great a variety of transactions. Mr. Samuel Sinclair " is the lever which keeps all these things in perpetual motion." Mr. Sinclair entered the office early in the reign of Mr. McEl- rath, at a salary of nine dollars a week. He is now the largest stockholder, a man of great wealth. Quiet, modest, he has conducted the immense and varied business affairs of the office for years with most notable success financially, and in rare harmony with the editorial rooms. For, be it known, there is apt to be irrepressible conflict between the counting-rooms and the editorial rooms of a great journal. The heads of each are liable to view things from different stand-points. 4 "Will it pay?" is a natural inquiry of the business manager. "Is it right?" is the question to be decided by the great editor. It *I recollect that when, in 1868, The Chicago Tribune declined to join in tiie unreasonable, fanatical clamour against Senator Trumbull and others who had refused to vote for the impeachment of President Johnson, and when salea were rapidly falling off in consequence, Mr. Alfred Cowles, business manager, never for an instant flinched; not one whit more than Horace White himself. " O," said Cowles, " The Chicago Tribune has lived through worse storms than this ; and will live through many more. If it can't, it ought to die." If we had more such business managers as Samuel Sinclair and Alfred Cowles, we should have additions to the num- ber of great journals. TRIBUNE DEMOCRACY. 479 requires a fine business man, of unusually comprehensive mind, and of unflinching pluck, to percieve ever that it is in the long run profitable for a great journal to be right. In Mr. McElrath and in Mr. Sinclair, as publishers of The Tribune, Horace Greeley was wisely fortunate. A great day in the establishment of The Tribune is " Weekly Day." This edition of the paper has long been so immense that to print, fold, and mail it, taxes all the capacity of the working men and machinery of the office. When Mr. Parton made his extended visit to The Tribune office, the edition of the Weekly numberd over 100,000 copies, a number which was afterwards greatly augmented. "It is Thursday," he says, " the day of The Weekly Tribune, the inside of which began to be printed at seven in the morning. Before the day closes the whole edition, one hundred and sixteen thousand, forty- eight cart-loads, will have been printed, folded, wrapped, bundled, bagged, and carried to the post-office." A fact which will strike any one upon a visit to The Tribune office is what I will call its democratic management. Here is a copy of a notice in the composition-room : " Gentlemen desiring to wash and soak their distributing matter will please use hereafter the metal galleys I had cast for the purpose, as it is ruinous to galleys having wooden sides to keep wet type in them locked up. THOS. N. HOOKER." Mr. Parton is of opinion that it took the world an unknown number of thou- sand years to arrive at that word "gentlemen." And aftn wards, commenting upon the topic of this paragraph, he saya with great beauty and truth: There is something extremely pleasing in the spectacle afforded by a large number of strong men cooperating in cheerful activity, by which they at once secure their own career, and render an important service to the public. Such a spectacle The Tribune Building presents. At present men show to best advantage when they are at work; we have not yet learned to sport with grace and unmixed benefit ; and still further are we from that stage of developement where work and play become one. But The Tribune Building is a very cheerful place. No one is oppressed or degraded ; and, by the minute subdivision of labour in all departments, there is seldom any occasion for hurry or excessive exertion. The distinc- tions which there exist between one man and another, are not artificial, 480 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. but natural and necessary; foreman and editor, offlce-boy and head clerk, if they converse together at all, converse as friends and equals ; and the posts of honour a/re posts of honour, only because they are posts of diffi- culty. In a word, the republicanism of the Continent has come to a focus at the corner of Nassau and Spruce streets. There it has its nearest approach to practical realization ; thence proceeds its strongest expression. On the tenth day of April, 1871, The Tribune became thirty years of age. Upon that day, it contained a leading article by Mr. Greeley, which gave a comprehensive resumt of the his tory of its growth from the dreary, stormy day of its founding up to that time. The article should be here reproduced: The Daily Tribune was first issued on the 10th of April, 1841 ; it has therefore completed its thirtieth, and to-day enters upon its thirty-first year. It was originally a small folio sheet, employing, perhaps, twenty persons in its production ; it is now one of the largest journals issued in any part of the world, containing ten to fifteen times as much as at first, and embodying in each issue the labour of four to five hundred persons as writers, printers, etc., etc. Its daily contents, apart from advertisements, would make a fair 12mo volume, such as sells from the bookstores for $1.25 to $1.50; and when we are compelled to issue a supplement, its editorials, correspondence, dispatches, and reports (which seldom leave room for any but a mere shred of selections) equal in quantity an average octavo. The total cost of its production for the first week was $525 ; it is now nearly $20,000 per week, with a constant, irresistible tendency to increase. Other journals have been established by a large outlay of capital, and many years of patient, faithful effort : The Tribune started on a very small capital, to which little has ever been added except through the abundance and liberality of its patrons. They enabled it to pay its way almost from the outset; and, though years have intervened, especially during our great Civil War, when, through a sudden and rapid advance in the cost of paper and other materials, our expenses somewhat exceeded our income, yet, taking the average of these thirty years, our efforts have been amply generously rewarded, and the means incessantly required to purchase expensive machinery, and make improvements on every hand, have been derived exclusively from the regular receipts of the establishment. Ren- dering an earnest and zealous, though by no means an indiscriminate support, for the former half of its existence to the Whig, and through the latter half to the Republican Party, The Tribune has asked no favour of either, and no odds of any man but that he should pay for whatever he choose to order, whether in the shape of subscriptions or advertisements. Holding that a journal can help no party while it requires to be helped itself, we hope so to deserve and retain the good will of the general public that we may be as independent in the future as we have been in the past. So long as slavery cursed our country, this journal was its decided and FAC-SIMILE OF MR. GREELEY'S PENMANSHIP. MR. GREELEY'S "CROTCHET." 481 open, though not reckless adversary; now that slavery is dead, we insist that the spirit of caste, of inequality, of contempt for the rights of the coloured races, shall be buried in its grave. The only reason for theii existence having vanished, it is logical and just that they should vanish also. Since the substance no longer exists, the shadow should promptly disappear. The protection, looking to the developement of our home industry, by duties on imports, discriminating with intent to uphold and fortify weak and exposed departments thereof, has ever been, in our view, the most essential and beneficent feature of a true national policy. Our country lias always increased rapidly in production, in wealth, in population, and in general comfort, when protection was in the ascendant, while it has been cursed with stagnation, paralysis, commercial revulsions, and wide- spread bankruptcies under the sway of relative free trade. This journal Btood for protection under the lead of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Walter Forward, George Evans, Thomas Corwin, and their compeers ; it stands for protection to-day as heartily as it did then, and for identical reasons. It asks no Free-trader to forego his economic views in order to be a Repub- lican ; it insists that no Protectionist shall be bullied out of his convictions in deference to the harmony of the party. It asks no more than it con- cedes, and will be satisfied with no less. If the Republican Party shall ever be broken up on the Tariff Question, it will take care that the resnor.- sibility is placed where it belongs. Tile editor of The Tribune was also its publisher and sole proprietor when it firsi commended itself to public attention. He has long ago ceased to be publisher, and is now but one among twenty proprietors. As the work required has grown, it has been divided, and in part assigned to others, but the chief direction and supervision of its columns has been continued in his hands, and is likely to remain there so long as his strength shall endure. Half his life has been devoted to this journal, the former half having been mainly given to preparation for its conduct; an d now few remain who held kindred positions in this city on the 10th of April, 1841. His only editorial assistant then, though several years his junior, was, after a brilliant independent career, suddenly called away in 1869, leaving behind him few equals in general ability; and of those who aided in the issue of our No. 1, but two are known to be still living, and are among our co-proprietors, still rendering daily service in the establish- ment, and rejoicing in the possession of health and unfailing strength. Ten years more, and these three will probably have followed their asso- ciates already departed. But The Tribune, we fondly trust, will survive and flourish after we shall have severally deceased, being sustained by the beneficence of its aims, the liberality of its spirit, and the generous appreciation of an intelligent and discerning people. There are many who will think they find here the conclusive evidence of Mr. Greeley's "crotchet." He gives twice as much space to the subject of " the developoment of our home 31 482 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. industry, by duties on imports," as to the subject of all men's equality before the law; and passes without mention what The Tribune had done in behalf of "lands for the landless;" the Pacific railroad; the emancipation and the elevation of Labour. It will have to be admitted that with Mr. Greeley " Protection " was a crotchet; that it was an anomaly in his general philos- ophy as to government and human rights ;. that in all things else opposed to the unrepublican notion of " paternal govern- ment," herein he was an earnest devotee of a deduction of a general principle, which principle he often combatted as erroneous and vicious. We see, in reading the foregoing article, at a single glance, the history, in dim outline, of The Tribune during a period of thirty years. This embraced an era of remarkable events; of wonderful progress; of the triumph of many great ideas. The facilities of trade and commerce were during this period vastly increased. When Mr. Greeley founded The Tribune it would have taken him longer to go to Chicago, than in 1871 it would have taken him to go to Sun Francisco.. The tele- graph had been invented, and its marvels come to be as common as the sunshine. Cheap postage had become a prac tical reality. American slavery had been abolished. .Revolu- tions had occurred in Europe, resulting in benefits to the people. The masses of his own countrymen had placed them selves on a high plane of intelligence and morality. The practical enjoyment of religious freedom had .been widely extended. Genuine democracy had won many signal victories; error and. wrong in government and society had received not a few memorable defeats. For millions of mankind great good had been accomplished. For the accomplishment of all the positive good; for the eradication of the evils which have passed away, The New- York Tribune laboured, in season and out of season. JN'ot a struggling people anywhere rising against injustice and oppres- sion, but found a sympathetic and a working friend in Horace Greeley and his journal. Whosoever it was that sought to do good was sure to find an efficient ally in The Tribune; and MR. GREELEY'S EDITORIAL GENIUS: 483 men who undertook to accomplish evil were sure to find in that journal stern and steady opposition. Whoever seeks a faithful daguerreotype of the progress of mankind during the years which have passed since the founding of The Tribune will find it in the columns of that newspaper. I do not here gpeak of the mere publication of events as they occurred ; of mere journalistic enterprise. I mean to say that The Tribime sympathized with every advance movement, and was part and parcel of it; that the victories of philanthropy, of truth, of justice, of human rights have been also~triumphs of the jour- nal founded by Horace Greeley. The victories of peace are no less renowned than those of war. A history of all that Las contributed to the welfare of the people of all lands, since the tenth day of April, 1841, is also a history of The New- York Tribune. As I shall not have occasion to devote another chapter to a glance at Tribune history in detail, I may here, so far as this special portion of Mr. Greeley's life is concerned, bid it a final farewell, though at the risk, in what I purpose now to say, of referring to some matters which have been before treated of in this volume, and others which it may be necessary again to mention. Though Horace Greeley was many times during the course of his life painfully deceived by individuals in whom he placed confidence, and this in business as well as in political affairs, his judgment of men who could best aid him in the conduct of his journal, of the principles by.which it should be guided, the ends which it should seek to accomplish in all its multiform departments, in all these matters his judgment appears to have been the inspiration of unerring genius. This might appear to be actually demonstrated by the magnificent result of his editorial life The !New-York Tribune. It will not be claimed that he founded a journal which is in every respect, or in many respects, superior to others in this country and in Europe. There are several American journals, for example, which have been more profitable than The Tribune. There are several which, year in and year out, have not been behind it in the presentation of current news. There are some whose 484: UFE OF HORACE GREELEY. "editorial page" shows equal ability and versatility: as much genius, as much sagacity, as much acumen. I think some of the strongest, most brilliant editorials which American jour- nalism has produced have appeared in The Chicago Times newspaper. And it may be doubted whether Mr. Greeley was more successful, as a writer of editorials, than Charles Ham- mond, long of The Cincinnati Gazette, or Dr. Charles H. Ray, for several years of The Chicago Tribune, afterwards of The Evening Post of the same city. Nevertheless, there has been no journal of preeminent gen- eral ability, which has had the marked individuality of The New- York Tribune. There are thousands of persons who know of The Herald who never heard of Mr. Bennett. Every school- boy, every grandmother of Christendom had learned much of Horace Greeley before he was a candidate for the chief office of his country. The Tribune had the most friends and the most valuable enemies of any journal in the world. They who etone the prophets, die, not the prophets. Other journals were devoted first of all to themselves; The Tribune to the welfare of the people. No other of our great journals has equalled it in Reform, nor approached it in the strength and the mighty heartiness with which it sympathized with struggling Human- ity. The crumbling ruins of bad institutions, fallen in their warfare with right and justice, will be found to contain more and more destructive projectiles of The Tribune than were sent forth from any of the other great guns of journalism. "Here is a newspaper," said John Bright in the British House of Commons, exhibiting a copy of The New- York Tribune, "ad- vocating great principles, and conducted in all respects with the greatest propriety a newspaper in which he found not a syllable that he might not put on his table and allow his wife anJ daughter to read with satisfaction." The Tribune greatly aided to destroy more than one evil in English polity. The abuses it first assailed among our great journals in American law, and custom, and society, are very numerous. Excessive mileage, high postage, the franking abuse, slavery, unjust legal disabilities of men, unjust proscription of them, the rule of hatred, whence have come such heavy and persistent blows VITALITY OF GREAT JOUliNALS. 485 against these and other wrongs and abuses as from The Tri- bune ? And if the farmers of our country, our workingrnen, our factory boys and girls are more enlightened than they were, and animated by more noble aims, where in journalism did they receive so much to teach and guide them as in the paper founded by Horace Greeley ? It has been the wisest exponent of the cause of Labour. There has been no states- man, there has been no party, so faithfully representative of The People, of their incorruptible integrity, of their virtue, ot their longing for improvement and for progress, as his newspaper. It was a beautiful pride of his, therefore, which caused him to desire to be chiefly remembered by posterity as the founder of The New- York Tribune. And he will be. This too, as one of the natural growths of his genius, joined, if I may so speak, with a law of journalism. In the teeming forests of South Africa, the stateliest tree,; that which is greater in girth and towers high above all its com- peers, is the mowana. This sublime pride of the forest has a vitality which is well nigh indestructible. Dr. Livingstone says of it: " No external injury, not even a fire, can destroy this tree from without; nor can any injury be done from within, as it is quite common to find it hollow. Nor does cut- ting down exterminate it; for I saw instances in Angola in which it continued to grow in length after it was lying on the ground." A great journal seems to have the almost imperish- able vitality of the mowana. For this we shall, doubtless, some day discover the reason. It may be because of the great- ness of the journal. Even great animals live long. What- ever may be the reason, there are facts plenty in support of my opinion. The death of James Gordon Bennett did not stop The Herald for an instant, nor change the great character which he had finally given it. And it would, no doubt, have been substantially the same if he had had no son. The Louis- ville-Courier-Journal had in Mr. George D. Prentice an editor of unique genius; but no one can safely urge that he was more brilliant, more witty, more genial than is Mr. Watterson, at 486 LIFE OF HORACE GREKLIA'. this time editor of that journal. The Chicago Tribune has stood the assaults of power, of money, of party, of devouring fire and flame, and gives every evidence of living, with even increased influence, after many assailing powers and parties shall have followed their predecessors to the tomb. The Lon- don Times is stronger than the British aristocracy; it will long outlive the British monarchy. Into The New- York Tribune Horace Greeley breathed the living soul of his benignant genius: a constant inspiration to his successor, the one of his own choice, who has already won new triumphs in behalf of popular enlightenment, of enterprising, independent journalism, animated by a generous philanthropy, showing that the journal still labours for the moral, social, political good of the people, pursuing and im- proving the way of its illustrious founder. I need hardly add, I trust, that this is not said in compliment to him who succeeds the Great Editor, but in demonstration of the edito- rial judgment of Horace Greeley, and of the inextinguishable vitality of independent journalism. JAMES GORDON BENNETT. JR. CHAPTER XXVI. THE AUTHOR OF BOOKS. Mr. Greeley in Permanent Literature His Labours in Political Manuals Edits a Life of Henry Clay "Hints Towards Reforms " "Glances at Europe" "Overland Journey to California" "The American Conflict" A "Work Upon Political Economy "Recollections of a Busy Life" "What I Know of Farming" Estimate of Mr. Greelcy as an Author. LET us now briefly consider the facts of Mr. Greeley's life which show his connection with the permanent literature of his country. I here mean, simply, his writings which have taken the form of books, as distinguished from his writings in journalism. That which now constitutes a considerable proportion of the matter of works of which Mr. Greeley was the author did, indeed, originally appear in The Tribune or in other journals. He also wrote a great deal for his own journal, for others, for magazines, addresses, lectures, letters, which might properly and profitably be collected into books that might fairly receive the favourable judgment of criticism and the considerate approval of the world of letters. But at this time we can, of course, only consider him as an author by the writings which he himself composed as books, or supervised in that form. We have seen that Mr. Greeley very early in life became noted as a political statistician. In his "Recollections of Horace Greeley," published in The Galaxy magazine for March, 1873, Mr. Thurlow Weed says that The New-Yorker Mr. Greeley's first journal was distinguished not only by its judi- cious and interesting selections, but " remarkable for the extent and accuracy of its political statistics." It might appear that Mr. Greeley had a genius for political statistics. He was always at home with election returns, and probably there was not a year of his life, after he arrived at manhood, when he (487) 488 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELET. could not tell, on call, without reference to book or table, the exact vote of every State in the Union at the most recent elec- tion, and of very many of the Congress Districts, and even of counties. He recollected not only on which side the different States and Districts had voted, but exactly how they had voted. He compiled The Whig Almanac, afterwards called The Tribune Almanac, long before he became generally known as a journalist, giving it a value in respect of accurate political intelligence and statistics before quite unknown. The work, afterwards mainly done by others, has grown into the most complete and valuable compendium of political facts and figures that we have. Akin to this was " A Political Text- Book for 1860," compiled by Mr. Greeley and Mr. John F. Cleveland. The design of the book \vas to present, in a com- pact and convenient form, the. more important facts, votes, resolves, letters, speeches, reports, and other documents, eluci- dating the political contest of that year. It also contained many tables of election returns. I believe it was quite gener- ally quoted as authority by speakers and writers of all parties during the campaign, best test of merit in a work of that character. But long before this Mr. Greeley had published a number of " Tracts on the Tariff," much of the substance of which was afterwards embraced in his work upon Political Economy. In 1852 he edited Sargent's Life of Henry Clay, adding little, however, to the author's narrative, besides an account of the proceedings of Congress on the occasion of Mr. Clay's death and funeral. His description of his own last interview with his most admired and beloved statesman is worthy of insertion: "Learning from others how ill and feeble he was, I had not intended to call upon him, and remained two days under the same roof without asking permission to do so. Meantime, however, he was casually informed of my being in Washington, and sent me a request to call at his room. I did so, and enjoyed a half hour's free and friendly conversation with him, the saddest and the last! His state was even worse than I feared; he was already emaciated, a prey to a severe and distressing cough, and com- plained of spells of difficult breathing. I think no physician could have judged him likely to live two months longer. Yet hia iiimd was "GLANCES AT EUROPE." 489 unclouded and brilliant as ever, liis aspirations for his country's welfare as ardent; and, though all personal ambition had long been banished, his interest in the events and impulses of the day was nowise diminished, He listened attentively to all I had to say of the repulsive aspects and revolting features of the Fugitive Slave Law and the necessary tendency of its operation to excite hostility and alienation on the part of our Northern people, unaccustomed to Slavery, and seeing it exemplified only in the brutal arrest and imprisonment of some humble and inoffensive I negro whom they had learned to regard as a neighbour. I think I may , without impropriety say that Mr. Clay regretted that more care had not been taken in its passage to divest this act of features needlessly repul- sive to Northern sentiment, though he did not deem any change in its provisions now practicable." In the preface to the volume, "Hints Towards Reforms," Mr. Greeley intimates that it will probably be his first and last appearance as an author. I have already spoken of this work at some length in preceding pages. A number of extracts therefrom also appear in the Appendix to this volume. It will he found a valuable study to those who would have a thorough knowledge of the constant growth in power and versatility of Mr. Greeley's mind and the vast improvement he made in the art of composition. TO THE GENEROUS, THE HOPEFUL, THE LOVING, WHO FIRMLY AND JOYFULLY BELIEVING IN THE IMPARTIAL AND BOUNDLESS GOODNESS OF OUR FATHER, TRUST THAT THE ERRORS, THE CRIMES, AND THE MISERIES, WHICH HAVE LONG RENDERED EARTH A HELL, SHALL YET BE SWALLOWED UP AND FORGOT- TEN, IN A FAR EXCEEDING AND UN- MEASURED REIGN OF TRUTH, PURITY, AND BLISS, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED, BY THE AUTHOR Such is the dedication of Horace Greeley's first book. Only a year afterwards, "Glances at Europe" was pub- lished. There have been few books of travel more original, or 490 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. more interesting than tins. I have added largely to the inter- est of this volume by many extracts from it, in the chapter which treats of its author's first visit to Europe. One will there find very little of the npper-ten of Europe, but I know not where one will elsewhere procure in such small space more accurate^ pictures of the people or wiser suggestions for their good and their progress. Neither do I know of any other work of travels in Europe by an American author, wherein it is so T>lainlv manifest that the traveller returns to his native X v land prouder of it, more earnestly devoted to it because of its better recognition of man as man. It is rare that Europe intensifies the republicanism of Americans. But Horace Gree- ley was so wholly one of the people that in Europe or else- where he ever estimated " fuss and feathers " at their proper value. Mr. Greeley's next work was also a volume of travels his "Overland Journey to California in 1859." This, like " Glances at Europe," consisted of letters originally con- tributed to The Tribune. The " inarch of civilization," herein so greatly accelerated by his own influence, as well exerted through this volume as in other ways, has made much of the work appear already like a relic of antiquity. It is as such that it may be studied with profit and read with singular interest. The historian of America who shall write in 1959 will find in the volume which we are considering a richer mine of information than any its author discovered of gold in all his travels. Nevertheless, I beg respectfully to recommend to my great-great-great-grandchildren the reading of the " Over- land Journey " in preference to the formal history of the early settlement of the Rocky Mountain region, as equally authentic and far more lively. The greatest work of Mr. Greeley as an author is his history of the war of the rebellion in the United States. It is entitled "The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-'65: Its Causes, Inci- dents, and Results: Intended to Exhibit Especially its Moral and Political Phases, with the Drift and Progress of American Opinion respecting Human Slavery from 1776 to the Close of "THE AMERICAN CONFLICT." 491 the War for the Union." He has described with much detail the manner in which this work was composed: And now came the Presidential contest of 1860, closely followed by Secession and Civil War, whereof I had no thought of ever becoming the historian. In fact, not till that War was placed on its true basis of a struggle for liberation, and not conquest, by President Lincoln's suc- cessive Proclamations of Freedom, would I have consented to write its history. Not till I had confronted the rebellion as a positive, desolating force, right here in New-York, at the doors of earnest Republicans, in the hunting down and killing of defenceless, fleeing Blacks, in the burning of the Coloured Orphan Asylum, and in the mobbing and firing of The Tribune office, could I have been moved to delineate its impulses, aims, progress, and impending catastrophe. A very few days after the national triumph at Gettysburgh, with the kindred and almost simultaneous successes of General Grant in the cap- ture of Vicksburgh, and General Banks in that of Port Hudson, with the consequent suppression of the (so called) " Riots " in this city, I was visited by two strangers, who introduced themselves as Messrs. Newton and O. D. Case, publishers, from Hartford, and solicited me to write the History of the Rebellion. I hesitated; for my labours and responsibilities were already most arduous and exacting, yet could not, to any considera- ble extent, be transferred to others. The compensation offered would be .iberal, in case the work should attain a very large sale, but otherwise quite moderate. I finally decided to undertake the task, knowing \^11 that it involved severe, protracted effort on my part; and I commenced upon it a few weeks later, after collecting such materials as were then accessible. I hired for my workshop a room on the third floor of the new Bible House, on Eighth street and Third and Fourth avenues, procured the requisite furniture, hired a secretary, brought thither my materials, and set to work. Hither I repaired, directly after breakfast each week-, day morning, and read and compared the various documents, official reports, newspaper letters, etc., etc., that served as materials for a chapter, while my secretary visited libraries at my direction, and searched out material among my documents and elsewhere. The great public libraries of New- York, Society, Historical, Astor, and Mercantile all cluster around the Bible House ; the two last named being within a bowshot. I occasionally visited either of them, in personal quest of material other- wise inaccessible. When I had the substance of my next chapter pretty fairly in mind, I began to compose that chapter; having often several authorities conveniently disposed around me, with that on which I prin- cipally relied lying open before me. I oftener wrote out my first draft, merely indicating extracts where such were to be quoted at some length ; leaving these to be inserted by my secretary when he came to transcribe my text ; but I sometimes dictated to my secretary, who took short-hand notes of what I said, and wrote them out at his leisure. My first chapter was' thus composed at one sitting, after some days had been given to the 492 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY, arrangement of materials; but, usually, two days, or even three, were given to the composition of each of the longer chapters, after I had pre- pared and digested its material. Our rule was to lock the door on resum- ing composition, and decline all solicitations to open it till the day's allotted task had been finished ; and this was easy while my " den " was known to very few ; but that knowledge was gradually diffused ; and more and more persons found excuses for dropping in ; until I was at length subject to daily, and even more frequent, though seldom to protracted, interruptions. I think, however, that if I should ever again undertake diich a labour, I would allow the location of my " den " to be known to but one person at The Tribune office, who should be privileged to knock at its door in cases of extreme urgency, and I would have that door open to no one beside but my secretary and myself. Even my proof-sheets should await me at The Tribune office, whither I always repaired, to com- mence a day's work as Editor, after finishing one as Author at the "den." A chapter having been fairly written out or transcribed by my secretary, while I was " reading up " for another, I carefully revised and sent it to the stereotyper, who sent me his second and third proofs, which were successively corrected before the pages were ready to be cast. Sometimes, the discovery of new material compelled the revision and recast of a chapter which had been passed as complete. And, though the material was very copious, more so, I presume, than that from which the history of any former war was written, it was still exceedingly imperfect and contradictory. For instance : when I came to the pioneer Secession of South Carolina, I wished to study it in the proceedings and debates of her Legislature and Convention as reported in at least one of her own jour- nals; and of these I found but a single file preserved in our city (at the Society Library), though four years had not yet expired since that Seces- sion occurred. A year later, I probably could not have found one at all. Of the score or so of speeches made by Jefferson Davis, often from cars, while on his way from Mississippi to assume at Montgomery the Presi- dency of the Confederacy, I found but two condensed reports ; and one of these, I apprehend, was apocryphal. In many cases, I found officers reported killed in battles whom I afterward found fighting in subsequent battles ; whence 1 conclude that they had not been killed so dead as they might have been. Some of the errors into which I was thus led by my authorities were not corrected till after my work was printed ; when the gentlemen thus conclusively disposed of began to write me, insisting that, though desperately wounded at the battle in question, they had decided not to give up the ghost, and so still remained in the land of embodied rather than that of disembodied souls. Their testimony was so direct and pointed that I was constrained to believe it, and to correct page after page accordingly. I presume a few, even yet, remain consigned to the shades in my book, who nevertheless, to this day, consume rations of beef and pork with most unspiritual regularity and self-satisfaction. There doubt- less remain some other errors, though I have corrected many; and, as I have stated many more particulars than my rivals in the same field have "THE AICERICAN COOT-HCM'." 493 csually done, it is probable that my work originally embodied more errors of fact or incicbnt than almost any other. Yet "The American Conflict" will be consulted, at least by historians, and I shall be judged by it, after most of us now living shall have mingled with the dust. An eminent antagonist of my political views has pro- nounced it " the fairest one-sided book ever written"; but it is more than that. It is one of the clearest statements yet made of the long train ofj causes which led irresistibly to the war for the Union, showing why that war was the natural a,nd righteous ooncaquence of the American people's general and guilty complicity in the crime of upholding and diffusing Human Slavery. I proffer it as my contribution toward a fuller and more vivid realization of the truth that God governs this world by moral laws as active, immutable, and all-pervading as can be operative in any other, and that every collusion or compromise with evil must surely invoke a prompt and signal retribution. The plan of this work was broadly comprehensive. The author designed to "begin at the beginning;" to trace the rebellion tip to its first causes and down again to the final results of the war. " I believe," says he in his first preface which he calls " preliminary egotism," " I believe the thought- ful reader of this volume can hardly fail to see that the great struggle in which we are engaged was the unavoidable result of antagonisms imbedded in the very nature of our heteroge- neous institutions; that ours was indeed 'an irrepressible conflict,' which might have been precipitated or postponed, but could by no means have been prevented; that the suc- cessive ' compromises ' whereby it was so long put off, were, however intended, deplorable mistakes, detrimental to our national character; that we ought so early, at least, as 1819 to have definitively and conclusively established the right of the constitutional majority to shape our national policy according to their settled convictions, subject only to the Con- stitution as legally expounded and applied. Had the majority then stood firm, they would have precluded the waste of thou- sands of millions of treasure and rivers of generous blood." We accordingly find that the first of the two volumes of which the work is composed relates mainly to civil affairs, while the second is mainly military. The former is a history of the political and moral issues which agitated the American people from the time of their independence; of such political 49* iJKJL Or HORACE CKEELEY. and moral issues as, in the progress of their discussion became paramount; assumed the proportions of "an irrepressible con- flict;" war. In a word, we have in this volume the history of the Slavery Question in this country from the year of the Declaration of Independence to the beginning of the rebellion. In the second volume, we have the history of the conflict of arms, happily interwovon with which is a history of the pro- gress of those ideas in the country, in the National Congress, and in the Executive Department of tl.e government, which culminated in Emancipation and at last, through Emancipation, in victory. Such, in briefest outline, was the general plan adopted by Mr. Greeley. He begins with saying: " No one can realize more vividly than I do, that the History through whose pages our great-grandchildren will contemplate the momentous struggle whereof this country has recently been and still is the arena, will not and cannot now be written; and that its author must give to the patient, careful, critical study ol innumerable documents and letters, an amount of time and thought which I could not have commanded, unless I had been able to devote years, instead of months only, to the preparation of this vol- ume. I know, at least, what history is, and how it must be made; I know how very far this work must fall short of the lofty ideal. If any of my numeroijs fellow-labourers in this field is deluded with the notion that he has written the history of our gigantic civil war, /, certainly, am free from like hallu- cination." If we take this opinion to be correct as regards the history of the conflict of arms, we may well doubt its application to a very large share of "The American Conflict:" all those por- tions, namely, which relate accounts of the causes leading to the war, and which in reality make a not unfaithful history of the most important political issue which has been as yet dis- cussed by the thinkers, statesmen, and people of our republic. And to this great branch of his subject, Mr. Greeley did give many years of labour and reflection. We say that Daniel Webster's great speech in reply to Hayne, of South Carolina, was extemporaneous. He had but the briefest possible notes. "THE AMERICAN CONFLICT." 495 and these pertaining to the playful not the most celebrated parts of the speech. The compact, unanswerable argument, the majestic eloquence, the sublime outbursts of patriotism all came fresh from the glowing mind and soul. Nevertheless, Mr. Webster had studied that speech for twenty-five years. He had given the principal topics of which it treated long and intense reflection, great reading. Thus in a few hours he was able to utter arguments, ideas, sentiments, which his mind had been gathering for a quarter of a century. So it was also with those portions of Mr. Greeley's greatest literary work to which special reference is here had. They were composed with remarkable rapidity, which was made possible by more than thirty years' study of the subjects under consideration. These long years of study placed the political portions of the History at his pen's end. We have seen, from Mr. Greeley's own account of the com- position of this work, that, as to the accounts of military operations, the first edition contained many errors. To the correction of these he gave every attention, great solicitude indeed, making not a few expensive changes in the stereotype plates. Thus the work became scarcely less valuable in its military than its civil history. His plan of narrating military events was diiferent from that generally adopted in history. Instead of giving accounts of simultaneous movements or campaigns, the narration of one constantly interrupting that of another, he followed a move- ment or campaign to its close, before taking up the history of another. That he thus made the history of events clearer to general readers, and, upon the whole, presented a more complete daguerreotype of the war than might have been done upon the plan usually followed, there can be little doubt. These two immense volumes were composed in about two years, the author not pretermitting his duties upon The Tribune. Some one has said the difference between a man of genius and another is, that the genius can put many hundred pounds of steam on the square inch, without breaking things, and the other cannot. Horace Greeley's capacity in this respect seems to have been almost unlimited. 496 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. The dedication of "The American Conflict" is very beau- tiful : . TO JOHN BRIGHT, BRITISH COMMONER AND CHRISTIAN STATESMAN: THK FRIEND OF MY COUNTRY-, BECAUSE THE FRIEND OF MANKIND: THIS RECORD OF A NATION'S STRUGGLE TIP FROM DARKNESS AND BONDAGE TO LIGHT AND LIBERTY, 18 REGAHDFULLY, GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR, Horace Greeley became a " protectionist " very early in life, and under circumstances showing his remarkable independence of judgment. In 1866, he was elected President of the Ameri- can Institute, thirty-five years after he had found his way to the hall of that association, to attend a Tariff Convention, he being then an unknown journeyman printer seeking work. Upon taking the chair, as President of the Institute, he gave an account of how he became a "protectionist," saying: "It is now more than thirty-four years since I, a minor and a stranger in this city, had my attention drawn to a notice in the journals that the friends of protection to American industry were to meet that day in con- vention at the rooms of the American Institute, said Institute being then much younger than, though not so obscure as, I was. I had no work, and could find none; so, feeling a deep interest in and devotion to the cause which that convention was designed to promote, I attended its sittings; and this was my fkst introduction to the American Institute; which I have ever since esteemed and honoured, though the cares and labours of a busy, anxious life have not allowed me hitherto to devote to its meetings the time that I would gladly have given them. " I recur to the fact that I was drawn to the American Institute by my interest in and sympathy with the cause of protection to home industry. From early boyhood I had sat at the feet of Hezekiah Nilcs and Henry Cfiiy and Walter Forward and Rollin C. Mallory. and other champions of this doctrine, and I had attained from a perusal of theirs and kindred writ- ings and speeches a most undoubting conviction that the policy they commended was eminently calculated to impel our country swiftly and PROTECTION. 497 surely onward through activity and prosperity to greatness and assured well-being. I had studied the question dispassionately, for the journals accessible to my boyhood were mainly those of Boston, then almost if not quite unanimously hostile to protection,; but the arguments they corn- batted seemed to me far stronger than those they advanced, and I early became an earnest and ardent disciple of the school of Niles and Clay. I could not doubt that the policy they commended was that best calculated to lead a country of vast and undeveloped resources, like ours, up from rude poverty and dependence, to skilled efficiency, wealth, and power. And the convictions thus formed have been matured and strengthened by the observations and experience of subsequent years. Thus was I attracted to the rooms and the counsels of the American Institute." Of the policy of "protection," The Tribune has been an earnest and powerful advocate during the whole of its history. It is not too much to say, perhaps, that it has done more for that policy than all the public men who have advocated it combined. If there was one person entitled to be called the representative man of "protection" in our country, it was Horace Gre^ley. But much as he did for the cause in The Tribune in pam- phlets, and public addresses, he was not content therewith, but wrote a book also upon the subject. In 1870, Messrs. Fields, Osgood, & Co., of Boston, published a duodecimo volume by Mr. Greeley, entitled: "Essays Designed to Elucidate the Sci- ence of Political Economy, while Serving to Explain and defend the policy of Protection to Home Industry, as a Sys- tem of National Cooperation for the Elevation of Labour." This work was designed to be a practical hand-book for gen- eral readers rather than a scientific treatise. He expressly says in the preface: Writing for common people, I have aimed, above all things, to be lucid and simple. My illustrations are drawn from our National history, mainly from that part of it whereof there are many living witnessess; and I have preferred those to whose truthfulness I could personally bear testimony. If these shall often seem to the fastidious, homely and commonplace, I do not believe that they will, on that account, be less acceptable to, or less effective with, the large number of my readers. " I write," he says again, " for the great mass of intelligent, observant, reflecting farmers and mechanics; and, if I succeed 32 498 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. in making ray positions clearly nnderstood, I do not fear that they will be condemned or rejected." The work was not only rapidly but hastily written. For this the author apologizes. " Had I been able," he states, " to snatch more time from the incessant labours and cares of a most exacting vocation, I should have presented a more com- plete and unexceptionable work. I ought to have had at least one full year for the preparation of this volume; whereas, I hf.ve given it but a portion of my time for six months." I have deemed it but simple justice not only to Mr. Greeley as an author, but to the cause of " protection " to here state these facts. They suffice to show that the work is rather a heavy pamphlet than a carefully-meditated book. They also account for its somewhat excessive controversial spirit, and its want of philosophical generalization. Those who have high respect for Horace Greeley's genius, the candid of those who differ with him upon the subject of "protection," as well as those who agree, -will regret that, instead of this hastily -prepared hand-book for general readers, he did not undertake to compose a philosophical treatise upon the subject of Political Economy. For, no matter that it be unfair toward him and toward the policy which he specially espouses in this book to compare it with other works upon the general subject, yet such is the inevitable result. Mr. Greeley comes to be compared, therefore, as an author, with many thinkers and writers of distinguished fame, whose genius, vast research, wisdom are universally confessed, and who have given very many more years to the composition of works upon Polit- ical Economy than he gave months to the composition of his. If we take not into consideration the difference of circn instan- ces, as here noted, such comparisons will be greatly unfavour- able to Mr. Greeley. The work has a remarkable dedication : 499 TO THE MEMOBY OP HENRY CLAY, THE GENIAL, GALLANT, HIGH-SOULED PATRIOT, ORATOR, AND STATESMAN; THE NOBLEST EMBODIMENT OP AMERICAN GENIUS, CHARACTER, AND ASPIRATIONS; THE MAN WHO MOST EFFECTIVELY COMMENDED THE POLICY OF PROTECTION TO THE UlSTDER- STANDINGS AND HEARTS OF THE MASSES OP HIS COUNTRYMEN, THIS WORK OF ONE AMONG THE MANY WHO STILL LOVE, HONOUR, AND ADMIRE HIM, IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. But about a year before the appearance of Mr. Greeley's " Political Economy," his " Recollections of a Busy Life" had been published in a volume, thus appearing in the latter part of 1868. The chapters of which the work is composed had previously appeared in Mr. Robert Bonner's New-York Ledger literary journal. Mr. Bonner had meditated, nearly ten years before, the embalming of Mr. Greeley among the poets, to which he decidedly demurred in the following letter: NEW-YORK, February, 1859. MR. BONNER : I perceive by your Ledger that you purpose to publish a volume (or perhaps several volumes) made up of poems not contained in Mr. Dana's Household Book of Poetry, and I heartily wish success to your enterprise. There are genuine poems of moderate length which can- not be found in that collection, excellent as it palpably is, and superior in value, as I deem it, to any predecessor or yet extant rival. There are, moreover, some genuine poets whose names do not figure in Mr. Dana's double index ; and I thank you for undertaking to render them justice ; only take care not to neutralize or nullify your chivalrous championship by burying them under a cartload of rhymed rubbish, such as my great namesake plausibly averred that neither gods nor men can abide, and you will have rendered literature a service and done justice to slighted merit. But, Mr. Bonner, be good enough you must to exclude me from your new poetic Pantheon. I have no business therein, no right, and no desire to be installed there. I am no poet, never was (in expression), and never shall be. True, I wrote some verses in my callow days, as I presume most 500 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. persons who can make intelligible pen-marks have done; but I was never a poet, even in the mists of deluding fancy. All my verses, I trust, would not fill one of your pages ; they were mainly written under the spur of some local or personal incitement, which long ago passed away. Though in structure metrical, they were in essence prosaic; they wore read by few, and those fpw have kindly forgotten them. Within the last ten years I have been accused of all possible and some impossible offences against good taste, good morals, and the common weal, I have been branded aristocrat, communist, infidel, hypocrite, demagogue, disunionist, traitor, corruptionist, etc., etc., but. I cannot remember that any one has flung in my face my youthful transgressions in the way of rhyme. Do not, then, accord to the malice of my many enemies this forgotten means of annoy- ance. Let the dead rest! and let me enjoy the reputation which I covet and deserve, of knowing poetry from prose, which the ruthless resurrec- tion of my verses would subvert, since the undiscerning majority would blindly infer that / considered them poetry. Let me up ! Thine, HORACE GREELEY. Mr. Bonner, it seeins, " let him up " for that time, but deter- mined to put him to his mettle in prose. The " Recollections " came in good time. 1 have so frequently quoted from these Recollections, as they were afterwards collected and published in book form, that I need say but little of them here. The volume strikes me as being Mr. Greeley's most pleasing literary work. It seems that we find here best reflected his noble character and his great genius ; and this as well in what he writes as in what he passes over in silence, modestly leaving much to be said by others. I know of no autobiography which ought to be in the libraries and the minds of all the people so universally as the "Recollections of a Busy Life," by Horace Greeley. When the Recollections were published in a volume, Mr. Greeley added thereto, under the heading of "Miscellanies," certain essays and articles which had appeared in The Tribune, which he deemed might be considered of permanent interest. The first of these is an essay upon "Literature as a Vocation," which concludes with this magnificent paragraph: Let me conclude by restating the main propositions which pervade and vivify this essay. Literature is a noble calling, but only when the call obeyed by the aspirant issues from a world to be enlightened and blessed, not from a void stomach clamouring to be gratified and filled. Authorship ia a royal priesthood ; but woe to him who rashly lays unhallowed hands LTTEEATUBE. 50 1 on the ark or the altar, professing a zeal for the welfare of the Race only that he may secure the confidence and sympathies of others, and use them for his own selfish ends! If a man have no heroism in his soul, no animating purpose beyond living easily and faring sumptuously, I can imagine no greater mistake on his part than that of resorting to authorship as a vocation. That such a one may achieve what he regards as success, I do not deny ; but, if so, he does it at greater risk and by greater exertion than would have been required to win it in any other pursuit. No : it cannot be wise in a selfish, or sordid, or sensual man to devote himself to Literature ; the fearful self-exposure incident to this way of life, the dire necessity which constrains the author to stamp his own essential portrait on every volume of his works, no matter how carefully he may fancy he has erased, or how artfully he may suppose he has concealed it, this should repel from the vestibule of the temple of Fame the foot of every profane or mocking worshiper. But if you are sure that your impulse is not personal nor sinister, but a desire to serve and ennoble your Race, rather than to dazzle and be served by it; that you are ready joyfully to " shun delights, and live laborious days," so that thereby the well-being of mankind may be promoted, then I pray you not to believe that the world is too wise to need further enlightenment, nor that it would be impossible for one so humble as yourself to ay aught whereby error may be dispelled or good be diffused. Sell not your integrity ; barter not your independence; beg of no man the privilege of earning a livelihood by Authorship; since that is to degrade your faculty, and very probably to corrupt it; but seeing through your own clear eyes, and uttering the impulses of your own. honest heart, speak or write as truth and love shall dictate, asking no material recompense, but living by the labour of your hands, until recompense shall be voluntarily tendered to secure your service, and you may frankly accept it without a compromise of your integrity or a peril to your freedom. Soldier in the long warfare for Man's rescue from Darkness and Evil, choose not your place on the battle-field, but joyfully accept that assigned you ; asking not whether there be higher or lower, but only whether it is here that you can most surely do your proper work, and meet your full share of the responsibility and the danger. Believe not that the Heroic Age is no more ; since to that age is only requisite the heroic purpose and the heroic soul. So long as ignorance and evil shall exist, so long there will be work for the devoted, and so long will there be room in the ranks of those who, defying obloquy, misapprehension, bigotry, and interested craft, struggle and dare for the redemption of the world. " Of making manj r books there is no end," though there is happily a speedy end of most books after they are made ; but he who by voice or pen strikes his best blow at the impostures and vices whereby our race is debased and paralyzed may close his eyes in death, consoled and cheered by the reflection that he has done what he could for the emancipation and elevation of his kind. 502 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. Among these ^Miscellanies" is a republication of the noted discussion between Mr. Greeley and Robert Dale Owen, on the subject of " Marriage and Divorce," the Editor of The Tribune taking high ground in favour of the indissolubility of mar- riage, except for a single cause, his distinguished disputant contending for the wisdom, policy, and morality of the liberal statute of the State of Indiana upon this subject. Mr. Greeley found in Mr. Owen a keener and a broader mind than he had often coped with; and it would be difficult to decide whether the one or the other won the victory. Let it suffice here to Bay that Mr. Greeley's articles in the dispute were character- ized not only by his usual intellectual strength and force of reasoning, but by a moral elevation of tone and religious fervour in the highest degree admirable. The last volume from the pen of Horace Greeley was, " What I Know of Fanning," the preface of which was written Febru- ary 3, 1871, the day on which he completed the sixtieth year of his life. Mr. Greeley was exceedingly happy in dedications, but he surpassed himself in the inimitable propriety and drollery of his dedication of this work: TO THE MAN OF OUR AGE, WHO SHALL MAKE THE FIRST PLOW PROPELLED BY STEAM, OB OTHER MECHANICAL POWER, WHEREBY NOT LESS THAN TEN ACRES PER DAY BHAL BE THOROUGHLY PULVERIZED TO A DEPTH OF TWO FEET, AT A COST OF NOT MORE THAN TWO DOLLARS PER ACRE, THIS WORK IS ADMIRINGLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR The object of the work was to elevate the farmer's calling; to make it much more of a desirable and elevating pursuit than it was too often made by those engaged in it. In the preface to the work he says: We need to mingle more thought with our work. Some think till their heads ache intensely; others work till their backs are crooked to the LABOUR REFOKM. 503 semblance of half an iron hoop ; but the workers and the thinkers are &pt to be distinct classes ; whereas they should be the same. Admit that it has always been thus, it by no means follows that it always should or shall be. In an age when every labourer's son may be fairly educated if he will, there should be more fruit gathered from the tree of knowledge to justify the magnificent promise of its foliage and its bloom. I rejoice in the belief that the graduates of our common schools are better ditch- diggers when they can no otherwise employ themselves to better advantage, than though they knew not how to read; but that is not enough. If the untaught peasantry of Russia or Hungary grow more wheat per acre than the; comparatively educated farmers of the United States, our education is found wanting. That is a vicious and defective if not radically false mental training which leaves its subject no better qualified for any useful calling than though he were unlettered. But I forbear to pursue this ever-fruitful theme. I look back, on thia day completing my sixtieth year, over a life, which must now be near its close, of constant effort to achieve ends whereof many seem in the long retrospect to have been transitory and unimportant, however they may have loomed upon my vision when in their immediate presence. One achievement only of our age and country the banishment of human chattelhood from our soil seems now to have been worth all the requisite efforts, the agony and bloody sweat, through which it was accomplished. But another reform, not so palpably demanded by justice and humanity, yet equally conducive to the well-being of our race, presses hard on its heels, and insists that we shall accord it instant and earnest consideration. It is the elevation of Labour from the plane of drudgery and servility to one of self-respect, self-guidance, and genuine independence, so as to render the human worker no mere cog in a vast, revolving wheel, whose motion he can neither modify nor arrest, but a partner in the enterprise which his toil is freely contributed to promote, a sharer in the outlay, the risk, the loss and gain, which it involves. This end can be attained through the training of the generation who are to succeed us to observe and reflect, to live for other and higher ends than those of present sensual gratification, and to feel that no achievement is beyond the reach of their wisely combined and ably self-directed efforts. To that part of the generation of farmers just coming upon the stage of responsible action, who have intelligently resolved that the future of American agriculture shall evince decided and continuous improvement on its past, this little book is respectfully commended. I have quoted this passage not only to show -the general object Mr. Greeley had in view in writing the book, but also to exhibit the fact that he had lost no jot or tittle of his respect for Labour; that as he had commenced his public career with efforts in behalf of its elevation so he approached the close of his life manfully battling in the same good cause. 1 504: LIFE OF HORACE OKEELEY. also desire to call special attention to the fact that Horace Greeley here expressed the opinion that Labour Reform is no less conducive to the welfare of our race than was the abolition of human slavery, arid demands that we shall accord it instant and earnest consideration. Herein, it will not long hence be seen, I trust, he manifested both wisdom and prophecy. Already may we dimly perceive the approaching contest between corruption and honest government; between the usurped power of Corporationism and the just rights of the labouring masses. There is here that radical antagonism between systems which are right and claims which are wrong, upon the settlement of which the happiness or misery of millions depends, in which are the elements of " an irrepres- sible conflict." And it is through irrepressible conflicts, and through them alone, that the human race has thus far in its history made any progress toward perfect justice, general hap- piness, and universal brotherhood. If Mr. Greeley was right,- as I am confident he was, that in Labour Reform lay the most momentous issue of the time, let us bravely welcome the conflict, and pray Heaven to speed it! We need have no fear of the final result. Heaven has never yet been known to take the side of a close corporation in a fair fight with The People. But Heaven expects every man to do his duty, and allow no cheating. Mr. Greeley succeeded in making " What I know of Farm- ing" a work of great practical value to farmers, and such as excited among many of them an earnest desire to elevate and dignify agriculture. The judgment of one successful farmer upon a work of this character is worth a volume of bookish criticism. I have heard many say they have read it with interest and profit. Among others, Mr. William J. Lewis, one of the most extensive and wealthy farmers of Connecticut, informed me that he purchased the work more out of curiosity than otherwise, but " I have to say," he continued, " that it gave me more valuable practical information, information of use to me on my farm, than I ever got from all the other books on agriculture I ever read." I quote from memory, but this is the substance of Mr. Lewis's remark. I recollect that MR. GREELEY AS AN AUTHOR 505 lie made special mention of the valuable lessons he had learned from Mr. Greeley upon the subject of fencing. From the foregoing account of the works written by Horace Greeley it is believed general readers may make a not inaccu- rate estimate of him as an author. It is to be considered that the profession of journalism is so exacting, and so constant in its exactions, that it is not conducive to the literary habit. It does not, except in extraordinary minds, tend to intellectual growth. And this because it does not leave leisure for calm reflection. Wisdom comes not of much knowledge but of much thinking. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, saith the Scripture. Sufficient unto the day is the labour thereof, says the journalist. He is apt to remain about the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. The time will come, I trust soon, when journalists will not be so overworked as has been too generally the case since the great development of the modern public press. Up to this time, the demand for capable journalists has been greater than the supply. I mean here precisely what I say; neither less nor more. The conse- quence is, of course, that capable journalists are required to write so much that they have little time for anything else; seldom enough for literary labour requiring persistent study and profound meditation. That our journalism does not suffer herefrom is evident from its recognized excellence. But what our journalism has gained, literature has, in a degree at least, lost. That Mr. Greeley founded a great and enduring journal, ever directing its management, ever performing more labour for it than any other person, and also succeeded as an author, is proof of most remarkable capacity of intellectual labour. His " Amer- ican Conflict" will be, I think, an enduring monument to his fame. If there are passages in it of a too controversial nature rather in the editorial than in the historical style there are very many others of surpassing beauty and power; while the whole is an attestation of conscientious research, impartiality, and genius. His " Recollections of a Busy Life" is one of the best of autobiographies; crowded full of clear, beautiful 506 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. passages, with some of almost heavenly tenderness and many of sublime magnanimity. I confess that I have a great par- tiality for " What I know of Farming." It is a home book for home people on their farms. It is full of homely wisdom. It is one of the people speaking to the people, as one of them never before spake. It is not impossible that it may have a longer life than many volumes far more pretentious. Whilst, therefore, we may justly place a high estimate upon Mr. Greeley as an author, he will not occupy the preeminen position in the literature of his country that he attained in journalism. To authorship he gave a divided affection; his whole heart to The New- York Tribune. MANTON MARBLE. See page 517. CHAPTEE XXVII: 1868 TO 1872. The Presidential Campaign of 1868 Nomination of General Grant by the Republicans and of Horatio Seymour by the Democrats Mr. Greeley Supports General Grant The Canvass Success of the Re- publicans President Grant's First Cabinet He Secures the "Wrath of Professional Politicians Mr. Greeley at First Sustains the Admin- istration A Candidate for Congress Against S. S. Cox The "Revenue Reform" Movement The Formation of a New Party Undertaken The Ideas of Its Representative Men Mr. Greeley Not at First in the Movement. LET us now recur again to the life of Mr. Greeley as con- nected with public affairs. The political questioti which most elicited discussion from the time of the close of the war up to the political campaign of 1868 was that of the Reconstruction of the South. There were other topics which at times largely engaged the public attention, as, for example, the remarkable contest between Congress and President Johnson, but they were connected with this absorbing issue, and, generally, grew out of it. It may be stated that Mr. Greeley's policy of recon- struction was more comprehensive in its philanthropy than that of most of his long political co-labourers of the .North. He not only demanded the strongest guarantees for the com- plete emancipation of the blacks,' but the removal of all disabilities whatever, by which the whites of the South who had participated in the rebellion were affected. Horace Gree- ley's policy contemplated that the republic should be wholly emancipated from all the ill effects of slavery and of the war. Upon no other basis, he thought, could there be a just, free, and enduring Union. " Universal amnesty; impartial suf- frage," such was his terse expression constantly used in The Tribune. It is worthy of remark that though Mr. Greeley was by many (507) 508 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. in the Republican party criticised, in respect of what they regarded as his too generous policy of reconstruction, yet did the party at length adopt his views, both by national platform and congressional legislation. It is also noteworthy that where this policy was adopted in Southern States, its practical opera- tions were found to result in the prosperity and progress of those commonwealths; in the great and valuable victories of peace. The political campaign of 1868 was one of issues which rather looked back upon the past than forward to the future, or even round about upon the present. Though the war had been terminated three years before in the complete triumph of the Union cause, the political operations of the Presidential canvass were chiefly devoted to war. Many an orator " Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won." Many another stump hack made " that same old speech" which, during the exciting time of war, had aroused the patriot- ism of innumerable country school-houses. If the forensic efforts, quite generally, of the Republican orators of 1S68 could be faithfully daguerreotyped for future generations, future gen- erations would infer that the republic, in 1868, was in the midst of a desperate conflict of arms. Nor was this singular canvass, in thus recurring chiefly to the past, altogether unreasonable. It was but right that the recent triumph of arms should be allowed to have all its legitimate advantages, in politics as in other respects. Tho extreme length to which this claim was pressed in many instances, however, would simply have changed the form of Southern slavery, not have removed the curse. We should have had the practical enslavement of the whites instead of the blacks. Against such mistaken and narrow policy Horace Greeley waged constant and earnest opposition, as well before as after the inauguration of the campaign resulting in General Grant's election. The National Convention of the Republicans for the year was held at the city of Chicago. The proceedings were not CANVASS OF 1868. SOU characterized by specially notable enthusiasm. The most note- worthy event of the occasion, .perhaps, was a speech by the Hon. John M. Palmer, candidate for Governor of the State of Illinois, in which he took high ground in favour of the pay- ment of the national debt, and by cogent reasoning advocated the reduction of the burden of annual taxation. Mr. Palmer's views were incorporated into the platform. There was no candidate for the Presidency named, except General Grant, who, on motion of General John A. Logan, of Illinois, was unanimously nominated. Messrs. Schuyler Col- fax, of Indiana, Reuben E. Fen ton, of New York, Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, B. F. Wade, of Ohio, and Andrew G. Curtin, of Pennsylvania, were the principal candidates for Vice-President. Mr. Colfax was nominated on the third bal- lot, a fact which was largely due to the constant and efficient labours in that behalf of Mr. John D. Defrees of Indiana, powerfully seconded by the no less earnest work of ex-Senator Henry S. Lane. The Democratic Convention was held sub- sequently in the city of New- York. After an animated contest, Horatio Seymour, of New York, received the nomination as candidate for President, General Francis P. Blair, of Missouri, that as Vice-President. The singularity of this canvass was, as has been said, that it was conducted, on the part of the Republicans, on the heroic plan, as though the nation were still at war, and by the Democrats on questions of finance which, as presented, the people were not able to understand. In fact, the New- York convention made two mistakes; committed two sins of omis- sion, either of which was fatal to success. One of these was the defeat of Chief Justice Chase for the Presidential nomina- tion; the other, the adoption of a platform failing unreservedly to recognize the utter defeat of Secession and to demand for the restored Union all the advantages justly belonging to its triumph. These omissions demonstrated that there was no new departure by the Democratic party, and left that organiza- tion to fight it out on the wrong side, upon grave questions growing out of the recent war, which the people believed formed the paramount issues of the times. It was impossible 510 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. to make them think that the dying embers of Secession wculd be more quickly and completely quenched by ex-Governor Seymour than by General Grant. There were many able and earnest men in the Republican party who would have supported Mr. Chase as against General Grant, in any event; more who would have done so had the New- York platform also been such as, its doctrines enforced, would have produced thorough pacification through justice, financial integrity, and freedom for all. Mr. Greeley supported General Grant. The Tribune did not cease to advocate some of his views which had been over- ruled by the Republican Convention. For example, he believed in high taxation, especially by tariffs, and a speedy payment of the national debt, whereas the Convent it >i: had adopted the policy of an immediate reduction of taxation and payment of the public debt in subsequent years, as the nation might become better able to pay it. Though differing with the Republican party upon this and some other questions, Mr. Greeley sup- ported General Grant with all the influence of The Tribune. " Let us have peace," a happy expression used by the Repub- lican nominee in his letter accepting the nomination was The Tribune's motto during the campaign. There could have been no doubt of the success of the Republicans from the time of the New- York Convention, with whose action many influential Democrats were greatly dis- pleased. Mr. Seymour made a few public addresses during the campaign, which were fair manifestations of ability and states- manship, but nothing could have redeemed his mistake of accepting the nomination. The Republicans were greatly successful in the elections, General Grant having a large majority of both popular and electoral votes. President Grant entered upon the duties of his first political oflice with brilliant demonstration of inexperience. The Cabinet appointed by him was: Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, Secretary of State; A. T. Stewart, of New- York, Secre- tary of the Treasury, A. E. Borie, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Navy; J. D. Cox, of Ohio, Secretary of the Interior; John A. J. Creswell, of Maryland, Postmaster General; E. R. PRESIDENT GRANT'S FIRST CABINET. 511 -Hoar, of Massachusetts, Attorney General. General Slierman for a time performed the duties of Secretary of War. It was at once discovered that Mr. Stewart, being a merchant, was prevented by law from serving as Secretary of the Treasury. Congress declining to repeal the law, Mr. George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, was appointed in his place. Mr. Borie was a preposterous Secretary of the Navy; and Judge Hoar, though an excellent man and able lawyer, was not possessed, in manner, of ways that are winning, or impressive. Mr. Washburne, a gentleman of large political experience, whose long career as a Representative in Congress had been constantly and signally useful, remained at the head of the State Department only a short time. Mr. Hamilton Fish, of New York, succeeded, Mr. Washburne being appointed Minister to France. General John A. Rawlins, of Illinois, was then appointed Secretary of War a position which he filled, with the finest success, until relieved by death. He had been at the head of General Grant's staff during the war, and had performed the difficult, laborious, and responsible duties of the office to the great benefit both of his chief and of his country, He wai an admirable Secretary of War: genial in manners, familiar with all the affairs of the army and the details of the department, prompt in decision, incorruptibly honest. In the distribution of the patronage of the executive office, President Grant speedily secured the wrath of professional politi- cians quite generally. In many instances he wholly disregarded the recommendations of Senators and Eepresentatives in Con- gress, appointing men to office whom he personally knew or whose fitness was vouched for by friends, especially army friends. He had not been in the Executive Mansion a month until he was in what appeared to be serious collision with his party. He was ridiculed in private by the politicians without mercy. There are many men in office in 1873, who noisily if not earn- estly supported President Grant in 1872, who pronounced him an absurd President in 1869. It is cei tain that in appointments he made some ridiculous blunders, and some that were worse than ridiculous. Never- theless, he was very heartily sustained by the public at large 612 UFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. who thought that the rule of the politicians was being brought to a needed termination. tlad President Grant continued to act independently of the politicians, it is likely his adminis- tration would have been more successful, very much more useful. If he had corrected his own mistakes instead of per- mitting himself to be revised by others, it would have been better for himself in history and for the country far more beneficial then and afterwards. Horace Greeley, though independently criticising the Presi dent in some particulars, sustained the administration upon the whole. He gave especial commendation to the policy by which the public debt was constantly reduced", and, generally, agreed that there was no cause of rupture between the President and the party which had elected him, an opinion which was less generally endorsed by representative men of the party than is commonly supposed. Mr. Borie may almost be said to have been laughed out of the Cabinet. He was succeeded by Mr. George H. Robeson, of New Jersey. Upon the death of Secretary Rawlins, General William W. Belknap, of Iowa, was placed in charge of the War Department. Upon the retirement of Mr. Cox, Mr. Colhmbus Delano, of Ohio, became Secretary of the Interior. Mr. Amos T. Akerman, of Georgia, succeeded Judge Hoar as Attorney General and was in turn succeeded by Mr. George H. Williams, of Oregon. With the Cabinet thus reconstructed, the President o conducted the administration of his first term to a close. Meantime, the Republicans of New- York, being in a minor- ity of voters, had some trouble to procure candidates for the State ticket in 1869. Mr. Greeley, after two or three persons had declined, accepted the nomination for State Controller. He was defeated, as were his associates on the ticket, but he ran ahead of all, with the exception of General Franz Sigel, who received a great many German votes. The fact is only noteworthy as showing that Mr. Greeley was more popular than his party. A similar fact was demonstrated in the fol- lowing year, when Mr. Greeley was a candidate for Congress in the sixth district. His competitor in this canvass was the distinguished S. S. Cox, noted both as writer and politician. 8. 8. COX. 513 He lifid long represented the Capital district of Ohio, in Con- gress, but having been beaten during the war by the lion. Samuel Shellabarger, removed to the city of New- York. Mr. Cox is a man of genius. A sagacious politician, he is popular without seeking popularity, because he deserves to be. On account of character, ability, a long and brilliant public record showing few mistakes, judged from a partisan standpoint, it would have been difficult for the Democratic party to select a | stronger candidate to run against Mr. Greeley; one who would have received more votes. Nevertheless, the Democratic majority of 1868 was reduced from nearly three thousand to about one thousand. Mr. Greeley received several hundred more votes than the Republican candidate for Governor, Gen- eral Woodford, a man of great popularity. The result was a demonstration of the high esteem in which Mr. Greeley was held ; for on account of illness he was unable to make a single speech in the district. He was again shown to be stronger than his party. The war having been over some four years when President Grant was inaugurated, and genuine republicanism having also meantime been incorporated into the fundamental law, there were many who thought that much of the legislation of the war period demanded reform. The necessary expenses of the government, in providing the sinews of war, had been immense. The government had also been robbed of vast sums in the aggregate by the summer soldiers and the sunshine patriots who infest every land in times of great commotion. By reason of necessary and unavoidable expenditures, therefore, enor- mous taxation of the people was the price of national salvation. " What we obtain too cheap," said a great writer of our revo- lutiary era, "we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated." The price paid for the maintenance of the American Union, with freedom for all its inhabitants, was very high. Nor was it paid grudgingly nor unwillingly. There are few facts in his- tory more creditable to any nationality than the sacrifices 33 514 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. which the American people made that free institutions might be here vindicated. What the citizen-soldiery endured, as well as what they accomplished, is in no danger of being forgotten. What the citizens who did not become soldiers cheerfully con- tributed to the support of the imperilled government gave evidence of scarcely less heroic treatment of the rebellion. The war concluded, the army of Volunteers disbanded, many men began to think that this heroic treatment in respect of taxation should be at once abandoned. There was, conse- quently, something of a concerted movement in the interest of revenue reform. The war had called into existence a bureau of internal revenue, an establishment till then unknown, the expenditures of the government having been defrayed by duties upon imported goods. This new bureau levied an army of officers. Its operations were great, constant, and manifold. Nearly everything that one could eat, or wear, or drink, or in any way use, was liable to some taxation or other. All the multiform transactions under the Law of Merchants were taxed; all the^ast and varied operations of trade, commerce, speculation, were required to materially assist the government; all transfers of real estate \vere placed in the same category. These internal taxes were universal in application, and they were enormous in amount. But this was not all. Tariffs upon imported merchandise were from time to time increased by Congress until the limit of endurance on the part of even the most lofty patriotism may be said to have been reached. It might appear to be self- evident that, immediately upon the return of peace, there was urgent demand for reform of the revenue laws. War taxes may not be justly levied upon a people at peace. Accordingly, the formation of a new party was considered as a pressing demand of the times by some of the best minds of the country. The ideas of the representative men of the new movement were, briefly: That the Republican party had performed its mission, and, with the accomplishment of its great ideas, should pass into honourable history; that the Democratic party had degenerated into a fossil remain into wliich it was impossible to breathe a living BOU!; that the sya- "REVENUE REFORM." 515 tern of taxation, whether through the operation of internal revenue exactions or tariffs, ought to be at once reformed; that radical reforms in the civil service of the government were necessary for the conduct of the public business and the existence of political integrity. These enunciations and their logical corollaries formed a platform or series of dogmas upon which, it was believed, a new party, with reasonable pros- pects of success, could be organized, and ought to be. Several influential journals sympathized with the movement. The New-York Evening Post was among them; and a proposed reform receiving the advocacy of a journal of which William Cullen Bryant was editor, at once became entitled to respect. The Chicago Tribune, The Cincinnati! Commercial, The Springfield Republican, The St. Louis Republican among great daily journals gave encouragement to the contemplated organi- zation, whilst the ablest weekly newspaper of the times, The Nation, bade it hospitable welcome. Many able men in public life declared that there was necessity for reforms, and doubted their success except with the success of a new party. One must needs speak of things which have so recently been the subject of political conflict with the fear of correction and the certainty of dispute before his mind. The truth seems to be that those who especially championed the movement for a new party undertook its formation through the advocacy of doctrines pertaining to details rather than on general princi- ples involving the progress of the people. Their chief efforts were made against high tariff, but their arguments went rather to the policy of this mode of indirect taxation than to the advocacy of free trade as a right of the people. " Protec- tion of American Industry," the juggling phrase wherewith Henry Clay had described the policy of high tariffs upon imported goods coming into competition with those of domes- tic manufacture, as though the right of manufactures to trade were greater and more important than the right of the people to competition in trade, " Protection," I say, was not assailed by the reformers as essentially vicious in principle, subversive of natural right, and, therefore, unrepublican. If the proposed reform only goes to a detail, asked those adhering to existing 516 UFE OF HORACE GREELET. political organizations, why not bring it about in the parties in being? Great reforms, they insisted, must be based upon great truths. Hampden did not inaugurate the English Revo- lution because of an exorbitant tax, but because the tax was unjust. He did not war against the payment of pounds, shil- lings, and pence, but against an act subverting popular right. It was in vain that the reformers assailed enormous taxes and high tariffs simply because they were enormous and high. The ready reply was: "Very well; how are we to pay the immense amount that the war has charged up against us with- out high taxes? So long as the government needs, honestly needs, vast sums of money annually, we must cheerfully sub- mit to burdensome exactions. If there is peculation in the party in power, and peculators always find their way into the party in power, punish, disgrace them ; but the fact that taxes are high is no sufficient basis for the formation of a new party. On the contrary, the fact of high taxes, they being necessary in support of government and payment of debts, is creditable to the party in power, because showing its courage to do right against unreasonable clamour." There was no answer to this statement of the case on the plan of ratiocination adopted by the reformers generally. The true answer to it was, that the taxes were not only high, bnt many of them were levied upon a principle in antagonism with freedom, subversive of just government. Such is the plan of high tariffs with the object of curtailing the people's right to competition in trade. No tax, in support of the government, the government being justly and honestly conducted, is wrong- ful, if levied according to the forms of law. To compel the people by force of law to support establishments which have no possible governmental attributes: neither legislative, execu- tive, nor judicial: is of the essence of despotic power. So far as it goes, it is wholly destructive of free government. It may be better than free government, if you please to think so. It may be corporationism, or companyism, or combinationism, or paternal government; but it is not free government. It is anything else but that. If the reformers did not go to the root of the matter, it is to "REVENUE REFORM." 517 be observed that there was some excuse for the postponement ol the argument upon radical principles. It would have been unwise suddenly to repeal much of the extraordinary legisla- tion enacted during the war, and which had been so long in existence that the aifairs of the people had got to moving in channels which it were not well abruptly to change. The gross expensiveness to the people of the system condemned, and many accompanying practical ills, shown by the reformers, were sufficient to justify gradual change. By and by these facts could be used as arguments against the unjust system. It might logically be claimed that such gross expensiveness and so many practical ills must of necessity have their source in injustice and wrong. Though it is true the reformers did not generally take the high ground of argumentation here referred to against what Mr. Clay, with sublime irony, had called " Protection of American Industry," some of our thinkers did so. Among these, though he did not join the new party when it came to be formally organized, was Mr. William Lloyd Garrison, the celebrated abolitionist. Mr. William Cullen Bryant had long been emi- nent among this school of thinkers. Among public men Mr. Carl Schurz was the ablest and clearest expounder of reform ideas, but Mr. B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, was little behind him. Mr. David A. Wells, by many reports, essays, and arti- cles, demonstrated the expensive operations of the vicious system. The Nation newspaper was a dignified and powerful advocate of reform, and, indeed, afterwards declined to support Mr. Greeley for President because of his well known views upon the tariff question. Mr. Manton Marble, the real founder of the New- York World newspaper; he who organized success for it; contributed many articles to his journal upon tbe sub- ject, which Mr. Greeley nor any one else was able to answer. Colonel Grosvenor, long of The St. Louis Democrat, published a valuable volume upon Political Economy about the time of which we are treating. Not a few gentlemen of eminent abil- ity delivered public lectures and addresses in behalf of revenue reform. Other reforms to which we have briefly referred were advo- 518 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. cated by those who proposed to form a new party. In this movement, Mr. Greeley at first took no part. Indeed, one of the leading ideas of its representative men was indirect antag- onism to the teachings of his whole life. He had written more, spoken more, in behalf of " Protection " than any of his countrymen. lie was the representative man, par excellence, in the United States, of the doctrine of " Protection." He had not only written more in advocacy of that doctrine than any American, but more also in attack of the opposing principle and of its eminent defenders. Some of his editorial assaults in connection with this subject upon Mr. Bryant, Mr. Wells, and other advocates of reform, were couched in such terms as must be forever lamented by all who believe that strength of argu- ment is never weakened by dignified, even chivalric treatment of opponents who have been guilty of no unfairness. It was natural, therefore, that Mr. Greeley should be opposed to the " revenue-reformers," as they were called, and the for- mation of a new party, with whose most distinguished repre- sentative men and journals, free trade was a cardinal doctrine. It was not until afterwards, when other questions of great and immediate importance had arisen for settlement, and he had with his own eyes seen the ills by which the South was being, as he thought, plucked, plundered, and impoverished, that he was persuaded of the necessity of the defeat of the Republican party, and the speedy inauguration of many vital reforms which could be safely entrusted only to a new organization, fresh from the people, and therefore quite sure to be brave honest, faithful, and capable. CHAPTEE XXVIII. A TOUR OF THE SOUTH. Mr. Greeley Visits Texas An Account of His Southern Tour Ho Emphatically Assails "The Carpet-Baggers" as a Class The Effect of the Tour Upon His Political Opinions. EARLY in the Summer of 1871, Mr. Greeley visited Texas, for the purpose of delivering an agricultural address at the city of Houston. It is not possible that he would have made a journey of fifteen hundred miles for this purpose alone. He desired to see, with his own eyes, the actual situation of South- ern politics, of Southern society, and to study the practical operations of existing laws and customs. He was everywhere received with great hospitality and eclat. His presence at Houston brought thither a vast number of people, among them thousands who had for many years regarded him as the arch-enemy of the South among all the people of the North, but who had been led to reconsider their harsh judgments, chiefly on account of his early and persistent demand of universal amnesty for all political offenses. It soon appeared from Mr. Greeley's utterances, both oral and through The Tribune, that he was most unfavourably impressed with the government of the South by "carpet- baggers," as those had come to be generally called who had recently migrated to the South from Northern States, and adopted politics as their trade. The war had devastated large portions of the South; had ruined great numbers of men who had always been accustomed to opulence and ease. Emancipa- tion had made new systems of agriculture, and of labour gen- erally, not only desirable but necessary. The political power gained by the blacks, lately slaves, tended to place the old politicians in retirement. It is, indeed, self-evident that there could not have been so great a disturbance, so radical a revolu- (519) 520 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. tion, without bringing about a state of things the wise and safe control of which would demand the best efforts of states manship. Millions of persons suddenly dispossessed of poli- tical power long exercised; millions suddenly possessed of power to which they had never been accustomed, no land ever passed through such a revolution withoat finding many difficult questions to be settled, many practical dangers to be avoided, many conflicts constantly arising. We may now clearly see, though we may not all have been able to see it at the close of the war, and some may even not be able to perceive the truth before the close of the current century, that for the practical rehabilitation of the South two things were specially demanded. These were: universal am- nesty for political offenses, and immigration. Most unfortu- nately only one of these demands of true statesmanship and political economy was supplied. Immigration, though so highly desirable by the South, failed to solve the Southern problem, which, aided by amnesty, it might have solved, and probably would have done. It is always unwise to have an element of discontent in political society. The poorest possible use to which men can 'be put is to make martyrs of them. This is precisely what was done with thousands of men in every Southern State who were familiar with affairs, with the habits and customs of the people, and with the laws. There were thousands of such men in every one of those commonwealths who, the war over, "accepted the situation" with all candour and honesty. By their experience and knowledge they were better fitted for the conduct of public affairs than the emancipated blacks. For the same duty strangers in the land could not compare with them. It were barely possible that these would undertake to more certainly insure the new rights of the blacks, better to provide for their education, etc.; but for the general good, men who are native and to the manor born can better legislate than strangers. I know of no one argument which is more conclusive of Horace Greeley's remarkable foresight and statesmanship than is to be found in the ills of that system of government which " CAKPET-BAGGERS." 521 will be perfectly understood by the word " carpet-bagism." After the war there was a considerable immigration to the South. The immigrants largely engaged in politics. They became possessed of political power. A noted public man called them " carpet-baggers," and the word has become fixed in our political nomenclature. Southern citizens being deprived of political privileges, to great extent, the blacks being unfitted quite generally for public position, adventurers from the North suddenly came in possession of the political power of most of the Southern States. And with the most lamentable result. If carpet-bagism has yet been responsible for a single Senator of the United States or Representative in Congress of respect- ble abilities or character I do not now think of his name. But its great evils were manifested in the local governments, State and municipal, and by officers of the United States of this kind sent South by the President, the Senate consenting. A history of this carpet-bagism is a record of shameful pecula- tions, of daring frauds, of shameless robberies of common- wealths. Not the Norman conquerors after the battle of Hast- -ings, not Pizarro and his lieutenants in Peru, paid less heed to the rights of the peoples they plundered and ruined than our American Knights of the carpet-bag. The process must have been all the more unpleasant to the South because unredeemed by a single gleam of chivalry, or even by a single deed of ferocious courage. Neither the Saxons nor the poor Peruvians were ever so humiliated as this. When Mr. Greeley visited the South, the ills of government by irresponsible strangers had become manifest not only in the retardation of the physical development of the country, but by an unhappy, a dangerous condition of public sentiment. No argument against slavery could be stronger than the fact that the late slaves generally took sides with the carpet- baggers against their late masters. It makes no difference that they were imposed upon by the adventurers. This only shows that slavery had given them a dangerous capacity of being imposed upon. But this is not all. They went with the carpet- baggers because the carpet-baggers had never enslaved them. Their unhappiness in slavery, their real discontent, notwith- 522 IIFE OF HOEAOE GREELEY. standing all that has been said and sung to the contrary, must be taken as demonstrated by the fact that they preferred to their late owners as friends, allies, and coadjutors, a horde of as graceless, vulgar adventurers as ever infested any land. All these evils of carpet-bagism, the resultant ills of slavery, the misfortunes that had sprung from the want of amnesty, Mr. Greeley studied carefully and candidly. His conclusion was such as to cause him emphatically to assail the carpet- baggers as the chief obstacle in the way of Southern pacifica- tion, happiness, and prosperity. He did not deny that there were thousands of men in the South, recently from the "North, who were valuable citizens. These were generally engaged in agriculture, trade, manufacture, taking no prominent part in politics. But those who had become politicians were, as a class, justly censurable, as he thought; and, so thinking, he expressed his opinions with characteristic force and honesty. He addressed the public at several places in Texas, in Mississippi, and in other Southern States, on most occasions speaking upon topics relating to the practical development of the material resources of the South, rather than in discussion of political doctrines. At some places he advised Southerners to raise "more corn and less cotton;" and almost everywhere he earnestly advocated the establishment of domestic manu- factures. In every instance he spoke strongly and eloquently in behalf of the duty and the necessity of the return of thorough harmony and good feeling between the people of the two sec- tions lately at war. Upon his return to New- York, he was invited to address the Lincoln Club, and did so on the evening of June 12th. This speech is of value, both biographical and political. I therefore quote largely from it. Mr. Greeley began by saying that he had been invited to deliver an agricultural address at Houston, Texas, but had peremptorily declined. Being earnestly pressed by many prominent business men of New- York to reconsider Ins determination, they insisting that he might by a tour of the South render the country a real service, he was persuaded to do so. With this explanation he proceeded to speak of the late war, saying that he had everywhere argued that from IN TEXAS. 523 beginning to end the national government had occupied the defensive position. Having dwelt at some length upou this point, he proceeded: Now, then, I went to Texas to deliver an agricultural address at Houston, and I delivered it. That was rny work and it was done- But on my way down a club of Union soldiers now living in New Orleans, pressed me to make a speech to them in their club-room, and I did so. I attempted in that speech, to vindicate the right of, this nation, this republic, to that vast territory purchased by her money, and defended by the blood of her sons; organized into States by her Congress, and so made an integral portion of this American Republic. I argued that the southern part of the Mississippi valley could not possibly wish to be separated from the northern part by two menacing lines of frowning fortresses and hostile Custom Houses. I urged, as I always have believed, that never did the people living on the Lower Mississippi, in their sober senses, seek to be divorced and alien- ated from the people of the Upper Mississippi ; and I affirmed the right of the American people to navigate the great river from the Rocky Moun- tains to the Gulf, unembarrassed and unimpeded by any boom across its channel or by any gunboats stationed there to cause vessels to heave-to for Custom House scrutiny and examination. So I talked because I so believed. Then, again, visiting the little city of Columbus, Texas, the only place I did visit on the western side of the Colorado river, I was, about this time of night, while sitting in my hotel, waited upon by a German depu- tation, who asked me to come over to their club-room and talk to them a little while, they being all loyal Union men. Well, I went over. They had an hastily assembled crowd, and I spoke for half an hour, perhaps, in vindication and explanation of the late great struggle for unity in this country and for unity in Germany; for the defense and protection of these two great nations in their rights of territory and nationality. I argued, as wll as I could, that though some men honestly believe that our struggle and the triumph therein of the national cause will tend to despot- ism on this continent, and that some so hold with regard to the German triumph in their great struggle, I on the contrary, believe that the ultimate tendency and result of these two great consummations will be the promo- tion and advancement of liberal ideas and institutions alike in the Old World and the New. Well, gentlemen, as I was leaving Texas, a pressing invitation was given me by the Republicans of Galveston to make a speech to them on the last night I spent in their State, and I acceded to their request. I tried before them to vindicate the North against the charges made against her in the South, and to prove that the North did not make war on the South (as too many Southern people still believe she did). I tried to show them that the war was commenced in the South, by the South, nay, in Texas itself, by capturing, through treachery, the United States army and turning its arms and munitions against the flag and against the integrity of our country ; and 524: LIPE OF HORACE GBEELET. that, all the -way through, we stood virtually on the defensive against what seemed to me a most indefensible and wanton aggression. I said what I could to vindicate the North from the reproach of malignity of wishing to oppress, or plunder, or cripple the South, and tried to make my South- ern countrymen believe that we were all Americans, and altogether inter- ested and striving for the prosperity and the growth of our whole widely- extended country. [Applause.] Such was my theme at Galveston. Well, gentlemen, I have heard it objected that, in my speech at New Orleans I asserted that if there had been universal amnesty four years ago, there would have been no Ku-Klux in 1871. I do not think I said exactly that; but I did say that I regarded the policy of excluding from office the leading men of the South as a very great mistake, and a very great injury to the national cause and to the Republican party. 1 said no more than General Sickles had said in substance four years earlier, when he was Military Governor of South Carolina, and declared that he was crippled and enfeebled in his efforts to govern that State well by the fact that her best men, her most considerate and conservative men, were not available to him as magistrates, because of an exclusion whereof Andrew Johnson was the author. He .said : " I cannot govern South Carolina as well as I could if I were able to choose the best men to help me instead of the second-best." I am entirely of that conviction. I believe it was a mistake, when you allowed a million of Confederates to vote for members of Congress, to deny them the right to vote for just such men as they pre- ferred. I believe, therefore, the best men would be safer and more useful in Congress than their second-rate men ; better for us and better for their country. [Applause.] So I argued because I so believed; and still I say that if the men were allowed to represent the South who express the sentiment of the South if the Toombses, Wises, and Wade Hamptons had been allowed to go to Congress, and had been sent there four years ago, the Republican party would have been a great deal stronger, and recon- struction very much further advanced and more certain than it is to-day. * * * * * * * * * But I have been asked, "Are there any Ku-Klux down South?" Yes,, gentlemen, there are. They didn't come up to me and tell me they were Ku-Klux very often. [Laughter.] They didn't undertake to perform their delicate operations on me. I should have had very much more respect for them if they had. * * * I hold our government bound by its duty of protecting our citizens in their fundamental rights, to pass and enforce laws for the extirpation of the execrable Ku-Klux conspiracy ; and if it has not power to do it, then I say our government is no government, but a sham. I, therefore, on every proper occasion, advocated and justified the Ku-Klux act. I hold it especially desirable for the South ; and, if it does not prove strong enough to effect its purpose, I hope it will be made stronger and stronger. * * * Fellow-citizens, the Ku-Klux arc no myth, although they shroud themselves in darkness. They are no flitting ghosts; they are a baneful reality. They have paralyzed the right of suffrage in many counties throughout the South, and carried Slates that "THE THIEVING CABINET-BAGGERS." 525 they ought not to have carried. But they are not the only enemies to republican ascendancy in the South. There is another influence equally injurious with theirs, aud a great deal more detrimental to the fame and character of the Republican party. I allude to what are known as the " thieving carpet-baggers." [Applause.] Fellow-citizens, do not mistake me. All the Northern men in the South are not thieves. The larger part of them are honest men, some of whom stay there at the peril of their lives because they believe it to be their duty. Next to the noble and true women who have gone down South to teach black children how to read, nobler there are not on the earth tha%. these, whom a stupid, malignant, dilapidated aristocracy often sees fit to crowd into negro hovels to live, not allowing them to enter into any white society because they are teaching negro children next to these, who rank as the noblest women in the South, are the honest and worthy Northern men who, in the face of social proscription and general obloquy and scorn, stand firmly by the Republican cause. The public is often heedlessly unjust. Let a government have 10,000 jiHcial subordinates in power, of whom 9,900 are honest and true men, who do their duty faithfully, while hardly 100 are robbers and swindlers, the public will hear a great deal more about the 100 robbers than about the 9,900 true men. The 100 stand out in the public eye; they are always doing something which exposes them to the scornful gaze of the multi- tude, while the honest and true men pass along, silent and unobserved, and nothing is said, very little is thought of them. All attention is con- centrated upon the 100 who are defaulting and stealing and forging, and running away. Well, gentlemen, "the thieving carpet-baggers" are a mournful fact; they do exist there, and I have seen them. [Laughter.] They are fellows who crawled down South in the track of our armies, generally a very safe distance in the rear, some of them on sutlers' wagons ; some of them bear- ing cotton permits; some of them looking sharply to see what might turn up ; and they remain there. They at once ingratiated themselves with the blacks simple, credulous, ignorant men, very glad to welcome and follow any whites who professed to be the champions of their rights. Some of these got elected Senators, others Representatives, some Sheriffs, some Judges, and so on. And there they stand right in the public eye, stealing and plundering, many of them with both arms around negroes and their hands in their rear pockets seeing if they cannot pick a paltry dollar out of them. And the public looks at them ; does not regard the honest Northern man, but calls every "carpet-bagger" a thief, which is not the truth by a good deal. But these fellows many of them long-faced and with eyes rolled up are greatly concerned for the education of the blacks and for the salvation of their souls. [Great laughter.] " Let us pray," they say. But they spell pray with an e, and, thus spelled, they obey the apostolic injunction to "pray without ceasing." Fellow-citizens, the time has been and still is when it was perilous to be known as a Republican or an Abolitionist in the South, but it never called 526 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. the blush of shame to any man's cheek to be so called until these thieving carpet-baggers went there; never. [Applause.] They got into the Legis- latures. They went to issuing State bonds. They pretended to use them in aid of railroads and other improvements. But the improvements were not made, and the bonds stuck in the issuers' pockets. [Laughter.] That is the pity of it. " Well," some say, "you have such thieves at the North." Yes, we do, too many of them [applause], but the South was already impoverished, was bankrupt, without money, without thrift, almost without food, and n^these fellows went there robbing and swindling when there was very little to steal and taking the last ten-cent shinplaster off the dead men's eyes. They were recognized by the late aristocracy not merely as thieves but as enemies. Says Byron's Greek minstrel "A tyrant but onr masters then, Were still at least our countrymen." Thus we record the men who annually rob us at Albany, at Trenton, and at Harrisburgh. They do not carry their plunder out of the State when they get any. These fellows do! The South was not merely defeated in the late contest; she was profoundly astonished by the result. Her people have not fairly got over their amazement at their defeat, and what they see of us are these thieves who represent the North to their jaundiced vision and, representing it, they disgrace it. They are the greatest obsta- cles to the triumph and permanent ascendancy of Republican principles at the South, and as such I denounce them. [Applause.] ********** But, gentlemen, my voice fails, yet I want to say a few words about the New Departure. [Laughter.] When men are in a bad fix I reckon they had better depart from it, and I fully justify thosje Democrats who have determined to depart from the foolish old business of running their heads against a stone wall. If I were these I should depart, and I think it well for them to do it ; and since they do it I am not inclined to criticise the manner tod severely nor to judge them too harshly. I have made a rule for some time never to conjure up a bad motive for a good action. They are where they ought not to be: they propose to depart, and I think they should. Our Ohio friends do not take quite so charitable a view of the new departure as I do. They say there was a particularly rough character once who was noted for violating the Sabbath among other bad deeds. But finally he became converted " got religion," and joined the church. All right. One day a gentleman came along and asked a neighbour of his, "Do you see any great change in Nokes, since he joined the church?" " O, yes, he used to go out chopping Sunday mornings with his axe swung over his shoulder; now he carries it under his coat." [Laughter.] Gentlemen, I am very glad that the Democratic party has taken off its shoulder the axe Which it has wielded so many years in deadly hostility to the rights of the coloured race. I am glad it has put it under'its coat, but I hope it will think better of it and put it back into the wood-house THE NEW DEPARTURE. 527 and meet tLo blacks with open hands saying, "we are going to treat each of you just as you shall deserve to be treated, no matter what is tho colour of your skin." I do believe they mean this the most of them. I believe they mean hereafter to wear their Democracy something more than skin deep. At any rate I shall urge and encourage them to do so. Fellow-citizens, I would not make too much of the New Departure. I do not understand these gentlemen even to profess any penitence for their past warfare against the equal rights of men. I don't understand them even to promise that they will never renew their warfare. I only urrtler- etand them as pledged to this extent : They admit that the three Republican amendments to the Federal Constitution are now a part of that Constitu- tion and while they are there they must be obeyed. That I understand to be the extent of the New Departure and I deem it worth a good deal. So .ong as they admit that these amendments are in, I shall feel pretty sure that they are not likely to get them out. I shall rest content that the rights of all men, being citizens of the United States, are safe under the guaran- tees of the Federal Constitution. Twenty-five years ago I stood at the polls of the Nineteenth ward of this city, all one rainy, chilly November day, peddling ballots for equal suffrage. I got many Whigs to take them, but not one Democrat. Again, in 1860 not eleven years ago I again stood at my polls all day, and handed out the same kind of vote, and I do not remember that a single Democrat took one. Some Republicans, even, would not take them, but no Dem- ocrat would. I believe in human progress. I believe that men are rather wiser and better to-day than they were twelve years ago ; and here is proof of it. It is not two years since our first Democratic State Legislature withdrew the consent given by its Republican predecessors to the Fifteenth Amendment, and by a party vote so far as New York could do it they tried to defeat that amendment. Now we have a New Departure. Was it not high time ? I think it was. Fellow-citizens, I am weary, weary of this sterile strife concerning the fundamental principles of republican institutions. I am tired of trying to teach the Democrats the A B C's of democracy. I rejoice to know that they have taken a New Departure, and I tell you that when they have once taken it, it will be a great deal harder to get back on to the old ground than to go on. Some one says, "Isn't it going to put the Republi- cans out of power?" I cannot tell. Immediately, I think not. An English statesman well says: "Confidence is a plant of slow growth ;" and I think it will take some time for the people to realize that they mean this some time for their own folks to realize it a great deal longer to make any black man believe that they mean it. I don't anticipate any sudden change in the relative position of parties because of the New Departure. Ultimately, I think it will strengthen tl Democrats. "Then," one says, "you will go out of power." Yes, w shall, some time, no doubt. If it be my fate to go out this moment, an every year of my life thereafter to be in the minority, powerless -md 528 LIFE OF IIOEACE GKEELEY. defeated, I should still thank God most humbly and heartily, that He allowed me to live in an age and to be a part of the generation that wit- nessed the downfall and destruction of American Slavery. [Prolonged applause.] Fellow-citizens, I trust the day is not distant wherein, putting behind us the things that concern the past, we shall remember' that grand old injunction of the Bible : " Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward." I am weary of fighting over the issues that ought to be dead, that legally were dead years ago. When slavery died I thought that we ought speedily to have ended all that grew out of it, by universal amnesty and impartial suffrage. [Applause.] I think so still; and, if the Demo- cratic party concede Impartial Suffrage, the Republican party will concede universal amnesty; if not, it will have but a very short lease of power. So, then, friends, I summon you all, Republicans and Democrats, to prepare for the new issues, and new struggles that visibly open before us. Iii the times not far distant we shall consider questions mainly of industrial policy questions of national advancement questions involving the best means whereby our different parties may through cooperation, or through rivalry, endeavour to promote the prosperity, the happiness, and the true glory of the American people. To that contest I invite you. For that contest I would prepare you. And so, trusting that the blood shed in the past will be a sufficient atonement for the sins of the past ; and that we are entering on a New Departure, not for one party, but for the whole country a departure from strife to harmony, from destruction to construc- tion, from desolation to peace and plenty, I bid you, friends and fellow citizens, an affectionate good-night. [Prolonged cheers and applause.] It is apparent from these utterances that Mr. Greeley's Southern tour had had a marked effect upon his* political opinions. He had acquired no new faith in the Democratic party; he had lost confidence in the Republican organization; he had begun to see in the " new party movement " a New Departure of men of all parties in the interest of harmony, peace, happiness for the whole country. He was assailed in many quarters for his views upon the eatpet-baggers, but this only caused him to reiterate them with still greater emphasis and to adduce new facts showing their baneful influence upon the South, and, by necessary conse- quence, upon the whole nation. Believing that the practical exclusion of the best men of the South from public affairs was rrong, unjust, anti-republican in principle; perceiving that the rule of the carpet-baggers was ruinous, impoverishing, tending to constant local strife, a constant menace to the peace ON THE NEW DEPARTUKE. 529 of tlie republic, dangerous to the welfare of the whole people; judging that the party in power was committed to sustain the carpet-baggers, and seeing that it constantly apologized for their misgovernment and crimes, the line of duty with him clearly lay in the New Departure. Having without compunc- tion given up the Whig party when it had outlived its usefulness, he now for similar reason stepped from a narrow on to a broad platform, and as before with the triumph of jnst principles and the progress of the republic to impel him forward on his chosen course. It is worthy of observation that Mr. Greeley would, no doubt, sooner have expressed sympathy with the movement for a new party but that, as we have seen, its most eminent representative men were noted advocates of free trade as he was a noted advocate of the opposing doctrine. Upon those other great questions of pacification and governmental reform which came to form the platform of the party he had been unequivocally committed, both by word and deed, in advance of almost any of his cotemDoraries. ALLEN G. THURMAN. Sec page 533- CHAPTER XXIX. A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Organization of the Liberal Republican Party Preliminary Tactics Debates in the Senate Eminent Republicans Join in the Movement The Cincinnati Convention Candidates for Nomination Mr. Grecley Successful The National Democratic Convention at Balti- more The Cincinnati Ticket Endorsed The Republican National Convention and its Candidates The Canvass Death of Mrs. Greeley Defeat At Work Again on The Tribune. THE "new-party movement" did not result in the formation of any regular political organization until the year 1872, early in May of which year the "Liberal" Republicans held a National Convention in the city of Cincinnati and formally placed plat- form and ticket before the country for support. It has already appeared that the first movements made by those who proposed to themselves to institufe a radical reform of parties were mainly conducted by free-traders and in the interest of revenue reform. There were several meetings of noted writers and journalists who came together even so early as the first year of President Grant's administration, with the object of informally discussing the question of revenue reform, and these at length resulted in a quite general agitation of the subject by the press and the intelligent public. The argu- ments in behalf of the reform advocated by those here spoken of were heartily accepted by large numbers of Republicans and by members of the Democratic party generally. The former were not yet ready, however, to abandon a political organization whose history, as they believed, had been mainly honourable, and had conferre*! great benefit upon the republic and the cause of human progress. The reform movement gradually gained popular strength, however, and, advocated by some of the most thoughtful polit- (530) SENATORS SUMNER AND SCHURZ. ical economists of the nation and a number of our most influential, independent public journals, it was entitled to the considerate examination of statesmen and especially of public men in control of affairs. But it was not brought into any notable discussion in the halls of Congress until the long ses- sion of 1871-72, and then only, in such way as to receive general attention, in the Senate. As a rule, the House of Representatives proceeded with routine business, providing for the coming campaign, printing many speeches never delivered, and skipping the questions a settlement of which upon some policy or other was demanded by justice, states- manship, and a decent respect for the national will. But the debates in the Senate made that chamber the scene of greatest attraction at the National Capital during many months. The administration was attacked for certain alleged abuses, corruptions, the exercise of unwarranted powers, for postponing the era of peace and harmony throughout the country. Of Republican Senators who assailed the adminis- tration of President Grant, Charles Sumner was the most distinguished. . He had ever been a leading and potential Republican not only, but may be truthfully said, I think, to have been for many years the most illustrious of American statesmen, the most faithful friend and the most powerful champion of human freedom. He assailed the administration, or rather the President, with even unusual eloquence and unwonted indignation. Senator Schurz was the great debater of the period in review. Not since the elder time have there been so many and so great manifestations of forensic powers as were here and now shown by this remarkable man. His genius as a statesman is, if I may so speak, both of tele- scopic and microscopic power. It comprehends great truths, general systems of polity, with clearness and ease, and also observes all details and all technicalities without being thereby either at all beclouded or annoyed. There are few minds more comprehensive than his, few so subtle; and Ben Johnson some- where says, " He that cannot contract the sight of his mind, as well as dilate and disperse it, wanteth a great faculty." In all the debates arising upon the various investigations about 532 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. this time made of the conduct of officials, Mr. Scliurz appeared to be perfectly at home as to all the facts and perfectly familiar with all the principles and laws, whether national or interna- tional, bearing upon them. In these intellectual combats he was often opposed by all the eminent men of the administra- tion side of the Senate: by Mr. Morton, the undoubted leader of the Republicans, a man of vast mental powers, whose pon- derous mind, the only one on his side of the Senate resembling that of Daniel Webster, though it may not be easily aroused, is, when set in active motion, apt to make wide room for its almost resistless course; by Senator Coukling, of New York, a man not only of chivalric bearing but of great and brilliant powers of debate, whose clear and strong argumentation and keen invective are set forth in most magnificent diction, springing up, rich and fresh, from the well of English unde- filed; by Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, a highly skilful and very ready disputant, especially in questions of law; by Senator Carpenter, of Wisconsin, who was happily stated by Mr. Benjamin F. Butler to be worth to a powerful corporation a large annual retainer because " he had a tongue in his head ;" by Senator Harlan, of Iowa, whose strong argumentation was ever accompanied by the most pleasing suavity of manner; by Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, who in the Senate often undertook to enact the role of peace-maker, and frequently made himself ridiculous by advocating both sides of the ques- tion at issue, and with the most enjoyable ignorance of his preposterous attitudes, or, perhaps I should say, altitudes; by other Senators no less distinguished than some of these; but out of the grand ineltfe, the Senator from Missouri came tri- umphant, like Ivanhoe at the gentle and joyous Passage of Arms of Ashby. If there were answer to many of Mr. Schurz's arguments, it was not then delivered, and has yet to be uttered. Other eminent Republican Senators besides Messrs. Sumner and Scliurz approved the movement for a reform party. Sen- ator Trumbull, of Illinois, was among the first to take this stand. The ablest constitutional lawyer in the Senate, the closest, and, perhaps, the strongest reasoner, in abstract logic, "LIBERAL" SENATORS. 533 in that body, he had for years been known by those who knew public men best as the steadiest statesman among all the emi- nent men of the Republican party. In the most exciting times he maintained his presence of mind. In no turmoil and amid no clamour did the clearness and strength of his judgment ever for an instant desert him. His influence had been firmly impressed upon much of the best legislation of his country, and he had long commanded universal respect not only on account of his great abilities but also because of his irreproach- able personal character. Whatever might be said of others, it was agreed that Lyman Trumbull was sans peur et sans reproche. Into the debates of this period he entered with great spirit and even unwonted power. Senator Fenton, of New York, may be described as the incarnation of suavity. Among living public men, he is the most accomplished courtier. He has the genius of courtesy. The President of the United States, if put to his corporal oath, and others familiar with New York politics, might testify that behind Mr. Fenton's fascinating manners there sometimes was hidden a double-deal. And yet it is probable, if they knew all, if they fully appreciated Mr. Fenton's real unwillingness to give offense, they would acquit him of any deceit more than is involved in the necessary hypocrisy of the highest good-breeding. In the animated debates of this famous session ol 1871-72, Senator Fenton took honourable part, and on one or two occasions exhibited great powers of eloquence and of argument. But it is probably true that he laboured more effectively in marking out the campaign than in the active operations. Senator Thomas W. Tipton, of Nebraska, took earnest part in the debates, humorously assailing the administration on many accounts, both general and special. Senator John A. Logan, of Illinois, maintained an unnatural silence until after the Cincinnati Convention. Democratic Senators did not feel it to be their duty to take active part in the debates, but Sen- ator Blair openly sympathized with the new party movement, while Senator Thurman, of Ohio, the ablest man the Demo cratic party has had in Congress for many years, now and then 534 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. joined in the discussions, and always in such way as to make the candid think that, if his party wonld truly accept him as a representative man, it might still live and be of benefit t the republic. Eminent Bepublicans in different parts of the country now joined in the reform movement. It is a remarkable fact, worthy the careful study of those who would fully understand andJion- estly judge not only of the political history of the period under consideration, but of Mr. Greeley's candidacy for our highest office, that very many of those who had been leading men in the Republican party; who had been abolitionists when it was almost as much as one's life was worth to be an aboli- tionist; that very many of these were, in 1872, convinced of the demoralization and corruption of the party in power. Mr. John W. Forney, of The Philadelphia P^ess, gave nota- ble testimony to this fact very early in the year. There had been no truer Republican, no braver friend of freedom than he. During the war and for some years afterwards he resided at the National Capital, where also he conducted a daily jour- nal. His warfare with President Johnson makes an almost unique instance of independence and pluck in Washington journalism since the death of Dr. Bailey of the old National Era. He now resigned the profitable office of Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, that he might be untrammelled as an editor, and at once proceeded to chastise " the party " for the illiberalism of many of its defenders and especially for their assaults upon eminent Republicans who demanded the reform and purification of the party, even if to reform and purity it it should become necessary to overthrow it. In every State there were large numbers of Republicans who sustained the rebellious Senators in very much that they did, and not a few who expressed the opinion that the best interests of the country demanded the defeat of the adminis- tration through the means of a new political organization. It is true that many of these held the President in high esteem ; doubted neither his personal nor his political integrity. They believed he was surrounded by advisers whose -counsel was pernicious; who made a trade of politics; and, utterly unprin- MR. VALLANDIGHAM. 535 cipled, used the President to the detriment of the nation, the scandal of statesmanship, and the corruption of political morals. He would be more than a brave man who should say there were not many reasons for this opinion. - There was also a strong tendency toward " the New Depart- ure" in the Democratic party. The first notable impulse in this direction was given by the celebrated Clement L. Vallan- digham, of Ohio. Mr. Yallandigham had made himself excessively unpopular during the war. He had rendered moral aid and comfort to the rebellion. The conscientiousness of his conduct in no wise excused its culpability. Conscience, as well as reason itself, may be so abused as to cease to perform its proper functions. The greatest criminal of history: the criminal justly chargeable with the shedding of the most innocent blood, the subversion of the most right, and the accomplishment of the most wrong: the right name of this greatest of criminals is Perverted Conscience. During the war Mr. Yallandigham was culpably in the wrong. Neverthe- less, the very vehemence of his feelings against a Union based upon force caused him to welcome peace, even upon terms which, earlier, he would have thought could not have been procured by any triumph that could have been gained. From this to the demand of a Union based upon perfect freedom, homogeneity, harmony, precluding the probability of another conflict of arms, was but a logical step. If Mr. Vallandigham had been unpatriotic in his opposition to the government in a war which had been forced upon it, he did what could be done to redeem his error by agreeing to all the terms demanded by the victors. A man of wonderful energy, of great power as a public speaker, he gave his whole soul, as it were, to the cause of " the New Departure," and it was not long till many Dem- ocrats were known heartily to coincide with his views. His untimely death, under circumstances of such singular sadness, must be regarded as unfortunate to his reputation and to his country. It may be judged as certain that had he lived a few years longer he would have accomplished much that is good And great both for one and the other. The next most- notable utterance, perhaps, in behalf of the 536 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. New Departure, within the Democratic party, was that of The Missouri Republican newspaper. Though named "Repub- lican," this journal had for years been one of the most widely circulated and influential of Democratic journals in the "West. Singularly enough, the Republican journal of most note in St. Louis was named The Democrat. The Republican advocated the abandonment of the Democratic organization and the for- mation of a new party, with great power. The State of Missouri early adopted this policy, and with such practical result as gave The Republican many arguments whieh it was difficult if not impossible to answer. Other Democratic journals also advocated the New Depart- ure. Thus in the course of events it happened that months before the proper time to inaugurate the Presidential campaign of 1872, there were large numbers of persons in either of the existing political organizations who believed in the wisdom and the necessity of a new party for the accomplishment of reforms and the practical establishment of principles which neither the Democratic nor the Republican party would un- dertake. And it was well known that among the best citizens of the South many held similar opinions. Such, in brief, was the situation when the Cincinnati Con- vention, the first national assemblage of "Liberal Repub- licans," was held. This convention was brought together in the mode of primitive simplicity. No call of any " national committee " of any sort had been issued. The Liberal Repub- licans of the State of Missouri had published an invitation to the friends of political reform to meet at Cincinnati, for the purpose of consultation, of the interchange of views, and for such action as they might think the interests of the country demanded. Long before the time designated in the invitation May 1, 1872, it became evident that the meeting would be largely attended, and would necessarily develop into a Na tional Convention. Indeed, the proposed meeting was spoken of, many weeks before it was held, as the coining National Convention of the Liberals, and formed a topic of constant conversation in political circles throughout the country and of daily articles in the public press. The fear began to be enter- THE CINCINNATI CONVENTION. 537 tained by many reformers, not that the meeting might be a mere fiasco, but that it would be so largely attended that no power could keep it iti order, much less evoke agreement, harmony out of elements acknowledged to be, in some respects, diverse, if not absolutely conflicting. And it is, perhaps, true, that no regular national convention of any political party, except the Chicago Convention of 1860, ever brought together so many people from such vast expanse of country, as the modest call of the Missouri Liberals brought to Cincinnati. Nearly every State and Territory in the Union was represented, while Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Penn sylvania, and New York were each represented by large num- bers of citizens. The hotels of Cincinnati were taxed beyond their utmost capacity, and large numbers of private residences were hospitably opened for the accommodation of strangers. A Reunion and Reform Convention, over which Judge Stallo presided, was held at the same time. The Democratic State Convention of Kentucky was also in session in a city imme- diately opposite Cincinnati. But without these accompanying meetings, the number who came in acceptance of the Missouri invitation, and of those who came to witness, the proceedings, was simply prodigious. Never was "the Queen City," as Cincinnati has been often designated, so crowded on the occa- sion of any political gathering. The candidates for the Presidential nomination were Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, B. Gratz Brown, of Mis- souri, David Davis, of Illinois, Horace Greeley, of New York, and Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois. Ex-Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, received the vote of his State on the n'rst ballot, and Chief Justice Chase received a number of votes at dif- ferent times during the ballotings. After a number of ballots, during which Mr. Adams held the lead, a movement was successfully made by Mr. Gratz Brown, which resulted in the nomination of Mr. Greeley. Mr. Brown was chosen as the candidate for Vice-President. A long and, in the opinion of some, strong platform was adopted, the main force of which lay in the preamble, which a severe arraignment of the President and the Republican 538 LIFE OF HORACE GREELUr. party. This portion of the platform, though so emphatically disapproved by the nation at the ensuing election, we here in- sert, that our readers may have the opportunity to judge of it for themselves : The administration now in power has rendered itself guilty of wanton disregard of the laws of the land, and of usurping powers not granted by the Constitution ; it has acted as if the laws had binding force only for (hose who are governed, and not for those who govern. It has thus struck a blow at the fundamental principles of Constitutional Government, and the liberties of the citizen. The President of the United States has openly used the powers and opportunities of his high office for the promotion of personal ends. He has kept notoriously corrupt and unworthy men in places of power and responsibility to the detriment of the public interest. He has used the public service of the Government as a machineiy of corruption and personal influence, and has interfered, with tyrannical arrogance, in the political affairs of States and municipalities. He has rewarded with influential and lucrative offices men wht had acquired his favour by valuable presents, thus stimulating the demoral- ization of our political life by his conspicuous example. He lias shown himself deplorably unequal to the tasks imposed tipon him by the necessities of the country, and culpably careless of the respon- sibilities of his high office. Tke partisans of the administration, assuming to be the Republican party, and controlling its organization, have attempted to justify such wrongs, and palliate such abuses, to the end of maintaining partisan ascendency. They have stood in the way of necessary investigations and indispensable reforms, pretending that no serious fault could be found with the present administration of public affairs, thus seeking to blind the eyes of the people. They have kept alive the passions and resentments of the late civil war, to use them to their own advantage; they have resorted to arbitrary meas- ures in direct conflict with the organic law, instead of appealing to the better instincts of the Southern people by restoring to them those rights the enjoyment of which is so indispensable to a successful administration of their local affairs, and would tend to revive a patriotic and hopeful national feeling. They have degraded themselves and the name of tLeir party, once justly entitled to the confidence of the nation, by a base sycophancy to the dis- penser of Executive power and patronage, unworthy <>f Republican free- dom; they have sought to silence the voice of just criticism and stifle the moral sense of the people, and to subjugate public opinion by tyrannical party discipline. They arc striving to maintain themselves in authority for selfish end* POrULAK RESPONSE TO NOMINATION. 539 by an unscrupulous use of the power which rightfully belongs to the people, and should be employed only in the service of the country. Believing that an organization thus led and controlled can no longer be of service to the best interests of the Republic, we have resolved to make an independent appeal to the sober judgment, conscience, and patriotism of the American people. The resolutions were in the usual style and of the average value of similar productions of National Conventions, and, having failed of their purpose, do not claim space here. Mr. Greeley's nomination was greatly unsatisfactory to not a few Liberal Republicans, whether of the Convention or not. Politicians and journals of the opposition were at first dis- posed to treat the matter as little better than a joke. They seemed inclined to look upon Mr. Greeley as he had been too long and often misrepresented, not as God and his own studies and labours had made him. They set up a false Horace Greeley, and cast gibes at him. They did not do so long. Mr. Thomas Nast continued to make the cultivated public blush at 'his humiliating prostitution of genius in the cartoons of Harper's Weekly illustrated newspaper; but the politicians of the Republican party very soon perceived that Mr. Greeley was a strong candidate, and the " party organs " were not long in discovering the same fact. The great body of the people man- ifested respect for Mr. Greeley's genius and a genuine love and admiration of his character. They looked through the mis- representations of years, and saw him as he really was, a great, good, honest man, whose foibles did not amount to vices, whose eccentricities were only peccadillos against conventional trammels, more honoured in the breach than the observance. The response to his nomination by Southern men was nota- bly enthusiastic. The venerable Leslie Coombes, of Kentucky, telegraphed that the action of the Convention was an inspira- tion. Other eminent Southern men were scarcely less emphatic in their expressions. It soon became apparent, in fine, that Horace Greeley was the best known of all America's public men to the whole people and, whether a majority would sup- port him for President or not, he occupied a high position in their respect and a warm place in their considerate affections. Mr. Greeley had not been nominated a fortnight before the managers of the party in power saw that thev would have to 540 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. use every possible means of political influence in order to defeat him; that every exertion would have to be made or he would be borne into office upon a tidal wave of popular appro- val created by Reform principles and his own great personal strength with the people. Every exertion was made by those opposed to him to destroy his wide and growing popularity A number of men were put to work by the national executive committee of the Republicans examining the files of The Tribune from its establishment to procure for publication every sentence ever printed in the editorial columns of that journal, whether written by Mr. Greeley or not, that might injure him with the people. Great banking-houses, with vast sums of money, were enlisted to fight the campaign against him, before his competitor had been nominated. Influences of all kinds, in fine, ever used in political management were at once set in motion against him. Mr. Greeley himself calmly* felt the popular pulse. Think- ing, and having every reason to think, from the manifest signs of the times, that the movement of which he had been made the most prominent representative man, was not a mere partizan &meute^ but a beneficent political revolution, he accepted the nomination of the Cincinnati Convention in a letter which may long be read with profit by his countrymen: NEW-YORK, May 20, 1872. GEKTLEMEN: I have chosen not to acknowledge your letter of the 3d inst. until I could learn how the work of your Convention was received in all jparts of our great country, and judge whether that work was approved and ratified by the mass of our fellow-citizens. Their response has from day to day reached me through telegrams, letters, and the comments of journalists independent of official patronage, and indifferent to the smiles or frowns of power. The number and character of these unconstrained, unpurchased, unsolicited utterances, satisfy me that the movement which found expression at Cincinnati has received the stamp of public approval, and been hailed by a majority of our countrymen as the harbinger of a better day for the Republic. I do not misinterpret this approval as especially complimentary to myself, nor even to the chivalrous and justly-esteemed gentleman with whose name I thank your Convention for associating mine. I receive and wel- come it as a spontaneous and deserved tribute to that admirable platform of principles wherein your Convention so tersely, so lucidly, so forcibly, ME. GREELEY'S LETTER CF ACCEPTANCE. 541 set forth the convictions which impelled, and the purposes which guided, its course, a platform which, casting behind it the wreck and rubbish of worn-out contentions and by-gone feuds, embodies in fit and few words the needs and aspirations of to-day. Though thousands stand ready to con- demn your every act, hardly a syllable of criticism or cavil has been aimed at your platform, of which the substance may be fairly epitomized as follows : "First All the political rights and franchises which have been acquired through our late bloody convulsion must and shall be guaranteed, maintained, enjoyed, respected, evermore. "Second All the political rights and franchises which have been lost through that convulsion should and must be promptly restored and re-established, so that there shall be henceforth no proscribed class and no disfranchised caste within the limits of our Union, whose long-estranged people shall reunite and fraternize upon the broad basis 61 universal amnesty with impartial suffrage. " Third That, subject to our solemn constitutional obligation to maintain the equal rights of all citizens, our policy should aim at local self-government, and not at central- ization; that the civil authority should be supreme over the military; that the writ of habeas corpus should be jealously upheld as the safeguard of personal freedom; that the individual citizen should enjoy the largest liberty consistent with public order, and that there shall be no Federal subversion of the internal polity of the several States and muni- cipalities, but that each shall be left free to enforce the rights and promote the well- being of its inhabitants by such means as the judgment of its own people shall pre- scribe. "fourth There shall be a real and not merely a simulated reform in the civil service of the Republic, to which end it is indispensable that the chief dispenser of its vast official patronage shall be shielded from the main temptation to use his power selfishly by a rule inexorably forbidding and precluding his re-election. "Fifth That the raising of revenue, whether by tariff or otherwise, shall be recog- nized and treated as the people's immediate business, to be shaped and directed by them through their representatives in Congress, whose action thereon the President must neither overrule by his veto, attempt to dictate, nor presume to punish by bestowing office only on those who agree with him, or withdrawing it from those who do not. "Sixth That the public lands must be sacredly reserved for occupation and acquisi- tion by cultivators, and not recklessly squandered on the projectors of railroads for which our people have no present need, and the premature construction of which is annually plunging us into deeper and deeper abysses of foreign indebtedness. "Seventh That the achievement of these grand purposes of universal beneficence is expected and sought at the hands of all who approve them, irrespective of past affilia- tions. "Eighth That the public faith must, at all hazards, be maintained, and the national credit preserved. " Ninth That the patriotic devotedness and inestimable services of our fellow-citizens, who, as soldiers or sailors, upheld the flag and maintained the unity of the Republic, shall ever be gratefully remembered and honourably requited." These propositions, so ably and forcibly presented in the platform of yrur Convention, have already fixed the attention and commanded the assent of a large majority of our countrymen, who joyfully adopt them, as I do, as the basis of a true, beneficent national reconstruction ; of a new departure from jealousies, strifes, and hates, which have no longer ade- quate motive or even plausible pretext, into an atmosphere of peace, fraternity, and mutual good-will. In vain do the drill-sergeants of decay, ing organizations flourish menacingly their truncheons, and angrily insist 542 LIFE OF I10KACE GREELEY. that the files shall be closed and straightened. In vain do the whippers-in of parties once vital, because rooted in the vital needs of the hour, protest against straying and bolting, denounce men nowise their inferiors as traitors and renegades, and threaten them with infamy and ruin. I am confident that the American people have already made your cause their own, fully resolved that their brave hearts and strong arms shall bear it on to triumph. In this faith, and with the distinct understanding, that, if elected, I shall be the President, not of a party, but of the whole people, I accept your nomination in the confident trust that the masses of our countrymen North and South are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has too long divided them, forgetting that they have been enemies in the joyful consciousness that they are, and must henceforth remain, brethren. Yours gratefully, HORACE GREELEY. To Hon CARL SCHTTRZ, President; Hon. GEORGE W. JULIAN, Vice-Presi- dent; and Messrs. WM. E. MCLEAN, JOHN G. DAVIDSON, J. H. RHODES, Secretaries, of the National Convention of the Liberal Republicans of the United States. The next great practical question to be decided in the cam- paign was, whether the Democratic party, by authoritative action, would actually proceed upon the New Departure; would approve the principles and endorse the nominations of the Cincinnati Convention. Mr. Greeley, before the publication of the foregoing letter, had developed so great popular strength, that very many influential Democrats and influential Democratic journals, had advocated his nomination by the Democracy. Two able journals held out against him The New- York World and The Chicago Times. Among influential men in the Democratic party I only think of two who made active and powerful opposition to the acceptance of Mr. Gree- ley's candidacy. These were the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware, and the Hen. Daniel W. Voorhees, of Indiana. Of these, Mr. Voorhees was the more vehement, perhaps. He made no disguise whatever of his feelings, proclaiming them openly, and with his accustomed strength and eloquence of speech, in the House of Representatives. But notwithstanding these opposing influences, there was a strong and general feeling in the Democratic party in favour of Mr. Greeley. This found ample demonstration at the National Convention of the year which was held in tho city of Baltimore on the 9th of July, where Grceley and Brown were adopted as Democratic THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION. 543 candidates. Mr. Greeley accepted this nomination in a long letter dated July 18. Thus joyously and in the pleasant ways of peace, was the Horace Greeley Presidential campaign inaugurated. Meantime, the canvass had been actively set in motion by the Republicans. Their National Convention assembled in the city of Philadelphia, June 5th, and was largely attended. The nomination of Mr. Greeley at Cincinnati had been fol- lowed by such palpable evidences of his great popularity, that the wisest Republicans saw, as has been observed, that they must use every influence in their power to stop the tide so strongly running in his favour, before its force and volume should become perfectly irresistible. One of the first things they determined upon, was to make their National Convention a great and impressive gathering. And in this they succeeded. The city was handsomely decorated with flags and banners, the " outside attendance " was very large, all the usual appliances of great gatherings were abundantly supplied. In the mem- bership of the Convention itself were many public men of general reputation: governors and ex-governors of States; members of either House of Congress and those who had been; not a few who had been prominent officers in the Union army during the war; a number of gentlemen of the highest stand- ing in trade and commerce. In campaign language it was called "The Office-Holders' Convention;" and it is certain there were many office-holders among the delegates, but not more, I think, than is usually the case in national conventions of the political party in possession of the government. If we consider the character of a large proportion of the members, the services they had done the state, whether in council or in war, w r e shall agree that the Republican Convention of 1872 was, as to its personnel, greatly entitled to the respect of candid men. President Grant was renominated by acclamation, and Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, was chosen for the Vice-Presi- dency. The unanimity and enthusiasm displayed throughout this Convention were almost wonderful, and were more than straws to indicate the approaching verdict of the people. The 644 LIFE OF HORACE GREELET. real platform of the Republicans in this canvass was the history of the Republican party from 1861 to 1868. The most important portions of the proceedings in their effect upon the campaign were speeches. Whilst the Conven- tion was waiting for the report of the Committee on Resolu- tions, speeches were made by Senator John A. Logan, Gerrit Smith, and Senator Morton. Mr. Logan appears to have been entirely unprepared, and his speech was inferior to what he has the ability to make, and has frequently made, before and during and since the memorable campaign of 1872. But Mr. Gerrit Smith made just such an address as was best calcu- lated to prevent Republicans from going over to the Liberals. As for Mr. Morton, he then and there, and in a very few minutes, delivered a speech which was the Republican inspira- tion of the campaign. It was the real platform of the party, as above described, in condensation. And. for the whole canvass, it supplied the orators and writers of the administra- tion party with better and stronger arguments than they were able to gather from all other sources. Mr. Gerrit Smith gave the Republicans heart, and Mr. Morton gave them brains. The campaign was one of great animation. With very few exceptions all who were able to do so made speeches in behalf ot the party whose cause they espoused. A few prominent Democrats declined to support Mr. Greeley, but he waa powerfully sustained by the distinguished Liberal Senators of whom I have already spoken, by General N. P. Banks, of Massachusetts, Hon. Austin Blair, of Michigan, Ex-Governor Pierrepont, of West Virginia, Governor Palmer, of Illinois, and very many others who had long been scarcely less eminent and influential Republicans than these. He could hardly have been more heartily sustained than he was by most Democrats had he been a Democrat all his life. This was specially observable in Pennsylvania and Indiana where Governors were to be chosen at the State elections in October. In Pennsyl- vania ex-Senator "Buckalew was the candidate; in Indiana, ex- Senator Hendricks. They spoke and laboured for Mr. Greeley as earnestly and constantly as for their own State tickets. There was, indeed, what was called a straight Democratic THE CANVASS. 545 Convention held at Louisville early in September, which nominated Mr. Charles O'Connor, of New York, for the Presidency. Those who supported this ticket were called " Bourbons," but they were far from formidable in numbers. As a rule the action of the representative men of the party at the Baltimore convention was sustained by leading men and the general Democratic body politic. After his return, Mr. Greeley visited Baltimore, and deliv- ered a number of agricultural and political addresses at dif- ferent places, but he had only been at home about a fortnight when Mrs. Greeley, who had long been an invalid, was taken suddenly and alarmingly ill. Devoting his entire attention to her, watching by her bedside almost constantly, both day and night, he was compelled, of course, to decline all calls for his appearance in public, or even to see his friends. Mrs. Greeley expired on the morning of October 30th, at the house of Mr. Greeley's friend, Mr. Alvin J. Johnson, in the city. Two days afterwards her remains were taken to Greenwood, the funeral ceremonies having been performed at Mr. Chapin's church. By the death of his wife Mr. Greeley was inexpressibly afflicted. He had not seemed to be greatly discouraged by the October elections. Pennsylvania and Ohio had gone against his friends, but by small majorities, while Mr. Hendricks had been elected in Indiana. Notwithstanding such result, he yet expressed hopes of the triumph of Reform, and appeared constantly cheerful to all his friends. Perhaps this cheerfulness was assumed, as a duty to the cause he represented. It is probable that such is the fact. It was a prompting of his great nature that he should show no personal disappointment in defeat. The October elections clearly indicated, however, the defeat of the Reform party in the quickly following November election. Of the thirty-seven States, President Grant carried thirty-one. Soon after the election, Caleb Lyon, of Lyonsdale, poet and politician, met Mr. Greeley on Broadway, and, after the usual salutations, said, " Well, Mr. Greeley, how do you yourself account for the result of the election?" "Let us go get a lunch," said Mr. Greeley, "and I will tell 35 MG LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. They went together to a* restaurant near by, and, having ordered lunch, Mr. Greeley said: "Well, Governor, I will tell you how I came to be defeated. The facts are plain. I was an abolitionist for years, when it was as much as one's life was worth even here in New- York, to be an abolitionist; and the negroes have all voted against me. Whatever of talents and energy I have possessed I have freely contributed all my life long to Protection; to the cause of our manufactures. And the manufacturers have expended millions to defeat me. I even made myself ridiculous in the opinion of many whose good wishes I desired by showing fair play and giving a fair lield in The Tribune to 'Woman's Eights;' and the women have all gone against me !" During a call which Governor Lyon made upon Senator Sumner early in 1873, one of the most noted of the advocates of Woman's Rights also called, when the Governor related to her this incident. It was replied to in a spirit of heartless insolence altogether beyond the capacity of a gentleman. The main causes of Mr. Greeley's defeat may, perhaps, be found in the strength of party associations; the consolidation of the money power against him; the defection of many free- traders among Republicans; the refusal of many Democrats to sustain him notwithstanding the admirable action of their Convention ; the immense patronage of the government, freely used in the interest of President Grant. The latter received a less number of votes in several States than he had received four years before. Had the election occurred in July, or the early part of August, Mr. Greeley would probably have been elected. The greatness of his popularity had by this time become so manifest, that Republican managers saw that every possible means must be used to avert discomfiture. Their desperation gave them a temporary strength which secured a victory, but then only upon solemn pledges on the part of their representative men and journals in behalf of the reforms de- manded by Mr. Greeley. In the moment of defeat, there were those who said that if Mr. Adams, or Mr. Trumbull, or Judge Davis, had been nominated, he would have beaten President Grant. This AT WORK. ON THE TRIBUNE. 547 opinion was probably incorrect. Mr. Adams or Mr. Tmmbull would have divided the support of the money power with President Grant; Judge Davis would have received more Democratic votes than Mr. Greelcy; but it may reasonably be claimed that neither could have secured as great a popular endorsement as the chosen candidate. Certainly not one of those eminent gentlemen could have done himself more honour or by his own labours given the liberal cause more strength during the canvass than did Horace Greeley. The election over, Mr. Greeley returned to his old editorial room and cheerfully resumed work upon The Tribune with his accustomed vigour and versatility. It appeared as though he had many years of strong life before him ; years in which, in this unpretending sanctum, he could accomplish more for his country and mankind than might have been possible, had he been transferred to the Executive Mansion and lived to occupy it. JOHN W. FORNEY. Seepage 534. CHAPTEE XXX. LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND FUNERAL. 111. Greeley Suddenly Prostrated by Alarming Illness The Public Inter- est in the State of His Ailment His Death from Disease of the Brain Circumstances Attending his Last Hours The Causes of his Death Manifold Work, the Criterion of Age His Funeral Attended by the President and Members of the Cabinet, the Yice-President, and Many Eminent Men Funeral Sermons by Mr. Chapin and Henry Ward Beecher The Procession to the Grave A City in Mourning Requiescat. MR. CTREELEY wrote, however, for The Tribune only a short time after the election. His constant nursing, night and day, of Mrs. Greeley, immediately following a long period of great intellectual labour, accompanied by the wearing physical fatigue of travel, produced an ailment of the brain,' the first manifestation of which was a distressing sleeplessness. He rapidly became worse, and the country, before it had recovered from the excitement of the political campaign in which he had borne the most prominent part, was shocked by the intel- ligence that he was prostrated by alarming illness which might at any moment prove fatal. Sleeplessness was followed by inflammation of the brain, which would yield to no medical treatment, but rapidly grow- ing worse, soon produced delirium. Mr. Greeley 's- condition was telegraphed over the country daily by the Associated Press, and many special correspondents were instructed to particularly inquire and report upon the subject. The public interest in his situation was universal. It was manifested among all classes of men, in all walks of life. For several days Mr. Greeley suffered greatly, and his disease was fre- quently manifested in the most painful manner. The delirium resulting from the inflammation of the organ assailed was excessive, as is always the case in such disease with large and (548) HIS DEATH. 549 active brains. Their capacity of disease, of delirium, appears to be proportionate to their capacity of labour. So it was with Mr. Greeley's cotemporary, Dr. Charles H. Ray, of Chicago, who died of inflammation of the brain only about two years before Mr. Greeley, and with similar painful and extraordinary manifestations of delirium. The sick man had every attention which medical skill, the most unselfish friendship, the devoted love of daughters could supply. But skill, friendship, love availed not to resist the approach of the king of terrors. After some hours of calm and serene rest, with his faculties restored to their natural power and clearness, he said, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," and his soul peacefully left its earthly tenement on Friday, November 29th. His death was like his life. The wild strife of his own dis- ordered faculties raged like the conflicts of his long career, continuing his almost fierce unrest. He was assailed by mobs; he was encompassed by relentless enemies; he was misrepre- sented and maligned by his own countrymen whom he was faithfully labouring to serve. In the wild tumult of his dis- ease, years were crowded into moments, with the effect of the most grotesque delirium. But he passed triumphantly even through this awful ordeal. Before the final effort of his mind the storms which threatened to engulf it passed away, so that, as was most befitting to his life and character, calmly, and with mind unclouded, Horace Greeley sought the bosom of his Father and his God. The causes of Mr. Greeley's death were manifold. Those who suppose that personal disappointment at the result of the election had much to do with it, palpably err. "Whether he were elected or whether he were defeated probably made less difference to him than to almost any of his supporters. He constantly regarded himself as nothing, the cause as every- thing. Whatsoever there was, therefore, of disappointment, whatsoever there was in the election that brought grief to him, did not belong to disappointed ambition, but to his earnest, profound concern for the welfare of the people and the peace and prosperity of his country. 550 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. One of the last letters he ever wrote, perhaps the very last, was as follows: NEW-YORK, November 10, 1872. DEAR Sin: I have yours of the Gth inst. My misfortunes do not "come single files but in battalions." I grieve that you are also a sufferer by our disastrous canvass. I cannot say that I see any light ahead. Yours, sadly, HORACE GREELEY. C. A. HAVILAND, Esq., Chicago, Illinois. That he could see no light ahead for his country's thorough pacification, and the purification of its government filled him with a profound and poignant sorrow, no doubt. The same sorrow would have agitated him in the same degree, had Mr. Adams, or Mr. Trumbull, or Judge Davis been the defeated candidate instead of himself. If there were in his sadness a personal sorrow, it was that the coloured people, for whom he had done and dared so much, had utterly failed to recognize his labours in their behalf; that the people, generally, of whom he was so true a representative man, had failed to stand at once by themselves and the Republic's good. And if this were so, it was the sorrow, not of a disappointed man, but of a philanthropist and patriot. The deeper such sorrow was, the more honourable was it to his character. And if such was one of the causes of his death, let it nevermore be said that he did not die for his country as truly and greatly as he had lived for it. Mr. Greeley, during the canvass, had been compelled, by circumstances, to submit to over-work. From this he would have speedily recuperated, perhaps, if he could have had subsequent rest. This, the illness of his wife, and his devoted affection for her, prevented. Under these, and more strains upon it, his physical nature gave way. Nor should we fail to conpider that work, not years, is the true criterion of a man's age. Judged by this standard, no one ever lived longer than Horace Greeley, because no greater worker ever lived. That which he wrote, and which exerted less or more influence upon his countrymen and mankind, would, if printed in volumes like Bancroft's History of the United States, make a large library. His extemporaneous political addresses THE BODY LYING IN STATE. jf 1 had they all been reported, would make several volume, c^i'i every one would coutain much of originality and many reflections of permanent value. His addresses before agricul- tural societies, clubs of different kinds, would make several more volumes. IBefore the immense quantity of Horace G:ree- ley's writings of permanent value, even the long unparalleled works of Lope de Vega pale their ineffectual fires. Counting his years by work, Mr. Greeley lived much longer than Methuselah. Though the causes of his death were, as we have seen, manifold, he died, therefore, of old age. The machinery by which his mind worked had become worn out through great and constant use. The body of Mr. Greeley was conveyed to the City Hall where it lay in state in the Governor's Eoom. The remains were visited by many thousand persons; by newsboys in large numbers, who for once put aside their forwardness and wept at sight of all that was left of one they knew had been their friend; by workingmen of every trade; by the most eminent of the citizens of New- York. The lowest and the highest and all intervening classes paid deferential respect to the remains of him who had been the friend of all mankind. A thousand instances of touching affection were given by those who had never personally known Mr. Greeley. Those who had known him in life did not attempt to conceal their ungovernable emotions of sorrow. From the City Hall, Mr. Greeley's body was removed to the residence of Mr. Samuel Sinclair, publisher of The Tribune, who was one of the family mourners. And still the affections of the people continued to be manifested. Hundreds upon hundreds brought flowers to rest upon the coffin; large num- bers continued to come to look for the last time upon the face of the great journalist. Mr. Sinclair's house was not large enough to contain the flowers which affection brought to place ipon the bier of Horace Greeley. The funeral took place upon Wednesday, December 4th. Before ten o'clock, the friends and associates of the late Editor began to gather at Mr. Sinclair's residence, on "West Forty- fifth street. Thence the body was removed to the church of 352 UFE OF HORACE GREELEY. tiie Divine Paternity (that of Reverend E. H. Chapin, D. D.), where the funeral ceremonies were performed, and whence the procession moved to the cemetery. The pall-bearers took charge of the remains at Mr. Sinclair's house. These were: Chief Justice Chase, Mr. "William M. Evarts, Senators Trum- bull and Fenton, Mr. Thurlow Weed, Mr. John E. Williams, Mr. Ivory Chamberlin, Mr. Erastus Brooks, Rev. Dr. Bright, Mr. Sinclair Tousey, Mr. William Orton, Mr. R M. Hoe, Mr. D. W. Bruce, Mr. P. C. Baker, Mr. Robert Bonner, Mr. J. G. Lightbody, Mr. Dudley S. Gregory, Mr. Charles S. Storrs, Mr. A. J. Johnson, and Mr. John R Stuart Following these were the family and particular friends, and next the newspapei fra- ternity, very largely represented. All the employes of the different departments of The Tribune in the city were present, with large numbers from other journals and press associations. Dr. Chapin's church would not contain a tithe of the persons who desired admission. As the coffin was carried up the aisle and deposited in front of the pulpit, a solemn voluntary pealed from the organ, and the people who for an hour had filled every inch of space except the reserved seats, reverently rose to their feet. Upon the south of the pulpit was the President of the United States. Near by were the Vice-Presi- dent and the Vice-President-elect. The Secretary of War sat near the President's right, and near him was the Honourable Elihu B. Washburne, Minister to France, at this time visiting the United States. Senator Conkling, Governor Hoffman and staff, the Governors of New Jersey and Connecticut, Mayor Hall, ot Xew-York, and the mayors of several neighbouring cities formed part of the remarkable assemblage. During his last illness, Mr. Greeley had spoken with great admiration and kindness of two remarkable women he had known Margaret Fuller, and Clara Louise Kellogg. Suddenly the stillnees which had followed the mournful music of the organ was lovingly disturbed by a sweet, ringing voice, singing with indescribable beauty and power and tendernes " I Know that my Redeemer Liveth." Every eye moistened and every heart beat quick at this touching exhibition of Miss Kellogg'? affectionate offering to her great friend, there lying dead. THE FUNERAL. 5t3 During the funeral, the cities cf -s'ew-Ycik c-Txd Brorkly--. stopped all business. "The whole top^a-e pjured lortli,' says The Tribune's report, "to watch ihe sclemn cortege a.ro testify their grief. From early in the fcrer-con until the lcx,j procession had passed by, the entire line of march, from For'ry- fifth street to Greenwood Cemetery, was crowded with spe :'i>- tors. It was not merely an assemblage of sight-seers: i:', vns a gathering of sympathizing friends. As on Tuesday, e.ul faces and moist eyes everywhere looked out from the dp >.-- t -. As on Tuesday, the labouring men and womenand hun;lier classes generally were foremost in their manifestations and most demonstrative in their sorrow. It had been noticed on Tuesday that among the visitors to the Governor's Room, at the City Hall, were great numbers of newsboys. These active little members of society were plentiful along the route yester- day also, and for once their shrill cries were hushed and their spirits were quieted. Horace Greeley had always been one of their favourite heroes. They used to call out to him familiarly in the streets, and many of them, doubtless, cherished the expectation of getting to be editors some day themselves. The coloured people were likewise numerous, and many of them seemed deeply affected. Farmers were often seen among the crowd. ' Sir,' said a sturdy countryman to a member of The Tribune staff, in front of Mr. Sinclair's house, before the cor tege moved, ' I have come a hundred miles to be at the funera. of Horace Greeley; can't you possibly get me in to have one look at hinrl' The doors had -then been closed; but after many repulses the man got in. A moment later he came out with flushed face and trembling lip, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and hurried away. Forty-fifth street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, was occupied by a great multitude of people, while the Fifth avenue, above and below the church, was almost i impassable, long before the hour appointed for the funeral. Just opposite the church is a row of unfinished dwelling- houses. These were occupied by a throng which filled all the windows and covered the roof. The doorsteps of all the houses along the avenue, without exception, were thickly crowded. windows and balconies were full; hotels, club-houses, and 554. LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. *?nb"i3 br'ld ; ngs }f ail \inds presented a sea of human faces. j^o zi c could aiift.ir'eritand the meaning of such a gathering. j/t "WOF greater than ihe m altitude which welcomed the Grand T'?ike Alexis, or watched the funeral of Abraham Lincoln. It has nad no parallel in our recent history. Yet everybody that as a spectacle the funeral would have little to inter toe mere idle spectator. There were no soldiers, no ban- fiags, no emblems, no bands of music, no gaudy car will iod horses. It was the plain funeral of a plain man, cliit'oiing from other displays only in being so much longer. The people came to look on because the man whose body was carried by had been their friend; because, as Mr. Beecher well remarked, he had been ' feet for the lame, tongue for the dumb, eyes for the blind, a heart for those who had none to sympathize with them.' l Never,' said a gray -haired spectator among the crowd on Broadway, 'have I seen such, a spontaneous outpour- ing of the people, or the masses so generally and so deeply affected.' From the rich merchant, who closed his warehouse and hung the building with festoons of black and white, down to the beggar who stood weeping by the curb-stone, all were moved by a common impulse of affection and respect. "A reporter was detailed to pass along the route of the procession a half mile or more in advance of the cortege. From Dr. Chapin's Church to Madison Square, a distance of just a mile, the avenue was nearly blockaded. On the outer edge of the sidewalk the crowd were huddled two and three deep. On the walk within there was barely room to pass. The day would have worn a holiday aspect but for the quiet and subdued demeanour of the people, and the occasional exhibi- tions of sorrow. About Madison square, and on the space before the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the' concourse was still greater. All along Broadway from Fourteenth street, through which the procession moved, to Hamilton Ferry, there was a dense mass of people. About the Bowling Green, the Battery, and the ferry-house, the crowd still stood patiently waiting. On the Brooklyn side the same scenes were repeated. Along Union street to the Fourth avenue, and down the avenue to the Cemetery stretched the wonderful double lines or watchers. DUST TO DUST. 555 .t Grcej \vood was a stili more surprising sight. Here an enormouc concourse had gathered, standing about the entrance gate. , and fringing the winding roads, and concentrating about the ope _ grave so that the mourners, when the cortege arrived, had Lie greatest uifficulty in following the hearse." The whole ciiy vas in mourning. And as it was with New York, so it was with Brooklyn. Flags floated at half-mast. Vast numbers of buildings were placed in mourning. Trade, speculation, all branches of business paused, paying reverential respect to ri'l that remained of this devoted friend of man. The day was nearly done when the cortege reached tho cemetery, and stopped on Locust Hill, where only a month before, the remains of Mrs. Greeley had been deposited. The open vault, containing the bodies of his wife and three children, was surrounded by a vast assemblage, through whom it was with difficulty the police made way for the procession. A orief prayer followed, the body was lowered, the daughters, descending, laid upon the coffin their tribute of flowers, with which rest forever peacefully the ashes of Horace Greeley ! The following letter explains itself. We clip it from the New York Tribune of a few days subsequent to the funeral : To PRESIDENT GRANT Sir: I trust that I shall not be charged with presumption in addressing you on the subject of this letter. I want to thank you, not for any favour bestowed on my friends, or shown to me. Thanks for such things are as common as the benefits they confer. 1 desire to thank you for something greater and better than these; for something much beyond the ordinary practice of high official life. I desire to thank you for the respect shown by you to Mr. Greeley on his death-bed, and for the great respect you paid his character and memory by your attendance on his funeral. It was a great compliment for the head of a great nation to decline attendance on an official festivity while a private citizen was dying, a citizen who had no claims on the sympathy of the official, either of blood or close friendship. It was a much greater compliment when that Executive laid aside the pressing duties of his great office, and, making a night journey of hundreds of miles at an inclement season, took the place of a private person, among the thousands gathered together to pay the last tribute of respect that the living can pay the dead. For your remembrance of Mr. Greeley, dying; for your attendance at his funeral ; for the tearful attention you paid to the sad ceremonies of that occasion, Mr. President, I tiank you with all earnest- ness. I am very sure that in doing so I but echo the sentiments of hun- 536 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. drcils of thousands of your fellow-citizens, whose views of pu' l ! c affairs led them and myself to support, in the late canvass, the mrn to 'horn y^u have shown such high respect. By these acts you have removed p .n. I thank you, Mr. President, and pray thrt a Ic ig and happy life may await you. And when it shall please the G-eat Ruler to send the angel of Death to call you hence, may your passage to the comb be made smooth by the affections of kind friends, and the grave close over r ou with the heartfelt prayers of your countrymen for your eternal rest Very respectfully, your friend SINCL. a TOUSEY. NEW- YORK, Dec. 6, 1872. But the funeral of Horace Greeley was not confined to New- York. It was a national ceremony ; nay, it was a national reality. The people everywhere put on a real sorrow. Those who had been the most earnest in their opposition to him as a candidate for the Chief Magistrate no less sincerely than Mr. Tousey thanked the President for his act of beautiful kindness in attending the funeral, in unfriendly criticism of which, there was but one voice raised, so far as I recollect, in all the land. With this exception, the whole people may be said to have profoundly sorrowed at the death of Horace Greeley, and to have wept over his grave. Thus it was with the National Congress, with State Legislatures, with the Electoral College, with municipal bodies, in all parts of the republic, with the press and pulpit. CHAPTEE XXXI. TO SUM THE WHOLE THE CLOSE OF ALL. Review of the Private Life and Public Services of Mr. Greeley Estimate of His Genius His Character The Services He Rendered HU Country and Mankind A Friend of the Labouring Man, One of the People, a Great, a Good, and an Honest Man , though not a Perfect Character. I HAVE thus endeavoured to portray the private life and public services of Horace Greeley, exercising my best judgment in the selection from the vast amount of material at command those facts, writings, utterances which would appear the most correctly and fully to place his character and genius before the general reader. For connected accounts of his life I have been greatly and constantly indebted to the biography by Mr. James Parton and to the " Kecollections of a Busy Life" by Mr. Greeley himself. Other materials I have found in history; the lives of cotemporaries with whom Mr. Greeley M r as asso- ciated in personal or political friendship, and of those who opposed him; in the public journals of the times; in many letters; in the statements of acquaintances; in my own obser- vation of recent events. I need hardly say that the Life of Horace Greeley which shall do complete and full justice to his benignant character, his miriad-minded genius, the services he rendered his countrymen and mankind by his long and unpar- alleled labours in their behoof, cannot now be written. Time must eradicate the asperities, the misapprehensions, the mis- representations which grew out of the discussions in which he engaged, the reforms and revolutions which he did so much to promote. When sufficient time shall have elapsed for such a work -to be accomplished, and to be received by the public, with honest, unbiassed judgment, and the work itself shall have been written with truthfulness, and skill, and fullness, then, and, perhaps not till then, will the wonderful life, character, (557) 558 IJFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. and genius of the Founder of The New- York Tribune be com- pletely understood and justly appreciated. Then may works of this nature pass out of public attention. Meantime, they may be of service, not only because, haply, they may contain information of value to general readers, but may also serve to hasten the period when the American people especially shall willingly do justice to one of the best and greatest of their countrymen. In December, 1868, the societies of the Army of the Cum- berland, the Army of the Tennessee, the Army of the Ohio, and the Army of Georgia, held a reunion in the city of Chicago. There have been few public gatherings of more interest than this; few where so many men who had rendered their country great service were collected together; none where good feeling and enthusiasm were so irrepressibly outspoken. Nor has there ever been a single scene of more historical inter- est, or more grandly imposing in itself, than when the thousands who had been officers in the principal armies of the West, met together to hear an address of welcome by General W. T. Sherman, and an oration by General W. W. Belknap, after- wards Secretary of War. The opening sentences of the latter's address will long be remembered by thousands who heard them: " Soldiers of the Armies of the Cumberland, the Ohio, and Georgia; Comrades of the Army of the Tennessee: It all seems like a dream, the insult to the flag; the President's call for troops; the great uprising of the people; the unfurling to the breeze, from every mast and staff and spire of the North, of the nation's emblem; the enthusiastic meetings of men of all classes to devise means in that solemn hour to strike a blow for union and save the nation; the prompt response of the young men of the land; the muster-in of armed hosts; the waving of handkerchiefs, and the hand- shakings at parting, and the last kisses of the loved; the first battles in the West; the eager demand for news; the victory at Donelson, where began the public life of a new leader of the Nation; the field of Shiloh, with its bloody victory seized from defeat; the gradual opening of the Father of Floods; Vicksburgh with its memorable siege; the return home aa HIS WONDERFUL CAREER. 5f>9 veterans of those who but a short time before had loft <>,8 untried youth; the proud consciousness of the youthful sol-Uk-r, as he told of his deeds afar off in the wars; the return to the field; the flankings and lightings of our great Captain about Atlanta, until it was 'ours and fairly won;' the sudden depart- ure, as, turning their backs on home, the men of this Army made their march to the sea; Savannah and its pleasant holi- days of rest; the seemingly unceasing swamps of Carolina; the toilsome march to Raleigh; the welcome words of the announcement which told of the surrender of the flower of the Armies of the South ; the joy of that happy hour turned to gloom, as the hushed intelligence of the death of the nation's Chief was broken in low words to the men; the final march to Washington; the grand review at the nation's Capi- tal; the last order, and the welcome muster-out; all these memories seem not like memories, but like the faint glimpses of an imagined picture, as, panorama like, it passes before the eye, and leaves here and there an impress, and is gone; like the half-faded recollection of something that we have seen, and yet at times can scarce believe that we have witnessed. * * It all seems like a dream!" When we consider the remarkable career of Horace Greeley, it all seems like a dream. Other men have made their way from pinching poverty to luxury and afiiuence; from the hum- blest walks of human life to the highest positions of official station or of intellectual influence. And yet there are few if any in all history in whose lives we find such remarkable growth in many mental attributes as in that of Horace Greeley. Who would have supposed, when he first entered New- York as uncouth a youth as ever stepped upon Broadway, or for several years thereafter, that he would become the founder of the most influential journal of his times! Who could have any more than dreamed, listening to his thin voice when he delivered his lecture upon Human Life, that he would become among the most distinguished of his co temporaries upon the platform; that he would come to deliver public addresses more demonstrative of intellectual greatness, of comprehensive, beneficent statesmanship, than had been uttered by any of his 60 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. c:;-ur:iryra.en! How it would have been placed among tlie most fantastic of visions, if any one had predicted, that from the crucible of Horace Greeley's mind, generally detested Fourier- ism itself would come forth a great reform, receiving the hearty assent of all political parties, and conferring inestima- ble practical good upon vast numbers of people! Who would have thought, when nearly all the journals of New- York were casting ridicule and obloquy upon the Editor of The Tribune, or when the wild mob roared about his office thirsting for his life, that the great metropolis should come to hold him, living, in more kindly regard than any of her citizens, and, upon his death, all of her inhabitants, stopping business, commerce, pleasure, should shed tears of affectionate sorrow over his remains and give him who had been tl^e plainest man in all the city, a far greater and more imposing funeral than had been accorded to the most illustrious Chief Magistrate of the republic! How like a beautiful, thrilling dream does the life of Horace Greeley appear, when we cast our mind's eye rap- idly over its events. Happily, the bright visions of the present become the realities of the hereafter. Time, too, ripens vis- ionaries into prophets. It has already been remarked that, after the establishment of The New- York Tribune, Mr. Greeley had little leisure for the cultivation of the amenities of private life, because of the demands upon his time and thoughts of the most exacting profession. We have seen how great was his love of family. His affection for his father and mother, brothers and sisters, was a beautiful trait in his character. The assistance he rendered his father, ever dividing his scanty earnings with him while poor himself, long subjecting himself to many self- denials that he might give the more aid, is an instance of filial devotion which cannot be too frequently studied by i-apid and rampant Young America. In his own family, Mr. Greeley was a devoted husband and father. Howsoever tempestuous his public life, that of home was ever bright, and cheerful, and merry. If afflictions came, as they often did, his sorrow was deep, as his feelings were surpassingly tender, but never developed into surliness. If he were sometimes in journal- HIS GENEROSITY. 561 ism and the fierce conflicts through which so much of his life was passed as impetuous and headstrong as Peter, he ever at nome with his family and particular friends resembled the dis- ciple whom Jesus loved. Keen observers have remarked that dutiful, loving husbands and wives sometimes almost become one nature, each being necessary for the other, and that in such cases it often happens that when one dies the other speedily follows to the better land. Whether this Was the case with Horace Greeley may never be known in time. But it is probably true that her husband was the only person on earth who fully understood Mrs. Greeley, and that his wife was the only person in all the world who fully understood Horace Greeley. His daughters, doubtless, would have come to do so, had Mr. Greeley lived some years longer; for to them his heart had ever gone out in love, which but increased with time. Thus in the four-fold character of son, brother, husband, father, Horace Greeley's life was a perfect manifestation, I think, of unmixed goodness and greatness. In social conversation, Mr. Greeley was ever able to talk well upon a vast variety of topics. Though, ordinarily, his conversation, like most of his writings, was upon topics of a practical nature, and with the object of accomplishing some practical good too, yet would he often talk of the most abstruse questions of religion, of philosophy, of science, and with a boldness of thought which would have astonished many persons. He often exhibited keen wit and droll humour in conversation, and was ever quick and sparkling in repartee. His construction of sentences in conversation was ever unex- ceptionable, but he had the habit of conversational contraction of words. One would frequently hear him say " don't," " won't," " shan't," and the like. Mr. Greeley's generosity appears to have been entirely boundless. He probably gave away more money, according to his means, than almost any other man who ever lived. He did not have the capacity to resist an appeal to his benevolence. His compassion for those who suifered, for those who were in want, was surpassingly great and tender. His generous dis- positions not unfrequently led him into mistakes which were a 36 562 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. heavy tax upon liis purse, and he finally put an end to caroless giving and endorsing, but death alone had power to stop his generous acts and his deeds of charity. Horace Greeley was by nature entitled to "the grand old name of gentleman." He was, indeed, always a democrat one of the people. The manners, the fashions of polite society he never adopted. Nor is it necessary, to be a gentleman, that one should adopt those manners and fashions. They too often cover rudeness, coarseness of heart, supreme selfishness, sordid, intriguing vice. Remove the shell and you may sometimes see a boor, sometimes even a scoundrel. In deference to the wishes and feelings of others, in subordinating one's self to the general enjoyment, to the pleasure and happiness of those about one, one may exhibit all gentlemanly qualities, though one be clothed in homespun and ignorant of many conven- tional rules. Such was the gentlemanliness of Horace Greeley that he instinctively treated all whom he met with kindness and natural courtesy. If, as we have seen, he sometimes made use of harsh, insulting expressions in editorials and undig- nified expressions in conversation, we have also seen that these were faults growing out of his stormy public life rather than developments of natural instincts. That indescribable intellectual power which we call genius Horace Greeley possessed as man has rarely possessed it. He himself once said that genius is "Work. Certainly those who have become the most celebrated of men have in every instance been notable workers. A few, in spirit of false pride, have undertaken to deceive their cotemporaries into the belief that they dashed off works, or, perhaps, poems, at a single sitting, and rather as relaxation than work; but it has always been discovered, after their death, that it was through hard work, years of study, that they acquired the capacity of doing with apparent ease that which would cost others great toil, and which, no matter how long and hard they might toil, most men could not do at all. In her introduction to a volume of Speeches upon Political Questions by George "VV. Julian, Mrs. L. Maria Child, speaking of that statesman, says: "Like many of our distinguished citizens, he id what is called ' a self- HIS GENIUS FOE PUBLIC AFFAIRS. 563 made man ;' a class that would be better designated as labour- made men." Perhaps it makes little difference whether we use the one designation or the other, seeing that among genuinely great men there are only those who are self-made or labour-made. Whenever God gives greatness or the capacity to achieve it, to a man, it is always upon the condition pre- cedent of great labour on the part of the recipient of the gift. The seeming exceptions to the rule will be found, upon careful examination, not to be exceptions at all. Even Thomson, who was so lazy that he would eat peaches from the tree, rather than put himself to the trouble of taking his hands out of his pockets to pluck the fruit, was a hard worker, mentally. A little further on Mrs. Child quotes from the Quaker, Elias Hicks, " It takes live fish to swim up stream." But wherever we may place the source of this wonderful intellectual power called genius, and whatever we may think as to its necessary aids, it is certain that Horace Greeley, even from early boyhood, was a constant, hard student. The genius of reform was early developed in him as we have see*n. Of this irrepressible spirit of righting wrongs, Martin Luther himself was not more greatly possessed than, Horace Greeley. He also very early in life manifested a genius for public affairs. Years before he had reached legal majority he understood the political issues before the people, and the rationale of our goy- ernment far more thoroughly than any other person in the community. His knowledge of the details of political affairs came to be wonderful. Mr. Julius Henri Browne, in his appre- ciative article in Harper's Monthly, to which reference has already been made, says : " Mr. Greeley's memory was as retentive as Pascal's. His mind was a marvellous store-house of facts, dates, and events. He seemed to forget nothing worth remembering. He was a political cyclopedia of the best revised edition, and entirely trustworthy for the last forty years. He was every hour of the day what The Tribune Almanac is at the close of December. It was hard for him to understand how any member of his profession could be ignorant or obli- vious of ten thousand things which few besides himself held in recollection. He thought every journalist should have at 64 LIFE OF HORACE OREELET. least cotemporaneous political facts and data at immediate command." The truth is, Mr. Greeley had a genius for "facts, dates, and events." Most others do not hold these ten thou- sand things in recollection because it is beyond their capacity to do so. This genius for public affairs of which I speak amounted to statesmanship. He was three months in Congress, and he accomplished more for the country in that short period than a large number of men of national reputation have accom- plished during many years of official life. His political speeches during the Presidential campaign of 1872 are unpar- alleled in our history. We shall presently speak more at length of the results of his labours as a statesman. But it was as a journalist that Mr. Greeley 's genius was most conspicuously illustrated. It is universally agreed that he was the greatest of American journalists; the founder of the most influential of newspapers. Mr. Greeley was not superior to all other great editors in that enterprise which pro- cures intelligence of passing events at the earliest practicable moment. He was not equal to others in making journalism profitable. There are two ideas of journalism extant in the land, radically different the one from the other. One is, that a newspaper is solely a business establishment for the sale of news and such matters of intelligence as the public will be likely to buy. The other idea is that a journal should be not only the medium of all current intelligence but a teacher also. It should have ideas of its own; convictions. No newspaper was ever better, as such, than The Tribune; not one has equalled it as a teacher of the people. Every one of the great morning journals of New- York is this day a better paper than it would have been but for Horace Greeley. And what is true of them is true of all the other great journals of our country. He enlarged the sphere of journalism vastly. More by his influence than that of any other journalist the public press became, not only a record of the world's current events, but also of its ideas. It became very much more than a mere chronicle, however full and varied that chronicle might be. It became also the guardian of the people's rights, as such HIS CHARACTER. 566 respected by government and parties. Very largely through his influence it became the instructor of the people, lifting them up to a plane of intelligence never before reached; an institution more powerful than law, more potential than gov- ernment, an institution so interwoven with the trade, the commerce, the labour, the thoughts, the progress, the happi- ness, of society that its corruption or its destruction would be an unspeakable calamity to mankind. The overthrow of the best government would produce less permanent ill than the overthrow of that all-comprehensive, independent public jour- nalism which the genius of Horace Greeley was so preeminently influential in establishing. It was because he knew that this institution, its representative men guarding its purity and attending to its development with due vigilance and energy, would become the means of the most beneficent influence in behalf of the world's education, peace, progress, happiness, that he desired most of all to be remembered as the Founder of The New- York Tribune. We have seen that Mr. Greeley's opinions and acts were often not only misunderstood, but grossly misrepresented. Such was also the case in respect to his character. Wherefore, Julius Henri Browne most appropriately commenced his mag- azine essay, "Horace Greeley," with the quotation from Emerson to be great, is to be misunderstood following it with the remark that if the converse of this be true, Horace Greeley was undeniably the greatest man of his age. The idiosyncrasies of Mr. Greeley's character have not been more happily or truthfully stated than by this writer: Eccentric and inconsistent as he seemed, and was to a certain extent, law and method were perceptible through all his vagaries to a mind capa- ble of insight and sympathy. Tracing his peculiarities to their source, instead of looking at them externally, his nature was found to have a liar- inony seldom suspected by his ordinary acquaintances. He was mainly different from his fellows in that he obeyed his impulses and said what he thought. All his journeyings, his prominent and commanding position in politics for thirty years, his association with distinguished and leading minds, and his entirely secular pursuits, never made Mr. Greeley a man of the world. He never achieved he never appeared to care for self- discipline, continuing to the very last his habit of giving -way to irrita- bility and petulance like a spoiled child. Ic a word, he was natural, and Co 6 UFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. r.:-f ie3.ltogetner to be bound by mere fonns or conventionalities. He *vas sc sincere that he seemed at times disingenuous, and so candid that he was charged with indirection. Coupled all his life with politicians, though rarely in harmony with them, the contrast between his plainness and their pretense was rendered especially remarkable. Because they could not manage him they called him crotchety, and pronounced him unstable for the reason that he would not do their bidding. Liberal to prodigality as he was in expression, he had certain reserves touching his personality, and of these he spoke not to his nearest friends. He often left his acts to strange conjectures, when a word from him would have made his conduct clear. His privacy he held sacred, rightly thinking that with it the public had nothing to do. His opinions respecting men and measures were at the command of almost anybody; but his innermost Ich, as the German metaphyscians would put it, could not be evoked. The distinguished journalist's nature was eminently dual, and they who failed to recognize this were without the key to his. mystery. Self-made men and few men have owed so little as he to circumstances are prone to incompleteness. One side of their character is developed at the expense of the other. Their struggle is too severe to give leisure for roundness or finish, and when they rise their eminence renders their defects more palpable. The hardness which usually comes from protracted battle with fortune did not belong to Mr. Greeley. On the contrary, he was inclined to sentiment, and yet wholly practical in his plans and modes of accom- plishment. But his mind had been ceaselessly stimulated, while his manners were neglected, and the crudity of these sometimes interfered with the proper appreciation of his manifold virtues. All his imperfec- tions were on the surface, and many of them were so conspicuous that they could not escape general observation. If he had taken half the pains to correct those that he took to develop his intellect and keep his life pure and sweet, he would have been regarded as a, pattern in place of a humour- ist. His faults sprang from his early straits and hardships, which wore insufficient, however, to choke the good seeds implanted by nature, and afterward ripening into such wholesome fruit. Mr. G-reeley's duality was in his sterling manhood and his unconquered childishness. No one doubted his greatness; but this frequently under- went eclipse through his deplorable lack of discipline. Almost in the same moment that he would prove himself a sage and seer he would fall into peevishness, and indulge in freaks which should have shamed a rustic school-boy. In this way he put weapons of ridicule into the hands of his antagonists, and strengthened their disposition to misinterpret him. To his vagaries of temper and personal whimsies he was indebted for the numberless absurdities associated with his name. While a few were aware of the gross injustice of the caricatures put forward as his true portrait, the great mass fancied him to be not materially unlike those satirical rep- resentations. * For a long while nothing was too ridiculous or monstrous to be discredited if told of Mr. Greeley, and witlings of the country press, being conscious of this, were perpetually making him the grotesque hero HIS CHARACTER. 567 of impossible adventures, and the subject of interminable paragraphs. Of late years, however, these fictions were carried so far that they ceased to gain credence even with the most ignorant, though they still continued to excite merriment among those with whom iteration never loses novelty. After the breaking out of our civil war, all persons of intelligence, whatever their party, learned to respect Mr. Greeley, because they thought him a man of earnest convictions, of broad humanity, and inflexible principle. Many considered him impractical, mistaken, visionary ; but his sincerity and integrity were seldom questioned. Judging The Tribune philosopher sympathetically, and making all allowances for his untrained youth, he must still be regarded as a charac- ter combining numerous antagonisms and for the reason that he was one thing through his intellect, and something else through his tempera- ment. He counselled conservatism and expediency sometimes, and was himself radical and headstrong. Principles absorbed him; men scarcely touched him at all. Calm in mental atmospheres, he parted with self- restraint in personal associations. Measures impressed him; politicians annoyed him. Intemperate as he was occasionally with his pen, he was more so with his tongue the ready vehicle of his irritation. His want of discipline prompted him to yield to his moods, which were many and contradictory, and not to be foreseen even by himself. As may be sup- posed, his casual acquaintances judged him by his manners, and the public by his mind ; and this accounts for the different views held of Horace Greeley the individual, and Horace Greeley the journalist and reformer. In the latter capacity he will go down to posterity ; the coming years will swallow up his minor defects, and leave his large virtues only to be remembered. If it was Mr. Greeley's fate to be misapprehended, much of this misap- prehension arose from his own waywardness, "mood iness, and determination not to set himself right. Assured of the rectitude of his conduct, he was careless of the impression formed of it, except in instances where temper about trifles got the better of his native judgment. He would be patient and reticent under a serious accusation, when a petty paragraph in an obscure journal would drive him to exasperation. He would declare his supreme unconcern as to the opinions expressed of some policy he had chosen, and an hour later would write a card, bitterly personal, upon a matter too trivial to be noticed. His friends could not be certain of him, for he could not be certain of himself. His growing up wild, so to speak, left a certain trace of social savagery in his nature that could not be eradicated subsequently, even had he made an effort to that end. After every attempt to explain his eccentricities and reconcile his inconsisten- cies, something of the unintelligible will adhere to his character, which was unquestionably unique. He was not only unlike other men he was unlike himself often. General rules failed to apply to him on account of numerous exceptions, which, in his case, might almost have been bound into a rule. 568 IIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. There was no particle of deceitfulness in Mr. Greeley's char- acter. His naturalness, sincerity, candour, plainness, were ever manifest. No man was ever more richly endued with practicality, no one ever had his life guided by more lofty heroic sentiment. As the critics have pronounced Fenimore Cooper's character, "Leather-stocking," a poet in reality, though he could hardly spell his own name, so Horace Greeley found beauty and sublimity in many things which were to others common-place, and lived in an atmosphere of exalted feeling and reflection not at all of the earth earthy. His earnestness was one of his most notable characteristics. I think he did not know fear. He appeared perfectly uncon- cerned on the floor of Congress when all others were fiercely excited; he laughed at the mob which caused the cheeks of men who had faced the cannon's mouth to blanch. Perfect integrity was blood of his blood and bone of his bone. He never drew a dishonest breath. He was so perfectly honest that he could not assume the meaningless hypocricies of social courtesies. Much of his alleged irritability was, in fact, but manifestation of his downright honesty. " Mr. Greeley," said the gentleman-usher of a delegation of Republican politicians who once called to instruct him as to the conduct of the cam- paign in New York, " these gentlemen have great influence in the State; they are of the highest standing; they are " " A set of confounded asses," broke in Mr. Greeley, "who are wasting their time and trying to waste mine by coming here." At the bottom of this there was something very different from rudeness. To his liberality there was no limit, as there was not, either, to his magnanimity. A more thorough American, a more genuine democrat, never lived. Had he become Presi- dent of the United States, he would have reformed the glitter- ing style of the Capital to the simplicity and beauty of the elder times; and voluptuous lives would have been kindly rebuked and chastened under the influence of his unspotted purity. Such the genius, such the character of Horace Greeley, he was able to render his countrymen and mankind services of inestimable value, all the good results of which shall not, cease HIS PUBLIC SERVICES. 569 nntil the human race shall have accomplished its destiny and passed away. If the best genius be really Work, who ever possessed it in higher degree or greater measure than he? When he was engaged in the hard work of conducting partisan newspapers, he did much to dignity and ennoble politics. The Jetfersonian campaign journal was not only potential in giving New York to the Whigs, but was repre- sentative of a lofty political morality and of a broad and earnest patriotism. The Log-Cabin newspaper could never have gained its wide circulation and unequalled influence, even during the exciting campaign in which it originated, but for the fact that it was not approached by any of its great and brilliant rivals, in the presentation of arguments for the reform and purification of government, and in the advocacy of measures for the well-being of the people. And afterwards, during the continuance of the Whig party, Hjorace Greeley, though ever identified with that organization was much more than a Whig. Once formally and expressly, and many times in reality, he utterly disavowed the platform of the party, an(J was constantly enraging the managers and the manipulators by the advocacy of reforms outside of party, which were at the time unpopular. If the Whig party did not earnestly oppose a war in the interest of slavery, if it did not become the champion of Free Soil, it was because it failed to see the right and into the future as Horace Greeley did. Mr. Greeley's services in the Republican party were great, not only in securing success for that organization, but in behalf of the country, when it obtained control of the govern- ment. Not a beneficent measure, not a wise policy to which that party gave success but had Horace Greeley among its earliest friends and for its bravest, most eificient advocate. And he departed from it the moment he was convinced that it could not be trusted to carry out policies and reforms for the pacification of the country and the purification of the govern- ment. When, as he conceived, the progress and prosperity of the republic, the present and future welfare of the people, demanded the disruption of existing parties and the formation of a new one, he severed old political ties and associated him- 570 LTFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. pelf with those in y the success of whose principles lay the highest good for all his countrymen. Sooner or later the whole people will agree that the reforms of which Horace Greeley became the most eminent representative man in 1872 were based upon wisdom, the highest statesmanship, the loftiest and purest patriotism; and that if those reforms shall be long postponed, it can only be through the most melancholy calamity if not the ruin of his country. I have said that Ilorace Greeley was, while he acted with the "Whig party, much more than a Whig. So, too, he was more than a Republican, and then more than a Liberal. Ho was not like Burke, "Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." How many reforms did he advocate when they were un- popular! Among American statesmen he may be regarded as the originator of the Homestead policy. It is difficult to believe that when he first introduced and advocated a Home- stead bill in Congress, it was treated with ridicule and taunts and received only his own vote. The Temperance reform ever had in him an earnest and powerful friend. Among the earliest and strongest advocates of cheap postage, he for years in- curred the displeasure of men in office by his persistent demand for the abolition of the franking privilege. Who was an earlier or more powerful friend of Emancipation than Horace Greeley! There was not one who so strongly and persistently urged the wisdom and the justice of impartial suffrage. There was no policy of the reconstruction of the Union after the war of the rebellion having so much of wisdom, and justice, and safety, and greatness in it as the policy enunciated by Horace Greeley before the thunders of the terrible conflict had been entirely stilled. And whensoever and wheresoever that policy was adopted, it was at once shown to be as practi- cally beneficent, as it was generous, magnanimous in idea. To Labour Reform he ever gave hearty assent and effective work. Erase from our legislation and our history the measures which have been of the greatest good to the people, the HIS SERVICES TO MANKIND. 571 reforms of the highest importance to the welfare of the hody politic and the benefit of all mankind, with which the name of Horace Greeley is associated as a prominent and efficient friend, and that legislation and history would have so little in it of credit to our nationality that no detriment would come to the good name of the republic should the memory of it entirely pass away. Think of the United States without the Pacific Railroad, without Emancipation, without impartial suffrage, without the homestead act, without the sanctity of the national debt, without cheap postage, without the educa r tion of all the people, without amnesty for our " lately erring countrymen," without the triumph of argument and reason for the settlement of international difficulties! Such would be the country, entitled to small share of high respect and admiration, but for the policies and reforms of which Horace Greeley was as influential a representative man as any of his cotemporaries. Of some of these policies and measures, with more of like nature that might be mentioned, he was a friend, when to be their friend was unpopularity, misrepre- sentation, obloquy. But the greatest service which Horace Greeley rendered his country and mankind was in the establishment and conduct of The New- York Tribune. And this not only because the journal placed in his hands a means of influence more effica- cious than any office could have done, but because of the character of his paper and in the good it conferred upon the people of his own and of other countries in very many ways. The expression is hackneyed, but it is true that his journal was from the day of its establishment The Tribune of the People. If, during the existence of the Whig party, it was trammelled by partizan necessities, yet even then did it fear- lessly and generously give fair play to every struggling reform and a candid examination to all ideas in whose realization practical good might be accomplished. After the demise of the Whig party, it made a new departure in respect of the discussion of political topics. " It became," said The Chicago Tribune, " the champion of freedom, the champion of the men held in slavery, the champion of a Free Republic. Restrained 672 LIFE OF HORACE ORKEI.ET. by no platforms, by no considerations of mere expediency, by the hopes of no candidates, it made the direct fight in behalf of the principles of Truth, Freedom, and Justice. It fired the Northern heart; it ronsed the slumbering instincts of human justice; it tore men from old party associations; it placed the question in the light that men had to choose between right and wrong; it revolutionized public sentiment, and revolu- tionized parties, and brought about that grand decision that it was possible to elect a government which was under no obligation to uphold Slavery or permit its extension." The meaning of this is, and it is perfectly true, that Horace Gree- ley organized victory for a Free-Soil party. He made the success of the Republican party possible. Whatever great good it was able to confer upon the country was very largely due to the influence and power of The New- York Tribune. Government itself is a means, not an end, a means whereby the good of the body politic may be accomplished. Much more is party a means, its end being to gain possession of the government. Horace Greeley, both through The Tribune and as a practical politician, did more for the organization of the Republican party than any other one of our statesmen. When the party had gained control of the government, he did more to control its vital policy than any other. Contrast the sublime spirit of his letter to President Lincoln, " The Prayer of Twenty Millions," with President Lincoln's flouting reply! " The Prayer " had to be answered by a better reply than that. It came in the proclamation which has canonized its author. President Lincoln wrote the Proclamation; it was Horace Greeley who inspired it. Thus he organized parties, led them to victory, and theli the government to the performance of its greatest and most beneficent acts; to the adoption of polity conferring the highest good upon his country and exerting the best influence upon mankind. So was it demonstrated that the people need not be subject either to party domination or governmental errors long pursued; that, as they are themselves the creators of parties and of government, so they have the means of coercing, if need be, both the one and the other, to the execution of their HIS SERVICES TO MANKIND. 573 sovereign will. And this, not by force but by argument and reason. The independent press is undoubtedly one of the beneficent logical developments of the free institutions established by the founders of our American Republic. But in giving that press character as representative of the whole people, armed, there- fore, with power superior to that of party or of the state, the genius "of Horace Greeley was preeminently originating and potential. And it is not impossible that the establisment thus of public journalism as a powerful means to the people of peaceful revolution, while not ceasing to be their daily teacher, may come to be generally regarded as amongst the greatest victories of freedom. A score of great journals, thoroughly independent, unbought and unpurchasable, are a safer defense -of the rights and liberties of the people, than the constitutional obligations of all the partizans of all parties. But Horace Greeley not only rendered this service of incal- culable value to his country by the establishment of The Tribune and the character his genius impressed upon it^ making it the most powerful means of political influence which was ever exerted by reason and persuasion and peaceful appeal; but, as we have seen, he also conferred notable benefits upon literature, art, every good reform ; encouraged, cheered every attempt at progress in every land; constantly directed all peoples onward and upward; fearlessly assailed every wrong and every abuse, utterly regardless of personal consequences to the editor; almost daily laboured to prepare the way whereby all peoples may settle national and international disputes, all the while eliminating progress, without appeal to the barbar- ism of war; but through the peaceful means of intelligent public opinion. If the sublime polity which Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright have so conspicuously advocated shall be realized: nations learning war no more, injustice and oppres- sion giving way to the just rule of democracy: it will be found and cheerfully admitted that in bringing about a consumma- tion so greatly to be wished, The New-York Tribune's early and powerful arguments in that behalf were of great and last- ing value. 574 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. Such, in briefest outline, were the inestimable services ren- dered his country and mankind by Horace Greeley. It will hardly be doubted by the candid that they were greater and better than those which many, if any, of his (^temporaries were able to perform. During all his wonderfully active life, and though the greatest honours were conferred upon him by friends and the widest renown by the world, yet he never ceased for an instant to be the devoted friend of the labouring man, himself ever remaining one of the People plain, unos- tentatious, unsophisticated in the indirect ways of the world. He was not a perfect character. He made some mistakes; he was guilty of certain solecisms of speech and of breeding which were unfortunate, but never of any malignity or premeditated unkindness. He was a great, a good, an honest man, whose worse faults were rather those of manner than of character, and whose entire unselfishness, sublime philanthropy, magna- nimity more than of the earth, work for man's progress and happiness, make a lesson which can forever be studied with profit; while the triumphs of his wonderful genius can only be appropriately recorded on the pages of that history which shall recount the most important, the most beneficent events in the annals of his country and of his times. cr> 3 1970 00127 3645