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THE 
 
 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM M: CORNELL, LL.D., 
 
 u 
 
 AUTHOR OF "life OF ROBERT RAIKES," ETC. 
 
 BOSTON 
 D. LOTHROP & COMPANY 
 
 FRANKLIN STREET 
 
,0 i Ci 
 
 Copyright, 1882. 
 D. LoTHKop & Company. 
 
TO 
 
 EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN 
 
 IN OUR COUNTRY, 
 
 WHERE HONOR, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS DEPEND ON HIS OWN 
 
 INTEGRITY, HONESTY, AND ECONOMY, 
 
 AND WHERE 
 
 EVERY ONE MAY ATTAIN TO THE HIGHEST HONOR OF THE NATION, 
 
 . €f)is %ih anH dTarccr 
 
 OF A SELF-MADE, INDUSTRIOUS, ECONOMICAL, AND 
 
 HONEST MAN 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BV 
 
 The Author. 
 

INTEODUCTION. 
 
 USE OF BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL sketches of *great and good men have 
 always been useful in the -world. Indeed, no class of writ- 
 ings have had such vast influence in forming the character of the 
 young, either for weal or woe, as these. Conquerors have been 
 made by reading the lives of conquerors that have preceded 
 them ; heroes, by reading of heroes ; and martyrs, clergymen, 
 eminent business-men, and persons in all professions, have been 
 inspired with that supreme devotion and energy to an object that 
 has enabled them to overcome all obstacles, and achieve the 
 same as, or even more than, those after whom they patterned. 
 
 Thus presidents of the United States have already been 
 elevated to that high position by letting the people know who 
 they were, what they had done, and their capacity for such an 
 office. In this way our excellent Lincoln and our General Grant 
 were ushered into a more elevated position than that of kings, 
 because borne thither by a free and enlightened people. 
 
 The Creator, the Fountain of all good, seems to have acted 
 upon this principle in giving us the Bible ; in which he has set 
 before us, for our imitation, the character of Abraham, Moses, 
 David, Daniel, and many other holy men among the Old- Testa- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ment worthies. And we know indeed, from the New Testa- 
 ment, that the grand object had in view by the Holy One, in 
 portraying their characters, was for our imitation. Hence we are 
 expressly told, " Whatsoever things were written aforetime were 
 written for oiu' learning, that we through patience, and comfort of 
 the scriptures, might have hope." Hence the writer to the He- 
 brews brings before us that host of " worthies," till the number 
 seems to swell beyond his powers of description ; and he exclaims, 
 "And what shall I more say? for the time would fail." All these 
 were named, with their heroic deeds, for what ? — " Seeing we 
 also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let 
 us run with patience the race that is set before us." In other 
 words, seeing, knowing, what others have done, taking them as our 
 examples, let us discharge our duty as they did ; let us " press 
 toward the mark for the prize of the high calling." Deeply 
 imbued with this principle of rising, of coming up to the highest 
 round of the ladder of human perfectibility. Dr. Young said, — 
 
 " All can do what has by man been done." 
 
OOK'TEK'TS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Their Peculiarities. — Londonderry settled by Them. — Their Industry.— 
 Their Diet. — Anecdotes of their Ministers. — The New-England Meet- 
 ing-Houses 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 
 
 The Name Greeley. — His Ancestors. — The Woodburn Family. — Horace 
 supposed to be Dead. — An Early Reader. — His First School. — New- 
 England Schoolhouses then. — School-Books. — His First Piece. — Al- 
 ways did his "Stint." — No Sportsman 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HORACE REMOVES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE, 
 
 Horace's Father loses his Property. — The Old Greek Law. — Great Sacri- 
 fice.— Moves to West Haven, Vt. — Horace's Dress. —At School he aids 
 the Other Scholars. — A Checker-Player. — He scours the Country for 
 Books. — Visits his Friends in Londonderry. — Taken for an Idiot. — His 
 Teetotalism. — He begins to be a Politician. — His Description of it later 
 in Life 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HORACE BECOMES AN APPRENTICE. 
 
 Horace visits Poultney. — His Description by Mr. Bliss. — He is a Match 
 for the School-committee Man. — He is emjiloyed. — What the Other 
 Printers in the Otfice think of him. — Horace in the Lyceum. — He 
 boards at the Tavern, but won't drink. — What a New- York Physician 
 said of him. — Anti-Masonry of that Time 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HORACE TRAVELS, AND ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. 
 
 Mr. Greeley moves to Pennsylvania. — He leaves Vermont.— Visits his 
 Father's Log-Cabin. — Visits Jamestown for Work. — Next goes to 
 Erie — His Amusing Reception. — Goes to Work. — A Lady's Opinion 
 of him. — He leaves Erie. —His Arrival in New York. — His finding a 
 Boarding-House. — Gets into an Office. — Mr. West's Opinion of him. — 
 His Success as a Typo. — Works on " The Spirit of the Times." — Visits 
 New Hampshire. — A Good Dinner 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GREELEY COMMENCES BUSINESS. 
 
 Horace in the "Watch-House." — Greeley driven to New York. — "The 
 Morning Post" fails. —He appeals in Vain to his Subscribers to pay. 
 
 — His Honesty and Integrity. — His Editorial Luxuries. — Interview 
 with the Wrathy Quack. — Horace's Poetry. — "The New-Yorker." — 
 '• The Jeft'ersonian," — "The Log-Cabin." — His Marriage. — His Wed- 
 ding-Tour. —He cuts up Fashions and Opinions. — His Activity in the 
 Campaign of 1840. — He asked for no Office 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 HORACE GREELEY'S TEMPERANCE. 
 
 Horace will not drink. — Aids in forming a Temperance Society. — His 
 Opinion of Cider-Guzzling. — Liquor used by Everybody. — Why Cities 
 always go for Liquor-Selling. — The Man in whom an Iceberg formed. 
 
 — Horace foreshadows a Prohibitory Law. — Sylvester Graham. — Died 
 of Chagrin. — Mr. Greeley's Grahamism. — Finds his Wife at the Graham 
 Boarding-House. — On the Whole, he thinks favorably of eating more 
 Fruit, and less Meat 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MR. GREELEY AND ''THE TRIBUNE." 
 
 Mr. Greeley had tried his Fortune with Several Journals. — He starts " The 
 Tribune" Alone. — Takes a Partner. — Their Adaptedness to Each 
 Other. — ''The Tribune" a Success. — "Fanny Fern's" Adventure to 
 get a Copy. — "The Tribune" a Whig Paper. — It attacks the New- 
 York City Government; also the Theatre-Goers. — Is pounced upon by 
 the Other Papers. — Mr. Greeley justifies his Course towards John 
 Tyler. — He tells what he wanted "The Tribune" to be from the first.— 
 How Candidates for Public Favor are used 118 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "THE TRIBUNE" CONTINUED. 
 
 "The Tribune" changed to a Two-cent Paper. — A Mob in New York. — 
 Mr. Greeley's First Visit to Washington. — His Letter from Mount Ver- 
 non. — From Saratoga. — Margaret Fuller and Mr. Greeley. — Mr. Gree- 
 ley's Opinion of John Tyler. — Burning of "The Ti'ibune " Building. — 
 Mr. Greeley's Description of it afterwards , 133 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MR. GREELEY IN" POLITICS. 
 
 Mr. Greeley a Politician from hia Youth. — A Great Friend of the United- 
 States Bank. — A Friend of William H. Seward. — Opposed to Gen. 
 Jackson. — Greeley in the Harrison Campaign. — Deep in Politics . . 14S 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 
 
 Elected to Congress. — Attacks the Mileage Fraud. — Mr. Greeley accused 
 of Inconsistency. — His Explanation. — His Reports to ''The Tribune" 
 attacked. — He Introduces the Mileage Bill. — Sticks to his Opinion of 
 Gen. Taylor's Nomination. — Address to his Constituents. — Our Object 
 not to extol him, but to tell what ho has done. — Quotation from Mr. 
 Greeley's Whig xilmanac. — His Effort to save Money. — Mr. Turner's 
 Resolutions. — Mr. Greeley's Reply. — Mr. Greeley not a Dead-Head. 
 — Facetious Discussion on the Mileage Question. — Second Address to 
 hia Constituents 164 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 MR. GREELEY AND HIS BEGGARS AND BORROWERS. 
 
 New York and Beggars. — A Few of the Sufferers. — Bagging for Churches. 
 — Chronic Beggars. — Borrowers. — Not to injure the Needy. — A Case 
 stated. — Borrowers of Strangers never pay. — A Beggar's Letter. — 
 Church-Members Begging or Sorrowing. — Associations can deal with 
 Beggars bettor than Individuals can. — Does not condemn Borrowing 
 wholly. — A Duty to lend sometimes. — Remarks 198 
 
 CHAPTER XHI. 
 
 MR. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Mr. Greeley discussed Many Subjects. — The Rochester Rapplngs. — He 
 didn't desire a Second Sitting. — Interview with Jenny lAndi. — Siance 
 at Mr. Greeley's House. — He witnesses a Juggle or Trick. — He deals 
 with the Trick. — He thinks the Devil would not be engaged in such 
 Business. — Found he could spend his Time more Profitably, — Thinks 
 we had better do our Duty to the Living —Thinks Great Men wrote 
 Better while living than since they died.— Their Communications 
 Vague and Trivial. — Spirits proved to be Ignorant. —The Great Body 
 of Spiritualists made Worse by it. — SpirituaUsts are Bigots . . . 212 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 
 
 These Suits Numerous. — J. Fenimore Cooper's Character valued at Two 
 Hundred Dollars. — His Nephew and himself the Lawyers. — Horace his 
 own Lawyer. — Horace not allowed to plead his own Case and to have 
 Counsel; but Cooper is allowed to. — Injustice and Absurdity of the 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Law of Libel in tlie State of New York. — The Whig Editors only 
 prosecuted. — Editors do not claim Immunity to Libels. — Mr. Greeley's 
 Logic — Base Fellows. — New- York Laws Worse than English. "iThe 
 Greater the Truth stated, the Greater the Libel. — Mr. Greeley did 
 Much for the Press in this Case. — Wonderful Rapidity of Writing. — . 
 The Judge's Charge Worse than Cooper's Plea. — Mr. Greeley gives a 
 most Humorous Turn to this Whole Libel-Business. — His Defence re- 
 sulted in Good 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MR. GREELEY'S VISITS TO EUROPE. 
 
 His First Visit in 1851.— At the World's Fair of that Year, he is made 
 Chairman of one of the Juries. He delivers the Addi'ess to the Con- 
 structor of the Palace. — His Second Visit to the Old World. — He is 
 arrested in Paris for Debt, and imprisoned 260 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HORACE GREELEY'S VARIETY OF CHARACTERS. 
 
 Mr. Greeley's Views of Working-Men. — Mr. Greeley as a Lectui-er. — Mr. 
 Greeley an Author. — The Work published —Addresses and Essays.— 
 All for the Working-Men.— Mr. Greeley as a Man of Letters. — The 
 Great Trees of Mariposa. — His Honesty. — '• The Tribune" an Educa- 
 tor. — An Editor to speak reproachfully of Horace Greeley — what is 
 ho? — What Whil tier, the Quaker-Poet, said. — How much it implies. — 
 "He who would strike Horace Greeley would strike his Mother." — Tes- 
 timony of Rev. Dr. Bellows; of W. E. Robinson ; of the Poet Whittier. 
 — Remarks on Mr. Greeley s Letter of Acceptance of the Cincinnati 
 Nomination.- On his J^ress.- Of his Inconsistency. — Proposal to buy 
 the Slaves.— Signing Jeff. Davis's Bail. — Comparison between Abra- 
 ham Lincoln and Horace Greeley in their Childhood and Youth: both 
 Poor; both Readers; both loved by their Fellows; both excelled their 
 Teachers 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Division of the Republican Party. — Platform of the Liberals. — They nom- 
 inate Horace Greeley at the Cincinnati Convention as their candidate for the 
 Presidency. — He is also nominated by the Democratic convention at Balti- 
 more. — His Western Tour. — Electoral returns in November. — He loses 
 the Election, but receives a large number of Votes. — Resumption of Edito- 
 rial office of "The Tribune." — Death of his Wife. — His Insomnia 
 assumes a critical phase. — He gives up his work at "The Tribune" 
 office. — Contributes to but fevv' issues of the paper. —Upon consultation 
 of Physicians he is taken to the residence of Dr. Choate,_near Chappaqua. 
 — All hope of his recovery given up. — Insomnia develops into Inflammation 
 of the Brain. — He dies on the evening of November 29th, 1872 . 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 THE CONTEST ENDED. 
 
 Universal Grief throughout the country. — Lying in state at the City Hall in 
 New York. — Large proportion of the working People in the waiting 
 
CONTENTS. 13 
 
 crowds. — Touching Incidents. — Floral Decorations. — Funeral Services 
 at Dr. Chapin's Church. — Extracts from Addresses by Henry Ward Beecher 
 and Dr. Chapin. — Procession to the Cemetery. — Proposal of the Printers 
 to erect a Monument to his memory at Greenwood. — Completion of the 
 same in the autumn of 1876. — The unveiling of the Statue. — Extract from 
 Bayard Taylor's Address. — Description of the Monument .... 306 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Portrait of Horace Gkeeley . . • . . . FrontiqiUo: 
 
 ^ VAC,-, 
 
 Horace Greeley's Birthplace 12 
 
 The School-house 53 
 
 The N. Y. TRIBU^fE Building at Night ., . . . . 198 
 
 i( 
 
i 
 
 (>. 
 
LIFE OF HOEACE GEEELEY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 
 
 Their Peciiliarities. — Londonderry settled by Them. — Their Industry. — 
 Their Diet. — Anecdotes "of their Ministers. — The New-England Meet- 
 ing-Houses. 
 
 THESE have ever been, and still are, " a peculiar 
 people.-' Those who early settled New Hamp- 
 sliire, where Horace Greeley was born, were of this 
 peculiar cast. They came from Ulster, in the 
 northern part of Ireland (from which a very large 
 number of our eminent rnen and " merchant princes " 
 have come). They were of that blood which -will tell 
 wherever it is found. One of the six counties of this 
 northern province of the " Emerald Isle" was London- 
 derry. The inhabitants were intensely Protestant, 
 and generally Presbyterian. They were brave men ; 
 and, when that city was besieged, they defended it 
 against a besieging army till they slew nine thousand 
 
 2 18 
 
14 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 of them, until three thousand of their own number 
 had fallen, till they were reduced to such a state of 
 starvation that a quarter of a dog was sold for five 
 shillings and sixpence, and till horse-flesh brought 
 one and sixpence a pound, a rat one shilling, and a 
 mouse sixpence. Still they would not and did not 
 surrender. May it not have been well said, then, 
 that Presbyterians are a set and stiff people ? Every 
 one knows what they are on the Scotch side, which 
 makes half of their name : " for it behooveth a Scots- 
 man to be right ; for, if he be wrong, he is forever and 
 eternally wrong." 
 
 It was by this class of people that London- 
 derry, N.H., was chiefly settled. The first of these 
 emigrants came in 1718 ; and a few of them stopped 
 for a time in Boston, and founded the church to 
 which Rev. Dr. Channing and the late Dr. Gannett 
 preached, and for which Rev. Dr. Blaikie, of similar 
 blood, has long been contending. But the greater 
 part of them went directly to Londonderry, and to 
 other towns in Rockingham County, N.H. ; and the,' 
 others from Boston soon followed them. 
 
 There they lived as brethren and neighbors, — an 
 industrious, hard-working people, willing to earn their 
 living, and carrying out the declaration of the Biblej 
 (which was about all the book they had), — "If any! 
 would not work, neither should he eat," 
 
 I 
 
THE SCOTCH-miSH. 15 
 
 Their industry was so remarkable, that they brought 
 their spinning and weaving implements witli them 
 from their native land. They raised much flax, and 
 made the first linen ever manufactured in New Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Though the potato was of American origin, yet it 
 was never cultivated to any considerable extent here 
 till this colony did it ; and it has ever been a current 
 report, that a farmer in the vicinity of Londonderry 
 attempted to boil and eat the balls from the potato- 
 tops, instead of the potato itself, but, upon making 
 the trial, declared them to be worthless. This well- 
 authenticated item makes a good offset to the farmer 
 who boiled the tea for greens, and also declared it 
 " of no value." 
 
 They were so frugal and economical, that they used 
 to walk barefooted, carrying their shoes and stockings 
 in their hands till coming near the church or to 
 where they were bound, when they put them on : and 
 one old bachelor was said to be so neat, that when he 
 arrived at the "meeting-house, if ,his shoes were 
 dusty, he wiped them with his white pocket-handker- 
 chief." 
 
 They did not use tea or coffee till about the year 
 1800. Borrowing and lending were very common 
 among them ; though buying and selling were almost 
 unknown. If they killed a calf or a pig, it was 
 
16 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 usually lent out to the neighbors, to be repaid when 
 they did a like deed. Women did their full share of 
 the work both in tho house and on the farm. They 
 were a strong, long-lived race, and generally reared 
 large families. 
 
 Though they were, as we have stated, a rigid race 
 of religious men and women, yet they were full of 
 glee and mirth ; and though they always read the 
 Bible morning and evening with family prayer, and 
 though the Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism 
 was their solemn creed, which all their children were 
 compelled to learn, yet no people were ever more full 
 of fun than these stiff Presbyterians. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Morrison — a Presbyterian name 
 among them to this day, and one of their lineal 
 descendants — says, " A prominent trait in the 
 character of the Scotch-Irish was their wit. No 
 subject was kept sacred from it. The thoughtless, 
 the grave, the old, and the young, alike enjoyed it. 
 Our fathers were serious, thoughtful men ; but they 
 lost no occasion that might promise sport. Weddings, 
 huskings, log-rollings, and raisings, — what a host of 
 queer stories is connected with them ! Our ancestors 
 dearly loved fun. There was a grotesque humor, and 
 yet a seriousness, pathos, and strangeness, about them'^ 
 which, in its way, has, perhaps, never been equalled 
 Jt was the sternness of the Scotch covenanter, softene 
 
THE SCOTCH-IRISH. It 
 
 by a century's residence abroad amid persecution and 
 trial, wedded to the comic humor and pathos of thej 
 Irish, and then grown wild in the woods among their 
 own New-England mountains." 
 
 Many quaint anecdotes are told of their clergy, 
 while they were the strictest sect of religionists in the 
 world. Thus it is related that a British officer, during 
 the " old French war," one Sunday morning entered 
 the meeting-house in Londonderry in such a shining 
 uniform, that he attracted the attention of the young 
 misses, standing as he did in a conspicuous place, far 
 more than the solemn sermon of the good old parson. 
 Rev. Matthew Clark. The old man bore it as long as 
 he could ; but perceiving that he was not inclined to 
 be seated, and that so much attention was given to his 
 superb dress, at length he stopped, laid by his sermon, 
 and, addressing the officer, said, " Ye're a braw 
 (brave) lad ; ye hae a braw suit of claithes, and we 
 hae a' seen them : ye may sit down." As though 
 suddenly shot, the officer dropped into a seat. 
 
 Rev. E. L. Parker, in his history of Londonderry, 
 gives the following specimen of William Clark's 
 pulpit peculiarities. His subject was Peter's assur- 
 • ance that he would not deny his Master. " Just like 
 Peter, aye mair forrit (forward) than wise, ganging 
 swaggering aboot wi' a sword at his side : an' a puir 
 ban' he mad' o' it when he cam' to the trial ; for he 
 
 2* 
 
18 LIFE or HORACE GREELElT. 
 
 only cut off uii chiel's lug (ear), arC he ought to hae 
 split down his head^ 
 
 We are told (we have referred to their strictness 
 in family religion) that the first minister of London- 
 derry, upon hearing that one of his flock was neg- 
 lecting family worship, repaired to his dwelling the 
 same evening that he learned the sad news. It was 
 late, and the family had retired : but he roused up 
 the head of the family ; asked him if the report he 
 had heard was true, and if he had omitted family 
 prayer that evening. The man said he had. Then 
 he made him call up his wife and perform with her 
 the neglected duty before he would leave the house. 
 
 They were a singularly honest people ; and this may 
 in some measure account for the fact, that now, while 
 the opponents say all manner of cruel things about 
 Horace Greeley, they all say he is honest. They had a 
 law, if a .man found any thing on the road, he should 
 leave it at the next tavern. In 1774, one John Mor- 
 rison found an axe, and did not leave it at the next 
 tavern, nor make proclamation, as the law directed. 
 The session convicted him ; though John contended 
 that the axe was of so small value, that it would not 
 pay the expense of proclaiming, &c. So he stands 
 there recorded on the town-record of 1774. 
 
 A volume might be filled with the singular anec- 
 dotes of this " peculiar people ; " but it is not required 
 
a^H]e SCOTCH-IRISH. 19 
 
 for our present purpose. We add simply a sketch of 
 the old, uncouth churches of New England such as 
 Horace Greeley was compelled to attend in his child- 
 hood : of these New Hampshire had its full share : — 
 
 " Of these we have a distinct recollection : we 
 mean tliose erected by the Puritans and their Presby- 
 terian brethren. They were queer, uncouth things, 
 having the large door in the side, and one at each end 
 for ingress and egress. The aisles were wide ; the 
 pews high, nearly square, with a seat on every side, 
 and a low one for the small children ; a table for the 
 man, then the head of the family, upon which to lay 
 his psalm-book. The consequence was, that a part of 
 the audience had to sit with their backs to the minis- 
 ter ; and, when the psalm-singing ceased, there was a 
 clattering of letting down tables like the slamming 
 of fifty doors. A gallery all round the inside of the 
 house accommodated the boys and girls with a con- 
 venient resting-place, where they could whittle, whis- 
 per, pull each other's ears or hair, or behave decently, 
 as they preferred ; but when Deacon S., the tithing- 
 man, was in his place, most of them did the latter, 
 lest they should get a switch from his birch. 
 
 " These ' meeting-houses ' had an abundance of 
 windows, tier above tier, to let in the light of heaven 
 unstained; for blinds, curtains, and ' painted glass,' 
 were then among the things that were not : all this 
 
20 . LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 showing manifestly that the worshippers ' loved light 
 rather than darkness.' 
 
 " There was no provision made for warming these 
 houses, save only as some old ladies carried foot- 
 stoves, made of tin, and hooped round with wood, 
 with a tin dish or saucer to hold live coals of hickory 
 or oak (for good wood was then plenty) ; and these 
 good old dames thus warmed their feet and those of 
 the small children by placing them over these tin 
 boxes, which had holes in their tops through which the 
 heat ascended. Stoves then, for burning Lehigh and 
 Lackawana, were not : indeed, these very heat-pro- 
 ducing articles themselves had never been heard of. 
 But the people were healthy ; and though cold, and 
 often chilled, we heard of but few cases of bronchitis 
 or throat-diseases as at present. 
 
 " When a lad, we have sat with our feet almost 
 frozen, watching the old minister, who had officiated 
 in the same desk forty years, as he turned over leaf 
 after leaf of his manuscript, hoping (often almost 
 against hope) that each would be the last. But what 
 seems remarkable to us at the present time is, that no 
 one staid away from the meeting (the name of church 
 was then unknown, only as referring to the body of 
 professors) on account of the cold ; and none were 
 made sick by sitting two hours in a house built of 
 wood, and not very tight, with the temperature (if we 
 
THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 21 
 
 had possessed any thing to have measured it with ; 
 which we did not, thermometers then being unknown, 
 or at least unused in the country) ten or twenty 
 degrees below zero. There was not half the consump- 
 tion then that there is now. May it not be justly in- 
 ferred, if we heated our churches now, and our dwell- 
 ings too, as we did then, that consumption would be 
 diminished one-half? Our present mode of heating 
 must be changed. 
 
 " We could give some curious anecdotes of the wars 
 of those days — like those between the ' red and the 
 white roses ' — which prevailed between deacons, 
 deacons' wives, and * men of standing,' in families, 
 when the question of putting in stoves came to be 
 discussed. Then those terrible ' tempests in tea- 
 pots,' as well as among tea and spirit drinkers ; for all 
 ministers, deacons, and others drank spirit in those 
 days, and all women (whose husbands could afford it) 
 drank tea. We remember one case where Mrs. Dea- 
 con S. had fought against a stove, and Mrs. Deacon 
 B. for one ; till finally, when Mrs. Deacon B.'s party 
 prevailed, Mrs. Deacon S. was carried out faint, and, 
 when she recovered, said that it was that terribly hot 
 stove that caused it ; but, though the stove was there, 
 no fire had been made in it. ' • 
 
 " The .Old South Church and the Rev. Dr. Put- 
 ; nam's, we believe, are the only houses of worship, built 
 
 /j 
 
22 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 after that antique fashion, now left. The Brattle- 
 square and the Stone Chapel approximate that 
 form ; and how they came to escape a perfect simi- 
 larity to them, built in the same age, is more than 
 we can tell. Thus nearly all these old edifices have 
 disappeared from New England ; and others, many of 
 which are no improvement upon their predecessors, 
 have taken their places." 
 
 It was in one of these " unsteepled houses," as 
 William Penn called his " Quaker churches," that 
 the ancestors of Horace Greeley heard the first pastor 
 of Londonderry — Rev. James McGregor — preach, 
 and say the curious things above cited ; and also the 
 following : " ' I can do all things.' Ay, can ye, Paul ? 
 I'll bet ye a dollar o' that " (placing the dollar on the 
 desk). " But stop: let's see what else Paul says: ' I 
 can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth 
 me.' Ay, sae can I, Paul : I draw my bet." And he 
 returned the dollar to his pocket. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 
 
 The Name Greeley. — His Ancestors. — The Woodburu Family. — Horace 
 supposed to be Dead. — An Early Reader. — His First School. — New- 
 England Schoolhouses then. — School-Books. — His First Piece. — Al- 
 ways did his " Stint." — No Sportsman. 
 
 AS was the case with nearly all who emigrated 
 to New England in those early days, so it was 
 with the ancestors of Horace Greeley, — " three broth- 
 ers " first came over. The name has been variously 
 spelled, like many others, — sometimes Greeley, then 
 Greely, Greale, Greele ; but they seem to have all 
 sprung from the same stock. One of these brothers 
 is said to have settled in Maine, another in Rhode 
 .Island, and the other in Massachusetts. Horace 
 Greeley descended from the > one who settled in 
 Massachusetts. His name is said to have been Benja- 
 min, and that he resided in Haverhill ; was a farmer ; 
 and died at a good old age, much respected. He left 
 a son named Ezekiel, who was a prosperous man, and 
 went by the name of " Old Captain Ezekiel." He 
 
 / \ 23 
 
24 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 
 
 lived ill Hudson, N.H. He was a stern-looking old 
 fellow, dark as an Indian, and somewhat like one in 
 temper. He never loved work, and never did much, 
 but lived by his wits ; and it is said '' he got all he 
 could, and saved all he got." He was a Baptist, 
 and a very " hard-shelled" one, we judge ; for he was 
 called " a cross old dog," " a hard old knot," and yet 
 was praised because he was rich and smart. 
 
 This Benjamin was the father of Zaccheus Greeley : 
 
 and 
 
 " The boy had virtue by his mother's side ; '* 
 
 tliough he, like his father, was not " too fond of 
 work." He was famous for his knowledge of the 
 Bible, and was a kind man, of gentle demeanor, and, 
 though not as rich as his father, was called " fore- 
 handed " in the world. Though his father was what 
 we have seen, yet his son lived to be ninety-five ; and 
 the testimony of his neighbors was, " A worthier man 
 than Zaccheus Greeley never lived." He also had a 
 son named Zaccheus, who was the father of Horace 
 Greeley. 
 
 Horace Greeley, in his " Recollections of a Busy 
 Life," says, " My grandfather Greeley was a most 
 excellent, though never a thrifty citizen. Kind, mild, 
 easy-going, honest, and unambitious, he married 
 young, and reared a family of thirteen children, — 
 nine sons and four daughters. 
 
PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 25 
 
 " My own great-grandfather (named Zaccheus, as 
 was his son my grandfather, and Ms son my father) 
 lived in or near the verge of Londonderry, in what 
 was in my youth Nottingham West, and is now 
 Hudson, across the Merrimack. 
 
 " I never heard of a Woodburn of our stock who 
 was not a farmer. My father — married at twenty-five 
 to Mary Woodburn, aged nineteen — went first to 
 live with his father, whose farm he was to work and 
 ^inherit, supporting tlie old folks and their still nu- 
 merous minor children ; but he soon tired of this, 
 and seceded, migrating to and purchasing the farm 
 whereon six of his seven children were born." 
 
 Mr. Greeley adds (and this was published in 1869), 
 " The present township of Londonderry embraces but 
 a fraction of the original town, whose hundred and 
 forty-four square miles have been sliced away to 
 form the several townships of Derry, Windham, and 
 parts of others, until it now probably contains less 
 than forty square miles. Its people nearly all live by 
 farming, and own the land they cultivate. Three- 
 fourths of them were born where they live, and 
 there expect to die. Some families of -English lineage 
 have gradually taken root among them ; but they are 
 still mainly of the original Scotch-Irish stock, and 
 -, even Celtic or German " help " is scarcely known to 
 (them. Simple, moral, diligent, God-fearing, the vices 
 
26 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 of modern civilization have scarcely penetrated their 
 quiet homes ; and while those who with pride trace 
 their origin to the old settlement are numbered by 
 thousands, and scattered all over our broad land, I 
 doubt whether the present population of London- 
 derry exceeds in number that which tilled her fields, 
 and hunted through her woods, fifty or sixty years 
 ago." 
 
 The Woodburn family also came from London- 
 derry: so that Horace was Scotch-Irish in both hi^ 
 paternal and maternal descent, " as Paul was a 
 Hebrew of the Hebrews." He has borne the follow- 
 ing testimony to his great-grandmother Woodburn : 
 " I think I am indebted for my first impulse toward 
 intellectual acquirement and exertion to my mother's 
 grandmother, who came out from Ireland among thf 
 first settlers of Londonderry. She must have been 
 well versed in Irish and Scotch traditions, pretty well 
 mformed, and strong-minded ; and, my mother being 
 left motherless when quite young, her grandmother 
 exerted great influence over her mental development. 
 I was a third child, the two preceding having died 
 young ; and I presume my mother was the more 
 aJ:tached to me on tliat ground, and the extreme 
 feebleness of my constitution. My mind was early 
 filled by her with the traditions, ballads, and snatches? 
 of history, she had learned from her grandmothers 
 
PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 27 
 
 which, though conveying very distorted and incorrect 
 ideas of history, yet served to awaken in me a thirst 
 for knowledge, and a lively interest in learning and 
 history." 
 
 The father of Horace soon became tired of farming, 
 as we have before stated, and removed to Amherst, 
 N.H., and, with his saved earnings, bought a farm. 
 In Amherst Horace Greeley was born on the 3d of 
 February, 1811. Like many other children who have 
 become eminent men, he was supposed to be dead. 
 He did not breathe ; and one who was present at his 
 birth says, " He was as black as a chimney." But He 
 who sees the end from the beginning had work for 
 this apparently dead child to do. He foresaw " The 
 New- York Tribune " to come from him, and possibly 
 the presidency of the United States to come to him. 
 
 Amherst, the birthplace of this apparently lifeless 
 child, is a beautiful town of Hillsborough County, 
 N.H., just across the line from Massachusetts. In 
 due time he received the name of Horace, after a 
 little deceased brother. The father had had a relative 
 by the same name ; and the mother had read it in a 
 book, and liked it. The farm owned by Zaccheus, 
 the father of Horace, was a rock-bound one, of the 
 Granite State : it could be tilled only by hard toil. 
 
 Horace was a bright boy, and took readily to learn- 
 ing. He was first taught by his mother. She was a 
 
28 LIFE OP HORACE GEEELEY. 
 
 strong, athletic woman, of great activity and vivacity. 
 Slie could laugh and sing from night to morning, and 
 from morning to night. , Horace listened to her 
 stories with intense delight. He says in his " Recol- 
 lections," " I learned to read at her knee ; of course, 
 longer ago than I can remember : 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 
 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 subject of neighborhood wonder 
 and fabulous exaggeration." 
 
 At the age of three years he spent his first v^inter 
 at his grandfather Woodburn's, and attended his first 
 public school; which, indeed, was all the kind of 
 school he ever attended. 
 
 Two peas were never more alike than the New- 
 England country schoolhouses of those days ; so that 
 the following description applies to them, one and 
 all: — 
 
 " The early settlement of this part of our country 
 is well known to have been Puritanical; and the 
 Scotch-Irish of those days were emphatically so. 
 They early took measures to establish ' free schools,' 
 that ' learning might not be buried in the graves ofi 
 
PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 29 
 
 the fathers.' These schools, sixty years smce, were 
 peculiar. The old schoolhouse, situated in a corner 
 of the town, at a crossing where three ways met, was 
 fifteen by twenty feet. It was clapboarded outside, 
 and plastered inside. The windows were of glass 
 panes, six by four inches ; the chimney in one end, 
 large enough to receive a cord-wood stick of four 
 feet in length, affording ample ventilation to the room ; 
 the benches, three in number, extending the length 
 and width of the room on three sides, the fourth 
 occupied by the capacious chimney just named. In 
 front of these writing-desks, as they were called, were 
 the seats for the small children, and those back of 
 them for the larger scholars. The fires were built 
 alternately by the larger boys, and the schoolhouse 
 swept by the larger girls in the same ratio. 
 
 " The seats for these little children were the most 
 uncomfortable that could possibly have been devised ; 
 and, after stoves were introduced, these poor children 
 had to sit so near them, that they sweat like rain, and 
 their hair curled in every direction. 
 
 " When the little urchins moved in front of the 
 writing-desk (as they generally did), the whole desk 
 was joggled, so that the writers made all kinds of 
 characters. The window- shutters were of rough 
 boards, resembling those of more modern date in 
 Philadelphia ; only they were unplaned, and never 
 
 8* 
 
30 MFB OF HOEACB GEEBLBY. 
 
 painted. The door-step was an unhewn rock, laid 
 slanting, so as to carry off the water from the door, 
 and, when icy, to trip up the pupils. The outside of 
 the building was never painted but in one instance, — 
 in another part of the town ; and this always went by 
 the name of the red schoolhouse. Our schoolhouse 
 was better situated for convenience than one described 
 by another about these times ; for there were houses 
 around it, and it stood in the little plat of land 
 belonging to nobody, at the meeting of three roads." 
 This writer describes his schoolhouse below : — 
 " Ours, as already intimated, had a door-step very 
 similar to the one he describes. Ours was also a 
 better schoolhouse than the following, described by 
 one a little earlier, where he taught in Yermont. He 
 says of it, ' All the covering upon the frame was 
 hemlock-boards, feather-edged and nailed on. There 
 were no clapboards on the outside, nor plastering nor 
 sealing-up on the inside. The chamber-floor consisted 
 of loose boards, laid down, being neither jointed nor 
 nailed. The lower floor was the same ; and there was 
 not one window in the room. All the light, except- 
 ing what came through between the boards, was as 
 follows : There were two or three holes cut through 
 the boards of the side and end of the house. These 
 were filled up with a newspaper, " Spooner's Yermont 
 Journal," which was oiled to let the light through, 
 fixed into thin strips of wood, and made fast. 
 
PABENTAGE, BIRTH, AISTD CHILDHOOD. 31 
 
 " ' These were all the windows we had. Sometimes 
 the boys would by accident make a large hole through 
 them with their elbows. Often, when I first came 
 into the room, I could discern but little. In this cold, 
 damp, inconvenient place I spent three months, in- 
 structing others to the best of my ability.' 
 
 " Yet the pupils of those days were better pre- 
 pared for life's duties than many who now graduate 
 from our palace-like schoolhouses. 
 
 " There was a vast contrast between these school- 
 houses and those of modern times. Now we have 
 palaces instead of those little shantys, or shanties as 
 some may choose to spell it. Tlien, too, the masters 
 (and they were properly called masters ; for they fol- 
 lowed the proverb of Solomon, ' He that spareth the 
 rod spoileth the child ') were chiefly imported from 
 Connecticut for the rest of New England, like Con- 
 necticut nutmegs and wooden clocks. They had a 
 smattering of knowledge in arithmetic and grammar, 
 and could read English. 
 
 " There were no school committees in those days, 
 as now. The minister (Congregationalist, but called 
 by all other denominations Presbyterian) acted as 
 committee, ' approbated ' the teachers, and visited 
 all the schools. Never shall I forget the moral lec- 
 tures he used to give us, differing widely from the 
 transcendental homilies of modern times. He would 
 
32 LIFE OF HORACE GBEELEY. 
 
 take up, for instance, the subject of lying ; and as he 
 reiterated the Bible declaration, that ' all liars should 
 have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and 
 brimstone,' and pointed out the rueful consequences 
 of moral obliquity both temporal and eternal, the 
 attention of every eye was riveted upon the old man, 
 who seemed a kind of connecting link between angels 
 and men. The moral sentimental lessons of the 
 present day are tame indeed when compared with 
 the good old gospel morality of those times. 
 
 " The school-books of those days were few, consist- 
 ing of the Bible or Testament, Psalter, Noah Webster's 
 Spelling-Book and Grammar, Jedediah Morse's Geog- 
 raphy, the third part for a reading-book, and Dil- 
 worth^s Arithmetic. Mr. Greeley says, ' When I first 
 went to school, Webster's Spelling was just supplanting 
 Dilworth's, " The American Preceptor" was pushing 
 aside " The Art of Reading," and the only Grammar 
 was " The Ladies' Accidence," by Bingham. The first 
 book I ever owned was " The Columbian Orator." ' 
 These were the sum total of the school-books ; and the 
 master only had an arithmetic. Every teacher had 
 not then learned that he must make a school-book, 
 and rival publishers bribe teachers and the clergy 
 to introduce their book. The * dictionary war ' was 
 then unknown ; and no book of the kind was heard of, 
 save Bailey's, Johnson's, or Perry's. The pupil, as he 
 
PABENTAGE, BIETH, AND CHILDHOOD. 33 
 
 trudged to school some mile or two up hill and down 
 dale, through woods and snow-banks, was not com- 
 pelled to carry his arms full of books, and to divide 
 his attention between some dozen studies at once, so 
 as to get but a ' smattering ' of any. Yet the boys 
 and girls of those days (for there were both bo^s and 
 girls then, while now there are neither) were better, 
 far better, versed in all the substantiah of a useful 
 education than they are at present. They were 
 better readers, better arithmeticians, and far better 
 penmen, than can be found now. This declaration 
 may seem humiliating to those who have latterly 
 found so many royal roads to knowledge, and made 
 the task of ascending the ' hill of science ' so easy, 
 that their books — many of them, at least — maybe 
 characterized as ' simplicity simplified.' In penman- 
 ship, especially, did they so far excel those of this day, 
 that this so desirable accomplishment may now be 
 classed among the ^ lost arts.' 
 
 " A schoolmaster then, too, was somebody. True, 
 he ' boarded round,' — that is, a week or a day at a 
 place, in proportion to the quota of pupils furnished, — 
 or was bid off at the district meeting by the one who 
 would board him the cheapest. But neither of these, 
 on the whole, was a very bad plan, as the former 
 enabled him to see and become acquainted with the 
 parents and his pupils, and, moreover, to see the 
 
34 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 young ladies at home (which is often important to a 
 young man), and the latter to exhibit how well the 
 paterfamilias could keep him at a minimum price. 
 
 " The spelling-schools of those days, too, were worthy 
 of note. There are no such in these modern times. 
 -To these, of course, the small children did not come : 
 it was only for those boys and girls who were in their 
 teens, and who were old enough to enjoy and ap- 
 preciate ' a good time.' Many a time has the writer 
 enjoyed a school of' this kind, where the pupils ' chose 
 sides,' and sat opposite each other, like the armies of 
 Napoleon and Wellington, in formidable array, till one 
 or the other was vanquished for missing more words 
 than the conquerors. Those were halcyon schools, 
 never to return to the pupils of these modern times. 
 
 ''The summer schools of those days, too, were 
 worthy of notice ; for, let it be remembered, the mas- 
 ters taught but two or three months (as the money 
 held out) in winter. Then all the boys who were old 
 enough to be cabin-boys, to hoe potatoes, rake hay, or 
 be in any way useful to their parents, were away from 
 those ancient halls of science ; and, instead of a mas- 
 ter and the large scholars, there was a school-marm, 
 and the small children, both male and female. This 
 summer school was usually twice as long as that of 
 the winter. It was in such a school as. this that 
 Horace Greeley took his first school-lessons." 
 
PARENTAGE, BIETH, AND CHILDHOOD. 35 
 
 From that first book he ever owned, already referred 
 to, he learned that famous piece, and spoke it before 
 he could articulate the words plainly, — 
 
 " You'd scarce expect one of my age 
 To speak in public on the stage." 
 
 He both lisped and whined, but was never wanting 
 in confidence ; and who ever knew a Scotch-Irishman 
 that was ? He excelled in spelling ; and this, gene- 
 rally, lays the foundation for a scholar. He was the 
 '' pet " of his school-fellows ; and, it is said, those 
 whom he excelled loved him best. He was never 
 fond of play, being possessed of a thoughtful, con- 
 templative intellect. An old minister of London- 
 derry took him in his lap one day on a muster-field, 
 and attempted to puzzle him by asking hard ques- 
 tions ; but, finding him remarkably posted, put him 
 down with this remark,* addressed to his grandfather, 
 " Mr, Woodburn, that boy was not made for nothing." 
 He never feared ghosts ; though he is said to have been 
 sometimes brave, and often timid. If attacked, he 
 would neither run nor fight, but^ stand it out. He 
 would often question the statements of his instruct- 
 ors, though he was never* impertinent. He would 
 lie under a tree, and read by hours, when not more 
 than six years old. At this early age he decided upon 
 being a printer, because he loved books so much. It 
 
36 IrlFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 was said his parents were obliged to hide his books, 
 lest he should read till he was blind ; and what he 
 then read he always remembered. When he had 
 stood at the head of his class, chiefly of pupils older 
 than himself, he bore his honors meekly ; and when, 
 on one occasion, he lost his place by missing a word, 
 he wept. He devoured all the books that his father 
 had, and then scoured the country for more. When 
 he got hold of a newspaper, he would hasten to some 
 secluded place, and there get the first read of it. 
 
 Mr. Parton, in his " Life of Horace Greeley," says, 
 " There were not wanting those who thought that 
 superior means of instruction ought to be placed 
 within the reach of so superior a child. I have a 
 somewhat vague but very positive and fully con- 
 firmed story of a young man, just returned from col- 
 lege to his father's home in Bedford, who fell in with 
 Horace, and was so struck with his capacity and at- 
 tainments, that he ofiered to send him to an academy 
 in a neighboring town, and bear all the expenses of his 
 maintenance and tuition. But his mother could not 
 let him go ; his father needed his assistance at home ; 
 and the boy himself is said not to have favored the 
 scheme." 
 
 Many others seem to have become specially inter- 
 ested in this wonderful boy. Some offered to instruct 
 him in farming ; others undertook to puzzle him by 
 hard questions, and often got puzzled themselves. 
 
PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 37 
 
 He was not only honest, but faithful^ in all that he 
 had to do. If his father left him any work to do, he 
 always did it ; unlike Ezekiel Webster, when his 
 father told him to do a certain job, and added, " Dan, 
 you help Zeke," and when the father returned, and 
 found the work not done, and called Zeke to account, 
 saying, '' What have you been doing ? " — " Nothin', 
 sir," was Zeke's reply. " Well, Dan, what have you 
 been doing ? " — " Been helping Zeke," was Dan's 
 answer. Horace always did his jobs. Horace was 
 fond of fishing ; indeed, this was the only sport he 
 seemed to enjoy : but if any one said to him, "• Let us 
 go fishing," he always replied, '• Let us do our stint 
 first." 
 
 He never loved murder ; and, if he went gunning 
 with other boys, he never carried or fired a gun. His 
 inherent dread of murder may be a reason why he 
 now wishes " to bridge over the bloody chasm between 
 the North and the South." 
 4 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HORACE REMOVES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 Horace's Father loses his Property, — The Old Greek Law. — Great Sacri- 
 fice. — Moves to West Haven, Vt. — Horace's Dress. — At School he aids 
 the Other Scholars. — A Checlter-Player. — He scours the Country for 
 Books. — Visits his Friends in Londonderry. — Taken for an Idiot. — His 
 Teetotalism. — He begins to be a Politician. — His Description of it 
 later in Life. 
 
 WHEN he was only six or seven years old, the 
 prospects of his father began to be . clouded, 
 and the storm soon broke by which they were com- 
 pelled to give up their house and farm. His father 
 lost all his property, and was compelled to leave his 
 native State. 
 
 No man could thrive in the Granite State without 
 working very hard and living very close. He lost by 
 disobeying the direction of the wise man, and being 
 " bound " or surety for another. He used liquor, as 
 everybody else did in those days ; and in this way he 
 incurred losses : his affairs became deranged, and ere 
 long he found himself at the bottom of the hill of 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 88 
 
BEMOVES FKOM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 39 
 
 Mr. Greeley in his " Recollections," already named, 
 gives the following account of affairs at this time : 
 " We had finished our summer tillage and our hay- 
 ing, when a very heavy rain set in, near the end of 
 August. I think its second day was a Saturday ; and 
 still the rain poured till far into the night. Father 
 was absent on business ; but our mother gathered lier 
 little ones around her, and deHghted us with stories, 
 and prospects of good things she purposed to do for us 
 in the better days she hoped to see. Father did not 
 return 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 sunrise on Monday morning, the sheriff and 
 sundry other officials, with two or three of our prin- 
 cipal creditors, appeared, and, first formally demand- 
 ing payment of their claims, proceeded to levy on 
 farm, stock, implements, 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 imprison- 
 ment, and was invisible all day : the rest of us 
 repaired to a friendly neighbor's, and the work of levy- 
 
40 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 iiig 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 thirteen 
 hundred and fifty dollars, and which had been con- 
 siderably improved in our hands, was appraised, and 
 set off to creditors at five hundred dollars, 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 day's 
 work on account, and sold ; the net result being an 
 enlargement of our debt, the grain failing to meet 
 all the costs. Thus, when . night fell, we were as 
 bankrupt a family as well could be." 
 
 Horace was ten years old when his father fled from 
 New Hampshire, and . finally made his way to West 
 Haven in Vermont. They made this journey in the 
 middle of winter. He found some difficulty in get- 
 ting a man to move his family, as he was a stranger ; 
 but finally made arrangements with a teamster to 
 go to New Hampshire and bring his family to Ver- 
 mont. 
 
 At West Haven Mr. Greeley (Zach) found a man 
 who had once been a Boston merchant, but now re- 
 tired, who owned much land, who gave him work, let 
 him a house, and made a home for him. 
 
 This removal to West Haven was in many respects 
 
REMOVES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 41 
 
 beneficial to the family. It was a newer and better 
 soil. A poor man with a large family of children 
 could do better here ; and here Mr. Greeley did jobs, 
 farmed for others, ran a saw-mill, cleared up land, and 
 burnt coal-pits ; and, in all that he did, his family 
 worked with him. 
 
 Horace was his right-hand boy, driving the oxen, 
 helping chop wood, and gather and burn the brush in 
 clearing the land. He was always busy. Even at 
 this early age, his dress was worn after a fashion of 
 his own ; and he rarely wore more than three gar- 
 ments in hot weather, — a straw hat (not often in very 
 good condition), a coarse linen or tow shirt, trousers 
 of family make-up, being short, and somebody says, 
 " One leg was usually shorter than the other." In 
 the cold weather he increased his apparel by shoes 
 and a jacket. Five years he lived in West Haven: 
 and it has been supposed, that, during this time, his 
 clothes did not cost over three dollars a year ; and it 
 has been conjectured, that, from his childhood till he 
 was free, his clothing did not cost over fifty dollars. 
 Wherever he was, — at home or abroad, at church, or 
 among his playmates, — he was never known to make 
 the slightest reference, or pay the least regard, to his 
 dress. During the three winters he attended school 
 in West Haven, he learned but little ; for he knew 
 about all that was there taught. He always made an 
 
42 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 uncouth figure at school, sitting in his clean but 
 coarse attire, his arms half folded, his legs crossed 
 one over the other ; his head large, and bent forward ; 
 and, though apparently indifferent, he saw every thing, 
 knew every thing, and caught all that was said and 
 done. 
 
 Though he learned but little at his West-Haven 
 schools, yet others learned much from him : for the 
 bigger boys were ever after him for aid in getting 
 their lessons, both in and out of school ; and he 
 seemed pleased to render all the assistance in his 
 power to any one. He annoyed some of his teachers at 
 these schools because he knew more than they did. 
 His questions they coiild not answer ; and he would 
 not be put off. This cause continued till one of his 
 teachers had sense and candor enough to go to his 
 father and tell him it was no use to send Horace 
 to school to him ; for the boy, though only thirteen, 
 knew more than he did. The father took the hint, 
 and took Horace from the school ; and so he read and 
 studied all winter alone in his room lighted by pine- 
 knots, for a candle was a luxury not often enjoyed. 
 
 The only game he ever seemed to enjoy was 
 checkers, or draughts ; and into this he entered 
 with a zest. There was a good reason for this to such 
 a mind as his; for there is no game into vf\\\Q\\ planning 
 and scheming enter more deeply : and according to 
 
REMOVES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 43 
 
 Dr. Emmons, the sage of Franklin, this was a game 
 " fit " to be played ; for he laid down the maxim, that 
 all chance-games were wrong, and all that exercised 
 the intellect were right. 
 
 He early showed the true Yankee; for he was 
 never idle, but would hack and whittle, and find 
 something to employ himself about, and would have 
 something to sell^ such as roots, nuts, kindling-wood, 
 and honey. He was a great bee-hunter, and, it is said, 
 sometimes got a hundred and fifty pounds of honey 
 from one tree. 
 
 Thus, as is usually the case with every active poor 
 boy in the country, he managed to have some money 
 by him at all times. 
 
 At West Haven, as he had done at Amherst, he 
 scoured the whole country for books : he read the 
 Bible, history, " Robinson Crusoe," " The Arabian 
 Nights," and all the other books he could get. He 
 was specially pleased with Mrs. Hemans's poems. 
 
 He kept always in view his determination to be a 
 printer : and, when he was eleven years old, he talked 
 with his father about it, but got no encouragement 
 from him ; but, on the contrary, the father said no 
 one would take an apprentice so young. This did 
 not satisfy Horace : so off he tramped one day to White- 
 hall, nine miles, where a newspaper was printed. He 
 found the printer, conversed with him, and found, 
 
44 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 
 
 just as his father " Zach " had said, that he was too 
 young. 
 
 Soon after, our young hero started on a longer 
 excursion to visit his old friends in Londonderry, dis- 
 tant a hundred and twenty miles. All the money he 
 had in his pocket for this long pedestrian tour was 
 seventy-five cents. He carried a small bundle with a 
 stick over his shoulder ; and, after remaining a few 
 weeks, again appeared among his friends in West 
 Haven with more money in his pocket than he had 
 when he started on the journey. 
 
 He was oftener than once, on the various journeys 
 that he made, taken for an idiot. It is said he once 
 entered a store, and a stranger inquired, " What darned 
 fool is that ? " So it is also said he was in the habit 
 of calling his father '* sir." He was one day chop- 
 ping wood by the side of the road, when a man rode 
 up and inquired the way to a certain place. The 
 boy did not know, and answered, " Ask sz>." The 
 man repeated his question ; and the boy, without 
 looking up, answered, " Ask s^V." — ''lam asking ! " 
 exclaimed the man. " Well, ask sir,'' the boy again 
 replied. " Ain't I asking, you fool ? " said the man. 
 " But I want you to ask sir/ " repeated the boy again. 
 The man rode away in high dudgeon, aud inquired 
 at the next tavern who that tow-headed fool was down 
 the road. 
 
KEMOVES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 45 
 
 Horace was a teetotaler long before any such pledge 
 was known to a society. On one occasion, when a 
 neighbor called, and the bottle was produced, as was 
 the custom in those days, Horace said, " Father, what 
 will you give me if I will not drink a drop of liquor 
 till I am twenty-one ? " His father answered, " I will 
 give you a dollar." — "It's a bargain," said the boy. 
 He kept the pledge ; but, whether he received the dol- 
 lar or not, I have never learned. 
 
 At West Haven, Horace came near being drowned 
 one day. They lived on the bank of the Hub- 
 barton River. The river, in consequence of a dam 
 for a saw-mill which his father run for a time, 
 was deep enough to drown a man. They used to 
 cross the river by logs : and the boys were floating 
 about upon them one day, when the younger brother 
 was thrown into the water by the rolling over of the 
 log he was upon ; and, when he rose, Horace has- 
 tened to his relief. In attempting to save his brother, 
 the log rolled over again, and plunged Horace also 
 into the river. They came near being drowned, as 
 neither of them could swim. The younger one got 
 out first ; and, as the log floated into shallower water, 
 he sprang upon it, and was saved. 
 
 This, if it was the first, was not the last, of Horace 
 Greeley's "log-rolling;" for he has rolled many a 
 soaky one out of the way since. 
 
46 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 About this time, he was greatly delighted with the 
 story of Demetrius, and the manner in which he man- 
 aged the Athenians, and how he overcame by mercy. 
 
 He was considerably excited on political matters 
 while at West Haven, though so young. He seems to 
 have imbibed his principles of protection — his lifelong 
 hobby — about this period. Though but thirteen, he, 
 after twenty years, wrote them out in " The Tribune " 
 of Aug. 29, 1846, as follows : — 
 
 " The first political contest in which we ever took a 
 distinct interest will serve to illustrate this distinction 
 [between real and sham democracy]. It was the 
 presidential election of 1824. Five candidates for 
 president were offered ; but one of them was with- 
 drawn, leaving four, — all of them members in regular 
 standing of the so-called Republican or Democratic 
 party. But a caucus of one-fourth of the members of 
 Congress had selected one of the four (William H. 
 Crawford) as the Republican candidate ; and it was 
 attempted to make the support of this one a test of 
 party orthodoxy and fealty. This was resisted, we 
 think most justly and democratically, by three-fourths 
 of the people, including a large majority of those of this 
 State. But among the prime movers of the caucus- 
 wires was Martin Yan Biiren of this State ; and here it 
 was gravely proclaimed and insisted that democracy 
 required a blind support of Crawford in preference 
 
REMOVES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 47 
 
 to Adams, Jackson, or Clay (all of the Democratic 
 party), who were competitors for the station. A legis- 
 lature was chosen as ' Republican,' before the people 
 generally had begun to think of the presidency ; and 
 this legislature, it was undoubtedly expected, would 
 choose Crawford electors of president. But the 
 friends of the rival candidates at length began to bestir 
 themselves, and demand that the New- York electors 
 should be chosen by a direct vote of the people, and 
 not by a forestalled legislature. This demand was 
 vehemently resisted by Martin Yan Buren and those 
 who followed his lead, including the leading Demo- 
 cratic politicians and editors of the State, ' The Alba- 
 ny Argus,' 'Noah's Inquirer, or National Advocate,' 
 &c. The feeling in favor of an election by the people 
 became so strong and general, that Gov. Yates, though 
 himself a Crawford man, was impelled to call a spe- 
 cial session of the legislature for this express purpose. 
 The assembly passed a bill giving the choice to the 
 people by an overwhelming majority, in defiance of the 
 exertions of Yan Buren, A. C. Flagg, &c. The bill 
 went to the senate ; to which body Silas Wright had 
 recently been elected from the Northern District, and 
 elected by Clintonian votes on an explicit understand- 
 ing that lie would vote for giving the choice of the 
 electors to the people. He accordingly voted on one 
 or two abstract propositions, that the choice ought to 
 
48 LITE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 he given to the people ; but, when it came to a direct 
 vote, this same Silas Wright (now governor) voted to 
 deprive the people of that privilege by postponing the 
 whole subject to the next regular session of the legisla- 
 ture, when it would be too late for the people to choose 
 electors for that time. A bare majority (seventeen) of 
 the senators thus withheld from the people the right 
 they demanded. The cabal failed in their great ob- 
 ject, after all : for several members of the legislature, 
 elected as Democrats, took ground for Mr. Clay, and, 
 by uniting with the friends of Mr. Adams, defeated 
 most of the Crawford electors ; and Crawford lost the 
 presidency. We were but thirteen when this took 
 place, but looked on very earnestly, without pi-eju- 
 dice, and tried to look beyond the mere names by 
 which the contending parties were called. Could we 
 doubt that democracy was on one side, and the Demo- 
 cratic party on the other ? Will ' Democrats ' attempt 
 to gainsay it now? Mr. Adams was chosen president,. 
 — as thorough a democrat, in the true sense of the 
 word, as ever lived ; a plain, unassuming, upright, 
 and most capable statesman. He managed the public 
 aifairs so well, that nobody could really give a reason 
 for opposing him ; and hardly any two gave the same 
 reason. There was no party conflict during his time 
 respecting the bank, tarilf, internal improvements, nor 
 any thing else of a substantial character. He kept 
 
EEMOVES FEOM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 49 
 
 the expenses of the government very moderate ; he 
 never turned a man out of office because of a differ- 
 ence of political sentiment : yet it was determined at 
 the outset that he should be put down, no matter how 
 well he might administer the government ; and a com- 
 bination of the old Jackson, Crawford, and Calhoun 
 parties, with the personal adherents of De Witt Clin- 
 ton, aided by a shamefully false and preposterous 
 outcry that he had obtained the presidency by a 
 bargain with Mr. Clay, succeeded in returning an 
 opposition Congress in the middle of his term, and, at 
 its close, to put in Gen. Jackson over him by a large 
 majority. 
 
 " The character of this man Jackson we had studied 
 pretty thoroughly, and without prejudice. His fatal 
 duel with Dickinson about a horse-race ; his pistolling 
 Col. Benton in the streets of Nashville ; his forcing 
 his way through the Indian country with his drove of 
 negroes in defiance of the express order of the agent 
 Dinsmore ; his imprisonment of Judge Hall at New 
 Orleans long after the British had left that quarter, 
 and when martial law ought long since to have been 
 set aside ; his irruption into Florida, and capture of 
 Spanish posts and officers, without a shadow of authority 
 to do so ; his threats to cut off the ears of senators who 
 censured this conduct in solemn debate ; in short, his 
 whole life, — convinced us that the man never was a 
 
 6 
 
50 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 democrat in any proper sense of the term, but a vio- 
 lent and lawless despot, after the pattern of Caesar, 
 Cromwell, and Napoleon, and unfit to be trusted with 
 power. Of course we went against him, but not 
 against any thing really democratic in him or his 
 party. 
 
 " That Gen. Jackson in power justified all our pre« 
 vious expectations of him need hardly be said; that 
 he did more to destroy the republican character of 
 our government, and render it a centralized despot- 
 ism, than any other man could do, we certainly 
 believe : but our correspondent and we would proba- 
 bly disagree with regard to the bank and other ques- 
 tions which convulsed the Union during his rule ; and 
 we will only ask his attention to one of them, the 
 earliest, and, in our view, the most significant. 
 
 " The Cherokee Indians owned, and had ever 
 occupied, an extensive tract of country lying within 
 the geographical limits of Georgia, Alabama, <fec. It 
 was theirs by the best possible title, — theirs by our 
 solemn and reiterated treaty stipulations. We had 
 repeatedly bought from them slices of their lands, 
 solemnly guaranteeing to them all that we did not 
 buy, and agreeing to defend them therein against all 
 aggressors. We had promised to keep all intruders 
 out of their territory. At least one of these treaties 
 was signed by Gen. Jackson himself; others by Wash- 
 
REMOVES FKOM KEVV HxiMi'feiiiilE. 51 
 
 ingtoii, Jeiferson, &q. All the usual pretexts for 
 aggression upon Indians failed in this case. The 
 Cherokees had been our friends and allies for many 
 years ; they had committed no depredations ; they 
 were peaceful, industrious, in good part Christianized, 
 had a newspaper printed in their own tongue, and 
 were fast improving in the knowledge and application 
 of tlie arts of civilized life. They compared favorably 
 every way with their white neighbors. But the 
 Georgians coveted their fertile lands, and determined 
 to have them : they set them up in a lottery, and 
 gambled them off among themselves, and resolved to 
 take possession. A fraudulent treaty was made between 
 a few Cherokees of no authority or consideration and 
 sundry white agents, including one ' who stole the 
 livery of Heaveii to serve the Devil in ; ' but every- 
 body scoffed at this mockery, as did ninety-nine hun- 
 dredths of the Cherokees." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HORACE BECOMES AN APPRENTICE. 
 
 Horace visits Poultney. — His Description by Mr. Bliss. — He is a Match for 
 the School-committee Man. — He is employed. — What the Other 
 Printers in the Office think of him. — Horace in the Lyceum. — He boards 
 at the Tavern, but won't drink. — What a New- York Physician said of 
 him. — Anti- Masonry of that Time. 
 
 HORACE wanted to be an apprentice, strange as 
 it may seem ; and in 1826 he went to East 
 Poultney, Yt. He had learned that a newspaper was 
 printed there, and that a Mr. Amos Bliss, who was the 
 manager and one of the owners, wanted a boy. Horace 
 entered the gate, and found Mr. Bliss in his garden, 
 planting potatoes. He heard Horace open the gate, 
 and, looking round, saw a singular-looking boy. Still 
 Mr. Bliss continued his work until Horace said to 
 him, " Are you the man that carries on the printing- 
 office ? " Mr. Bliss then inspected the boy more care- 
 fully, and noticed that he liad on no stockings ; his 
 shoes were what were called " high-lows ; " his hat an 
 old " felt," of a small brim, set on the back of his 
 
 52 
 
hiU^if'AM'^ 
 
i:J 
 
beco:mes an apprentice. 53 
 
 head ; and his hair nearly white. The whole appear- 
 ance of the lad was ludicrous. But he finally an- 
 swered, " Yes : I'm the man." 
 
 " Don't you want a boy to learn the trade?" said 
 Horace. 
 
 " 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 Horace. 
 
 Mr. Bliss was perplexed : it seemed strange to him 
 that such a looking chap as he was should ever have 
 thought of printing. 
 
 " Well, my boy ; but you know it requires consider- 
 able learning to be a printer. Have you been to school 
 much ? " 
 
 "No," said Horace. " I haven't had much chance 
 at school. I've read some." 
 
 " What have you read ? " 
 
 " Well, I've read some history, and some travels, 
 and a little of most every thing." 
 
 " Where do you live ? " 
 
 " At West Haven." 
 
 " How did you come here ? " 
 
 " I came on foot." 
 
 " What's your name ? " 
 
 " Horace Greeley." 
 
 This Mr.^ Bliss had been one of the committee of 
 common schools, and had been accustomed to examine 
 
 5* 
 
54 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 both teachers and pupils ; and he loved this business 
 well, and considered himself quite skilled in it : so he 
 went on with his examination of this queer-looking 
 boy, asking all the questions he could think of. And 
 the examiner found his match. So, when the exami- 
 nation ended, Mr. Bliss told him he thought he would 
 do, and he might go into the printing-office and see 
 the foreman. Horace went into the office, where there 
 were three other apprentices, who never forgot his 
 remarkable appearance. Horace addressed the fore- 
 man, who felt surprised that Mr. Bliss should have 
 sent such a looking boy into the office. But, on talk- 
 ing with the boy a few mintites, he became impressed 
 with the idea that he was worth something. He tore 
 off a slip of paper, wrote a few words on it with a pen- 
 cil, gave it to Horace, and told him to take it to Mr. 
 Bliss. His destiny depended on that paper : it had on 
 it, " G-uess we'd better try himy After another exami- 
 nation by Mr. Bliss, he agreed to take Horace as an 
 apprentice, provided his father would agree to the 
 terms, and sign the usual documents. 
 
 At night one of the apprentices said, " Mr. Bliss, 
 you're not going to hire that tow-head ; are you ? " — "I 
 am," was the answer ; " and, if you boys are expecting 
 to get any fun out of him, you'd better get it quick, 
 or you'll be too late. There's something in that tow- 
 head, as you'll find out before you're a week older." 
 
BECOMES AN APPRENTICE. 55 
 
 The next day Horace gathered his scanty wardrobe 
 into a pocket-handkerchief, and started with his father 
 for East Poultney. Horace's little handkerchief was 
 not full ; for he had but two shirts and one change of 
 other clothes. 
 
 But the terms upon which Mr. Bliss would take 
 Horace as an apprentice were such that his father could 
 not agree to : so he objected to every part of the pro- 
 posals. He must be bound for five years, and receive 
 his board only, and twenty dollars a year. Mr. Gree- 
 ley had made up his mind that none of his children 
 should be " bound : " five years seemed too long to 
 serve, and twenty dollars a year too small a sum. But 
 Mr. Bliss said these were the usual terms, and he 
 should agree to no others. Mr. Greeley, however, 
 stuck to his declaration with a Greeley's tenacity, till 
 Horace, with a pleading countenance and his whining 
 voice, interposed, and said, '' Father, I guess you'd bet- 
 ter make a bargain with Mr. Bliss : I guess it won't 
 make much difference." Mr. Bliss had intimated that 
 he should do business in no other way. '^ Well then, 
 Horace," said Mr. Greeley, " let us go home ; " and 
 the father turned to go ; but Horace still stopped. 
 But other terms were proposed and adopted ; and the 
 father returned to West Haven, and Horace went into 
 the printing-office in Poultney. While here, he made 
 his first efforts at original composition. He wrote 
 
56 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 
 
 paragraphs for the paper ; and, during the whole time 
 that he remained in Poultney, he rendered good ser- 
 vice to the paper in editorials. 
 
 A lyceum had been formed before Horace went to 
 Poultney, which he soon joined, and became one of its 
 active members. It had become very popular, persons 
 coming ten miles to attend its meetings. The ques- 
 tions discussed were of the following tenor : "Is the 
 Union likely to continue ? " " Was Napoleon Bonaparte 
 a great man ? " " May a person take the life of another 
 in self-defence ? " "Is novel-reading injurious to soci- 
 ety ? " " Do we as a nation exert a good influence 
 upon the world ? " &g. On these and many other 
 questions Horace was semper par atus (always ready). 
 
 Soon after Horace commenced his apprenticeship, 
 his father removed from West Haven, Vt., to Erie 
 County, Penn., and bought a considerable tract of 
 wild land. Twice Horace visited his father in his new 
 home, and walked a great part of the way, the distance 
 being six hundred miles. 
 
 He remained in Poultney four years, and boarded 
 at the tavern, where everybody drank but Horace. 
 One says, " I never feared for him. He was always 
 right. At the table he always helped himself, and 
 never sought to be waited upon." 
 
 Mr. Parton, in his " Life of Horace Greeley," gives 
 the following interesting sketch of him, by a New- York 
 
BECOMES AN APPRENTICE. 57 
 
 physician, who happened to be present at one of those 
 dinners at the Poultney Tavern when eatables and 
 mentals were discussed : " Did 1 ever tell you how 
 and where I first saw my friend Horace Greeley ? 
 Well, thus it happened. It was 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 ex- 
 change. Now, this was the first time, you must know, 
 that I had ever been intrusted 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 round to the tavern, 
 put up my horses, and went in to dinner. This going 
 to the tavern on my own account, all by myself, and 
 ^oaying 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 be- 
 gun to eat, when my eyes fell upon an object so singu- 
 lar, that I could do little else than stare at it all the 
 
58 LIFE OF HOE ACE GREELEY. 
 
 while it remained in the room. It was a tall, pale, 
 white-haired, gawhj boy, seated at the farther end 
 of the table. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and was 
 eating with a rapidity and awkwardness 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 tlie 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 thouglit it 
 strange, too, tliat no one seemed to notice him ; and I 
 supposed he owed his continuance at the table to that 
 circumstance 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 bound- 
 less astonishment referred the matter to the unac- 
 countable boy, saying, ' Ain't that right, Greeley ? ' — 
 ' No,' said the unaccountable, without looking up, 
 * you're wrong.' — ' There,' said the ex-member, ' I 
 told you so ! ' — 'And you're wrong too,' said the still 
 devouring mystery. Then he laid down his knife and 
 
BECOMES AN APPBENTICE. 59 
 
 fork, and gave the history of the measure, explained 
 tlie state of parties at the time, stated the vote in dis- 
 pute, named the leading advocates and opponents of 
 the bill, and, in short, gave a complete exposition of the 
 whole matter. I listened and wondered ; bat 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 re- 
 specting 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 amuse- 
 ment." 
 
 Horace is represented, by those who knew him at 
 the time of his apprenticeship, as very free from every 
 thing of a vicious character, and with a stroiig deter- 
 mination to study every subject that came in his way. 
 Though so young, he was even then an ardent politi- 
 cian ; and the exciting incidents of those days were by 
 no means calculated to cool his ardor. Some of us 
 still remember the excitement about the time that 
 President Jackson reigned, and that political lying 
 has rarely, if ever, in our country, been carried to 
 greater perfection than in those days. Jackson\s 
 " cotton-bags " had gained him the battle of New Or- 
 leans, which made him president ; but, if he had lost 
 
60 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 that, he would have been shot, instead of being re- 
 corded with censure for disobeying orders. 
 
 It was while Horace was in Poultney that the anti- 
 Masonic excitement began on account of Morgan's 
 book and disappearance. Morgan was- of the same 
 craft with Horace ; and, when these two events trans- 
 pired, the whole North, almost to a man, except those 
 of the Masonic craft, became furious against the order. 
 
 The writer has a vivid recollection of those times, all 
 which he saw, and part of wliich he was. No man, in 
 many of our towns, who was a Mason, could hold even 
 the smallest office. Many lodges surrendered their 
 charters ; and the order was supposed to have become 
 dead^ and no man supposed it would revive as it has, 
 and run again, like a fox with a new tail, as it now 
 does in 1872. Horace entered zealously into the con- 
 test, and was a strong anti-Mason. 
 
 He had now learned his trade ; was no longer a boy, 
 but a man. True, he had acquired but little knowl- 
 edge in school : but he had studied men and things, 
 and his head originated many good ideas ; and, if he 
 could have carried them all out, the world would have 
 been the wiser for them. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Mr. Greeley moves to Pennsylvania. — He leaves Vermont. — Visits his 
 Father's Log-Cabin. — Visits .Tamestown for Work. — Next goes to 
 Erie. — His Amusing Reception. — Goes to Work. — A Lady's Opinion 
 of him. — He leaves Erie. — His Arrival in New York. — His finding a 
 Boarding-House. — Gets into an Office. — Mr. West's Opinion of him. — 
 His Success as a Typo. — Works on " The Spirit of the Times. ' — Visits 
 New Hampshire. — A Good Dinner. 
 
 ON leaving Poultney, he first visited his father in 
 Pennsylvania. He had so distinguished him- 
 self among his acquaintances in Poultney, that the 
 landlord and one of the boarders at the tavern gave 
 him an old brown overcoat. It was the first he ever 
 had. They gave him this in consideration that he 
 was poor, had been among them four years, and had 
 never given them any trouble ; and, as an additional 
 cause, they had learned that his father was also poor. 
 In June, 1830, he put his stick through his little 
 bundle comprising all his wardrobe, and left Poultney. 
 All Nature was in her most lovely green. When he 
 had walked fourteen miles, he came to Comstock's 
 6 ei 
 
62 LIFE OP HOBAOB GREELEY. 
 
 Fording ; and then, partly by a canal-boat, and partly 
 on foot, he made his way to Schenectady, whence he 
 took a boat on the Erie Canal. This journey of six 
 hundred miles took him a week, and cost him seven 
 dollars. 
 
 On arrival at his father's residence, he found him 
 in a small log-cabin (not equal to many built to elect 
 William H. Harrison in 1840, and which, with the 
 ridicule thrown on that old hero, and the hard cider 
 which he lived on, did elect him) situated in a little 
 clearing he had made, and changed to a backwoods- 
 man. The uprooted and half-burnt stumps pro- 
 claimed the labor that had been performed. Any one 
 who has penetrated the back counties of Pennsylva- 
 nia, even witliin the last ten years, can have some 
 idea of the dense forests, hills and valleys, and 
 dens and caves, of this desolate region. But, at that 
 time, deer, wolves, and all kinds of serpents, inhabited 
 these gloomy regions. The wolves were so numerous 
 and bold, that they would prowl around in packs, and 
 devour all the sheep they could catch. Mr. Greeley 
 had kept sheep in Vermont, and tried the experiment 
 here ; but, after having at least a hundred killed by 
 these wolves, he gave it up. The soil was good, as it 
 generally is where Quakers and wild animals make 
 their homes. 
 
 Horace, now being at leisure, spent several weeks 
 
TRAVELS, AND ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. 63 
 
 at his father's house, aiding his father, and amusing 
 liimself as best he could. At this time his leg troubled 
 him considerably, wliich his good mother nursed to 
 the best of her ability, and which was finally cured by 
 an old doctor who lived twenty-five miles off from 
 his father's home. 
 
 Horace could not be quiet long: so one day he 
 walked over to Jamestown, where a newspaper was 
 being printed, to get work ; which he did : but, when 
 Saturday night came, no pay came with it. After 
 workhig four days more, and seeing no prospect of 
 pay, he returned home. He was satisfied he could 
 get no money there. His next trip was made into 
 the State of New York, still seeking work. He went 
 to Lodi, fifty miles from his father's clearing. Here 
 he found employment upon a Jackson paper. He 
 was now twenty years old, and somewhat of a poli- 
 tician. He calculated chances; but he failed : for he 
 wrote to his friends in Vermont that Francis Granger 
 would be elected governor by a hundred and twenty- 
 five majority ; but he was not elected at all. He 
 received but little money at Lodi ; and, after gaining 
 some reputation as a smart politician and an excellent 
 checker-player, he again returned home. At these 
 places he found work ; but he did not find the cash. 
 
 Soon he took another trip, and then started for the 
 town of Erie, which was distant thirty miles, on the 
 
64 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 shore of the lake of the same name. Two printing- 
 offices had been established in Erie, and it was a larger 
 town than those he had visited ; and here he hoped 
 to find both work and pay. 
 
 He still wore the uncouth garments he had else- 
 where ; and, of course, made his usual grotesque ap- 
 pearance when he entered Erie. He wore the same 
 slouched hat ; he carried his wardrobe in the same 
 red cotton handkerchief, slung over his shoulder on the 
 same stick. He noticed nobody as he made his way 
 through the streets of this rustic town to the office of 
 " The Erie Gazette," which was a weekly paper, pub- 
 lished by Joseph M. Sterritt. 
 
 Mr. Sterritt afterwards gave the following account 
 of Horace as he first saw him : " I was not in the 
 printing-office when he arrived : I came in soon after, 
 and saw him sitting at the table reading the news- 
 papers, and so absorbed in them, that he paid no at- 
 tention to my entrance. My first feeling was one of 
 astonishment that a fellow so singularly green in his 
 appearance should be readin(]f, and, above all, reading 
 so intently. I looked at him for a few moments ; and 
 then, finding that he made no movement towards ac- 
 quainting me with his business, I took up my compos- 
 ing-stick, and went to work. He continued to read 
 for twenty minutes or more ; when he got up, and, 
 coming close to my case, asked in his peculiar 
 whining voice,-— 
 
TRAVELS, AND ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. 65 
 
 " ^ Do you want any help in the printing-business? ' 
 
 " ' Why,' said I, running my eye invokmtarily up 
 and down the extraordinary figure, ' did you ever 
 work at the trade ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes,' was the reply. ' I worked %ome at it in an 
 office in Vermont ; and I should be willing to work 
 under instruction, if you could give me a job.' " 
 
 Mr. Sterritt supposed him to be a runaway appren- 
 tice ; and, not having a good opinion of this class, he 
 said he did not want any more assistance (which, 
 by the way, was false), and Horace departed without 
 saying another word. 
 
 He went to the other office, and met with no better 
 success : so he budged home again, having found but 
 little comfort in this journey. Nevertheless, some- 
 thing did come out of this tramp ; for a few days after 
 it, as Mr. Sterritt related the affair, " An acquaint- 
 ance of mine, a farmer, called at the office, and in- 
 quired if I wanted a journeyman. I did. He said a 
 neighbor of his had a son who learned the printing- 
 business somewhere down East, and wanted a place. 
 ' What sort of a looking fellow is he ? ' said I. He 
 described him ; and I knew at once that he was my 
 supposed runaway apprentice. My friend the farmer 
 gave him a high character, however: so I said, '- Send 
 him along ; ' and, a day or two after, along he came." 
 
 He went to work at his own terms ; that is, he was 
 
 6* 
 
6Q LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 to try, and his employer was to pay him what he 
 pleased. Report says, when he went into the family 
 of his employer to board, a lady there said, " Well, 
 Mr. Sterritt, you've hired that fellow to work for you, 
 have you ? Well, you won't keep him three days." 
 Her opinion, however, soon changed, as did that of all 
 others who became acquainted with the lad. 
 
 Mr. Greeley gives the following account of his en- 
 gagement in this place in his " Recollections of a 
 Busy Life : " "I now visited Erie, Penn., where I found 
 work in the office of ' The Erie Gazette,' and was 
 retained at fifteen dollars per month well into the 
 ensuing summer. This was the first newspaper 
 whereon I was employed that made any money for 
 its owner, and thus had a pecuniary value. It had 
 been started twenty years or so before, when borough 
 and county were both thinly peopled almost wholly 
 by poor young men ; and it had grown wi'th the vici- 
 nage, until it had a substantial, profitable patronage. 
 Its proprietor, Mr. Joseph M. Sterritt, now in the 
 prime of life, had begun on ' The Gazette ' as a boy, 
 and grown up with it into general consideration and 
 esteem. His journeymen and apprentices boarded at 
 his house, as was fit ; and I spent here five months 
 industriously and agreeably. Though still a raw youth 
 of twenty years, and knowing no one in the borough 
 when I thus entered it, I made acquaintances there 
 
TBAVELS, AND ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. 67 
 
 who are still valued friends : and, before I left, I was 
 otfered a partnership in the concern, which, though 
 1 had reasons for declining, was none the less flatter- 
 ing as a mark of appreciation and confidence. Mr. 
 Sfcerritt has since represented liis district acceptably 
 in the Senate of Pennsylvania ; has received other 
 proofs of the trustful regard of his fellow-citizens ; 
 and, though he has retired from ' The Gazette,' still 
 lives in the enjoyment of competence and general 
 esteem." 
 
 Mr. Greeley says he spent five months in this office ; 
 Mr. Parton says he spent seven months there: which is 
 correct we are unable to say. When he closed his 
 labor there, he had taken up but six dollars of his 
 wages : of the remainder he took fifteen dollars in 
 money, and a note for the rest. He now made his 
 way to his father's cabin, kept the fifteen dollars, and 
 gave the note to his father. After remaining at home 
 a few days, Horace formed the bold plan of visiting 
 the city of New York. 
 
 He walked to the Erie Canal, took the boat at 
 Buffalo, and went to Schenectady : here he left the 
 canal, and walked to Albany. Mr. Greeley says, 
 " Night fell when I was about half way over : so I 
 sought rest in one of the many indifferent taverns that 
 then lined the turnpike in question, and was directed 
 to sleep in an anteroom through which people were 
 
68 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 momently passing. I declined, and, gathering up my 
 handful of portables, walked on. Half a mile far- 
 ther I found another tavern, not quite so inhospi- 
 table, and managed to stay in it till morning ; when I 
 rose, and walked on to Albany. Having never been 
 in that city before, I missed the nearest way to the 
 day-boat ; and, when I reached the landing, it was two 
 or three lengths on its way to New York, having left at 
 seven, a.m. I had no choice but to wait for another, 
 which started at ten, a.m., towing a barge on either 
 side ; and reached in twenty hours the emporium, 
 where I, after a good view of the city as we passed it 
 down the river, was landed near Whitehall at six, 
 
 A.M." 
 
 New York then contained about one-tliird as many 
 inhabitants as it does now. " I had never before seen 
 a city," says he, " containing twenty thousand, nor a 
 sea-going vessel." 
 
 There was then (1831) not a railroad in the land 
 save the short one to take granite from the Quincy 
 ledges to the water. Not an ocean-steamer visited 
 any of our ports. 
 
 Mr. Greeley goes on : "I was now twenty years old 
 the preceding February ; tall, slender, pale, and plain, 
 with ten dollars in my pocket ; summer clothing, 
 worth perhaps as much more, nearly all on my back ; 
 and a decent knowledge of so much of the art of 
 
TRAVELS, AND ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. 69 
 
 priutiug as a boy will usually get in the office of a 
 country newspaper. But I knew no human being 
 within two hundred miles ; and my unmistakably 
 rustic manner and address did not favor that imme- 
 diate command of remunerating employment which 
 was my most urgent need. However, the world was 
 all before me : my personal estate, tied up in a pocket- 
 handkerchief, did not at all encumber me ; and I 
 stepped lightly off the boat, and away from the de- 
 tested hiss of escaping steam, walking into and up 
 Broad Street in quest of a boarding-house. I found 
 and entered one at or near the corner of Wall : but 
 the price of board given me was six dollars per 
 week ; so I did not need the giver's candidly kind 
 suggestion, that I would probably prefer one where 
 the charge was more moderate. Wandering thence, I 
 cannot say how, to the North-river side, I halted next 
 at 168 West Street, where the sign of ' Boarding ' on a 
 humbler edifice fixed my attention. I entered, and 
 was offered shelter and subsistence at two dollars 
 and fifty cents per week, which seemed more rational ; 
 and I closed the bargain. 
 
 " My host was Mr. Edward McGolrick, his place quite 
 as much grog-shop as boarding-house ; but it was 
 quietly, decently kept while I staid in it, and he and 
 his family were kind and friendly. I regret to add 
 that liquor proved his ruin not many years after- 
 
70 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 ward. My first day in New York was a Friday ; and, 
 the family being Roman Catholic, no meat was eaten 
 or provided, which I understood : but, when Sunday 
 evening was celebrated by unlimited card-playing in 
 that same house, my traditions were decidedly jarred. 
 I do not imply that my observances were better or 
 worse tlian my host's, but that they were different. 
 Having breakfasted, I began to ransack the city for 
 work, and, in my total ignorance, traversed many streets 
 where none could possibly be found. In the course of 
 that day and the next, however, I must have visited 
 fully two-thirds of the printing-offices on Manhattan 
 Island, without a gleam of success. It was midsum- 
 mer, when business in New York is habitually dull ; 
 and my youth, and unquestionable air of country green- 
 ness, must have told against me. When I called at 
 ' The Journal of Commerce,' its editor, Mr. David 
 Hale, bluntly told me I was a runaway apprentice from 
 some country office ; which was a very natural though 
 mistaken presumption. I returned to my lodging on 
 Saturday evening, thoroughly weary, disheartened, 
 disgusted with New York, and resolved to shake its 
 dust from my feet next Monday morning, while I 
 could still leave with money in my pocket, and before 
 its almshouse could foreclose upon me." 
 
 But this was not to take place ; for Horace Greeley 
 had work to do in New York. On Sunday, some 
 
TRAVELS, AND ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. 71 
 
 young Irishmen came to McGolrick's ; and, learning 
 that Mr. Greeley was a young printer in search of 
 employment, they became interested in his case, and 
 one of them happened to know of a place where they 
 wanted printers. So Mr. Greeley visited the place 
 next morning, and readily found work. He had been 
 in the habit of rising early, and was at the printing- 
 office of Mr. West long before any one appeared who 
 was connected with the work. McElrath and Bangs 
 were publishers, and John T. West did their printing. 
 Horace waited on the steps at 85 Chatham Street what 
 seemed to him a long time before any one came. At 
 length, one of the journeymen came. The door being 
 still locked, he sat down on the steps, and entered into 
 conversation with Horace. He related his condition, 
 his necessity, his great want of employment. The 
 man was from Vermont ; and, becoming interested in his 
 fellow Vermonter, he determined to assist him, which 
 he did very efficiently. He took Horace to the fore- 
 man ; and, though the appearance of the new-comer 
 was against him, through the intercession of his new 
 friend the journeyman the foreman set him to work. 
 It was, however, upon a hard job, — the composition of 
 a polyglot Testament. Two or three had worked upon 
 the same, and given it up as " a bad job ;" and the fore- 
 man had not the least idea that he would succeed ; but 
 as he wanted the work done, and wished also to oblige 
 
72 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 
 
 his journeyman, who was a clever fellow^ he told him 
 to "fix him up a case," and set him at work. 
 
 An hour or two later, Mr. West came into the office ; 
 and, after taking a survey of the new-comer, he said 
 to the foreman, — 
 
 " Did you hire that fool ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied the foreman. " We need help, and 
 ■he was the best I could get." 
 
 '' Well," continued West, " pay him off to-night, and 
 send him about his business." 
 
 This command would doubtless have been obeyed 
 but for the fact that Horace presented at night a bet- 
 ter " proof," and much more of it, than either of the 
 others that had worked on the same job. The fore- 
 man was astonished, and did not indulge the thought 
 of sending him away a moment. 
 
 Of this job Mr. Greeley says, " This work was at my 
 call simply because no printer who knew the city 
 would accept it." 
 
 After leaving the office of Mr. West, Horace found 
 work on " The Spirit of the Times." This was a 
 sporting-paper, published by Messrs. Porter and Howe. 
 Here, through that dreary summer (1832), Horace 
 worked at very small wages. The whole business of 
 New York was paralyzed by fear of the cholera. 
 
 In October, 1832, Horace visited his friends in New 
 Hampshire. He had a hard time walking over a con- 
 
TRAVELS, AND ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. 73 
 
 siderable part of the State through rain and sun. 
 His relatives were scattered over all the lower part of 
 the Granite State, and into Vermont. His visiting 
 was as hard as his finding employment in New York 
 had been. One may judge of his trials on this jour- 
 ney by what he says in the following sentence : "I 
 met one poor soul who had a horse and wagon, and 
 heartily pitied him. He could hardly ride, while my 
 walk was far easier and less anxious than his." 
 
 At Stoddard, having breakfasted early and walked 
 long, Horace says, " I stepped into a convenient tavern, 
 and called for dinner. My breakfast had been quite 
 early. The keen air and rough walk had freshened 
 my appetite. I was shown into a dining-room with a 
 well-spread table, and left to help myself. There were 
 steaks, chickens, coffee, pies, &c. I did ample justice 
 to all. ^ What is to pay ? ' I asked the landlord on 
 re-entering the bar-room. ' Dinner eighteen and 
 three-quarter cents,' he replied. I laid down the re- 
 quired sum, and stepped off, mentally resolving that I 
 would, in mercy to that tavern, never patronize it 
 again." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GREELEY COMMENCES BUSINESS. 
 
 Horace in the "Watch-House." — Greeley driven to New York. — "The 
 Morning Pvst" fails. — He appeals in Vain to his Subscribers to pay. 
 — His Honesty and Integrity. — His Editorial Luxuries. — Interview 
 with the Wrathy Quacii. — Horace's Poetry. — " The New-Yorker." — 
 " The Jeffersonian." — " The Log-Cabin." — His Marriage. — His Wed- 
 ding-Tour. — He cuts up Fashions and Opinions. — His Activity in the 
 Campaign of 1840. — He asked for no Office. 
 
 HORACE had now wandered about, as a Yankee 
 would say, " pretty considerably." He had 
 lived cheaply, dressed poorly, worked hard, and laid 
 up little ; he had been laughed at by his fellow- 
 '• typos;" accounted a runaway apprentice by such 
 men as Judge Sterritt and David Hale; and on the 
 occasion of his landlord's moving on the first day of 
 May, as all poor " folk " do in " Gotham," he had got 
 into the watch-house. I must give his own description 
 of this case, as it seems to have been about the first 
 piece he wrote in New York ; for it was published in 
 " The Spirit of the Times," May 5, 1832 : — 
 
 "Messrs, Editors^ — Hear me you shall, pity me 
 
 • 74 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 75 
 
 you must, while I proceed to give a short account of 
 the dread calamities which this vile habit of turning 
 the whole city upside-down, 'tother side out, and wrong 
 side before, on the 1st of May, has brought down on 
 my devoted head. 
 
 " You must know, that, having resided but a few 
 months in your city, I was totally ignorant of the 
 existence of said custom. So, on the morning of the 
 eventful, and to me disastrous day, I rose, according 
 to immemorial usage, at dying-away of the last echo 
 of the breakfast-bell, and soon found mys'elf seated 
 over my coffee, and my good landlady exercising her 
 powers of volubility (no weak ones) apparently in my 
 behalf; but so deep was the revery in which my half- 
 awakened brain was then engaged, that I did not catch 
 a single idea from the whole of her discourse. I 
 smiled, and said, ' Yes, ma'am,' ' Certainly, ma'am,' 
 at each pause ; and, having speedily despatched my 
 breakfast, sallied immediately out, and proceeded to 
 attend to the business which engrossed my mind. 
 Dinner-time came, but no time for dinner ; and it was 
 late before I was at liberty to wend my way, over 
 wheel-barrows, barrels, and all manner of obstructions, 
 towards my boarding-house. All here was still : but, 
 by the help of my night-keys, I soon introduced myself 
 to my chamber, dreaming of nothing but sweet repose ; 
 when, horrible to relate, my ears were instantaneously 
 
76 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 saluted by a most piercing female shriek, proceeding 
 exactly from my own bed, or at least from the place 
 where it should have been ; and scarcely had sufficient 
 time elapsed for my hair to bristle on my head before 
 the shriek was answered by tlie loud vociferations of a 
 ferocious mastiff in the kitchen beneath, and re-echoed 
 by the outcries of half a dozen inmates of the house, 
 and these again succeeded by the rattle of the watch- 
 man ; and the next moment there was a round dozen 
 of them (besides the dog) at my throat, and command- 
 ing me to* tell them instantly what the devil all this 
 meant. 
 
 " ' You do well to ask that,' said I as soon as I could 
 speak, ' after falling upon me in this fashion in my own 
 chamber.' 
 
 " ' Oh ! take him off,' said the one who assumed to 
 be the master of the house. ' Perhaps he's not a thief, 
 after all; but, being too tipsy for starlight, he has 
 made a mistake in trying to find his lodgings.' And, in 
 spite of all my remonstrances, I was forthwith marched 
 off to the watch-house to pass the remainder of the 
 night. In the morning I narrowly escaped commit- 
 ment on the charge of ' burglary with intent to steal ' 
 (I verily believe it would have gone hard with me if 
 the witnesses could have been got there at that un- 
 seasonable hour) ; and I was finally discharged with a 
 solemn admonition to guard for the future against 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 77 
 
 intoxication. Think of that, sir, for a member of the 
 Cold-water Society ! 
 
 " I spent the next day in unravelling the mystery, 
 and found that my landlord had removed his goods 
 and ciiattels to another part of the city on the estab- 
 lished day, supposing me to be previously acquainted 
 and satisfied with his intention of so doing, and another 
 family had immediately taken his place ; of which 
 changes my absence of mind, and absence from dinner, 
 had kept me ignorant, and thus had I been led blind- 
 fold into a ' Comedy (or rather tragedy) of Errors.' 
 " Your unfortunate 
 
 "Timothy Wiggins." 
 
 There is a kind of self-complacency in one's going 
 into business for one's self, somewhat like what a 
 young man feels when he gets married. Before he 
 was but half a man, or what Dr. PrankUn called '' the 
 half of a pair of scissors : " now he is the head of a 
 family. So while a journeyman, though it be all well 
 enough, yet he is only an irresponsible agent ; but 
 now, being the head, hoss^ or responsible man of a 
 concern, he cannot but feel himself to be " some- 
 body." 
 
 Mr. Greeley says, '' Having been fairly driven to 
 New York two or three years earlier than I deemed 
 desirable, I was in like manner impelled to undertake 
 
78 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. 
 
 the responsibilities of business while still in my twenty- 
 second year." 
 
 A young man by the name of Story, a friend of 
 Greeley's, and but twenty-three years old, had imbibed 
 the idea of starting a printing-office. Story was the 
 son of a poor widow : but he knew more of the crooks 
 and turns of New York than Horace did ; for he had 
 worked on " The Spirit of the Times," and thus became 
 acquainted with the sporting gentry, and with a Mr. 
 Sylvester, a leading broker, and seller of lottery-tickets, 
 in Wall Street ; and through him and Dr. W. Beach 
 and a Dr. Shepard (who had some money fall to him) 
 Story was induced to start a cheap daily newspaper, and 
 offered to take in Horace as a partner. Horace hesi- 
 tated, as he had but little capital, having aided his 
 father by sending him all that he could well spare ; 
 but was finally induced to go into the business with 
 Story, whose enthusiasm was considerable. So the 
 new firm, Story and Greeley, published " The Morning 
 Post," a one-cent daily. The first number appeared 
 Jan. 15, 1833. 
 
 This paper failed. Then Mr. Greeley worked some 
 on " The Commercial Advertiser," and was offered a 
 partnership there, but declined it. His partner, Mr. 
 Story, was drowned about this time. His place was 
 taken by a Mr. Winchester, a brother-in-law of 
 Story, 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 79 
 
 March 22, 1834, they issued '' The New-Yorker." 
 Mr. Greeley was the editor. It was a large, fair, 
 and cheap weekly folio. Mr. Greeley, in his " Recol- 
 lections of a Busy Life," says, " Though not calcu- 
 lated to enlist partisanship or excite enthusiasm, it 
 was at length extensively liked and read. It began 
 with scarcely a dozen subscribers ; these steadily 
 increased to nine thousand : and it might, under 
 better business-management (perhaps I should add, 
 at a more favorable time), have proved profitable 
 and permanent. That it did not was mainly owing 
 to these circumstances : 1. It was not extensively 
 advertised at the start, and at least annually there- 
 after, as it should have been. 2. li was never really 
 published, though it had half a dozen nominal pub- 
 lishers in succession. 3. It was sent to subscribers 
 on credit ; and a large share of tliem never paid for it, 
 and never will ; while the cost of collecting from others 
 ate up the proceeds. 4. The machinery of railroads, 
 expresses, news-companies, news-offices, &c., whereby 
 literary periodicals are now disseminated, did not then 
 exist. I believe that just such a paper issued to-day, 
 properly published and advertised, would obtain a 
 circulation of a hundred thousand in less time than 
 was required to give ' The New-Yorker ' scarcely a 
 tithe of that aggregate, and would make money for 
 its owners, instead of nearly starving them as min^ 
 
80 LIFE OF HOE,ACE GREELEY. 
 
 did. I was worth at least lifteeu hundred dollars 
 when it was started. I worked hard and lived fru- 
 gally throughout its existence. It subsisted for the 
 first two years on the profits of our job-work ; when I, 
 deeming it established, dissolved with my partner, 
 he taking the jobbing-business, and I ' The New- 
 Yorker,' which held its own pretty fairly thenceforth 
 till the commercial revulsion of 1837 swept over the 
 land, whelming it and me in the general ruin. I had 
 married in 1836 (July 5), deeming myself worth 
 five thousand dollars, and the master of a business 
 which would thenceforth yield me for my labor at 
 least a thousand dollars per annum ; but instead 
 of that, or of any income at all, I found myself 
 obliged throughout 1837 to confront a net loss of 
 about a hundred dollars per week, — my income 
 averaging a hundred dollars, and my expenses two 
 hundred dollars. It was in vain tliat I appealed to 
 delinquents to pay up. Many of them migrated ; 
 some died ; others were so considerate as to order the 
 paper stopped, but very iow ot these paid : and I 
 struggled on against a steadily-rising tide of adversity 
 that might have appalled a stouter heart. Often 
 did I call on this or that friend witii intent to 
 solicit a small loan to meet some demand that could 
 no longer be postponed nor evaded, and, after wast- 
 ing a precious hour, leave him, utterly unable to 
 
COISIMENCES BUSINESS. 81 
 
 broach the loathsome topic. I have borrowed five 
 hundred dollars of a broker late on Saturday, and 
 paid him five dollars for the use of it till Monday 
 morning, when I somehow contrived to return it. 
 Most gladly would I have terminated the struggle by 
 a svirrender: but, if I had failed to pay my notes 
 continually falling due, I must have paid money for 
 my weekly supply of paper ; so that would have 
 availed nothing. To have stopped my journal (for 
 I could not give it away) would have left me in 
 debt, besides my notes for paper — from fifty cents to 
 two dollars each — to at least three thousand subscribe 
 ers who had paid in advance ; and that is the worst 
 kind of bankruptcy. If any one would have taken 
 my business and debts off my hands upon my giv- 
 ing him my note for two thousand dollars, I would 
 have jumped at the chance, and tried to work out the 
 debt by setting type if nothing better offered. If it 
 be suggested that my whole indebtedness was at no 
 time more than five thousand to seven thousand 
 dollars, I have only to say that even a thousand 
 dollars of debt is ruin to him who feels keenly 
 his obligation to fulfil every engagement, yet is ut- 
 terly without the means of so doing, and who finds 
 himself dragged each week a little deeper into hope- 
 less insolvency. To be hungry, ragged, and penni- 
 less, is not pleasant ; but this is nothing to the horrors 
 
82 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 of bankruptcy. All the wealth of the Rothschilds 
 would be a poor recompense for a five-years' struggle 
 with the consciousness that you had taken the money 
 or property of trusting friends, — promising to return 
 or pay for it when required, — and had betrayed their 
 confidence through insolvency. 
 
 " I dwell on this point ; for I would deter others 
 from entering that place of torment. Half the 
 young men in the country, with many old enough to 
 know better, would ' go into business ' — that is, 
 into debt — to-morrow if they could. Most poor 
 men are so ignorant as to envy the merchant or 
 manufacturer, whose life is an incessant struggle 
 with pecuniary difficulties ; who is driven to con- 
 stant 'shinning;' and who, from month to month, 
 barely evades that insolvency, which, sooner or later, 
 overtakes most men in business : so that it has been 
 computed that but one in twenty of them achieves a 
 pecuniary success. For my own part, — and I speak 
 from sad experience, — I vould rather be a convict in 
 a State prison, a slave in a rice-swamp, than to pass 
 through life under the harrow of debt. Let no 
 young man misjudge himself unfortunate, or truly 
 poor, so long as he has the full use of his limbs and 
 faculties, and is substantially free from debt. Hun- 
 ger, cold, rags, hard work, contempt, suspicion, 
 unjust reproach, are disagreeable ; but debt is infi- 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 83 
 
 iiitely worse than tiicm all. And, if it had pleased 
 God to spare either or all of my sons to be the sup- 
 port and solace of my declining years, the lesson 
 which I should have most earnestly sought to im- 
 press upon them is, ' Never run into debt. Avoid 
 pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or 
 famine. If you have but fifty cents, and can get no 
 more for a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and 
 live on it, rather than owe any man a dollar.' Of 
 course, I know that some men must do business that 
 involves risks, and must often give notes and other 
 obligations ; and I do not consider him really in debt 
 who can lay his hands directly on tlie means of pay- 
 ing, at some little sacrifice, all he owes. I speak 
 of real debt, — that which involves risk or sacrifice 
 on the one side, obligation and dependence on the 
 other ; and I say, ' From all such let every youth 
 humbly pray God to preserve him evermore.' " 
 
 This shows Mr. Greeley's honesty ; for he made 
 good every dollar he owed to the subscribers of " The 
 New-Yorker." He complained, and justly, of some 
 of his subscribers, in the following language : " 1 
 stopped ' The New-Yorker' Sept. 20, 1841, and shut 
 up its books, whereon were inscribed some ten thousand 
 dollars, owed me in sums of from one to ten dollars 
 each by men to whose service I had devoted the best 
 years of my life, — years tliat, thougli full of labor and 
 
84 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 
 
 frugal care, might have been happy, had they not been 
 made wretched by those men's dishonesty." 
 
 Mr. Greeley's experience in this paper was that 
 only which many others have had who have ever been 
 guilty of publishing a paper. Hence his advice, above 
 quoted, should be treasured up by every young man 
 who attempts to start a new paper. 
 
 A specimen or two of his articles and rencounters 
 while editor of " The New-Yorker " may interest the 
 reader. In an article entitled " Editorial Luxuries " 
 he wrote, " We love not the ways of that numerous 
 class of malecontents who are perpetually finding fault 
 with their vocation, and endeavoring to prove them- 
 selves the most miserable dogs in existence. If they 
 really think so, why under the sun do they not aban- 
 don their present evil ways, and endeavor to hit upon 
 something more endurable ? Nor do we deem these 
 grumblers more plentiful among the brethren of 
 the quill than in other professions, simply because 
 the groanings uttered through the press are more 
 widely circulated than when merely breathed' to the 
 night-air of some unsympathizing friend who forgets 
 all about them the next minute. But we do think 
 the whole business is in most ridiculously bad taste. 
 An apostle teaches us of ' groanings which cannot be 
 uttered : ' it would be a great relief to readers if 
 editorial groanings were of this sort. Now, we pride 
 
COI^iiyiENCES BUSINESS. 85 
 
 ourselves rather on the delights of our profession ; 
 and we rejoice to say that we find them neither few 
 nor inconsiderable. There is one which even now 
 flitted across our path, which, to tell the truth, was 
 rather above the average; in fact, so good, that we 
 cannot afford to monopolize it, even though we shall 
 be constrained to allow our reader a peep behind the 
 curtain. So here it is : — 
 
 [Scene. — Editorial Sanctum. Editor solus ; i.e., immersed in 
 thought and newspapers, with a journal in one hand, busily 
 spoiling white paper with the other; only two particular 
 friends talking to him at each elbow. Devil calls for '' copy " at 
 momentary intervals. Enter a butternut-colored gentleman, 
 who bows most emphatically.] 
 
 " G-ent. — Are you the editor of ' The New-Yorker,' 
 sir ? 
 
 " Editor. — The same, sir, at your service. 
 
 " G-ent. — Did you write this, sir ? 
 
 " Editor. — ( Takes his scissored extract, and reads.') 
 ' So, when we hear the brazen vender of quack- 
 remedies boldly trumpeting his miraculous cures, or 
 the announcement of the equally impudent experi- 
 menter on public credulity (Goward) who announces 
 that he " teaches music in six lessons, and half a 
 dozen distinct branches of science in as many weeks,'* 
 we may be grieved, and even indignant, that such 
 
SQ LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 palpable deceptions of the simple and unwary should 
 not be discountenanced and exposed.' 
 
 " That reads like me, sir. I do not remember the 
 passage ; but, if you found it in the editorial columns 
 of ' The New-Yorker,' I certainly did write it. 
 
 u Q-ent. — It was in No. 15, ' The March of Hum- 
 bug.' 
 
 " Editor. — Ah ! now I recollect it : there is no mis- 
 take in my writing that article. 
 
 " G-ent. — Did you allude to we, sir, in those re- 
 marks ? 
 
 " Editor, — You will perceive that the name 
 * Goward ' has been introduced by yourself : there 
 is nothing of the kind in my paper. 
 
 " G-ent. — Yes, sir ; but I wish to know whether 
 you intended those remarks to apply to me. 
 
 " Editor. — Well, sir, without pretending to recol- 
 lect exactly what I may have been thinking of while 
 writing an article three months ago, I will frankly 
 say, that I think I must have had you in my eye 
 while penning that paragraph. 
 
 " Gent. — Well, sir, do you know that such re- 
 marks are grossly unjust and impertinent to me ? 
 
 " Editor. — I know nothing of you, sir, but from 
 the testimony of friends, and your own advertisement 
 in the papers ; and these combine to assure me that 
 you are a quack. 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 87 
 
 a 
 
 Gent. — That is what my enemies say, sir ; but 
 if you examine my certificates, sir, you will know the 
 contrary. 
 
 " Editor. — I am open to conviction, sir. 
 
 " G-ent. — Well, sir, I have been advertising in 
 ' The Traveller ' for some time, and have paid them a 
 great deal of money ; and here they come out this 
 week and abuse me: so I have done with them. And 
 now, if you will say you will not attack me in this 
 fashion, I will patronize you (holding out some tempt- 
 ing advertisements). 
 
 " Editor. — Well, sir, I shall be very happy to ad 
 vertise for you ; but I can give no pledge as to the 
 course I shall feel bound to pursue. 
 
 " G-ent. — Then I suppose you will continue to call 
 me a quack. 
 
 " Editor. — I do not know that I am accustomed to 
 attack my friends and patrons ; but, if I have occasion 
 to speak of you at all, it shall be in such terms as my 
 best judgment shall dictate. 
 
 " Gent. — Then I am to understand you as my 
 enemy ? 
 
 " Editor. — Understand me as you please, sir : I 
 shall endeavor to treat you and all men with fairness. 
 
 " Gent. — But do you suppose I am going to pay 
 money to those who ridicule me, and hold me up as a 
 quack ? 
 
88 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 " Editor. — You will pay it where you please, sir : T 
 must enjoy my opinions. 
 
 " Gent. — Well, but is a man to be judged by what 
 his enemies say of him ? Every man has his enemies. 
 
 " Editor. — I hope not, sir : I trust I have not an 
 enemy in the world. 
 
 " G-ent. — Yes, you have : I'm your enemy, and 
 the enemy of every one who misrepresents me ! I can 
 get no justice from the press, except among the penny 
 dailies. I'll start a paper myself before a year. I'll 
 show that some folks can edit newspapers as well as 
 others. 
 
 " Editor. — The field is open, sir : go ahead ! '' 
 
 [Exit in a rage Rev. J. E,. Goward, teacher (in six lessons) of 
 every thing.] 
 
 While publishing "- The New-Yorker," Mr. Greeley 
 tried his hand at poetry. He has published in all some 
 forty poems, about half of which appeared in '' The 
 New-Yorker." The following was composed on the 
 death of William Wirt : — 
 
 Rouse not the muffled drum, 
 Wake not the martial trumpet's mournful sound, 
 For him whose mighty voice in death is dumb ; 
 Who, in the zenith of his high renown, 
 
 To the grave went down. 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 89 
 
 Invoke no cannon's breath 
 To swell the requiem o'er his ashes poured : 
 Silently bear him to the house of death. 
 The aching hearts by whom he was adored 
 
 He won not with the sword. 
 
 No ! let affection's tear 
 Be the sole tribute to his memory paid : 
 Earth has no monument so justly dear 
 To souls like his in purity arrayed, 
 
 Never to fade. 
 
 I loved thee, patriot chief! 
 I battled proudly 'neath thy banner pure : 
 IVIine is the breast of woe, the heart of grief, 
 Which suffer on, unmindful of a cure, — 
 
 Proud to endiu-e. 
 
 But vain the voice of wail 
 For thee from this dim vale of sorrow fled : 
 Earth has no spell whose magic shall not fail 
 To light the gloom that shrouds thy narrow bed, 
 
 Or woo thee from the dead. 
 
 Then take thy long repose 
 Beneath the shelter of the deep green sod : 
 Death but a brighter halo o'er thee throws : 
 Thy fame, thy soul, alike have spurned the clocl* 
 
 Rest thee in God ! 
 8* 
 
90 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 One other poem we select, which was published iu 
 " The Southern Literary Messenger," August, 1840 : — 
 
 THE FADED STARS. 
 
 I mind the time when heaven's high dome 
 
 Woke in my soul a wondrous thrill ; 
 When every leaf in Nature's tome 
 
 Bespoke creation's marvels still ; 
 When mountain-cliff and sweeping glade, 
 
 As Morn unclosed her rosy bars, 
 Woke joys intense : but nought e'er bade 
 
 My heart leap up, like you, bright stars I 
 
 Calm ministrants to God's high glory, 
 
 Pure gems around his burning throne, 
 Mute watchers o'er man's strange, sad story 
 
 Of crime and woe through ages gone, 
 'Twas yours the mild and hallowing spell 
 
 That lured me from ignoble gleams. 
 Taught me where sweeter fountains swell 
 
 Than ever bless the worldling's dreams. 
 
 How changed was life ! — a waste no more 
 
 Beset by want and paXn and wrong : 
 Earth seemed a glad and fairy shore. 
 
 Vocal with Hope's inspiring song. 
 But, ye bright sentinels of heaven, 
 
 Far glories of night's radiant sky. 
 Who, as ye gemmed the brow of even, 
 
 Has ever deemed man born to die ? 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 91 
 
 *Tis faded now, that wondrous grace 
 
 That once on heaven's forehead shone : 
 I read no more in Nature's face 
 
 A soul responsive to my own. 
 A dimness on my eye and spirit 
 
 Stern Time has cast in hurrying by : 
 Few joys my hardier years inherit ; 
 
 And leaden dulness rules the sky. 
 
 Yet mourn not I: a stern, high duty 
 
 Now nerves my arm, and fires my brain. 
 Perish the dream of shapes of beauty, 
 
 So that this strife be not in vain ! 
 To war on fraud intrenched with power, 
 
 On smooth pretence and specious wrong, — 
 This task be mine, though Fortune lower ; 
 
 For this be banished sky and song. 
 
 Mr. Greeley announced his marriage in " The New- 
 Yorker " of July 16, 1886, in the following language : 
 "In Immanuel Church, Warrenton, N.O., on Tues- 
 day morning, 5th inst., by Rev. William Norwood, 
 Mr. Horace Greeley, editor of ' The New-Yorker,' to 
 Miss Mary Y. Cheney of Warrenton, formerly of this 
 city." 
 
 The bride had been a teacher in New York, and 
 had removed to North Carolina in the exercise of that 
 profession. He became acquainted with her at the 
 Graham boarding-house, of which mention will be 
 made hereafter. 
 
92 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 Mr. Greeley turned his wedding-tour to good advan- 
 tage for his paper. He had never visited Washington 
 before. He was very favorably impressed with the 
 Senate, of which he wrote the following for his paper : 
 " The Senate of the United States is unsurpassed in 
 intellectual greatness by any body of fifty men ever 
 convened is a trite observation. A phrenologist 
 would fancy a strong confirmation of his doctrines in 
 the very appearance of the Senate : a physiognomist 
 would find it. The most striliing person on the floor 
 is Mr. Clay, who is incessantly in motion, and whose 
 spare, erect form betrays an easy dignity approaching 
 to majesty, and a perfect gracefulness such as I have 
 never seen equalled. His countenance is intelligent, 
 and indicative of character ; but a glance at his 
 figure, while his face was completely averted, would 
 give assurance that he was no common man. Mr. 
 Calhoun is one of the plainest men, and certainly 
 the dryest, hardest speaker I ever listened to. The 
 flow of his ideas reminded me of a barrel filled with 
 pebbles, each of which must find great difficulty in 
 escaping, from the very solidity and number of those 
 pressing upon it, and impeding its natural motion. 
 Mr. Calhoun, though far from being a handsome, 
 is still a very remarkable personage ; but Mr. Benton 
 has the least intellectual countenance 1 ever saw on a 
 senator. Mr. Webster was not in his place. 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 93 
 
 " The best speech was that of Mr. Crittenden of 
 Kentucky. That man is not appreciated so highly as 
 he should and must be. He has a rough readiness, a 
 sterling good sense, a republican manner and feeling, 
 and a vein of biting though homely satire, which will 
 yet raise him to distinction in the national councils." 
 
 Perliaps the most startling and far-reaching of Mr. 
 Greeley's articles, while editor of" The New-Yorker," 
 was written in 1837, on the parade made on the 4th 
 of July. It is entitled " Tyranny of Opinion : " — 
 
 " The great pervading evil of our social condition 
 is the worship and the bigotry of opinion. While the 
 theory of our political institutions asserts or implies 
 the absolute freedom of the human mind, the right, 
 not only of free thought and discussion, but of the 
 most unrestrained action thereon, within the wide 
 boundaries prescribed by the laws of the land, yet 
 the practical commentary upon this noble text is as 
 discordant as imagination can conceive. Beneath the 
 thin veil of a democracy more free than that of 
 Athens in her glory we cloak a despotism more per- 
 nicious and revolting than that of Turkey or China. 
 It is the despotism of opinion. Whoever ventures to 
 propound opinions strikingly at variance with those 
 of the majority must be content to brave obloquy, 
 contempt, and persecution. If political, they exclude 
 him from public employment and trust ; if religious, 
 
94 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELBY. 
 
 from social intercourse and general regard, if not 
 from absolute rights. However moderately heretical 
 in his political views, he cannot be a justice of the 
 peace, an officer of the customs, or a lamplighter; 
 while, if he be positively and frankly sceptical in his 
 theology, grave judges pronounce him incompetent to 
 give testimony in courts of justice, though his charac- 
 ter for veracity be indubitable. That is but a narrow 
 view of the subject which ascribes all this injustice to 
 the errors of parties or individuals : it flows naturally 
 from the vice of the age and country, — the tyranny 
 of opinion. It can never be wholly rectified until the 
 whole community shall be brought to feel and 
 acknowledge that the only security for public liberty 
 is to be found in the absolute and unqualified free- 
 dom of thought and expression, confining penal conse- 
 quences to acts only which are detrimental to the 
 welfare of society. 
 
 " The pliilosopliical observer from abroad may well 
 be astounded by the gross inconsistencies which are 
 presented by the professions and the conduct of our 
 people. Thousands will flock together to drink in 
 the musical periods of some popular disclaimer on 
 the inalienable rights of man, the inviolability of the 
 immunities granted us by the constitution and laws, 
 and the invariable reverence of freemen for the 
 majesty of law. They go away delighted with our 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 9o 
 
 institutions, the orator, and themselves. The next 
 day they may be engaged in lynching some unlucky 
 individual who has fallen under their sovereign 
 displeasure, breaking up a public meeting of an 
 obnoxious cast, or tarring and feathering some unfor- 
 tunate lecturer or propagandist whose views do not 
 square with their own, but who has precisely the 
 same right to enjoy and propagate his opinions, how- 
 ever erroneous, as though he inculcated nothing but 
 what every one knows and acknowledges already. 
 The shamelessness of this incongruity is sickening ; 
 but it is not confined to this glaring exhibition. The 
 sheriff, town-clerk, or constable, who finds the politi- 
 cal majority in his district changed either by immi- 
 gration or the course of events, must be content to 
 change too, or be hurled from his station. Yet what 
 necessary connection is there between his politics and 
 and his office ? Why might it not as properly be 
 insisted that a town-officer should be six feet high or 
 have red hair, if the majority were so distinguished, 
 as that he should think with them respecting the men 
 in high places and the measures projected or opposed 
 by them ? and how does the proscription of a man 
 in any way for obnoxious opinions differ from the 
 most glaring tyranny ? " 
 
 "The New-Yorker" was continued seven years; 
 and during those seven years, Mr. Greeley says, 
 
96 LIFE OF HOBACE GREELEY. 
 
 " seven co-partners in its publication withdrew from 
 the concern." On the whole, Mr. Greeley had a 
 hard time while he conducted this paper. He ap- 
 pealed to his patrons once and again to pay up; 
 but it was of no avail, as has been already stated by 
 him. The paper was a good one, and well conducted ; 
 but its owner and editor were but poorly paid. 
 
 During a part of the time he edited " The New- 
 Yorker," Mr. Greeley was also editor of " The Jeffer- 
 sonian," a Whig paper, published in Albany, N.Y. 
 His labors while he conducted these two papers were 
 most abundant. As soon as he had got ready " The 
 New-Yorker " for the press, he hastened to the boat 
 for Albany ; where, after spending a sleepless or nearly 
 sleepless night, he arrived in Albany to work hard the 
 next day in editing " The Jeffersonian." 
 
 Next came " The Log-Cabin." Those of us who 
 remember that overwhelming avalanche of 1840, 
 when the Whigs rallied from one end of the country 
 to the other and took possession of the government 
 by storm, know what " The Log-Cabin " then meant. 
 
 The Democrats had had the government for years. 
 Andrew Jackson had served in the presidency two 
 terms ; Martin Van Buren, one ; and now, by con- 
 certed action, the Whigs made one desperate effort, 
 determined on success. They nominated for presi- 
 dent William Henry Harrison of Ohio. In this they 
 
COISIMENCES BUSINESS. 97 
 
 manifested great shrewdness ; for had they selected 
 Henry Clay or Daniel Webster, or any other then 
 active politician, everybody knew too much about 
 them, and every mouth would have been filled witli 
 their faults. But, when they selected Gen. Harrison, 
 no one of the younger generation knew any thing 
 about him. The Democrats said he was a feeble old 
 man, who had dwelt at North Bend, living on hard 
 cider in a log-cabin, where he had been buried thirty 
 years. The Whigs took up the glove thus thrown 
 down by their opponents, and made " Log-Cabin " 
 and "Hard Cider" their watchwords, ,and notwith- 
 standing all the ridicule thrown upon Harrison, and 
 all the patronage of the government that the party 
 in power could use, elected Harrison to the presi- 
 dency. 
 
 Harrison was the hero of the battle of Tippeca- 
 noe. 
 
 With him they nominated for vice-president John 
 Tyler of Virginia ; and making their songs on 
 
 " Tippecanoe and Tyler too," 
 
 as just said, they took the country as by storm. 
 
 As I have before said, Martin Yan Buren had been 
 considered the great magician, the most skilful 
 " wire-puller," of the land. The people were tired 
 of this kind of manoeuvring. They had just passed 
 
98 LIFE OF HOBACE GEEELEY. 
 
 through the crisis of 1837-8, and were sore undei 
 those commercial disasters : consequently they were 
 prepared for a change. Now the hero of Tippe- 
 canoe and the farmer of North Bend was pitted 
 against the wily Dutchman and the patronage of 
 the White House ; and the latter was laughed at, 
 joked, jeered, and ridiculed out of a second term. 
 
 I cannot give the part which Mr. Greeley acted in 
 this election of Harrison better than by selecting the 
 language of Mr. Parton in his Life of Mr. Greeley, 
 p. 181 : " The man who contributed most to keep 
 alive and increase the popular enthusiasm, the man 
 who did most to feed that enthusiasm with the sub- 
 stantial fuel of fact and argument, was, beyond all 
 question, Horace Greeley. 
 
 " On the 2d of May the first number of ' The Log- 
 Cabin' appeared, by H. Greeley and Co. ; a weekly paper, 
 to be published simultaneously at Newark and Albany 
 at fifty cents for the campaign of six months. It was 
 a small paper, about half the size of the present 
 ' Tribune ; ' but it was conducted with wonderful 
 spirit, and made an unprecedented hit. Of the first 
 number an edition of twenty thousand was printed, 
 which Mr. Greeley's friends thought a far greater 
 number than would be sold ; but the edition vanished 
 from the counter in a day. Eight thousand more 
 were struck off: they were sold in a morning. Four 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 99 
 
 thousand more were printed ; and still the demand 
 seemed unabated. A further supply of six thousand 
 was printed, and the types were then distributed. In 
 a few days, however, the demand became so urgent, 
 that the number was re-set, and an edition of ten 
 thousand struck off. Altogether, forty-eight thousand 
 of the first number were sold. Subscribers came 
 pouring in at the rate of seven hundred a day. Tlie 
 list lengthened in a few weeks to sixty thousand 
 names, and kept increasing till the weekly issue was 
 between eighty and ninety thousand. Horace Greeley 
 and Co. were really overwhelmed with their success. 
 They had made no preparations for such an enormous 
 increase of business ; and tliey were troubled to hire 
 clerks and folders fast enough to get their stupendous 
 edition into the mails. 
 
 *' ' The Log-Cabin ' is not dull reading, even now, 
 after the lapse of years, though the men and the 
 questions of that day are, most of them, dead ; but 
 then it was devoured with an eagerness which even 
 those who remember it can hardly realize." 
 
 Those were stirring times, and " The Log-Cabin " 
 was a stirring paper. Mr. Greeley announced its 
 purpose and object in the following language : — 
 
 " ' The Log-Cabin ' will be a zealous and unwaver- 
 ing advocate of the rights, interests, and prosperity of 
 our whole country, but especially those of the hardy 
 
100 LIFE OF HOKACE GEEELEY. 
 
 subduers and cultivators of her soil. It will be the 
 advocate of the cause of the log-cabin against that 
 of the custom-house and presidential palace. It 
 will be an advocate of the interests of unassuming 
 industry against the schemes and devices of function- 
 aries ' dressed in a little brief authority,' whose salaries 
 are trebled in value whenever labor is forced to beg 
 for employment at three or four shillings a day. It 
 will be the advocate of a sound, uniform, adequate 
 currency for our whole country, against the visionary 
 projects and ruinous experiments of the official 
 Dousterswivels of the day, who commenced by prom- 
 ising prosperity, abundance, and plenty of gold, as the 
 sure result of their policy ; and, lo ! we have its 
 issues in disorganization, bankruptcy, low wages, and 
 treasury rags. In fine, it will be the advocate of 
 freedom, improvement, and of national reform, by 
 the election of Harrison and Tyler, the restoration of 
 purity to the government, of efficiency to the public 
 will, and of better times to the people. Such are the 
 objects and scope of ' The Log-Cabin.' " 
 
 This paper was nobly managed by Mr. Greeley, and 
 he fulfilled all his promises respecting it. " The 
 Log-Cabin," and the songs that accompanied it, 
 elected Gen. Harrison. Those songs were graphic. 
 The writer learned, and has not forgotten them yet. 
 They were like this : — 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. lOl 
 
 " Little Van is a used-up man. 
 
 Tippecanoe and Tyler too. 
 From the White House, now, Matty, turn out, turn out I 
 From the White House, now, Matty, turn out, turn out ! 
 
 Since there you have been 
 
 No peace we have seen : 
 So, Matty, now please to turn out, turn out I 
 So, Matty, now please to turn out ! 
 Make way for old Tip ! turn out, turn out I 
 
 'Tis the people's desire 
 
 Their choice he shall be : 
 So, Martin Van Biu*en, turn out, turn out I 
 So, Martin Van Buren, turn out, turn out ! " 
 
 In his Life of Mr. Greeley, Mr. Partoii gives the 
 following witty story as no one else could give it, and 
 says " it is literally true." It may be found on p. 
 188 of the Life published by James R. Osgood & Co. 
 It shows how Mr. Greeley was absorbed in the Har- 
 rison campaign. It is named " The Cake-Basket." 
 " Time, Sunday evening ; scene, the parlor of a 
 friend's house ; company numerous and political, 
 except the ladies, who are gracious and hospitable. 
 Mr. Greeley is expected to tea, but does not come, 
 and the meal is transacted without him. Tea over, he 
 arrives, and plunges headlong into a conversation on 
 the currency. The lady of the house thinks he had 
 better take some tea, but cannot get a hearing on the 
 subject ; is distressed, puts the question at length, and 
 
 9* 
 
102 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 
 
 lias her invitation hurriedly declined, — brushed 
 aside, in fact, with a wave of the hand. 
 
 " ' Take a cruller, any way,' said she, handing him a 
 cake-basket containing a dozen or so of those unspeak- 
 able Dutch indigestibles. The expounder of the 
 currency, dimly conscious that a large object was 
 approaching him, puts forth his hands, still vehe- 
 mently talking, and takes, not a cruller, but the cake- 
 basket, and deposits it in his lap. The company are 
 inwardly convulsed ; and some of the weaker mem- 
 bers retire to the adjoining apartment, the expounder 
 continuing his harangue, unconscious of their emo- 
 tions or its cause. Minutes elapse. His hands, in 
 their wandering through the air, come in contact 
 with the topmost cake, which they take and break. 
 He begins to eat, and eats and talks, talks and eats, 
 till he has finished a cruller. Then he feels for 
 another, and eats that, and goes on, slowly consuming 
 the contents of the basket till the last crumb is gone. 
 The company look on amazed, and the kind lady of 
 the house fears for the consequences. She has heard 
 that cheese is an antidote to indigestion. Taking the 
 empty cake-basket from his lap, she silently puts a 
 plate of cheese in its place, hoping instinct will guide 
 his hand aright. The experiment succeeds. Gradu- 
 ally the blocks of white new cheese disappear. She 
 removes the plate. No ill consequences follow. 
 
COMMENCES BUSINESS. 103 
 
 Those who saw this sight are fixed in the belief that 
 Mr. Greeley was not then nor has since become 
 aware that on that evening he partook of sustenance." 
 No man did more in that memorable campaign of 
 1840 to elect Harrison than Horace Greeley. But 
 he asked for no office, and, to the shame of the party 
 and the men elected by it, no office was offered 
 him ; while so hungry were the party, having starved 
 through twelve years under Andrew Jackson and 
 Martin Yan Buren, that they rushed upon their poor 
 victim, Harrison, in such numbers, and with such 
 impetuosity, that the good old man, who had lived in 
 retirement for thirty years, succumbed in a single 
 month. Had he been an old politician, used to the 
 harness, skilled in trickery, regardless of promises, 
 and making them to every applicant ; or had all 
 treated him as Horace did, — just let him alone, — 
 Harrison might have lived to serve out his term, and 
 John Tyler would never have served his. Whatever 
 men may say of Mr. Greeley now, no man has been 
 farther from seeking office all his life than this same 
 man. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HORACE GREELEY'S TEMPERANCE. 
 
 Horace will not drink. — Aids in forming a Temperance Society. — His 
 Opinion of Cider-Guzzling. — Liquor used by Everybody. — Why Cities 
 always go for Liquor-Selling. — The Man in whom an Iceberg formed. 
 — Horace foreshadows a Prohibitory Law. — Sylvester Graham. — Died 
 of Chagrin. — Mr. Greeley's Grahamism. — Finds his Wife at the Graham 
 Boarding-House. — On the Whole, he thinks favorably of eating more 
 Fruit, and less Meat. 
 
 WE find an excellent trait of character in him in 
 his temperance. So many editors and so many 
 public men are intemperate, that, when we find one who 
 has for a lifetime strictly followed the laws of temper- 
 ance in all things, we ought to make a mark there, 
 and place an exclamation-point. 
 
 Mr. Greeley says, '^ On the first day of January, 
 1824, while living in West Haven, Vt., I deliber- 
 ately resolved to drink no more distilled liquors." 
 Temperance societies had been formed in some places 
 at that time, and he had heard of persons who had 
 resolved that they would drink no more liquor. He 
 says, " The American Temperance Society was yet 
 
 104 
 
HOEACB Greeley's temperance. 105 
 
 unknown, and did not adopt the principle of total 
 abstinence from alcoholic beverages until 1833." 
 
 The writer thinks Mr. Greeley is mistaken in this : 
 at all events, he has now a series of temperance 
 addresses which he delivered in various parts of Mas- 
 sachusetts and New Hampshire in 1829 and 1830, 
 wherein total abstinence is maintained and strongly 
 inculcated as the " club of Hercules, with which the 
 monster Intemperance is to be slain." At the time 
 Mr. Greeley was in Vermont, he says, " Whiskey and 
 tobacco were the universal luxuries — I might say, 
 the poor man's only luxuries — in Vermont, as rum 
 had been in New Hampshire." 
 
 Cider was universally used. Apple-trees flourished 
 and were almost universally cultivated in every 
 clearing upon the new soil. Then, too, good peach- 
 es were raised in these Northern States ; though now 
 peach-trees have almost disappeared from among 
 us. Cider being so abundant, it was a short cut to 
 hotter and more stimulating drinks ; and multitudes 
 easily crossed the bridge, and died paupers and drunk- 
 ards. 
 
 Mr. Greeley, in his " Recollections," says, " I believe 
 I was five years old when my grandfather Woodburn's 
 house in Londonderry was, one winter-day, filled with 
 relatives, gathered in good part from Deering, Wind- 
 ham, and from Vermont towns originally settled from 
 
106 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 the old hive, who, after dinner, departed in their 
 sleighs to visit some other relative, taking our old 
 folks with them, and leaving but three or four little 
 boys of us to keep house till their return. A number 
 of half-smoked cigars had been left on the mantel ; and 
 some evil genius suggested to us tow-headed urchins 
 that it would be smart and clever to indulge in a 
 general smoke. Like older fools, we went in ; and I 
 was soon the sickest mortal on the face of this planet. 
 I cannot say as to my comrades in this folly ; but that 
 half-inch of cigar-stump will last me all my life, though 
 its years should outnumber Methuselah's. For a dec- 
 ade thereafter it was often my filial duty to fill and 
 light my mother's pipe when she had lain down for 
 her after-dinner nap ; and she, having taken it, would 
 hold it and talk till the fire had gone out, so that it 
 must again be lighted and drawn till the tobacco well 
 ignited. Hence I know, that, if I had not been proof 
 against narcotic seduction, I should have learned to 
 like the soothing weed. But I never used, nor wished 
 to use, it as a sedative or a luxury, after my one 
 juvenile and thoroughly conclusive experiment. From 
 that hour to this,^ the chewing, smoking, or snufiing 
 of tobacco has seemed to me, if not the most perni- 
 cious, certainly the vilest, most detestable abuse of his 
 corrupted sensual appetites whereof depraved man is 
 capable." 
 
HORACE GREELEY'S TEMPERANCE. 107 
 
 When it is considered, that, in those days, everybody 
 drank ; that at every friendly greeting and entertain- 
 ment, at every meeting of neighbors for sociability, 
 liquor was always produced, — it was wonderful that 
 young Greeley escaped the general contagion. Well 
 does the writer remember those days, when at every 
 raising, every wedding, every burial, every ball, every 
 ordination, and on every other occasion that called 
 people together, the bottle was brought forward, and 
 every one drank. This was not all ; for, if one were 
 found who did not take his share of the poison, he was 
 persuaded, joked, ridiculed, and laughed at, to draw or 
 drive him into the wicked and foolish custom. Hence 
 it required no ordinary degree of moral courage to re- 
 sist this vast influence brought to bear upon one who 
 was so singular in his habits as not to drink. 
 
 Mr. Greeley, in giving an account of the ordination 
 of Rev. Mr. Lord (afterwards president of Dartmouth 
 College), said, "We had an ordination in Amherst, 
 nearly fifty years ago, to the signal satisfaction of the 
 great body of our people : and, according to my recol- 
 lection, strong drink was more generally and bounti- 
 fully dispensed than on any previous, occasion ; bottles 
 and glasses being set on tables in front of many farm- 
 ers' houses as an invitation to those who passed on their 
 way to or from the installation to stop and drinK 
 freely. We have worse liquor now than we had then ; 
 
108 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 and delirium tremens, apoplexy, palsy, &c., come 
 sooner and oftener to those who use it : but our con- 
 sumers of strong drink are a class, whereas they were 
 then the whole people. The pious probably drank 
 more discreetly than the ungodly ; but they all drank 
 to their own satisfaction, and, I judge, more than was 
 consistent with their personal good." 
 
 Though Mr. Greeley at this early period never 
 spoke of his resolve not to drink except in his 
 father's family, yet it somehow became known in the 
 neighborhood, where it excited, not curiosity only, but 
 opposition ; so that, on one occasion, — the time of 
 sheep-washing, — he was told to drink a glass of 
 liquor, and, on his refusal, was held by two youngsters 
 older and stronger than he, and it was turned into his 
 mouth, and some of it forced down his throat. But 
 even this personal assault did not cure him of his 
 singularity; for he still kept his resokition. 
 
 Soon after his removal to Poultney, he says in his 
 " Recollections," " I assisted in organizing the first 
 temperance society ever formed in that town, perhaps 
 the first in the county. It inhibited the use of dis- 
 tilled liquors only ; so that I believe our first presi- 
 dent died of intemperance a few years afterward. I 
 recollect a story told at that time by our adversaries 
 of a man who had joined the temperance society just 
 organized in a neighboring township, and, dying soon 
 
HORACE Greeley's temperance. 109 
 
 afterwards, had been subjected to an autopsy, which 
 developed a cake of ice weighing several pounds, 
 which had gradually formed and increased in his 
 stomach as a result of his fanatical devotion to cold 
 water. Alas that most of our facetious critics have 
 since died, and no autopsy was needed to develop 
 the cause of their departure ! A glance at each fiery 
 proboscis, tliat irradiated even the cerements of the 
 grave, was sufficient." 
 
 Mr. Greeley well accounts for the fact that all our 
 cities are far behind the country towns in temperance 
 habits in the following language in his '' Recollec- 
 tions : " " Total abstinence has never yet been popular 
 in this nor in any other great city ; and, as liquor 
 grows unfashionable in the country, it tends to be- 
 come less and less so. A great city derives its subsist- 
 ence and its profits from ministrations therein, not only 
 to the real needs of the surrounding country, but to its 
 baser appetites, its vices, as well ; and, as the country 
 becomes less and less tolerant of immoral indul- 
 gences and vicious aberrations, the gains of cities there- 
 from, and their consequent interest therein, must 
 steadily increase. Time was when the young man 
 of means and social position, who shunned the haunts 
 of the gamester, the wiles of the libertine, and never 
 indulged in a drunken spree, was widely sneered at 
 as a milksop, or detested as a calculating hypocrite. 
 
 10 
 
110 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 
 
 Sheridan's Joseph Surface admirably reflects the once 
 popular appreciation of such absurd, fanatical Puri- 
 tanism ; but the world grows wiser and (in an impor- 
 tant sense) better. A great though silent change is 
 wrought in public sentiment, which compels the 
 vicious to conceal indulgences that they formerly 
 paraded, and maintain an exterior decency which 
 would once have exposed them to ridicule. Thou- 
 sands, who formerly gratified their baser appetites 
 without disguise or shame, now feel constrained, not 
 to leave undone, but to keep unknown, by hieing to 
 some great city, where no one's deeds or ways are 
 observed or much regarded so long as he keeps out 
 of the hands of the police, and there balance a year's 
 compelled decorum by a week's unrestrained debauch- 
 ery. Fifty years back, a jug would readily be filled 
 with any designated liquor at almost any country 
 store : now the devotee of alcoholic potations must 
 usually send or take his demijohn to the most con- 
 venient city, where it will at once be filled, and de- 
 spatched to its impatient and thirsty owner. And so, 
 as the liquor-interest grows weaker and weaker in the 
 country, it becomes stronger and yet stronger in the 
 cities, whose politics it fashions, whose government it 
 governs, by virtue of its inherent strength and ap- 
 prehensive activity; and thus the liquor-traffic has 
 greater strength and vitality in our city to-day than it 
 had twenty to forty years ago." 
 
HORACE Greeley's temperance. Ill 
 
 Always he has been thorough on temperance. As 
 long ago as 1835 he wrote the followhig, which looks 
 very strongly towards the prohibitory laws of 1872 : 
 " Were we called upon to indicate simply the course 
 which should be pursued for the eradication of this 
 crying evil, our compliance would be a far easier 
 matter. We would say unhesitatingly, that the vend- 
 ing of alcohol, or of liquors of which alcohol forms a 
 leading component, should be regulated by the laws 
 which govern the sale of other insidious yet deadly 
 poisons. It should be kept for sale only by druggists, 
 and dealt out in small potions, and with like regard 
 to the character and ostensible purpose of the appli- 
 cant as in the case of its counterpart. But we must 
 not forget that we are to determine simply what may 
 be done by the friends of temperance for the advance- 
 ment of the noble cause in which they are engaged, 
 rather than what the more ardent of them (with 
 whom we are proud to rank ourselves) would desire 
 to see accomplished. We are to look at things as 
 they are; and, in that view, all attempts to interdict 
 the sale of intoxicating liquors in our hotels, our 
 country stores, and our steamboats, in the present 
 state of public opinion, must be hopelessly futile. 
 The only available provision bearing on this branch 
 of the traffic, which could be urged with the least 
 prospect of success, is the imposition of a real license- 
 
112 LIFE OF HOIiACE GREELEY. 
 
 tax, say from a hundred to ten hundred dollars per 
 annum, whicli would have the effect of diminishing 
 the evil by rendering less frequent and less universal 
 the temptations which lead to it ; but even that, we 
 apprehend, would meet with strenuous opposition 
 from so large and influential a portion of the commu- 
 nity as to render its adoption and efficiency extreme- 
 ly doubtful." 
 
 About 1831-2, Sylvester Graham became a lecturer 
 upon liis peculiar system. He had been educated for the 
 ministry, and had been the pastor of a Presbyterian 
 church in New Jersey. Many called him Dr. Graham ; 
 but it is believed he never had any medical degree. He 
 had considerable mind, possessed a fair amount of 
 knowledge, was enthusiastic upon his hobby, extremely 
 egotistical, and verily believed that Sylvester Graham 
 was destined to change the habits of the world upon 
 eatables and drinkables. When he had written out 
 his lectures, and published them, he verily expected 
 they would become a text-book in all our colleges and 
 seminaries ; but, when the two ponderous volumes fell 
 " still-born " from the press, the publisher failed, and 
 Graham died of disappointment and chagrin. 
 
 His system, as the writer remembers it, and as Mr. 
 Greeley has stated it, was this : " He believed, there- 
 fore taught, that health is the necessary result of obe- 
 dience, disease of disobedience, to physical laws ; that 
 
113 
 
 all stimulants, whether alcoholic or narcotic, are per- 
 nicious, and should be rejected, save, possibly, in those 
 rare cases where one poison may be wisely employed 
 to neutralize or expel another. He condemned tea and 
 coffee, as well as tobacco, opium, and alcoholic pota- 
 bles ; cider and beer equally with brandy and gin, save 
 that the poison is more concentrated in the latter. 
 He disapproved of all spices and condiments save 
 (grudgingly) a very little salt ; and he held that more 
 suitable and wholesome food for human beings than 
 the flesh of animals can almost always be procured, 
 and should be preferred. The bolting of meal, to 
 separate its coarser from its finer particles, he also 
 reprobated ; teaching that the ripe, sound berry of 
 wheat or rye, being ground to the requisite fineness, 
 should in no manner be sifted, but should be made 
 into loaves, and eaten precisely as the millstones de- 
 liver it. Such is, in brief, the ' Graham system,' as 
 I heard it expounded in successive lectures by its 
 author, and fortified by evidence, — reasoning which 
 commanded my general assent. 
 
 " A boarding-house was soon established, based on its 
 principles ; and I became an inmate thereof, as well as 
 of others afterward founded on the same general 
 ideas ; though I never wholly rejected the use of meat. 
 Tea I never cared for ; and I used none at all for a quar- 
 ter of a century : now I sometimes take it in moderation 
 
 10* 
 
114 LUTE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 
 
 when black and very good. Coffee had for years been 
 my cliief luxury ; coffee without breakfast being far 
 preferable, to my taste, to breakfast without coffee : 
 but, having drank a strong cup of it one evening at a 
 festive board, I woke next morning to find my hand 
 trembling ; and I at once said, ' No more coffee,' and 
 have not drank it since. My taste gradually changed 
 thereafter, so that I soon ceased to crave, and now 
 thoroughly dislike, the beverage. And while I eat meat, 
 and deem it, when unspoiled by decay or bad cookery, 
 far less objectionable than hot bread, rancid butter, 
 decayed fruits, wilted vegetables, and too many other 
 contributions to our ordinary diet, I profoundly believe 
 that there is better food obtainable by the great body 
 of mankind than the butcher and the fisherman do or 
 can supply ; and that a diet made up of sound grain 
 (ground, but unbolted), ripe, undecayed fruits, and a 
 variety of fresh, wholesome vegetables, with milk, but- 
 ter, and cheese, and a very little of spices or condi- 
 ments, will enable our grandchildren to live in the 
 average far longer, and fall far less frequently into 
 the hands of the doctors, than we do." 
 
 Mr. Greeley continues as follows : — 
 
 *' My wife, whose acquaintance I made at the Gra- 
 ham House, and who was long a more faithful, con- 
 sistent disciple of Graham than I was, in our years of 
 extreme poverty kept her house in strict accordance 
 
noil ACE Greeley's temperance. 115 
 
 with hei" convictions, never even deigning an expla- 
 nation to her friends and relatives who from time to 
 time visited and temporarily sojourned with us ; and, 
 as politeness usually repressed complaint or inquiry 
 on their part, their first experiences of a regimen 
 which dispensed with all they deemed most appetizing 
 could hardly be observed without a smile. Usually a 
 day, or at most two, of beans and potatoes, boiled rice, 
 puddings, bread and butter, with no condiment but 
 salt, and never a pickle, was all they could abide : so, 
 bidding her a kind adieu, each in turn departed to 
 seek elsewhere a more congenial hospitality. 
 
 " ' But what peculiar effects of a vegetable diet did 
 you experience ? ' some will naturally ask. I answer 
 generally, ' Much the same as a rum-drinker notes 
 after a brief return to water-drinking exclusively. I 
 first felt a qu.ite perceptible sinking of animal spirits, 
 a partial relaxation or depression of natural energies. 
 It seemed as though I could not lift so much, jump so 
 high, nor run so fast, as vs^hen I ate meat. After a 
 time, this lowering of the tone of the physical system 
 passed away, or became imperceptible : on the other 
 hand, I had no feeling of repletion or over-fulness ; I 
 had no headache, and scarcely an ache of any sort ; 
 my health was stubbornly good ; and any cut or other 
 flesh-wound healed more easily and rapidly than for- 
 merly. Other things being equal, I judge that a strict 
 
116 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 
 
 Yegetarian will live ten years longer than an habitual 
 flesh-eater, while suffering, in the average, less than 
 half so much from sickness as the carnivorous must. 
 The simple fact that animals are often diseased when 
 killed for food, and that the flesh of those borne in 
 crowded cars from far inland, to be slaughtered for 
 the sustenance of sea-board cities, is almost always 
 and inevitably feverish and unwholesome, ought to be 
 conclusive. 
 
 " On the whole, I am convinced by the observation 
 and experience of a third of a century that all public 
 danger lies in the direction opposite to that of vege- 
 tarianism ; that a thousand fresh Grahams let loose 
 each year upon the public will not prevent the con- 
 sumption, in the average, of far too much and too 
 highly-seasoned animal food; while all Goughs and 
 Neal Dows that ever were or can be scared up will 
 not deter the body politic from pouring down its 
 throat a great deal more fire-water than is good for it. 
 And, while I look with interest on all attempts to 
 substitute American wines and malt liquors for the 
 more concentrated and maddening decoctions of the 
 still, I have noted no such permanent triumphs in 
 the thousand past attempts to cast out big devils by 
 the incantations of little ones as would give me rea- 
 son to put faith in the principle, or augur success for 
 this latest experiment.'' 
 
HORACE GBEELEY'S TEMPERANCE. 117 
 
 No one can accuse Horace Greeley of ever hav- 
 ing been intemperate either in eating or drinking. 
 Would he not in this respect make a model presi- 
 dent? Cannot all the temperance people, even the 
 most radical of them, vote for him with a good con- 
 science, if their desire for the triumph of this cause 
 is paramount to that of party politics ? These are 
 important questions for them to answer at the polls, 
 — answer, not by words, by speeches, and newspaper 
 articles, but by deeds ; for here they have an opportu- 
 nity to manifest their love to the cause they advocate 
 by casting their votes for a man who for a lifetime 
 has espoused their cause. We shall see how much 
 they really love this good cause. 
 
CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 MR. GREELEY AND ^' THE TRIBUNE." 
 
 Mr. Greeley had tried his Fortune with Several Journals. — He starts " The 
 Tribune " Alone. — Takes a Partner. — Their Adaptedness to Each Other. 
 — "The Tribune" a Success. — "Fanny Fern's " Adventure to get a 
 Copy. — " The Tribune " a Whig Paper. — It attacks the New-York City 
 Government; also the Theatre-Goers. — Is pounced upon by the Other 
 Papers. — Mr. Greeley justifies his Course towards John Tyler. — He tells 
 what he wanted "The Tribune" to be from the first. — How Candi- 
 dates for Public Favor are used. 
 
 MR. GREELEY had now tried his fortune in 
 various partnerships and papers, and in 1841, 
 the time when he projected and started " The Trib- 
 une," was about even with the world. He had been 
 honest, paid all his debts, and maintained a good 
 character for uprightness and integrity. Upon these 
 he started the paper. It was to be Whig, and cheap : 
 these were to be its characteristics. Though there 
 were then many papers in New York, yet there was 
 none of this peculiar kind. There were Whig 
 papers, like " The Courier and Enquirer" and " The 
 Commercial Advertiser ; " but they were ten dollars 
 
 118 
 
119 
 
 a year. There were also cheap papers, — "The Sig- 
 nal," " Tatler," " Star," and " Sun ; " but no one o^ " 
 them was decidedly Whig. 
 
 In some respects, events were unpropitious. Harri- 
 son had just died, and gloom seemed to overcast the 
 triumph of his election, as it began to be whispered 
 that the party had got more than it bargained for by 
 taking 
 
 " Tippecanoe and Tyler too." 
 
 But April 10, 1841, " The Tribune " made its appear- 
 ance, ^' price one cent; Horace Greeley editor and 
 proprietor." It was headed with the dying words of 
 Harrison : " I desire you to understand the true 
 
 PRINCIPLES OP THE GOVERNMENT. I WISH THEM CAR- 
 RIED OUT. I ASK NOTHING MORE." 
 
 Mr. Greeley spent the whole night in watching the 
 coming-forth of the first number of " The Tribune." 
 It was an unpropitious morning ; and some time after- 
 wards Mr. Greeley wrote of it, " The leaden sky, 
 the unseasonable wintriness, the general gloom, of 
 that stormy day which witnessed the grand though 
 mournful pageant whereby our city commemorated 
 the blighting of a nation's hopes in the most untimely 
 death of President Harrison, were not inaptly minia- 
 tured in my own prospects and fortunes. Having 
 devoted the seven preceding years almost wholly to 
 
120 LIFE OF HOEACE GEEELEf . 
 
 the establishment of a weekly compend of literature 
 and intelligence ('The New-Yorker'), wherefrom, 
 though widely circulated and warmly praised, I had 
 received no other return than the experience and 
 wider acquaintance thence accruing, I entered upon 
 my novel and most precarious enterprise, most slen- 
 derly with the external means of commanding sub- 
 sistence and success in its prosecution. With iio 
 partner or business-associate, with inconsiderable pe- 
 cuniary resources, and only a promise from political 
 friends of aid to the extent of two thousand dollars, 
 of which but one-half was ever realized (and that 
 long since repaid ; but the sense of obligation to the 
 far-from-wealthy friend who made the loan is none the 
 less fresh and ardent), I undertook the enterprise — 
 at all times and under any circumstances hazardous 
 — of adding one more to the already amply-extensive 
 list of daily newspapers issued in this emporium, 
 where the current expenses of such papers, already 
 appalling, were soon to be doubled by rivalry, by stim- 
 ulated competition, by the progress of business, the 
 complications of interests, and especially by the gen- 
 eral diffusion of the electric telegraph, and where at 
 least nineteen out of every twenty attempts to estab- 
 lish a new daily have proved disastrous failures. 
 Manifestly the prospects of success in this case were 
 far from flattering." 
 
MR. GREELEY AND " THE TRIBUNE." 121 
 
 In one of the numbers of " The Log-Cabin," pub- 
 lished the 3d of April, just after the death of Harri- 
 son, the following notice appeared : — 
 
 " ' New- York Tribune.' 
 
 " On Saturday, the tenth day of April instant, the sub- 
 scriber will publish the first number of a new morning 
 journal of politics, literature, and general intelligence. 
 
 " ' The Tribune,' as its name imports, will labor to 
 advance the interests of the people, and to promote 
 their moral, social, and political well-being. The im- 
 moral and degrading police-reports, advertisements, and 
 other matter which have been allowed to disgrace the 
 columns of our leading penny-papers, will be carefully 
 excluded from this, and no exertion spared to render 
 it worthy of the hearty approval of the virtuous and 
 refined, and a welcome visitant at the family fireside. 
 
 " Earnestly believing that the political revolution 
 which has called William Henry Harrison to the 
 chief magistracy of the nation was a triumph of 
 right, reason, and public good, over error and sinis- 
 ter ambition, ' The Tribune ' will give to the new 
 administration a frank and cordial, but manly and 
 independent support, judging it always by its acts, 
 and commending those only so far as they shall seem 
 calculated to subserve the great end of all goverr^- 
 ment, — the welfare of the people. 
 11 
 
122 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 " ' The Tribune ' will be published every morning 
 on a fair, royal sheet, — size of ' The Log-Cabin ' and 
 'Evening Signal,' — and transmitted to its city sub- 
 scribers at the low price of one cent per copy. Mail 
 subscribers, four dollars per annum. It will contain 
 the news by the morning's Southern mail, which is 
 contained in no other penny-paper. Subscriptions 
 are respectfully solicited by 
 
 " Horace Greeley, 30 Ann Street." 
 
 '' The Tribune " from its commencement was a 
 success, though several attempts were made to crush 
 it. Many who had taken other papers stopped them, 
 and took the new paper. One of our authoresses 
 gives the following interesting account of her unsuc- 
 cessful attempt to get one : — 
 
 To the Editor of '' The New -York Tribune:' 
 
 Sir, — Not long since, I read in your paper an 
 article headed " The Man who never took a News- 
 paper." In contrast to this, I would relate to you a 
 little incident which came under my own observation. 
 
 Having been disappointed the other morning in 
 receiving that part of my breakfast contained in " The 
 New- York Tribune," I despatched a messenger to see 
 what could be done in the way of satisfaction. After 
 half an hour's diligent search, he returned, much to 
 
123 
 
 my chagrin, empty-handed. Recollecting an old 
 copy set me at school after this wise, " If you want 
 a thing done, do it yourself," I seized my bonnet, 
 and sallied forth. Not far from my domicile appears 
 each morning with the rising sun an old huckster- 
 man, whose stock in trade consists of two empty 
 barrels, across which is thrown a pro tern counter in 
 the shape of a plank, a pint of pea-nuts, six sticks 
 of peppermint-candy, half a dozen cholera-looking 
 pears and apples, copies of the daily papers, and an 
 old stubby broom, with which the owner carefully 
 brushes up the nut-shells dropped by graceless ur- 
 chins to the endangerment of his sidewalk lease. 
 
 " Have you this morning's ' Tribune ' ? " said I, 
 looking as amiable as I knew how. 
 
 " No, ma^am^^ was the decided reply. 
 
 " Why, yes, you have," said I, laying my hand on 
 the desired number. 
 
 " Well, you can't have that, ma'am," said the dis- 
 concerted peanut-merchant ; "for I haven't read it 
 myself." 
 
 " I'll give you three cents for it," said I. 
 
 (A shake of the head.) 
 
 " Four cents ? " 
 
 (Another shake.) 
 
 " Sixpence ? " (I was getting excited.) 
 
 ^' It's no use, ma'am," said the persistent old fellow. 
 
124 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 •' It's the only number I could get ; and I tell you 
 that nobody shall have that ' Tribune ' till I have 
 read it myself." 
 
 You should have seen, Mr. Editor, the shapeless 
 hat, the mosaic coat, the tattered vest, and the extraor- 
 dinary pair of trousers, that were educated up to 
 that " Tribune." It was a picture. Fanny Fern. 
 
 Fight was the word with '' The Tribune " when it 
 was opposed ; and others outside took up the cudgel 
 when the other papers attacked it. Its success was 
 great. But one thing seemed necessary to its ultimate 
 triumph. Mr. Greeley must have a partner ; and he 
 found one ; for on Saturday, July 31, he made the 
 following announcement : " The undersigned lias great 
 pleasure in announcing to his friends and the public 
 that he has formed a copartnership with Thomas 
 McElrath ; and ' The Tribune ' will hereafter be pub- 
 lished by himself and Mr. McElrath under the 
 firm of Greeley and McElrath. Tlie principal edi- 
 torial charge of the paper will still rest with the 
 subscriber ; while the entire business-management of 
 the concern henceforth devolves upon his partner. 
 Tills arrangement, while it relieves the undersigned 
 from a large portion of the labors and cares which 
 have pressed heavily upon him for the last four 
 months, assures to the paper efficiency and strength 
 
MK. GREELEY AND '' THE TRIBUNE." 125 
 
 in a department where they have hitherto been 
 needed ; and I cannot be mistaken in the trust that 
 the accession to its conduct of a gentleman who has 
 twice been honored with their suffrages for an impor- 
 tant station will strengthen ' The Tribune ' in the 
 confidence and aifections of the Whigs of New York. 
 " Respectfully, " Horace Greeley. 
 
 "July 3L" 
 
 " The undersigned, in connecting himself with the 
 conduct of a public journal, invokes a continuance of 
 that courtesy and good feeling wliich have been ex- 
 tended to him by his fellow-citizens. Having hereto- 
 fore received evidence of kindness and regard from 
 the conductors of the Whig press of this city, and re- 
 joicing in the friendship of most oF them, it will be 
 his aim in his new vocation to justify that kindness, 
 and strengthen and increase those friendships. His 
 hearty concurrence in the principles, political and 
 moral, on which ' The Tribune ' has thus far been 
 conducted, has been a principal incitement to the con- 
 nection here announced ; and the statement of this 
 fact will preclude the necessity of any special declara- 
 tion of opinions. With gratitude for past favors, and 
 an anxious desire to merit a continuance of regard, 
 be remains 
 
 " The public's humble servant, 
 
 " Thomas McElrath." 
 11* 
 
126 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 " The Tribune " had now precisely what it needed 
 to put it on a firm basis, — Horace Greeley for the 
 editor, and Thomas McElrath for managing the busi- 
 ness-department. By this time, everybody knew what 
 Mr. Greeley was as editor ; for he had abundantly 
 shown what he could do in " The New-Yorker," '' The 
 Jefifersonian," " The Log-Cabin," &c. His friends 
 knew his ability to defend them and the principles he 
 espoused. His enemies of rival newspapers had felt 
 his bite when they drove him to show his teeth, and 
 his political opposers had learned to be shy of him. 
 
 McElrath was a different kind of a man. He was 
 the perfection of a disciplinarian ; a first-rate calcu- 
 lator, who knew how to save the pennies : hence Mr. 
 Parton, in his Life of Mr. Greeley, well said, " Roll 
 Horace Greeley and Thomas McElrath into one, and 
 the result would be a very respectable approximation 
 to a perfect man." They were well matched in 
 partnership. Damon and Pythias were not more 
 firm friends, and they worked in perfect harmony. 
 
 When " The New-Yorker " had existed seven 
 years, and " The Log-Cabin " one year and a half, 
 they were both merged in " The Weekly Tribune." 
 No liive of bees was ever more industrious than the 
 editor and manager of " The Tribune " now were. 
 The paper teemed with all the news of the day. It 
 was freighted with every thing that made its appear- 
 
MB. GREELEY AND ^' THE TRIBUNE.'* 127 
 
 ance in the literary world. Carlyle, Cousin, Thomas 
 Moore, Millerism, and many celebrated legal trials, 
 were on the docket in those days ; and they were all 
 thoroughly handled in " The Tribune." The corrupt 
 city government was attacked, and set in its true light, 
 as it has been more recently ; and the theatre came in 
 under the following lashing : " The whole moral 
 atmosphere of the theatre, as it actually exists among 
 us, is, in our judgment, unwholesome ; and therefore, 
 while we do not propose to war upon it, we seek no 
 alliance with it, and cannot conscientiously urge our 
 readers to visit it, as would be expected if we were to 
 solicit and profit by its advertising patronage." 
 
 This frank and open rebuke caused an outbreak and 
 burst of abuse from the other papers, which the con- 
 ductors of " The Tribune " bore with great calmness. 
 Of course, all who advertised for what " The Tribune " 
 called " contraband " united in an avalanche of abuse 
 upon the paper which condemned them. 
 
 Having been condemned for its course in justifying 
 Daniel Webster for continuing in the cabinet of John 
 Tyler after all his colleagues had resigned, " The Trib- 
 une " justified its course upon the ground that Web- 
 ster could best bring to a happy close the Asliburton 
 Treaty, then pending. 
 
 Again : Mr. Greeley was condemned for his course in 
 the Tyler controversy; upon which, in 1845, he wrote 
 
128 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 •as follows : ^' In December, 1841, I visited Washing- 
 ton upon assurances that John Tyler and his advisers 
 were disposed to return to the Whig party, and that I 
 could be of service in bringing about a complete recon- 
 cihation between the administration and the Whigs in 
 Congress and in the country. I never proposed to 
 ' connect myself with the cause of the administration ' 
 but upon tlie understanding that it should be heartily 
 and faithfully a Wliig administration. Finally, I de- 
 clined utterly and absolutely to ' connect myself with 
 the cause of the administration ' the moment I became 
 satisfied, as I did during that visit, that the chief of 
 the government did not desire a reconciliation, upon 
 the basis of sustaining Whig principles and Whig meas- 
 ures, with the party he had so deeply wronged, but 
 was treacherously coquetting with Locofocoism, and 
 fooled with the idea of a re-election." 
 
 Mr. Greeley's own account of what he from the first 
 designed " The Tribune" should be is given in his 
 " Recollections," as follows : " My leading idea was 
 the establishment of a journal removed alike from ser- 
 vile partisanship on the one hand, and from gagged, 
 mincing neutrality on the other. 
 
 " Party-spirit is so fierce and intolerant in this coun- 
 try, that the editor of a non-partisan sheet is restrained 
 from saying what he thinks and feels on the most vital, 
 imminent topics ; while, on the other hand, a Demo- 
 
MR. GREELEY AND '' THE TRIBUNE." 129 
 
 cratic, Whig, or Republican journal is generally ex- 
 pected to praise or blame, like or dislike, eulogize or 
 condemn, in precise accordance with the views and 
 interest of its party. I believed there was a happy 
 medium between these extremes, — a position from 
 which a journalist might openly and heartily advocate 
 the principles and commend the measures of that party 
 to which his convictions allied him, yet frankly dissent 
 from its course on a particular question, and even de- 
 nounce its candidates if they were shown to be deficient 
 in capacity or (far worse) in integrity. I - felt that a 
 journal thus loyal to its guiding convictions, yet ready 
 to expose and condemn unworthy conduct or inci- 
 dental error on the part of men attached to its party, 
 must be far more eiFective, even party-wise, than though 
 it might always be counted on to applaud or repro- 
 bate, bless or curse, as the party's prejudices or imme- 
 diate interest might seem to prescribe. Especially by 
 the Whigs — who were rather the loosely aggregated, 
 mainly undisciplined opponents of a great party, than, 
 in the stricter sense, a party themselves — did I feel 
 that such a journal was consciously needed, and would 
 be fairly sustained. I had been a pretty constant and 
 copious contributor (generally unpaid) to nearly or 
 quite every cheap Whig journal that had, from time to 
 time, been started in our city, — most of them to fail 
 after a very brief and not particularly bright career. 
 
130 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 But one, ' The New- York Whig,' which was, through- 
 out most of its existence, under the dignified and con- 
 scientious direction of Jacob B. Moore, formerly of 
 ' The New-Hampshire Journal,' had been continued 
 through two or three years. My familiarity with its 
 history and management gave me confidence that the 
 right sort of a cheap Whig journal would be enabled to 
 thrive. I had been ten years in New York ; was thirty 
 years old ; in full health and vigor ; and worth, I pre- 
 sume, about two thousand dollars, half of it in printing- 
 materials. ' The Jeffersonian,' and, still more, ' The 
 Log-Cabin,' had made me favorably known to many 
 thousands of those who were most likely to take such 
 a paper as I proposed to make ' The Tribune ; ' while 
 ' The New-Yorker ' had given me some literary stand- 
 ing, and the reputation of a useful and well-informed 
 compiler of election-returns. In short, I was in a 
 better position to undertake the establishment of a 
 daily newspaper than the great mass of those who try 
 it and fail, as most who make the venture do and must. 
 I presume the new journals (in English) since started 
 in this city number not less than a hundred, whereof 
 barely two — 'The Times' and 'The World' — can 
 be fairly said to be still living ; and ' The World ' is a 
 mausoleum wherein the remains of ' The Evening 
 Star,' ' The American,' and ' The Courier and En- 
 quirer,' lie inurned, these having long ago swallowed 
 
131 
 
 sundry of their predecessors. Yet several of those 
 which have meantime lived their little hour and passed 
 away were conducted by men of decided ability and 
 ripe experience, and were backed by a pecuniary capi- 
 tal at least twenty times greater than the fearfully 
 inadequate sum whereon I started ' The Tribune.' " 
 
 Many of those who have been owners or were en- 
 gaged upon " The Tribune " have passed away : 
 nevertheless the paper still lives and prospers. Mr. 
 Greeley says, " My current expenses for the first week 
 were about five hundred and twenty-five dollars, my 
 receipts ninety-two dollars; and, though the outgoes 
 steadily increased, the income increased in a still 
 larger ratio, till it nearly balanced the former." 
 
 It required both faith and perseverance to go for- 
 ward with such a work ; and Horace Greeley possessed 
 both. The expenditure for carrying on this paper has 
 been vast ; but the income has been enormous. It is 
 no doubt destined to live and flourish for a long time 
 to come. Mr. Greeley must look upon this woi-k of 
 his hands, and plan of his intellect, — this singular 
 success, — with much complacency. He says in his 
 '' Recollections," "• Fame is a vapor, popularity an 
 accident ; riches take wings ; no man can see what a 
 day may bring forth ; while those who cheer to-day 
 will often curse to-morrow," — all of which he has a 
 fair opportunity of knowing and feeling in his own per- 
 
132 LIFE OF HORACE GBEELEt. 
 
 son, now that he is a candidate for the presidency of 
 the United States of America ; for, if he escapes cei\- 
 sure, he will be the first candidate for this high office 
 who ever has. 
 
 f 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " THE TRIBUNE " CONTINUED. 
 
 " The Tribune " changed to a Two-Cent Paper. — A Mob in New York. — 
 Mr. Greeley's First Visit to Washington. — His Letter from Mount Ver- 
 non. — From Saratoga. — Margaret Fuller and Mr. Greeley. — Mr. Gree- 
 ley's Opinion of John Tyler. — Burning of " The Tribune " Building. — 
 Mr. Greeley's Description of it afterwards. 
 
 THOUGH this paper was started as a penny paper, 
 yet, when tlie second volume was commenced, 
 the price was raised to two cents. New York, then 
 (1842) as since, was of a riotous disposition ; and, on 
 the day of the spring elections, certain fighting-men 
 of the sixth ward indulged in their pugilistic game, 
 and became rioters. " The Tribune " came out with 
 the following rebuke among- others : " It appears that 
 some of the 'Spartan band,' headed by Michael Walsh, 
 after a fight in the fourth district of the sixth ward, 
 paraded up Centre Street, opposite the halls of jus- 
 tice, to the neighborhood of the poll of the third dis- 
 trict, where, after marching and counter-marching, the 
 leader Walsh recommenced the work of violence by 
 
 12 133 
 
134 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 knocking down an unoffending individual who was 
 following near him. This was the signal for a general 
 attack of this band upon the Irish population, who 
 were knocked down in every direction until the street 
 was literally strewed with their prostrate bodies. 
 After this demonstration of Spartan valor the Irish 
 fled, and the band moved on to another poll to re- 
 enact their deeds of violence. In the interim the 
 Irish proceeded to rally their forces, and, armed 
 with sticks of cord-wood and clubs, paraded through 
 Centre Street about three hundred strong, attacking 
 indiscriminately, and knocking down nearly all who 
 came in their way ; some of their victims, bruised and 
 bloody, having to be carried into the police-office and 
 the prison to protect them from being murdered. A 
 portion of tjie Irish then dispersed ; while another 
 portion proceeded to a house in Orange Street, which 
 they attacked, and riddled from top to bottom. Re- 
 uniting their scattered forces, the Irish bands again, 
 with increased nimibers, marched up Centre Street, 
 driving all before them : and, when near the halls of 
 justice, the cry was raised, ' Americans, stand firm ! ' 
 when a body of nearly a thousand voters surrounded 
 the Irish bands, knocked them down, and beat them 
 without mercy ; while some of the fallen Irish were 
 with difficulty rescued from the violence that would 
 have destroyed them had they not been hurried into 
 
"THE tribune" continued. IC ") 
 
 the police-office and prison as a place of refuge. In 
 this encounter, or the one that preceded it, a man 
 named Ford, said to be one of the Spartans, was 
 carried into the police-office beaten almost to death, 
 and was subsequently transferred to the hospital." 
 
 Immediately after this appeared, two stout men 
 made their ingress into the office of " The Tribune," 
 and declared that this account of the riot was incor- 
 rect and unjust, and they expected to see it corrected 
 in the next issue of the paper ; but, as that was not 
 done, a second visit was made to the office by the two 
 fighting gentlemen. Bitter words were uttered, and 
 sharp threats were made, that, unless a recantation 
 were made in the next paper, they would " smash the 
 office." The next paper gave a full history of the 
 affair, and condemned the rioters in unmistakable 
 terms. The " Bloody Sixth" were in a rage ; and the 
 operators of " The Tribune " put themselves in an at- 
 titude of defence. One of the conductors of the pa- 
 per, being a member of the City Guard, obtained the 
 muskets of that body, and had them conveyed to the 
 " Tribune " building. One of them was placed near 
 Mr. Greeley, who looked up, and said, " I guess they 
 won't come down," and resumed his writing. Every 
 preparation was made to give the rioters a warm re- 
 ception should they appear to " smash the office." 
 The steam-pipe was conveyed from the safety-valve of 
 
186 LIFE OF HORACE GBEELEY. 
 
 the boiler, and placed where it commanded the front 
 stairs, by which the virtue of hot water was to be tried 
 upon the invaders. The men from other offices, also, 
 joined with the " Tribune " defenders, as they con- 
 sidered it an attack on the freedom of the press ; 
 but the good story was spoiled by the non-appearance 
 of the " Bloody Sixth.'' 
 
 During the year of the second volume of "The 
 Tribune," Mr. Greeley took a trip to Washington, 
 Mount Vernon, Vermont, New Hampshire, and 
 Niagara. During this tour he corresponded for 
 " The Tribune," giving vivid descriptions of the sena- 
 tors and representatives in Washington. 
 
 He wrote as follows from Mount Vernon : " Slowly, 
 pensively, we turned our faces from the rest of the 
 mighty dead to the turmoil of the restless living; from 
 the solemn, sublime repose of Mount Vernon to the 
 ceaseless intrigues, the petty strifes, the ant-hill bustle, 
 of the Federal City. Each has its own atmosphere : 
 London and Mecca are not so unlike as they. The 
 silent, enshrouding woods, the gleaming, majestic 
 river, the bright, benignant sky, — it is fitly here, 
 amid the scenes he loved and hallowed, that the man 
 whose life and character have redeemed patriotism 
 and liberty from the reproach which centuries of 
 designing knavery and hollow profession had cast 
 upon them, now calmly awaits the trump of the 
 
"THE tbibune" continued. 137 
 
 archangel. Who does not rejoice that the original 
 design of removing his ashes to the city has never 
 been consummated ; that they lie where the pilgrim 
 may reverently approach them, unvexed by the light 
 laugh of the time-killing worldling, unannoyed by 
 the vain or vile scribblings of the thoughtless or the 
 base ? Thus may they repose forever, that the heart 
 of the patriot may be invigorated, the hopes of the 
 philanthropist strengthened and his aims exalted, 
 the pulse of the American quickened and his aspira- 
 tions purified, by a visit to Mount Vernon ! " 
 While at Niagara he wrote the following : — 
 " Years, though not many, have weighed upon me 
 since first in boyhood I gazed from, the deck of a 
 canal-boat upon the distant cloud of white vapor 
 which marked the position of the world's great cata- 
 ract, and listened to catch the rumbling of its deep 
 thunders. Circumstances did not then permit me to 
 gratify my strong desire of visiting it ; and now, when 
 I am tempted to wonder at the stolidity of those who 
 live within a day's journey, yet live on through half 
 a century without one glance at the mighty torrent, I 
 am checked by the reflection that I myself passed 
 within a dozen miles of it no less than five times 
 before I was able to enjoy its magnificence. The 
 propitious hour came at last, however ; and after a 
 disappointed gaze from the upper terrace on the Brit- 
 
 12* 
 
138 LITE OF HOBACE GREELEY. 
 
 isli side (in which I half feared that the sheet of 
 broken and boiling water above was all the cataract 
 that existed), and rapid, tortuous descent by the 
 woody declivity, I stood at length on Table Rock, 
 and the whole immensity of the tremendous ava- 
 lanche of waters burst at once on my arrested vision, 
 while awe struggled with amazement for the mastery 
 of my soul. 
 
 " This was late in October. I have twice visited the 
 scene amid the freshness and beauty of June ; but 
 I think the late autumn is by far the better season. 
 There is then a sternness in the sky, a plaintive 
 melancholy in the sighing of the wind through the 
 mottled forest-foliage, which harmonize better with 
 the spirit of the scene. For the Genius of Niagara, 
 friend ! is never a laughter-loving spirit. For the 
 gaudy vanities, the petty pomps, the light follies, of 
 the hour, he has small sympathy. Let not the giddy 
 heir bring here his ingots, the selfish aspirant his 
 ambition, the libertine his victim, and hope to find 
 enjoyment and gayety in the presence. Let none 
 come here to nurse his pride or avarice, or any 
 other low desire. God and his handiwork here stand 
 forth in lone sublimity; and all petty doings and dar- 
 ings of the ants at the base of the pyramid appear in 
 their proper significance. Few can have visited Niag- 
 ara, and left it no humbler, no graver, than they 
 
"THE TBIB0NE" CONTINUED. 139 
 
 When he returned to New York, and recom- 
 menced his editorial labors, he wrote, " The senior 
 editor of this paper has returned to his post after an 
 absence of four weeks, during which he has visited 
 nearly one-half of the counties of this State, and 
 passed through portions of Pennsylvania, Yermont, 
 Massachusetts, &c. During this time he has written 
 little for ' The Tribune ' save the casual and hasty 
 letter to which his initials were subscribed ; but it 
 need hardly be said that the general course and con- 
 duct of the paper have been the same as if he had 
 been at his post. 
 
 " Two deductions only from the observations he has 
 made and the information he has gathered in his 
 tour will here be given. They are these : — 
 
 " 1. The cause of protection to home-industry is 
 much stronger throughout this and the adjoining 
 States than even the great party which mainly up- 
 holds it ; and nothing will so much tend to insure the 
 election of Henry Clay for our next president as the 
 veto of an efficient tariff-bill by John Tyler. 
 
 " 2. The strength of the Whig party is unbroken 
 by recent disasters and treachery, and only needs the 
 proper opportunity to manifest itself in all the energy 
 and power of 184:0. If a distinct and unequivocal 
 issue can be made upon the great leading questions 
 at issue between the rival parties, — on protection to 
 
140 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 
 
 home-industry and internal improvement, — the Whig 
 ascendency will be triumphantly vindicated in the 
 coming election." 
 
 Mr. Parton, in his excellent '' Life of Horace Gree- 
 ley," speaking of this period, says, " The year 1844 
 was the year of Clay and Frelinghuysen, Polk and 
 Dallas ; the year of nativism, and the year of deliri- 
 ous hope and deep despair ; the year that finished 
 one era of politics, and began another ; the year of 
 Margaret Fuller, and the burning of ' The Tribune ' 
 office ; the year when Horace G-reeley showed his 
 friends how hard a man can work, how little he can 
 sleep, and yet live. ' The Tribune ' began its fourth 
 volume on the 10th of April, enlarged one-third in 
 size, with new type, and a modest flourish of trum- 
 pets. It returned thanks to the public for the liberal 
 support which had been extended to it from the 
 beginning of its career. ' Our gratitude,' said the 
 editor, ' is the deeper from our knowledge that many 
 of the views expressed through our columns are 
 unacceptable to a large proportion of our readers. 
 We know especially that our advocacy of measures 
 intended to meliorate the social conditfon of the toil- 
 ing millions (not the purpose, but the means) ; our 
 ardent sympathy with the people of Ireland in their 
 protracted, arduous, peaceful struggle to recover 
 some portion of the common rights of man ; and our 
 
"THE tribune" continued. 141 
 
 opposition to the legal extinction of human life, — 
 are, severally or collectively, regarded with extreme 
 aversion by many of our steadfast patrons, whose 
 liberality and confidence are gratefully appreciated.' 
 To the Whig party, of which it was ' not an organ, 
 but a humble advocate,' its obligations were many 
 and profound. ' The Tribune,' in fact, had become 
 the leading Whig paper of the country. 
 
 " Horace Greeley had long set his heart upon 
 the election of Henry Clay to the presidency, for 
 some special reasons besides the general one of his 
 belief that the policy identified with the name of 
 Henry Clay was the true policy of the government. 
 Henry Clay was one of the heroes of his boyhood's 
 admiration. Yet in 1840, believing that Clay could 
 not be elected, he had used his influence to promote 
 the nomination of Gen. Harrison. Then came the 
 death of the president, the ' apostasy ' of Tyler, and 
 his pitiful attempts to secure a re-election. The 
 annexation of Texas loomed up in the distance, and 
 the repeal of the tariff of 1842. For these and other 
 reasons, Horace Greeley was inflamed with a desire to 
 behold once more the triumph of his party, and to 
 see the long career of the eminent Kentuckian 
 crowned with its suitable, its coveted reward. For 
 this he labored as few men have ever labored for any 
 but personal objects. He attended tlie convention at 
 
142 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 
 
 Baltimore that nominated the Whig candidates, — one 
 of the largest (and quite the most excited) political 
 assemblages that ever were gathered in this country. 
 During the summer he addressed political meetings 
 three, four, five, six times a week. He travelled far 
 and wide, advising, speaking, and in every way urging 
 on tlie cause. He wrote, on an average, four columns 
 a day for ' The Tribune.' He answered, on an 
 average, twenty letters a day. He wrote to such an 
 extent, that his right arm broke out in boils ; and at 
 one time there were twenty between the wrist and the 
 elbow. He lived, at that time, a long distance from 
 tlie office ; and many a hot night he protracted his 
 labors till the last omnibus had gone, and he was 
 obliged to trudge wearily home after sixteen hours 
 of incessant and intense exertion. The Whigs were 
 very confident. They were sure of victory. But 
 Horace Greeley knew the country better. If every 
 Wliig had worked as he worked, how different had 
 been the result ! how different the subsequent history 
 of the country ! how different its future ! — we had 
 had no annexation of Texas, no Mexican war, no 
 tinkering of the tariff to keep the nation provincially 
 dependent on Europe, no fugitive-slave law, no Pierce, 
 no Douglas, no Nebraska." 
 
 Notwithstanding all the efforts of " The Tribune " 
 to the contrary, Polk and Dallas were elected Presi- 
 dent and Vice-President of the United States, 
 
"THE tribune" continued. 143 
 
 In February, 1845, " The Tribune " building was 
 burned. Almost every paper in New York has been 
 burned out some time, and some of them more than 
 once. The following is Mr. Greeley's account of it : — 
 
 " At four o'clock yesterday morning, a boy in our 
 employment entered our publication-office as usual, 
 and kindled a fire 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 
 awoke 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 
 fi.YQ hundred dollars in cash, whicli 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 
 
144 LIFE OF HOllACE GREELEY. 
 
 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 press- 
 men 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 every thing 
 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 news- 
 paper-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 
 eighteen thousand dollars, of which ten thousand dol- 
 lars 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. 
 
 " It is usual on such occasions to ask, ' Why were 
 you not fully insured V It is impossible, from the 
 nature of our business, that we should be so ; and no 
 
'-THE TRIBUNE CONTINTJED. 145 
 
 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 delib- 
 erately 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 aU. 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. Meantime the 
 whole building was in a blaze. 
 
 '' 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 suflering produced 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 
 
 13 
 
146 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 with cool iiidiiference, — 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 correspondence, 
 the ishoice collection of pamphlets, the unfinished 
 essay, the charts by which we steered, — can they all 
 have vanished, nevermore to be seen ? Truly your 
 fire makes clean work, and is, of all executive officers, 
 supereminent. Perhaps that last choice batch of 
 letters may be somewhere 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.* 
 
 " No Arabian tale can cradle a wilder fiction, or show 
 how altogether illusory life is. Those solid walls of 
 brick, those five decent stories, those steep and diffi- 
 cult 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 per- 
 fectly true. 
 
 " One always has some private satisfaction in his 
 
"THE THIBUNf/' C0KTINU£.D. 147 
 
 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 desperate encounter of 
 the seething heat. But those boots, and Webster's 
 Dictionary : well, we were handsomely whipped there, 
 we acknowledge.'' 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 MR. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 
 
 Mr. Greeley a Politician from his Youth. — A Great Friend of the United- 
 States Bank. — A Friend of William H. Seward. — Opposed to Gen. 
 Jackson. — Greeley in the Harrison Campaign. — Deep in Politics. 
 
 FROM a child, Horace Greeley was a politician. 
 He says, " I was an ardent politician when not 
 yet half old enough to vote." 
 
 Though young, he fought with the North against 
 the admission of Missouri as a slave State. He was 
 opposed to the compromise by which Missouri came 
 into the Union. 
 
 The nation now had a calm for several years. But, 
 in 1824, William H. Crawford of Georgia was nomi- 
 nated in a congress attended by less than one-third 
 of the members of Congress. New England opposed 
 such a caucus, and voted in solid phalanx for John 
 Quincy Adams. No choice of president was made by 
 the people, — or rather by the electors, who have ever 
 been the automatons of the people, — and Mr. Adams 
 was chosen by the House. Mr. Greeley, — always a 
 
 U8 
 
MR. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 149 
 
 to"? 
 
 tariff-man, — with the rest of the Northern Whigs 
 now went against Mr. Calhoun, who had formerly been 
 a protectionist, but who had now joined the Jackson 
 party ; and at this time, Mr. Greeley says, " Every 
 thing went wrong with us [meaning the Whigs] at 
 this time. Out-manoeuvred on every side, we were 
 clearly doomed to defeat ; " and in 1828 Jackson was 
 elected. 
 
 Mr. Greeley says, " In the succeeding presidential 
 contest, in 1832, we had scarcely a chance. • Anti- 
 Masonry had divided us, and driven thousands of 
 Adams men over to Jackson, whose personal popu- 
 larity was very great, especially with the non-reading 
 class, and who had strengthened himself at the North 
 by his tariff-messages and his open rupture with Cal- 
 houn." 
 
 Mr. Greeley shows his, thorough acquaintance with 
 every rope in the politics of the ship of state, from 
 those times down to the present. He says again, " I 
 have always — at least, since I read Dr. Franklin's 
 Autobiography, more than forty years ago — been an 
 advocate of paper-money ; but I want it to be money ^ 
 convertible at pleasure into coin, — not printed lies, 
 even though they fail to deceive." 
 
 Mr. Greeley was a great friend of the United-States 
 Bank, as were his Whig brethren of that day : hence he 
 was a stanch opponent of Gen, Jackson's policy. Of 
 
 18* 
 
150 LtiFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 
 
 those stormy times Mr. Greeley wrote in his " Recollect 
 tions," " The United-States Bank, being required to pay 
 over the millions it held on deposit for the government, 
 receiving no more, began, of course, to contract its loans. 
 It could do no otherwise ; especially as an attempt, 
 evidently inspired, had been made by Jackson brokers 
 to break its branch at Savannah by quietly collecting 
 a large quantity of its notes, and presenting them at 
 once for payment, hoping that they could not all be 
 met, and that it might thereupon be claimed that the 
 bank had failed. It was charged by its adversaries 
 that the contraction consequent upon the removal of 
 the deposits was too rapid and too great ; in fact, that 
 its purpose was the creation of commercial , distress 
 and panic. This may have been : but a very decided 
 contraction by that bank was inevitable ; and it could 
 have pursued no course that did not expose it to accu- 
 sation and reproach. I presume it struggled for its 
 life, as most of us would do if assailed with deadly 
 intent. With the removal of the deposits its power to 
 regulate the currency lapsed, and its duty as well. 
 Those banks to which the government had transferred 
 its funds and its favors should unitedly have assumed 
 and exercised the functions of a regulator, or confessed 
 their inability. As the pressure for money increased, 
 the political elements were lashed to fury, and our 
 city — the focus of American commerce — became the 
 
MK. GREELEY IN POLITICS. loi 
 
 arena of a fierce electioneering struggle. Hitherto the 
 Jackson ascendency liad, since the death of Do Witt 
 Clinton, been so decided, that our charter elections 
 had usually been scarcely contested ; but the stirring 
 debates daily received from Washington, the strivings 
 of merchants and banks to avert bankruptcy, the daily 
 tightening of the money-market, and the novel hopes 
 of success inspired in the breasts of those who now 
 took the name of ' Whigs ' to indicate their repug- 
 nance to unauthorized assumptions of executive power, 
 rendered New York for some weeks a boiling caldron 
 of political passions. Our three-days' election (April, 
 1834) was the most vehement and keenly-contested 
 struggle which I ever witnessed. Our city was then 
 divided into fifteen wards, with but one poll to each 
 ward ; and I should estimate the average attendance 
 on each at little less than a thousand. I am certain 
 that I saw the masses surrounding the fourth and sixth 
 ward polls respectively (then but two or three blocks 
 apart) so mingled, that you could not say where the 
 one ended and the other began. There were some 
 fights, of course, and one general collision in the sixth 
 ward that might have resulted in deplorable blood- 
 shed ; but peace was soon restored. In the event, the 
 Jacksonites elected their mayor (Cornelius W. Law- 
 rence) over the Whig candidate (Gulian C. Ver- 
 planck) by three hundred and eighty-four majority ; 
 
152 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEt. 
 
 which was less than their overplus of voters natural^ 
 ized on the last day of the poll. The total vote was 
 nearly thirty-five thousand ; which was probably a 
 closer approach to the whole number of legal voters 
 than was ever drawn out before or since. The Whigs 
 carried both branches of the common council, giving 
 them the control of most of the city patronage ; so that 
 the result was generally and justly regarded as a 
 drawn battle. 
 
 " My concern printed a daily campaign penny-paper, 
 entitled 'The Constitution,' through most of that 
 year, and I was a free contributor to its columns ; 
 though its editor and publisher was Mr. Achilles R. 
 Grain, who died some thirty years ago. It did not 
 pay ; and the firm of Greeley and Winchester were 
 losers by it, counting my editorial assistance worth 
 nothing. William H. Seward, then thirty-four years 
 old, and just closing with distinction a four-years' 
 term in the State Senate, was our candidate for gov- 
 ernor, with Silas M. Stillwell for lieutenant ; and we 
 fondly hoped to carry the State in the November 
 election. But meantime the State banks, wherein the 
 federal revenue was deposited (' pet banks ' we Whigs 
 termed them), had been enabled to effect an enor- 
 mous expansion of their loans and issues ; and the 
 country, not yet feeling the tariff reductions which 
 the compromise of 1883 had barely inaugurated, was 
 
MK. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 163 
 
 lauiiclied on the flood of a factitious but seductive 
 semblance of prosperity. Money was abundant. 
 Every one had employment who wanted, and pay if 
 he earned it ; property was rapidly increasing in 
 value ; factories and furnaces had full work, and were 
 doing well : so, when the fall election came, we made 
 a gallant fight, but were badly defeated ; Marcy being 
 re-elected governor over Seward by some thirteen 
 thousand majority, — more than he had over Granger 
 in 1832 ; and the Whigs, beaten pretty generally and 
 decisively, relapsed into a torpor, whence they were 
 scarcely aroused by the ensuing presidential election, 
 wherein Gen. Harrison wag made their candidate for 
 president, with Francis Granger for vice-president ; 
 while Hugh L. White of Tennessee ran for president, 
 with John Tyler of Virginia for vice-president, on 
 an independent ticket, which contested the South 
 with the Jackson Regulars, who alone held a national 
 convention, in which they nominated Martin Yan 
 Buren for president, with Col. Richard M. Johnson 
 of Kentacky for vice. I was among the very few in 
 the Eastern States who had taken any interest in 
 bringing forward Gen. Harrison as a candidate, 
 believing that there was the raw material for a good 
 run in his history and character ; but this was not 
 generally credited, at least in our State, which, in a 
 languid contest on a light vote, went for Yan Buren, 
 
154 LIFE OF HOB ACE GREELEY. 
 
 Joliiisoii, and Marcy, by some twenty-eight thousand 
 majority. When, however, the returns from other 
 States came pouring in, and it was found that Gen. 
 Plarrison had carried, with Vermont only of the New- 
 England States, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, 
 Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, and had barely failed 
 to carry Pennsylvania, while White had carried 
 Tennessee and Georgia, barely failing in North 
 Carolina and in two or three South-western States, 
 and that Virginia had refused her vote to Johnson, so 
 that he had failed of an election by the people, and 
 had to be chosen over Granger by the Senate, there 
 was a general waking-up to the conviction, that either 
 Harrison was more popular, or Van Buren more 
 obnoxious, than had been supposed in our State, and 
 that the latter might have been beaten by seasonable 
 concert and effort. In that slouching Whig defeat of 
 1836 lay the germ of the overwhelming Whig tri- 
 umph of 1840." 
 
 Mr. Greeley could never account for Mr. Van 
 Buren's election, except upon the principle of " love 
 me, love my dog; " and always insisted that love for 
 Andrew Jackson attained the presidency for Van 
 Buren. Soon the trouble from removing the deposits 
 by Jackson ripened to real distress under Van 
 Buren's administration ; and Mr. Greeley wrote iu his 
 ^'Recollections " as follows; ■' Tiic cumxnercial rcvul- 
 
MR. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 155 
 
 sion, which was rather apprehended than fully experi- 
 enced in 1834, was abundantly realized in 1837. 
 Manufactories were stopped, and their hands thrown 
 out of work. Trade was almost stagnant. Bank- 
 ruptcies among men of business were rather the rule 
 than the exception. Property was sacrificed at auc- 
 tion, often at sheriff's or assignee's sale, for a fraction 
 of its value ; and thousands who had fondly dreamed 
 themselves millionnaires, or on the point of becoming 
 such, awoke to the fact that they were bankrupt 
 The banks were, of course, in trouble ; those which 
 had been government depositories, or pets, rather 
 deeper than the rest. Looking at the matter from 
 their point of view, they had been first seduced into a 
 questionable path, and were now reviled and assailed 
 for yielding to their seducers. Soon were heard the 
 rumblings of a political earthquake. Scarcely a State 
 elected members of Congress or a governor in 1837, 
 after the suspension of specie payment ; but the legis- 
 lative and local elections of autumn sufficiently 
 indicated the popular revulsion. When New York 
 came to vote in November, the gale had stiffened into 
 a tornado. The Whigs carried New-York City, which 
 they had never done before, with Westchester, 
 Orange, Duchess, Greene, Oneida, Onondaga, and 
 other counties hitherto overwhelmingly Democratic, 
 giving them six of the eight Senate districts, includ- 
 
156 LIFE OF HOUACE GBEELEY. 
 
 ing the first and second. Herkimer, Jefferson, St 
 Lawrence, Suffolk, and a few smaller counties, were 
 all that clung to the wanmg fortunes of Yan Buren, 
 the Whigs choosing a hundred out of the hundred 
 and twenty-eight members of Assembly . The Senate 
 being chosen, but one-fourth annually remained 
 strongly Democratic." 
 
 Mr. Greeley kept posted with the views of every 
 president, whether Democratic or Whig. Of Mr. 
 Polk he said, — 
 
 " He was a man of moderate abilities, faultless 
 private character, and undeviating Jacksonism. He 
 had briefly but positively avowed himself an advo- 
 cate of the immediate annexation of Texas. Mr. 
 Polk had been for years in Congress, and had always 
 voted there against protection, as all Southern Demo- 
 crats had voted since 1828. He was as much a free- 
 trader as Mr. Calhoun had been ever since 1824 ; and 
 yet he was induced by the exigencies of the canvass 
 in Pennsylvania to write or sign the following 
 
 letter : — 
 
 Columbia, Tenn., June 19, 1844. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have received recently several let- 
 ters in reference to my opinions on the subject of the 
 tariff, and, among others, yours of the 10th ult. 
 My opinions on this subject have been often given to 
 the public. They are to be found in my public acts, 
 
MR. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 157 
 
 and in the public discussions in wiiich I have partici- 
 pated. I am in favor of a tariff for revenue, — such 
 a one as will yield a sufficient amount to the treasury 
 to defray the expenses of government economically 
 administered. In adjusting the details of a revenue 
 tariff, I have heretofore sanctioned such moderate 
 discriminating duties as would produce the amount 
 of revenue needed, and at the same time afford inci- 
 dental protection to our home-industry. I am op- 
 posed to a tariff for protection merely, and not for 
 revenue. Acting upon these general principles, it is 
 well known that I gave my support to the policy of 
 Gen. Jackson's administration on this subject. I 
 voted against the tariff act of 1828. I voted for the 
 act of 1832, which contained modifications of some of 
 the objectionable provisions of the act of 1828. As a 
 member of the committee of ways and means of the 
 Representatives, I gave my assent to the bill reported 
 by that committee in December, 1832, making further 
 modifications of the act of 1828, and making also 
 discriminations in the imposition of the duties which 
 it proposed. That bill did not pass, but was super- 
 seded by the bill commonly called '• The Compromise 
 Bill," for which I voted. In my judgment, it is the 
 duty of the government to extend, as far as it may 
 be practicable to do so, by its revenue-laws and all 
 other means within its power, fair and just protection 
 
 14 
 
158 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 to all the great interests of the whole Union, em- 
 bracing agriculture, manufactures, and the mechanic 
 arts, commerce, and navigation. I heartily approve 
 tlie resolutions upon this subject passed by the Demo- 
 cratic national convention lately assembled at Balti- 
 more. 
 
 I am with great respect, dear sir. 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 James K. Polk. 
 John K. Kane, Esq., Philadelphia.** 
 
 Mr. Greeley adds, " It was impossible not to see 
 that this was an elaborate attempt to darken counsel 
 so as to break the force of the tariff issue, which was 
 telling strongly against him wherever protection was 
 the favorite policy." 
 
 Mr. Greeley says, " I have admired and trusted 
 many statesmen ; I profoundly loved Henry Clay : 
 hence, from the hour of his nomination (in May, 1844) 
 to his defeat in November, I gave every hour, every 
 effort, every thought, to his election. 
 
 " Mr. Clay, born in poverty and obscurity, had not 
 even a common-school education, and had only a few 
 months' clerkship in a store, with a somewhat longer 
 training in a lawyer's office, as preparation for his 
 great career. Tall in person, though plain in fea- 
 tures, graceful in manner, and at once dignified and 
 
MR. GKEELEY IN POLITICS. 159 
 
 affable in bearing, I think his fervid patriotism and 
 thrilling eloquence combined with decided natural 
 abilities and a wide and varied experience to render 
 him the American more fitted to win and enjoy popu- 
 larity than any other who has lived. That popularity 
 he steadily achieved and extended through the earlier 
 half of his long public life : but he was confronted 
 by a political combination well-nigh invincible, based 
 on the potent personal strength of Gen. Jackson ; and 
 this overcame him. Five times presented as a candi- 
 date for president, he was always beaten, — twice in 
 conventions of his political associates, thrice in the 
 choice of electors by the people. The careless reader 
 of our history in future centuries will scarcely real- 
 ize the force of his personal magnetism, nor conceive 
 how millions of hearts glowed with sanguine hopes 
 of his election to the presidency, and bitterly lamented 
 his and their discomfiture." 
 
 In 1848 we find Mr. Greeley still in politics. Polk 
 and Dallas had served their period ; the Mexican war 
 was over; and Zachary Taylor, technically called 
 " Old Zach,'' was nominated for president. Of this 
 nomination Daniel Webster said, " It was not fit to be 
 made ; " and Horace Greeley said or acted out this 
 same idea. He says in his " Recollections," " The 
 presidential canvass of 1848 opened directly after it 
 (the Mexican war). 
 
160 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 " Gen. Zacliary Taylor — a native of Virginia, 
 but long resident in Louisiana — had evinced quali- 
 ties in the war which strongly commended him to 
 many as a candidate for our highest civil office. 
 Though his part in it was less brilliant, less important, 
 than that of Gen. Scott, he had commended himself 
 far more widely to popular favor. Quiet, resolute, 
 sententious, unostentatious, he was admired by multi- 
 tudes who profoundly detested the war wherein he 
 had so suddenly achieved renown ; and many of them 
 gloated over the prospect of hurling from power the 
 politicians who had so wantonly plunged us into a 
 contest of aggression and invasion by means of the very 
 instrument which they had employed to consummate 
 their purposes. I non-concurred in this view most 
 decidedly. Gen. Taylor, though an excellent soldier, 
 had no experience as a statesman ; and his capacity for 
 civil administration was wholly undemonstrated. He 
 had never voted ; had, apparently, paid little attention 
 to and taken little interest in politics ; and, though 
 inclined toward the Whig party, was but slightly iden- 
 tified with its ideas and its efforts. Nobody could say 
 what were his views regarding protection, internal im- 
 provement, or the currency. On the great question — 
 which our vast acquisitions from Mexico had suddenly 
 invested with the gravest importance — of excluding 
 slavery from the yet untainted federal Territories, he 
 
MR. GEEELEY IN POLITICS. 161 
 
 had nowise declared himself ; and the fact that he was 
 an extensive slayeholder justified a presumption that 
 he, like most slaveholders, deemed it right that any 
 settler in the Territories should be at liberty to take 
 thither, and hold there as property, whatever the laws 
 of his own State recognized as property. We desired 
 to ' take a bond of fate ' that this view should not be 
 held by a Whig president, at all events. 
 
 " And then I (with many others) wanted to try over 
 again the issue on which I thought we had been de- 
 frauded in 1844. It seemed impossible that Pennsyl- 
 vania (in view of her recent experience) should again 
 be persuaded that any Democrat was as good a protec- 
 tionist as Henry Clay. True, we had not defeated 
 Gov. Shunk's re-election in 1847 ; but the running 
 of distinct Whig and Native candidates for governor 
 rendered our defeat inevitable. 
 
 " New York we had carried in 1847 by a very large 
 majority ; the Free-soil section of the Democratic 
 party withholding its votes from the proslavery or 
 ' hunker ' State ticket. The Whigs of our State were 
 mainly for Clay. We could give him her electoral 
 vote ; and this, with Pennsylvania, made his election 
 morally certain. Hence I worked hard to secure his 
 nomination. 
 
 " The attempt to run a parallel between this case 
 and that of 1840 failed in the most material point. 
 
 14* 
 
162 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 
 
 Gen. Harrison may not have been so able as Mr. Clay; 
 but be was not less earnestly and unequivocally a 
 Whig. No one could indicate a shade of difference in 
 their political views. Gen. Harrison's military career 
 was brief and casual : his life had been that of a 
 civilian, honored and trusted by all administrations 
 between 1800 and 1828, — a Territorial governor, 
 United-States senator, and ambassador to Colombia. 
 Gen. Taylor, now an old man, had been in the regular 
 army from boyhood, and was in all things a veteran 
 soldier. His slender acquaintance with and interest 
 in politics was nowise feigned, but was usual and 
 natural with men of his class and position. 
 
 " The Whig national convention met at Philadel- 
 phia on the 1st of June. There was a pretty full, 
 but not extraordinary attendance. I believe Ex-Gov- 
 ernor Morehead of North Carolina presided. It was 
 very soon apparent that the shrewd, influential, man- 
 aging politicians were generally for Taylor, who bad a 
 plurality, but not a majority, on the first ballot, and 
 gained steadily on the two following ; viz. : — 
 
 
 1st. 
 
 2d. 
 
 3d. 
 
 Taylor 
 
 Ill 
 
 118 
 
 133 
 
 Clay ■ . . 
 
 97 
 
 86 
 
 74 
 
 Scott . 
 
 43 
 
 49 
 
 54 
 
 Webster . 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 17 
 
 Scattering . 
 
 6 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
MR. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 163 
 
 "An adjournment was now had till next morning: 
 but the issue was already decided, and Gen. Taylor 
 was nominated on the next ballot ; when the vote 
 stood, — Taylor, 171; Clay, 35; Scott, 60 ; Webster, 
 14. All that we Clayites achieved was the substitu- 
 tion of Millard Fillmore as vice-president for Abbott 
 Lawrence of Boston, who was on the Taylor slate ; 
 but evidences of dissatisfaction induced the managers 
 to take him off, and let Mr. Fillmore be nominated." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 
 
 Elected to Congress. — Attacks the Mileage Fraud. — Mr. Greeley accused 
 of Inconsistency. — His Explanation. — His Reports to " The Tribune " 
 attacked. — He introduces the Mileage Bill. — Sticks to his Opinion of 
 Gen. Taylor's Nomination. — Address to his Constituents. — Our Object 
 not to extol him, but to tell what he has done. — Quotation from Mr. 
 Greeley's Whig Almanac. — His Effort to save Money. — Mr. Turner's 
 Resolutions. — Mr. Greeley's Reply. — Mr. Greeley not & Dead-Head. — 
 Facetious Discussion on the Mileage Question. — Second Address to his 
 Constituents. 
 
 MR. GREELEY was elected to fill out the term 
 of three months of a deceased member. He 
 did not seek the office, and spoke of his nomination 
 and election as follows, some years after : " In our 
 State election for 1846, David S. Jackson (Democrat) 
 had been chosen to represent the upper district of 
 our city in the thirtieth Congress by a small majority 
 over Col. James Monroe (Whig). That majority was 
 obtained by bringing over from Blackwell's Island, 
 and polling in the nineteenth ward, the adult male 
 paupers domiciled in the almshouse, — not merely 
 
 164 
 
MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 165 
 
 those who had resided in our district before they 
 honored our city by condescending to live at her 
 expense, but those who had been gathered in from 
 other districts. Col. Monroe objected to this as car- 
 rying a joke too far ; and, on his contesting the return 
 of Mr. Jackson, the House sustained the objection, 
 and unseated Jackson without replacing him by 
 Monroe. The people were required to vote again. 
 
 " By this time it was 1848, — the year of Gen. Tay- 
 lor's election. Col. Monroe confidently expected to be 
 the Whig candidate, not merely for the vacancy, but 
 for the ensuing thirty-first Congress. The delegates, 
 however, were fixed for Mr. James Brooks, editor of 
 ' The Express,' who was duly nominated for the 
 thirty-first", while Col. Monroe was tendered the 
 nomination for the remaining ninety days (at eight 
 dollars per day) of the thirtieth Congress. He de- 
 clined indignantly: whereupon that fag-end of a 
 term was tendered to me. I at first resolved to 
 decline also, not seeing how to leave my business 
 so abruptly for a three-months' sojourn at Washing- 
 ton ; but the nomination was so kindly pressed upon 
 rae, with such apparently cogent reasons therefor, 
 that I accepted it. There was never any doubt of the 
 result. A politician soon called on me, professing to 
 be from Mr. Brooks, to inquire as to what should be 
 done to secure our election. ' Tell Mr. Brooks,' I 
 
166 LIFE or HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 responded, ' that we have only to keep so still that no 
 particular attention will be called to us, and Gen. 
 Taylor will carry us both in. There are not voters 
 enough in the district who care about either of us, 
 one way or the other, to swamp the majority that the 
 Taylor electors cannot fail to receive.' 
 
 " The district from which I was chosen included all 
 our city above Fourteenth Street, with the eleventh, 
 fifteenth, and seventeenth wards lying below that 
 street. It then contained about one-third of the city's 
 entire population : it now contains at least two-thirds. 
 When, soon after taking my seat, I introduced a 
 bill authorizing each landless citizen of the United 
 States to occupy and appropriate a small allotment 
 of the national domain, free of charge, a Western 
 member wanted to know why New York should busy 
 herself as to the disposal of the public lands. I re- 
 sponded, that my interest in the matter was stimulated 
 by the fact that I represented more landless men than 
 any other member on that floor. 
 
 '^ The pay of members of Congress for services 
 was, then as now, all the same for each member ; but 
 the inileage was different, as some came five, and some 
 a thousand miles." The first thing Mr. Greeley did 
 when he entered Congress was to attack the mileage 
 question. He gives his own account of this matter in 
 his " Recollections " thus : — 
 
MK. GEEELEY IN CONGRESS. 167 
 
 " The introduction and rapid multiplication of 
 steamboats, especially on our great trans-Alleghany 
 network of rivers and lakes, rendered this mileage 
 absurdly too high. A member now traversed a dis- 
 tance of two thousand miles about as quickly as, and 
 at hardly more expense than, his predecessor by half 
 a century must have incurred on a journey of two 
 hundred miles, for which the latter was paid eighty, 
 and the former eight hundred dollars. 
 
 " Nor was this all. The steamboat routes, though 
 much more swiftly and cheaply traversed, were nearly 
 twice — sometimes thrice — the length of the stage 
 and horseback roads they superseded ; and as the 
 law said at first, and continued to say, that they 
 were to charge mileage ' by the usually-travelled 
 route,' they now charged and received twice as much 
 for travelling five days in a sumptuous cabin, replete 
 with every luxury, as their fathers paid for roughing 
 it over the mountains in fifteen to twenty days at a 
 far greater cost. Col. Benton, — who deemed himself 
 and meant to be an honest man, — somewhere about 
 1836, made a claim on the treasury for about two 
 thousand dollars which (he computed) was required 
 to bring up his mileage in past years to a par with tlie 
 charges of others ; and this amount was allowed and 
 paid him. 
 
 " Said First Comptroller Elisha Whittlesey to me, 
 
168 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 near the close of his long, upright, and useful public 
 life, ' Even Mr. Calhoun has increased his charge for 
 mileage since the old horseback and stage-coach days ; 
 and there is just one man in Congress who charges 
 mileage now as all did then : that man is Henry Clay. 
 
 " Getting into the House, I had access to the 
 schedules of compensation and mileage which (though 
 they are said to be printed) were not (and are, not) 
 easily found by outsiders ; and I resolved to improve 
 my opportunity. So I hired a reporter to transcribe 
 them ; and (using as a basis of comparison the 
 United-States topographer's official statement of the 
 distances from Washington, by the most direct mail- 
 route, of each post-office in the country) I aimed to 
 show exactly how much could be saved, in the case of 
 each member, by computing mileage on the most 
 direct post-route, instead of ' the usually-travelled 
 route.' This expose, when prepared, was transmitted 
 to New York, duly appeared in ' The Tribune,' and so 
 came back to Washington. 
 
 " I had expected that it would kick up some dust ; 
 but my expectations were far outrun. It happened 
 that two of our Whig members from Ohio had been 
 run out by close votes at the recent election (October, 
 1848), and that the crooked mileage they charged had 
 been used with effect by their opponents in the can- 
 vass. It might be all right for them to charge mile- 
 
ME. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 169 
 
 age from the heart of Ohio ai-ound by Lake Erie to 
 Washington, when the government had constructed 
 a first-rate national road from the vicinity of Balti- 
 more due west tlirough Zanesville and Columbus to 
 Indianapolis ; but the people didn't or wouldn't see 
 it. These beaten sore-heads were specially prompt 
 and eager in preaching a crusade against me on the 
 floor." 
 
 Mr. Greeley says, " Rarely has our country been 
 served by a more upright man than Hon. Jacob 
 Collamore of Vermont. So enormous was this evil, 
 that this good man had become involved in it ; and 
 he made complaint to me as follows : — 
 
 " ' Is it not hard that I should be held up to the pub- 
 lic as a swindler ? Look at the facts. I live in Wood- 
 stock. I take the stage to Windsor, twenty-two miles, 
 where I strike the nearest railroad. 1 ride thence by 
 rail to Boston, from Boston to New York, from New 
 York to Washington. It is the easiest and quickest 
 route I can take, — the natural route of travel. I 
 charge for the miles I actually travel, — not one more. 
 Why is not this right ? ' 
 
 •' ' Judge,' I responded, ' now hear me. Your pred- 
 ecessors, I happen to know, took stage from Wood- 
 stock to Rutland, from Rutland to Troy, thence by 
 steamboat to New York, thence by railroad to Washing- 
 ton. It is now cheaper and easier for you to go by 
 
 16 
 
170 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 Boston, — three hundred miles farther. Will you tell 
 me why you should be paid two hundred and forty 
 dollars more per annum because this cheaper and 
 easier route has lately been opened ? I concede you 
 the advantage of the improved transit. I protest 
 against your charging two hundred and forty dollars, 
 and the people paying it therefor. That is not just.' 
 
 " The only answer I ever received to this way of 
 putting the case was, ' Such is the law.' But Congress 
 was master of the law ; able at any time to make it 
 just ; therefore bound to make it just. It was the 
 object of my expose to compel such adjustment. 
 
 " Gen. J. J. McKay of North Carolina once came 
 across to my seat. He was a stern proslavery Dem- 
 ocrat ; and it was not the habit of such to waste 
 civilities on me. 
 
 " ' Mr. Greeley,' he said, ' you have printed me as 
 charging seven miles more than the actual distance 
 from my home to Washington. The fact is not so. I 
 charge precisely as you say is just, — by the shortest 
 mail-route ; but I live seven miles beyond my post- 
 office, and I charge from my own house.' 
 
 " ' How could I know that ? ' I inquired. 
 
 *' ' You could not,' he replied. ' I am not blaming 
 you : on the contrary, I thank you for what you have 
 done. It was needed, and will do good. I only 
 wished that you should know the facts.' " 
 
MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 171 
 
 Mr. Greeley did not first introduce the mileage 
 question to the House. This was done by Hon. Wil- 
 liam Sawyer of Ohio. He had been annoyed by an 
 article published in " The Tribune " on his habit of 
 eating a luncheon in the House behind the speaker's 
 chair. He was further grieved by the introduction 
 of Mr. Greeley's bill, though that stated correctly the 
 difference between his mileage as charged and what 
 it would be if computed by the most direct routes. 
 There was a blunder in the case of his nearest Whig 
 neighbor, Hon. Robert C. Schenck, whose overcharge 
 was not made as much as it should be. Schenck 
 arose, and offered to swap with his colleague if that 
 would afford him any satisfaction. It afforded none. 
 
 It has already been stated that Mr. Greeley did not 
 favor Gen. Taylor's nomination ; and had he not 
 chanced to attend a Whig meeting in Yauxhall Gar- 
 den, where he was loudly called for, and where he 
 made the following speech, he probably would not 
 have been nominated for Congress, which would have 
 saved him some rencounters with others on that 
 floor : — 
 
 " I 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 
 
172 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 
 
 ready to answer your call, since I have heard intima- 
 tions, even from this stand, that there was some 
 mystery in my course to be cleared up, — some 
 astounding revelation with regard to it to be expected. 
 And our eloquent friend from Kentucky even volun- 
 teered, 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 announcing 
 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 nomina- 
 tion of Gen. Taylor. Personally I have ever spoken 
 of him with respect. But I believe it was unwise 
 and unjust. I believe a candidate could and should 
 have been chosen more deserving, more capable, more 
 popular. I cannot pretend to support him with enthu- 
 siasm ; 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 
 
MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 173 
 
 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. 
 
 " 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 ! all free-soil "] : "I mean those 
 to whom the question of extending or restricting slavery 
 outweighs all other considerations. 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 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 Congress ? I cannot doubt it ; and 
 I cannot believe that a wise or worthy course which 
 my bitterest adversaries would gladly work out for 
 me. 
 
 " 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 sup- 
 port the Whig nominations with a view to the triumph 
 
 15* 
 
174 LIFE OF HOEACE GEEELEY. 
 
 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 pre- 
 tended that there is any mystery about them." 
 
 Mr. Greeley's nomination was received with much 
 eclat^ especially by thinking, literary, and laboring 
 men. Though not as universally known then as at 
 the present time, yet he was better known than almost 
 any other candidate for Congress. 
 
 After Mr. Greeley's election, he issued the following 
 card to the electors of his district : — 
 
 " The undersigned, late a candidate for Congress, 
 respectfully returns his 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 honored by many of them ; secondly, to the great 
 mass of his political brethren for the ardent, enthusi- 
 astic, 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 
 
MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 175 
 
 nearly or quite neutralizing the support he received 
 from the party. Claiming for himself the right to 
 vote for or against any candidate of his 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 objec- 
 tions, 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 ex- 
 planations or vindications of my views on these sub- 
 jects in the crisis of a great national struggle which 
 taxed every energy, and demanded every thought, 
 comported neither with my leisure nor my inclination. 
 
 " Neither have I seen fit at any time to justify nor 
 allude to my participation in the efforts made here last 
 summer to aid the people of Ireland in their antici- 
 pated struggle for liberty and independence. I shall 
 not do 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 
 
176 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 people on the face of the earth. If any ' extortion and 
 plunder ' were contrived and perpetrated in the meet- 
 ings for Ireland at Vauxhall last season, I am wholly 
 unconscious of it ; though I ought to be as well 
 informed as to the 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 efforts 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. " Kespectfully, 
 
 " Horace Greeley. 
 
 "New York, Nov. 8, 1848." 
 
 It is not the object of the writer to pronouno a 
 panegyric upon Horace Greeley, but to recount in 
 a plain and simple manner who he is and what he 
 has done. He had been prompt in entering the 
 House, as he took the oath and his seat on the first day 
 
MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 17 
 
 
 of the session : and lie was in " for business ; " for the 
 next day he informed the House that he proposed to 
 introduce a bill to prevent speculation in the public 
 lands, and to secure " homesteads " to actual settlers 
 upon the same. Eight days after, he introduced the 
 following bill : — 
 
 "1. That any citizen, and any alien who had de- 
 clared his intention of becoming a citizen, may file a 
 pre-emption claim to a hundred and sixty acres of 
 public land, settle upon it, improve it, and have the 
 privilege of buying it at any time within seven years 
 of filing the claim, at the government price of a dollar 
 and a quarter per acre, 2?rovided that he is not the 
 owner or claimant of any other real estate. 
 
 " 2. That the land-office where the claim is filed 
 shall issue a warrant of pre-emption, securing the 
 claimant in seven years' possession. 
 
 " 3. That, after five years' occupancy, a warrant- 
 holder who makes oath of his intention to reside on 
 and cultivate his land for life shall become the owner 
 of any forty acres of his claim which he may select ; 
 the head of a family, eighty acres. 
 
 " 4. That the price of public lands, when not sold to 
 actual settlers, shall be five dollars per acre. 
 
 " 5. That false affidavits, made to procure land under 
 the provisions of this bill, shall be punished by three 
 years' hard labor in State-prison, by a fine not exceed- 
 
ITS LIFE OF HORACE GREELEf. 
 
 iiig a tliousaiid dollars, and by the loss of the land 
 fraudulently obtained." 
 
 Dec. 16, the following notice appeared in " The 
 Tribune: " "In reference to many requests for copies 
 of the president's message and accompanying docu- 
 ments, I desire to state that such message and docu- 
 ments are expected to cover twelve to fourteen hundred 
 printed octavo pages, and to include three maps, the 
 engraving of which will probably delay the publication 
 for two or three weeks yet. I shall distribute my 
 share of them as soon as possible, and make them go 
 as far as they will ; but I cannot satisfy half the de- 
 mands upon me. As each senator will have nearly 
 two hundred copies, while representatives have but 
 about sixty each, applications to senators, especially 
 from the smaller States, are obviously the most promis- 
 ing." 
 
 Reference has already been had to Mr. Greeley's 
 expose of the mileage swindle. I find in his " Whig 
 Almanac " for 1850 the following additional statement 
 upon this subject, which shows how earnest he was to 
 save money to the government, and how zealously he 
 argued for honesty : — 
 
 " Early in December I called on the sergeant-at- 
 arms for some money on account, he being paymaster 
 of the House. The schedule used by that officer was 
 placed before me, showing the amount of mileage 
 
MR. GKEELEY IN CONGRESS. 179 
 
 respectively accorded to every member of the House, 
 Many of these amounts struck me as excessive ; and I 
 tried to recollect if any publication of all the allow- 
 ances in like case had ever been made through the 
 journals, but could not remember any such publicity. 
 On inquiry, I was informed that the amounts were 
 regularly published in a certain document entitled 
 ' The Public Accounts,' of which no considerable num- 
 ber was printed, and which was obviously not intended 
 for popular distribution. (It is even omitted in this 
 document for the year 1848, printed since I published 
 my expose ; so that I can now find it in no public doc- 
 ument whatever.) I could not remember that I had 
 ever seen a copy, though one had been obtained and 
 used by my assistant in making up last year's ' Alma- 
 nac' It seemed to me, therefore, desirable that the 
 facts should be brought to the knowledge of the public ; 
 and I resolved that it should be done. 
 
 " But how ? To have picked out a few of what 
 seemed to me the most flagrant cases of overcharge, 
 and print these alone, would be to invite and secure 
 the reputation of partiality, partisanship, and personal 
 animosity. No other course seemed so fair as to print 
 the mileage of each member, with necessary elucida- 
 tions. I accordingly employed an ex-clerk in one of 
 the departments, and instructed him to make out a 
 tabular expose as follows ; — 
 
180 LIFE OF HOBACE GREELEY. 
 
 " 1. Name of each member of the House. 
 
 "2. Actual distance from his residence to Washing* 
 ton by the shortest post-route. 
 
 "3. Distance for which he is allowed and paid 
 mileage. 
 
 " 4. Amount of mileage received by him. 
 
 " 5. Excess of mileage so received over what would 
 have been if the distance had been computed by the 
 shortest or most direct mail-route. 
 
 " The expose was made out accordingly, and 
 promptly forwarded to ' The Tribune,' in which it 
 appeared." 
 
 Mr. Greeley did not charge that members had 
 charged mileage contrary to law, but, on the con- 
 trary, admitted its legality. He said, "The members 
 are all honorable men : if any irreverent infidel 
 should doubt it, we can silence him by referring to 
 the prefix to their names in the newspapers ; and we 
 presume eacli has charged just what the law allows 
 him. That law expressly says that each shall receive 
 eight dollars for every twenty miles travelled in com- 
 ing to and returning from Congress ' by the usually- 
 travelled route ; ' and of course, if the route usually 
 travelled from CaHfornia to Washington is around 
 Cape Horn, or the members from that embryo State 
 shall choose to think it is, they will each be entitled to 
 charge some twelve thousand dollars mileage per ses- 
 
MH. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 18l 
 
 sioii accordingly. We assume that each has charged 
 precisely what the law allows him ; and thereupon we 
 press home the question, ' Ought not that law to be 
 amended?^ " 
 
 This effort to save money to the country on the 
 mileage question aroused the ire of the old politicians, 
 and they opposed all resolutions of amendment. Nor 
 was it so small a matter as it might seem at first sight ; 
 for the whole number of miles charged for going 
 round by " Robin Hood's barn," so to speak, was 
 183,031, which, at forty cents a mile, amounted to 
 $73,492.60. 
 
 At length, the rage of Congress broke forth upon the 
 mileage question ; and a long and sharp debate fol- 
 lowed, some contending that the subject could not be 
 debated at all ; and others, if it could, demanded what 
 should be done about it. At length, Mr. Turner from 
 Illinois, who had drawn $998.40, moved a series of 
 resolutions, one of which was the following : — 
 
 '^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 com- 
 mented on, be referred to a committee, witli instruc- 
 tions 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 
 the matter of their mileage ; and if, in the judgment 
 
 10 
 
182 LIFE OF HOE ACE GREELEY. 
 
 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." 
 
 Mr. Turner introduced his resolutions in a fierce 
 speed), and altogether with such personal reflections 
 as did not become an impartial debater ; from which I 
 select the following : " He now wished to call the 
 attention of the House particularly to these charges 
 made by the editor of ' The New- York Tribune,' most 
 if not all of which charges he intended to show were 
 absolutely false ; and that the individual who made 
 them had either been actuated by the low, base, 
 grovelling, and malignant desire to represent the 
 Congress of the nation in a false and unenviable light 
 before the country and the world, or that he had been 
 actuated by motives still more base, — by the desire of 
 acquiring an ephemeral notoriety by blazoning forth 
 to the world what the writer attempted to show was 
 fraud. The whole article abounded in gross errors 
 and wilfully-false statements, and was evidently 
 prompted by motives as base, unprincipled, and cor- 
 rupt as ever actuated an individual in wielding his 
 pen for the public press. 
 
 "Perhaps the gentleman (he begged pardon), or 
 rather the individual, — perhaps the thing that penned 
 that article was not aware that his (Mr. Turner's) por- 
 tion of the country was not cut up by railroads, and 
 
ME. GKEELEY IN CONGRESS. 183 
 
 travelled by stage-coaches and other direct means of 
 public conveyance, like the omnibuses in the city of 
 New York, between all points. They had no other 
 channel of communication except the mighty lakes 
 or rivers of the West : he could not get here in any 
 other way. The law on the subject of mileage 
 authorized the members to charge upon the most 
 direct usually-travelled route. Now, he ventured the 
 assertion, that there was not an individual in his 
 district who ever came to this city, or to any of the 
 north-eastern cities, who did not come by the way of 
 the lakes or the rivers. 
 
 " He did not know but he was engaged in a very 
 small business. A gentleman near him suggested that 
 the writer of this article would not be believed any- 
 how ; that, therefore, it was no slander. But his con- 
 stituenlis, living two or three thousand miles distant, 
 might not be aware of the facts ; and therefore it was 
 that he had deemed it necessary to repel the slander- 
 ous charges and imputations of fraud, so far as they 
 concerned him." 
 
 The House now was pretty fully aroused ; and some- 
 thing like the following colloquy ensued : — 
 
 " Mr. Thompson of Indiana moved that the resolu- 
 tions be laid on the table. The yeas and nays were 
 asked and ordered, and, being taken, were, — yeas, 
 I'venty-eight ; nays, a hundred and twenty-eight. 
 
184 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 '* And, the question recurring on the demand for 
 the previous question, — 
 
 " Mr. Fries inquired of the speaker whether the 
 question was susceptible of division. 
 
 " The speaker said that the question could be taken 
 separately on each resolution. 
 
 " A number of members here requested Mr. Evans 
 to withdraw the demand for the previous question ; 
 i.e., permit Mr. Greeley to speak. 
 
 " Mr. Evans declined to withdraw the motion, and 
 desired to state the reason why he did so. The rea- 
 son was, that the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
 Greeley) had spoken to an audience to which the 
 members of this House could not speak. If the gen- 
 tleman wished to assail any member of this House, 
 let him do so here. 
 
 " The speaker interposed, and was imperfectly 
 heard, but was understood to say that it was out of 
 order to refer personally to gentlemen on this floor. 
 
 " Mr. Evans said he would refer to the editor of 
 * The Tribune,' and he insisted that the gentleman 
 was not entitled to reply." 
 
 (Loud cries from all parts of the House, " Let him 
 speak ! " with mingling dissent.) 
 
 '' The question was then taken on the demand for 
 the previous question. 
 
 " But the House refused to second it. 
 
MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 185 
 
 " Mr. Greeley, after alluding to the comments that 
 had been made upon the article in ' The Tribune ' 
 relative to the subject of mileage, and the abuse 
 wliich had notoriously been practised relating 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 any thing but a legal, 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 charge mileage 
 upon that route ? He did not object to any gentle- 
 man's taking that course if he saw fit ; but was that 
 the route upon which the mileage ought to be com- 
 puted ? 
 
 " Mr. Turner interposed, and inquired if the gen- 
 tleman wrote that article. 
 
 " Mr. Greeley replied, that the introduction to the 
 article on mileage was written by himself: the tran- 
 script from the books of this House and from the 
 accounts of the Senate was made by a reporter, at hi^ 
 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 
 
 16* 
 
186 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 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 
 haveT3een 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 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 were 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 liiniself, that, from 
 tlie first, he had always refused to give any informa- 
 tion to the committee on mileage with respect to the 
 mileage to which he would be entitled. He Iiad told 
 them it was their special duty to settle the matter ; 
 that he would have nothing to do with it. He, there- 
 fore, 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 ofiF, — shrinking 
 
MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 187 
 
 from the responsibility, and throwing it from one 
 place to another. Nobody made up the account; but, 
 somehow, an excess of sixty or seventy thousand 
 dollars was charged in the accounts 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 remark ? 
 
 " 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 ought to be applied to 
 members of Congress that was applied to other per- 
 sons. 
 
 " Mr. King desired to ask the gentleman from New 
 York if he had correctly understood his language ; for 
 he had heard him indistinctly. He (Mr. King) had 
 made the positive statement that he had never had 
 any thing 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. Greeley said he had applied it to no member. 
 
 " Mr. King asked, ' Why make use of the term, 
 then ? ' 
 
 " Mr. Greeley's reply to this interrogatory was lost 
 
188 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 in the confusion which prevailed in consequence of 
 members leaving their seats, and coming forward to 
 the area in the centre. 
 
 " The speaker called the House to order, and re- 
 quested gentlemen to take their seats. 
 
 " Mr. Greeley proceeded. There was no intima- 
 tion 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 sixty or seventy thousand dollars, 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 ; 
 but now the member from the same district received 
 mileage for some eight or nine hundred 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 — mileage was charged. The gentleman from 
 Ohio who commenced this discussion had made the 
 point that there was some defect, some miscalculation, 
 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 
 
ME. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 189 
 
 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 aside that post-office book in conse- 
 quence 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 gen- 
 tleman from New York a question. His complaint 
 was, that the article had done him injustice by setting 
 him down as some three hundred miles nearer the 
 seat of government than his colleague (Mr. Schenck), 
 although his colleague had stated before the House 
 that he (Mr. Sawyer) resided some sixty or seventy 
 miles farther. Now, he wanted to know why the 
 gentleman had made this calculation against him, and 
 in favor 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 
 
190 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 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 department." 
 
 Jan. 4, " Congress showed its spite " (says Mr. 
 Parton in his " Life of Mr. Greeley ") ''at the mileage 
 expose in a truly extraordinary manner. At the last 
 session of this very Congress, the mileage of the 
 messengers appointed by the electoral colleges to 
 bear their respective votes for president and vice- 
 president to Washington had been reduced to twelve 
 and a half cents per mile each way. But now it 
 was perceived by members that either the mileage 
 of the messengers must be restored, or their own 
 reduced. ' Accordingly,' wrote Mr. Greeley in one 
 of his letters, ' a joint resolution was promptly sub- 
 mitted to the Senate, doubling the mileage of mes- 
 sengers ; and it went through that exalted body very 
 quickly and easily. I had not noticed that it had been 
 definitively acted on at all until it made its appearance 
 in the House to-day, and was driven through with inde- 
 cent rapidity well befitting its character. No commit- 
 tee was allowed to examine it; no opportunity was 
 afforded to discuss it : but by whip and spur, previous 
 question, and brute force of numbers, it was rushed 
 through the necessary stages, and sent to the president 
 for his sanction.' 
 
 " The injustice of this impudent measure is appar- 
 
MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 191 
 
 ent from the fact, that, on the reduced scale of com- 
 pensation, messengers received from ten to twenty 
 dollars a day during the period of their necessary 
 absence from home. The messenger from Maine, for 
 instance, brings the vote of his State five hundred and 
 ninety-five miles, and need not be more than eight 
 days absent from his business, at an expense certainly 
 not exceeding sixty dollars in all. The reduced com- 
 pensation was $148.75, paying his expenses, and giving 
 him eleven dollars per day over." 
 
 Another debate ensued on the mileage question ; but 
 it took a ludicrous phase, and finally terminated in 
 the following colloquy on dead-heads : — 
 
 " Mr. Murphy said, when he came on, he left New 
 York at five o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived at 
 Philadelphia to supper ; and then, entering the car 
 again, he slept very comfortably, and was here in the 
 morning at eight o'clock. He lost no time. The 
 mileage was ninety dollars. 
 
 " Mr. Root would inquire of the gentleman from 
 New York whether he took his passage and came on 
 as what the agents sometimes call a ' dead-head.' 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 " Mr. Murphy replied (amid considerable merri- 
 ment and laughter) that he did not know of more 
 than one member belonging to the New- York delega- 
 tion to whom that application could properly attach. 
 
192 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 " Mr. Root said, although his friend from New 
 York was tolerably expert in every thing he treated 
 of, yet he might not understand the meaning of the 
 term he used. He would inform him that the term 
 ' dead-head ' was applied by the steamboat gentleman 
 to passengers who were allowed to travel without pay- 
 ing their fare. [A great deal of merriment prevailed 
 throughout the hall upon this allusion, as it manifestly 
 referred to the two editors, — the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania, Mr. Levin, and the gentleman from New 
 York, Mr. Greeley.] But Mr. Root (continuing to 
 speak) said he was opposed to all personalities : he 
 never indulged in any such thing himself, and he never 
 would favor such indulgence on the part of other gen- 
 tlemen. 
 
 " Mr. Levin. — I want merely to say — 
 
 " Mr. Root. — I am afraid " — 
 
 [The confusion of voices and merriment which 
 followed completely drowned the few words of pleasant 
 explanation delivered here by Mr. Levin.] 
 
 " Mr. Greeley addressed the chair. 
 
 "The Chairman. — The gentleman from New York 
 will suspend his remarks till the committee shall come 
 to order. 
 
 " Order being restored, — 
 
 " Mr. Greeley said he did not pretend to know 
 what the editor of ' The Philadelphia Sun,' the gen- 
 
MR. GREELEY IK CONGRESS. 193 
 
 tleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Levin), had done; 
 but, if any gentleman anxious about the matter 
 would inquire at the railroad-offices in Philadelphia 
 and Baltimore, he would there be informed that he 
 (Mr. Greeley) never had passed over any portion of 
 either of those roads free of charge, — never in the 
 world. One of the gentlemen interested had once 
 told him he might ; but he never had. 
 
 " Mr. Embree next obtained the floor, but gave way 
 for Mr. Haralson, who moved that the committee rise. 
 
 " Mr. Greeley appealed to the gentleman from 
 Georgia (Mr. Haralson) to withhold his motion while 
 he might, by the courtesy of the gentleman from 
 Indiana (Mr. Embree), make a brief reply to the 
 allusions which had been made to him and his course 
 upon this subject. He asked only for five minutes ; 
 but 
 
 " Mr. Haralson adhered to his motion, which was 
 agreed to." 
 
 It seemed as though this mileage question would 
 never be settled ; for it came up a third time upon a 
 discussion upon the slave-trade, when Mr. Greeley 
 defended himself in a speech of considerable power 
 and great eloquence, from which I select the follow- 
 ing : — 
 
 " The gentleman saw fit to speak of my vocation as 
 an editor, and to charge me with editing my paper 
 
 17 
 
194 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 from my seat on this floor. Mr. Chairman, I do not 
 believe there is one member in this hall who has writ- 
 ten less in his seat this session than I have done. I 
 have been too much absorbed in the (to me) novel 
 and exciting scenes around me to write, and have 
 written no editorial here. Time enough for that, sir, 
 before and after your daily sessions. But the gentle- 
 man eitlier directly charged or plainly insinuated that 
 I have neglected my duties as a member of this House 
 to attend to my own private business. I meet this 
 charge with a positive and circumstantial denial. 
 Except a brief sitting one private-bill day, I have not 
 been absent one hour in all, nor the half of it, from 
 the deliberations of this House. I have never voted 
 for an early adjournment, nor to adjourn over. My 
 name will be found recorded on every call of the 
 yeas and nays. And, as the gentleman insinuated a 
 neglect of my duties as a member of a committee (on 
 public lands), I appeal to its chairman for proof, to 
 any that need it, that I have never been absent from 
 a meeting of that committee, nor any part of one ; 
 and that I have rather sought than shunned labor 
 upon it. And I am confident, that, alike in my seat 
 and out of it, I shall do as large a share of the work 
 devolving upon this House as the gentleman from 
 Mississippi will deem desirable. 
 
 "And now, Mr. Chairman, a word on the main 
 
ME. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 195 
 
 question before us. I know very well, I knew from 
 the first, what a low, contemptible, demagoguing 
 business this, of attempting to save public money, 
 always is. It is not a task for gentlemen : it is 
 esteemed rather disreputable even for editors. Your 
 gentlemanly work is spending, lavishing, distributing, 
 taking. Savings are always such vulgar, beggarly, 
 twopenny affairs, that there is a sorry and stingy look 
 about them most repugnant to all gentlemanly in- 
 stincts. And besides, if they happen to hit the right 
 place, it is always, ' Strike higher ! ' ' Strike lower ! ' 
 To be generous with other people's money, generous 
 to self and friends especially, — that is the way to be 
 popular and commended. Go ahead, and never care 
 for expense : if your debts become inconvenient, you 
 can repudiate, and blackguard your creditors as 
 descended from Judas Iscariot ! Ah ! Mr. Chairman, 
 I was not rocked in the cradle of gentility." 
 
 I close this chapter of Mr. Greeley's three months 
 in Congress, in which he did many things for the 
 public good which have not been here enumerated, 
 with the conclusion of his address to his constituents. 
 Enough has, however, been shown to exhibit the 
 honesty and integrity of the man. 
 
 " My work as your servant is done : whether well, or 
 ill, it remains for you to judge. Yery likely I gave 
 the wrong vote on some difficult and complicated 
 
196 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 questions to which I was called upon 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 pubhsh less 
 of speeches, and more of propositions and votes there- 
 upon : it would give the mass of the people a much 
 clearer insight into the management of their public 
 affairs. 
 
 " My successor being already chosen and com- 
 missioned, 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 recall it, 
 nor have I felt that I owed an apology to any ; and I 
 am quite confident, that, if you had sent to Washing- 
 ton (as you doubtless might have done) a more 
 sternly honest and fearless representative, he would 
 have made himself more unpopular with a large por- 
 tion of the House than I did. I thank you heartily 
 
MH. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 197 
 
 for the glimpse of public life which your favor 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 returning with 
 renewed zest to my private cares and duties, I have a 
 single additional favor 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.' " 
 17* 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MR. GREELEY AND HIS BEGGARS AND BORROWERS. 
 
 New York and Beggars. — A Few of the Sufferers. — Begging for Churches. 
 — Chronic Beggars. — Borrowers. — Not to injure the Needy. — A Case 
 stated. — Borrowers of Strangers never pay. — A Beggar's Letter. — 
 Church- Members Begging or Borrowing. — Associations can deal with 
 Beggars better than Individuals can. — Does not condemn Borrowing 
 wholly. — A Duty to lend sometimes. — Remarks. 
 
 HORACE GREELEY had his share of trashy 
 beggars, as all men do who are in any way con- 
 nected with public life. While the writer could tell 
 an amusing tale of beggars by whom he has been 
 beset, he cannot tell Mr. Greeley's plagues of this kind 
 better than he has told them in his " Recollections of 
 a Busy Life ; " and therefore the reader shall have 
 them in Mr. Greeley's own style. Here they are : — 
 "New York is the metropolis of beggary. The 
 wrecks of incapacity, miseducation, prodigality, and 
 profligacy, drift hither from either continent, and are 
 finally stranded on our shore. Has a pretentious 
 family in Europe a member who is felt as a burden, or 
 
 198 
 
THE N. Y. TRIBUNE BUILDING AT NIGHT. 
 
MR. GREELEY'S BEGGARS AND BORROWERS. 
 
 199 
 
 loathed as a disgrace, money is somehow scraped 
 together to ship him off to New York ; taking good 
 care that there be not enough to enable him to ship 
 himself back again. Does a family collapse anywhere 
 in the interior or along the coast of our country, leav- 
 ing a helpless widow and fatherless children to strug- 
 gle with difficulties utterly unexpected and unprepared 
 for, — though too proud to work, or even beg, where 
 they are known, — they are ready enough to try their 
 fortune and hide their fall in this great emporium, where 
 they would gladly do (if they could get it) the very 
 work which they reject as degrading in the home of 
 their bygone prosperity and consequence. Though 
 living is here most expensive, and only eminent skill 
 or efficiency can justify migration hither on the part 
 of any but single young men, yet mechanics and labor- 
 ers of very moderate ability, and even widows with 
 small children, hie hither in reckless defiance of the 
 fact that myriads have done so before them, — at least 
 nineteen-twentieths of them only to plunge thereby 
 into deeper, more squalid, hopeless misery than they 
 had previously known. Want is a hard master any- 
 where ; but nowhere else are the sufferings, the woes, 
 the desperation, of utter need, so trying as in a great 
 city : and they are pre-eminently so in this city, because 
 the multiplicity of the destitute benumbs the heart of 
 charity, and precludes attention to any one's wants ; 
 
200 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 while each is absorbed in his own cares and efforts to 
 such extent, that he knows nothing of the neighbors 
 who may be starving to death, with barely a brick wall 
 between him and them. 
 
 " The beggars of New York comprise but a small 
 proportion of its sufferers from want ; yet they are at 
 once very numerous, and remarkably impudent. One 
 who would accept a franc in Paris, or a shilling in 
 London, with grateful acknowledgments, considers 
 himself ill used and insulted if you offer him less than 
 a dollar in New York. With thousands beggary is a 
 profession, whereof the rudiments were acquired in 
 the Old World ; but experience and observation have 
 qualified them to pursue it with veteran proficiency 
 and success in the New. Even our native beggars 
 have a boldness of aspiration, an audacity of con- 
 ception, such as the magnificent proportions of our 
 lakes and valleys, our mountains and prairies, are cal- 
 culated to inspire. I doubt if an Asiatic or Euro- 
 pean beggar ever frankly avowed his intent to beg the 
 purchase-money of a good farm, though some may 
 have invested their gains thus laudably ; but I have 
 been solicited by more than one American, who had 
 visited this city, from points hundreds of miles distant, 
 expressly and avowedly to beg the means of buying a 
 homestead. I wish I were certain that none of these 
 had more success with others than with me. 
 
MR. Greeley's beggars and borrowers. 201 
 
 " Begging for churches, for seminaries, for libraries, 
 has been one of our most crying nuisances. If there 
 be two hundred negro families living in a city, they 
 will get up a Baptist, a Methodist, and perhaps 
 an Episcopal or Congregational church ; and, being 
 generally poor, they will undertake to build for each 
 a meeting-house, and support a clergyman, — in good 
 part, of course, by begging, — often in distant cities. 
 A dozen boys attending a seminary will form a library 
 association or debating club, and then levy on man- 
 kind in general for the books they would like to pos- 
 sess. Thus, in addition to our resident mendicancy, 
 New York is made the cruising-ground, the harvest- 
 field, of the high-soaring beggary of a whole continent ; 
 while our princely merchants, at some seasons, are 
 waited upon by more solicitors of contributions than 
 purchasers of goods. Hence our rich men gener- 
 ally court and secure a reputation for meanness, 
 which may or may not be deserved in a particu- 
 lar instance, but which, in any case, is indispensa- 
 ble as a protection, like the shell of a tortoise. Were 
 they reputed benevolent and free-handed, they would 
 never be allowed time to attend to their business, and 
 could not enjoy an hour's peace in the bosom of their 
 respective families. 
 
 " The chronic beggars are a bad lot ; but the sys- 
 tematic borrowers are far worse. What you give is 
 
202 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 
 
 gone, and soon forgotten : there is the end of it. It 
 is presumable that you can spare, or you would have 
 withheld it. But you lend (in your greener days) 
 with some expectation of being repaid : hence disap- 
 pointment and serious loss — sometimes even dis- 
 grace — becaase of your abused faith in human 
 nature. I presume no year passes wherein the solvent 
 business-men of this city lose so little as ten millions 
 of dollars, borrowed of them for a few hours or days, 
 as a momentary accommodation, by neighbors and 
 acquaintances, who would resent a suggested doubt of 
 its punctual repayment, yet who never do repay it. I 
 am confident that good houses have been reduced to 
 bankruptcy by these most irregular and improvident 
 loans. 
 
 " Worse still is the habit of borrowing and lend- 
 ing among clerks and young mechanics. A part 
 of these are provident, thrifty, frugal, and so save 
 money : another and much larger class prefer to ' live 
 as they go,' and are constantly spending in drink and 
 other dissipation that portion of their earnings which 
 they should save. When I was a journeyman, I knew 
 several who earned more than I did, but who were 
 always behind with their board. Men of this class 
 are continually borrowing five or ten dollars of their 
 frugal acquaintances to invest in a ball, a sleigh-ride, 
 an excursion, a frolic ; and a large proportion of 
 
MR. GHEELEY's beggars AND BORROWERS. 203 
 
 these loans is never repaid. Millions of dollars, in 
 the aggregate, are thus transferred from the pockets 
 of the frugal to those of the prodigal ; depriving the 
 former of means they are sure to need when they 
 come to furnish a house or undertake a business, and 
 doing the latter no good, but rather confirming them 
 in their evil ways. Such lending should be systemati- 
 cally discountenanced and refused. 
 
 " I hate to say any tiling that seems calculated to steel 
 others against the prayers of the unfortunate and 
 necessitous; yet an extensive, protracted experience 
 has led me to the conclusion that nine-tenths of those 
 who solicit loans of strangers or casual acquaintances 
 are thriftless vagabonds who will never be better off 
 than at present, or scoundrels who would not pay if 
 they were able. In hundreds of cases I have been 
 importuned to lend from one dollar up to ten dollars 
 to help a stranger who had come to the city on some 
 errand or other, had here fallen among thieves (who 
 are far more abundant here than they ever were on the 
 road from Jerusalem to Jericho), been made drunk, 
 and plundered of his last cent, and who asked only 
 enough to take him home, when the money would be 
 surely and promptly returned. Sometimes I have 
 lent the sum required; in other cases I have refused it: 
 but I cannot remember a single instance in which the 
 promise to pay was made good. I recollect a case 
 
204 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 
 
 wherein a capable, intelligent New-England mechanic, 
 on his way from an Eastern city to work two hundred 
 miles up the Erie Railroad, borrowed of me the means 
 of saving his children from famine on the way, promis- 
 ing to pay it out of his first month's wages ; which he 
 took care never to do. This case differs from many 
 others only in that the swindler was clearly of a 
 better class than that from which the great army of 
 borrowers is so steadily and bounteously recruited. 
 
 " In one instance a young man came with the 
 usual request, and was asked to state his case. ' I 
 am a clerk from New Hampshire,' he began, ' and 
 have been for three years employed in Georgia. At 
 length, a severe sickness prostrated me ; I lost my 
 place ; my money was exhausted : and here am I, with 
 my wife, without a cent; and I want to borrow enough 
 to take me home to my father's house, and I will 
 surely repay it.' — 'Stranger,' was the response, 'you 
 evidently cannot stay here, and I must help you get 
 away. But why say any thing about paying me ? You 
 know, and I know, you will never pay a cent.' My 
 visitor protested and remonstrated ; but I convinced, 
 if I did not convert him. ' Don't you see,' I re- 
 joined, ' that you cannot have been three years a clerk 
 in a leading mercantile house in Georgia without 
 making the acquaintance of merchants doing business 
 in this city ? Now, if you were a person likely to 
 
MR. Greeley's beggars and borrowers. 205 
 
 pay, you would apply to and obtain help from those 
 merchants whom you know ; not ask help of me, an 
 utter stranger.' He did not admit the force of my 
 demonstration ; but of course the sequel proved it 
 correct. 
 
 " I consider it all but an axiom, that he who asks a 
 stranger to lend him money will never pay it ; yet I 
 have known an exception. Once, when I was exceed- 
 ingly poor and needy, in a season of commercial 
 revulsion or ' panic,' I opened a letter from Utica, 
 and found therein five dollars, which the writer asked 
 me to receive in satisfaction of a loan of that sum 
 which I had made him — a needy stranger — on an 
 occasion which he recalled to my remembrance. 
 Perplexed by so unusual a message, and especially by 
 receiving it at such a time, when every one was seek- 
 ing to borrow, — no one condescending to pay, — I 
 scanned the letter more closely, and at length achieved 
 a solution of the problem. The writer was a patient 
 in the State Lunatic Asylum. 
 
 " A gushing youth once wrote me to this effect : — 
 
 " ' Dear Sir, — Among your literary treasures, you 
 have doubtless preserved several autographs of our 
 country's late lamented poet, Edgar A. Poe. If so, 
 and you can spare one, please enclose it to me, and 
 recei've the thanks of yours truly.' 
 
 18 
 
206 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 " I promptly responded as follows : — 
 
 " ' Dear Sir, — Among my literary treasures, there 
 happens to be exactly one autograph of our country's 
 late lamented poet, Edgar A. Poe. It is his note of 
 hand for fifty dollars, with my indorsement across the 
 back. It cost me exactly $50.75 (including protest) ; 
 and you may have it for half that amount. Yours 
 respectfully.' 
 
 " That autograph, I regret to say, remains on my 
 hands, and is still for sale at first cost, despite the lapse 
 of time and the depreciation of our currency. 
 
 " I once received a letter from an utter stranger 
 living two hundred miles away, asking me to lend him 
 a large sum on a mortgage of his farm, and closing 
 thus : — 
 
 " ' P.S. — My religious views are radically antagonist 
 to yours ; but I know no member of my own church 
 of whom I would so readily, and with such confidence, 
 ask such a favor, as of you.' 
 
 " This postscript impelled me, instead of dropping 
 the letter quietly into the waste-basket as usual, and 
 turning to the next business in order, to answer him 
 as follows : — 
 
 " ' Sir, — I have neither the money you ask for, nor 
 the inclination to lend it on the security you proffer ; 
 
 \ 
 
MR. GEEELEY's BEGGAHS AND BOBEOWEES. 207 
 
 and your P.S. prompts the suggestion, that whenever 
 I shall be moved to seek favors of the members of 
 some other church, rather than of that to which I 
 have hitherto adhered, I shall make haste to join that 
 other church.' 
 
 " I trust I have here said nothing calculated to stay 
 the hand or chill the spirit of heaven-born Charity. 
 The world is full of needy, suffering ones, who richly 
 deserve compassion ; not to speak of the vagrants, who, 
 though undeserving, must not be allowed to starve or 
 freeze. I was struck with the response of a man last 
 from St. Louis, who recently insisted on being helped 
 on to Boston, which he said was his early home, and 
 to whom I roughly made answer, ' You need not 
 pretend to me that the universe is bankrupt : I know 
 better, — know that a man of your natural abilities, if 
 he only behaved himself, need not be reduced to 
 beggary.' — ' Well, sir,' he quickly rejoined, ' I don't 
 pretend that I have always done the right thing ; if 
 T did, you would know better. All I say is, that I am 
 hungry and penniless ; and that, if I can only get back 
 to Boston, I can there make a living. That's my 
 whole story.' I felt that he had the better reason on 
 his side. 
 
 " There must, there will, be heavy drafts made on 
 the sympathies and the means of all who can and will 
 
208 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 
 
 give, especially during a hard, dull winter or a 
 ' panic' Every prosperous man should ask himself, 
 ' How much can I afford to give ? ' and should set 
 apart from a tenth to a third of his income for the 
 relief of the needy and suffering. Tlien he should 
 search out the most effective channels through which 
 to reach those whose privations are greatest, and on 
 whom private alms can be wisely and usefully ex- 
 pended. There are thousands who ought to go to the I 
 almshouse at once, — who will be more easily sup- > 
 ported there than elsewhere ; and it is no charity to i 
 squander your means on these. A great majority of the 
 destitute can be far better dealt with by associations 
 than by individuals ; and of good associations for phil- 
 anthropic purposes there is, happily, no lack in any 
 great city. There remains a scanty residuum of cases 
 wherein money or food must be given at once by 
 whomsoever happens to be nearest to the sufferer : but 
 two-thirds of those who beg from door to door, or who 
 write begging-letters, are the very last persons w^ho 
 ought to be given even a shinplaster-dime ; and, as a 
 general rule, the importunity of a beggar is in inverse 
 proportion to his deserving, or even to his need. 
 
 " ' Then you condemn borrowing and lending 
 entirely ? ' 
 
 " No, I do not. Many a man kno\vs how to use 
 wisely and beneficently means that he does not, while 
 
MB. geeeley's beggars and boerowees. 209 
 
 others do, possess : lending to such, under proper 
 safeguards, is most commendable. Many a young 
 farmer, who, by working for others, has earned a 
 thousand dollars, and saved a good part of it, is now 
 prepared to work a farm of his own. He who lends 
 such a youth from one to two thousand dollars 
 wherewith to purchase a farm, taking a mortgage 
 thereon for the amount, and leaving to the young 
 farmer his own well-earned means wherewith to buy 
 stock and seed, provisions and implements, will often 
 enable him to work his way into a modest independ- 
 ence, surrounded and blessed by a wife and children, 
 himself a useful member of society and a true pillar 
 of the State, when he must, but for that loan, have 
 remained years longer single and a hireling. So a 
 mechanic may often be wisely and safely aided to 
 establish himself in business by a timely and well- 
 secured loan ; but this should never be accorded him, 
 till, by years of patient, frugal industry, he has 
 qualified himself for mastery, and proved himself 
 worthy of trust. (Of traders there will always be 
 too many, though none should ever be able to borrow a 
 dollar.) But improvident borrowing and lending are 
 among our most prevalent and baneful errors ; and I 
 would gladly conduce to their reformation. 
 
 " I hold that it may sometimes be a duty to lend ; 
 and yet I judge that at least nine of every ten loans 
 
 18* 
 
210 liiPE OE HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 to the needy result in loss to the lender, with no sub- 
 stantial benefit to the borrower. That the poor often 
 suffer from poverty I know, but oftener from lack of 
 capacity, skill, management, efficiency, than lack of 
 money. Here is an empty-handed youth who wants 
 much, and must have it ; but, after the satisfaction of 
 his most urgent needs, he wants, above all things, 
 ability to earn money and take good care of it. He 
 thinks his first want is a loan ; but that is a great 
 mistake. He is far more certain to set resolutely to 
 work without than with that pleasant but baneful 
 accommodation. Make up a square issue, ' Work or 
 starve,' and he is quite likely to choose work ; 
 while, provided he can borrow, he is more likely to 
 dip into some sort of speculation or traffic. That he 
 thus almost inevitably fools away his borrowed money 
 concerns only the unwise lender ; that he is thereby 
 confirmed in his aversion to work, and squander 
 precious time that should fit him for decided useful- 
 ness, is of wider and greater consequence. The 
 widow, the orphan, the cripple, the invalid, often need 
 alms, and should have them ; but to the innumerable 
 hosts of needy, would-be borrowers, the best response 
 is Nature's, ' Root, hog, or die ! ' " 
 
 The writer has given the remarks of Mr. Greeley 
 on this every-day subject from his " Recollections of 
 
MR. Greeley's beggars and borrowers. 211 
 
 a Busy Life ; " and will now add, that he has had some- 
 what of a similar experience, and would advise all to 
 make it a general rule never to lend or borrow money ; 
 for it generally leads to evil, and only evil, and that 
 continually. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MR. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Mr. Greeley discussed Many Subjects. — The Rochester Rappings. — He 
 didn't desire a Second Sitting. — Interview with Jenny Lind. — Seance 
 at Mr. Greeley's House. — He witnesses a Juggle or Trick. — He deals 
 with the Trick. — He thinks the Devil would not be engaged in such 
 Business. — Found he could spend his Time more Profitably. — Thinks 
 we had better do our Duty to the Living. — Thinks Great Men wrote 
 Better while living than since they died. — Their Communications 
 Vague and Trivial. — Spirits proved to be Ignorant. — The Great Body 
 of Spiritualists made Worse by it. — Spkitualists are Bigots. 
 
 MR. GREELEY has been accused of being 
 versatile, and believing many things which 
 it does not appear from his writings he ever did 
 believe. He discussed many questions, examined 
 them, and wrote of them in " The Tribune " as an 
 editor should, if he would make a useful and popular 
 paper. One of these things which he has been 
 reproached as believing in is spiritualism ; but it is 
 very clear from what I shall quote from his own pen 
 that he never believed in these vagaries and halluci- 
 nations. The very term by which he heads the chap- 
 aia 
 
MR. GEEELEY AND SPIEITUATJSM. 213 
 
 ter in which he treats of this subject, glamour^ which 
 means " witchery," or " charms," shows that he had 
 no faith in " spirit-rappings," or in " spiritualism " 
 so called. The following, from his " Recollections of 
 a Busy Life," is his account of this matter : — 
 
 " I believe I heard vaguely of what were called 
 ' the Rochester knockings ' soon after they were 
 first proclaimed, or testified to, in the spring of 1848 ; 
 but they did not attract my attention till, during a brief 
 absence from New York, — perhaps while in Congress, 
 — 1 perused a connected circumstantial account of the 
 alleged phenomena, signed by several prominent citizens 
 of Rochester, and communicated by them to ' The 
 Tribune,' wherein I read it. It made little impression 
 on my mind ; though I never had that repugnance to, 
 or stubborn incredulity regarding, occurrences called 
 supernatural, which is evinced by many. My conscious- 
 ness of ignorance of the extent or limitations of the 
 natural is so vivid, that I never could realize that 
 difficulty in crediting what are termed miracles which 
 many affirm. Doubtless the first person who observed 
 the attraction of iron by the magnet supposed he had 
 stumbled upon a contradiction to or violation of the 
 laws of Nature, when he had merely enlarged his own 
 acquaintance with natural phenomena. The fly that 
 sees a rock lifted from its bed may fancy himself wit- 
 ness of a miracle, when what he sees is merely the 
 
214 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 interposition of a power, the action of a force, which 
 transcends his narrow conceptions, his ephemeral ex- 
 perience. I know so very little of Nature, that I cannot 
 determine at a glance what is or is not supernatural : 
 but I know that things do occur which are decidedly 
 superusual ; and I rest in the fact, without being able, 
 or feeling required, to explain it. 
 
 " I believe that it was early in 1850 that the Fox 
 family — in which the so-called ' knockings ' had first 
 occurred or been noted, first at the little hamlet known 
 as Hydesvilie, near Newark, Wayne County, N.Y. — 
 came to New York, and stopped at a hotel, where I 
 called upon them, and heard the so-called ' raps,' but 
 was neither edified nor enlightened thereby. Nothing 
 transpired beyond the ' rappings ; ' which, even if 
 deemed inexplicable, did not much interest me. In 
 fact, I should have regretted that any of m^ departed 
 ones had been impelled to address me in the presence 
 and hearing of the motley throng of strangers gathered 
 around the table on which the ' raps ' were generally 
 made. 
 
 " I had no desire for a second ' sitting,' and might 
 never have had one ; but my wife — then specially and 
 deeply interested in all that pertains to the unseen 
 world, because of the recent loss of our darling 
 ' Pickie ' — visited the Foxes twice or thrice at their 
 hotel, and invited them thence to spend some week or 
 
Mr. gheeley and spiritualism. 215 
 
 so with her at our house. There, along with much 
 that seemed trivial, unsatisfactory, and unlike what 
 naturally might be expected from the land of souls, I 
 received some responses to my questions of a very 
 remarkable character, evincing knowledge of occur- 
 rences of which no one, not an inmate of our family in 
 former years, could well have been cognizant. Most 
 of these could have no significance or cogency to 
 strangers ; but one of them seems worth narrating. 
 
 " It was the second or third day after the Foxes came 
 to our house. I had worked very hard and late at the 
 office the night before, reaching home after all others 
 were in bed : so I did not rise till all had had breakfast 
 and had gone out, my wife included. When I rose at 
 last, I took a book, and, reading on a lounge in our 
 front-parlor, soon fell into an imperfect doze, during 
 which there called a Mrs. Freeman, termed 'a clairvoy- 
 ant,' from Boston, with her husband and an invalid 
 gentleman. They had together visited Niagara Falls ; 
 had seen the Foxes on their way at Rochester ; and 
 now, returning, had sought them at their hotel, and 
 followed them thence to our house. As they did not 
 inquire for me, being unaware of as well as indiflferent 
 to my presence in the house, they were shown into the 
 back-parlor, separated by sliding-doors from that in 
 which I was ; and they awaited the return of the Foxes 
 to accompany them to their hotel, saying, ' We feel 
 
216 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEt. 
 
 like intruders here.' This impelled me to rise aii^J go 
 into the back-parlor in order to make the strangers 
 welcome. Mrs. Freeman had been already, or was 
 soon afterward, magnetized by her husband into the 
 state termed ' clairvoyance,' wherein she professed to 
 see spirits related to those who were put into magnet- 
 ic rapport with her. What she reported as of or from 
 those spirits might be ever so true or false for aught I 
 know. At length — merely to make the strangers 
 feel more at their ease — I said, ' Mr. Freeman, may 
 not I be put into communication with spirits through 
 Mrs. Freeman ? ' to which he readily assented, placed 
 my hand in hers, made a few passes, and bade me ask 
 such questions as I would. As she had just reported 
 the presence of spirit brothers and sisters of others, I 
 asked Mrs. Freeman, ' Do you see any brothers or sis- 
 ters o^ mine in the spirit-world?' She gazed a minute 
 intently, then responded, ' Yes, there is one ; liis name 
 is Horace ; ' and then proceeded to describe a child 
 quite circumstantially. I made no remark when slie 
 had concluded ; though it seemed to me a very wild 
 guess, even had she known that I had barely one de- 
 parted brother, that his name was identical with my 
 own ; though such was the fact. I resumed : ' Mrs. 
 Freeman, do you see any more brothers or sisters of 
 mine in the spirit-world ? ' She looked again as 
 before ; then eagerly said, ' Yes, there is another : her 
 
MB. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 217 
 
 name is Anna — no, her name is Almira — no (per- 
 plexedly), I cannot get the name exactly; yet it 
 begins with A.' Now, the only sister I ever lost was 
 named Arminda; and she, as well as my brother, died 
 before I was born, — -he being three and she scarcely 
 two years old. They were bnried in a secluded rural 
 graveyard in Bedford, N.H., about sixty years ago ; 
 and no stone marks their resting-place. Even my wife 
 did not know their names ; and certainly no one else 
 present but myself did. And, if Mrs. Freeman ob- 
 tained one of these names from my mind (as one 
 theory affirms), why not the other as well ? since each 
 was there as clearly as the other. 
 
 " Not long after this, I had called on Mademoiselle 
 Jenny Lind, then a 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 in- 
 quiries, she asked if she could witness the so-called 
 ' manifestations.' 
 
 " I answered, that she could do so by coming to my 
 house in the heart of the city, as Katy Pox was then 
 staying with us. She assented, and a time was fixed 
 for her call ; at which time she appeared with a 
 considerable retinue of total strangers. All were 
 
 19 
 
218 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 
 
 soon seated around a table, and the ' rappings * were 
 soon audible and abundant. 
 
 "• ' Take your hands from under the table ! ' Ma- 
 demoiselle Jenny called across to me in the tone 
 and manner of an indifferently-bold arch-duchess. 
 ' What ? ' I asked, not distinctly comprehending her. 
 ' Take your hands from under the table ! ' she im- 
 periously repeated ; and I now understood that she 
 suspected me of causing, by some legerdemain, the 
 puzzling concussions. I instantly clasped my hands 
 over my head, and there kept them until the sit- 
 ting 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, I witnessed what I strongly 
 suspected to be a juggle or trick on the part of a 
 ' medium,' which gave me a disrelish for the whole 
 business, and I have seen very little of it since. I 
 never saw a ' spirit-hand,' thougli persons in whose 
 veracity I have full confidence assure me they have 
 done so. (I do not say that they were or were not 
 deluded or mistaken.) But I have sat with three 
 others around a small table, with every one of our 
 eight hands lying plainly, palpably, on that table, and 
 heard rapid writing with a pencil on paper, which, 
 
MR. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 219 
 
 perfectly white, we had just previously placed under 
 that table ; and have the next minute picked up that 
 paper with a sensible, straightforward message of 
 twenty to fifty words fairly written thereon. T do 
 not say by whom or by what said message was 
 written; yet I am quite confident that none of 
 the persons present, who were visible to mortal eyes, 
 wrote it. 
 
 '' And here let me deal with the hypothesis of 
 jugglery, knee-joint rattling, toe-cracking, &c. I 
 have no doubt that pretended ' mediums ' have often 
 amazed their visitors by feats of jugglery ; indeed, I 
 am confident that I have been present when they did 
 so. In so far as the hypothesis of spirit-agency rests 
 on the integrity of the ' mediums,' I cannot deem it 
 established. Most of them are persons of no especial 
 moral elevation ; and I know that more than one of 
 them has endeavored to simulate ' raps ' when the 
 genuine could not be evoked. Let us assume, then, 
 that the 'raps' prove just nothing at all beyond the 
 bare fact that sounds have been produced by some 
 agency or impulse which we do not fully understand, 
 and that all the physical phenomena have been, or 
 may be, simulated or paralleled by such jugglers as 
 Houdin, Blitz, the Fakir of Ava, &c. But the amaz- 
 ing sleight-of-hand of these accomplished performers 
 is the restdt of protracted, laborious training by pred- 
 
220 ■ LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 ecessors nearly or quite as adroit and dexterous as 
 themselves ; while the ' mediums' are often children 
 of tender years, who had no such training, have no 
 special dexterity, and some of whom are known to be 
 awkward and clumsy in their movements. The 
 jugglery hypothesis utterly fails to account for occur- 
 rences which I have personally witnessed, to say 
 nothing of others." 
 
 Mr. Greeley does not believe that " spirit-rapping" 
 is to be ascribed to demoniac influence, though that 
 might account for some of these phenomena. As 
 proof of these views, he relates the following : " In 
 the township of Wayne, Erie County, near the house 
 of my father and brother, there lived a farmer, well 
 known to me, named King, who had many good traits, 
 and one bad habit, — that of keeping a barrel of 
 whiskey in his house, and dealing out the villanous 
 fluid at so much per quart or pint to his thirsty 
 neighbors. Having recently lost a beloved daugh- 
 ter, he had recourse to ' spiritualism,' (abominable 
 term !) and received many messages from wliat pur- 
 ported to be his lost child, one or more of which in- 
 sisted that the aforesaid whiskey-barrel must be 
 expelled from his premises, and never re-instated. 
 So said, so done, greatly to the benefit of the neigh- 
 borhood. Now, I feel confident that the Devil never 
 sent nor dictated that message ; for, if he did. his 
 
MR. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 221 
 
 character has been grossly belied, and his biography 
 ought to be rewritten." 
 
 Mr. Greeley thought the failures of the '' mediums " 
 more proof of spirits' operations than their success : 
 for he says, ^' A juggler can do nearly as well at one 
 time as another ; but I have known the most eminent 
 ' mediums ' spend a long evening in trying to evoke 
 the ' spiritual phenomena ' without a gleam of success. 
 I have known this to occur when they were particu- 
 larly anxious — and foi* obviously good reasons — to 
 astound and convince those who were present and ex- 
 pectant ; yet not even the faintest ' rap ' could they 
 scare up. Had they been jugglers, they could not have 
 failed so utterly, ignominiously." 
 
 Mr. Greeley found he could spend his time much 
 more profitably than in investigating this folly. Hence 
 he said, " To sit for two dreary, mortal hours in a 
 darkened room, in a mixed company, waiting for some 
 one's disembodied grandfather or aunt to tip a table 
 or rap on a door, is dull music at best ; but to sit in 
 vain is disgusting." 
 
 Just so, Horace : you talk like a sensible man about 
 this disgusting business ; and my only wonder is that 
 you did not keep clear of such terrestrial nonsense at 
 first. However, your conclusions are full of common 
 sense ; which are these : — 
 
 "1. Those who discharge promptly and faithfully 
 
 19* 
 
222 LIPB OF HOEAOE GEEELBY. 
 
 all their duties to those who ' still live ' in the flesh 
 can have little time for poking and peering into the 
 life beyond the grave. 
 
 " 2. Those who claim, through the ' mediums,' to be 
 Shakspeare, Milton, Byron, &c., and try to prove it by 
 writing poetry, invariably come to grief. I cannot 
 recall a line of ' spiritual ' poetry that is not weak, if 
 not execrable, save that of Rev. Thomas L. Harris, who 
 is a poet still in the flesh. After his death, I predict 
 that the poetry sent us as his will be much worse than 
 he ever wrote while in the body. Even Tupper, ap- 
 palling as is the prospect, will be dribbling worse 
 rhymes upon us after death than even he perpetrated 
 while on earth." 
 
 Pretty good, Horace ; and " spiritualism," or " rap- 
 pings," or "jugglery," or "mediums," or deteriorated 
 sensualists and liberalists, or libertines, are welcome 
 to all the good they can get out of the following, with 
 which Mr. Greeley winds up his views of this delu- 
 sion : — 
 
 " 3. As a general rule, the so-called ' spiritual com- 
 munications ' are vague, unreal, shadowy, trivial. 
 They are not what we should expect our departed 
 friends to say to us. I never could feel that tlie lost 
 relative or friend who professed to be addressing me 
 was actually present. I do not doubt that foolish, 
 trifling people remain so (measurably) after they 
 
MR. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 22 ) 
 
 have passed the dark river. I perceive that trivial 
 questions must necessarily invite trivial answers. But, 
 after making all due allowance, I insist that the 
 ' spiritual ' literature of the day, in so far as it pur- 
 ports to consist of communications or revelations from 
 the future life, is more inane and trashy than it could 
 be if the sages and heroes, the saints and poets, of by- 
 gone days were really speaking to us through these 
 pretended revelations. 
 
 " 4. Not only is it true (as we should in any case 
 presume) that nearly all attempts of the so-called 
 ' mediums ' to guide speculators as to events yet 
 future have proved melancholy failures ; but it is de- 
 monstrated that the so-called ' spirits ' are often igno- 
 rant of events which have already transpired. They 
 did not help fish up the broken Atlantic Cable, nor 
 find Sir John Franklin, nor dispel the mystery which 
 still shrouds the fate of the crew and passengers of the 
 doomed steamship ' President ;' and so of a thousand 
 instances wherein their presumed knowledge might 
 have been of use to us darkly-seeing mortals. All 
 that we have learned of them has added little or 
 nothing to our knowledge, unless it be in en- 
 abling us to answer with more confidence that old 
 momentous question, ' If a man die, shall he live 
 again ? ' 
 
 ^' 5. On the whole (though I say it with regret), it 
 
224 LIFE OF HOKACE GEEELEY. 
 
 seems to me that the great body of the ' spiritualists ' 
 have not been rendered better men and women — 
 better husbands, wives, parents, children — by their 
 new faith. I think some have been improved by it; 
 while' many who were previously good are good still, 
 and some have morally deteriorated. I judge that 
 laxer notions respecting marriage, divorce, chastity, 
 and stern morality generally, have advanced in the 
 wake of ' spiritualism ; ' and while I am fully aware 
 that religious mania, so called, has usually a purely 
 material origin, so that revivals have often been 
 charged with making persons insane whose insanity 
 took its hue from the topic of the hour, but owed its 
 existence to purely physical causes, I still judge that 
 the aggregate of both insanity and suicide has been 
 increased by ' spiritualism.' 
 
 " 6. I do not know that these ' communications ' 
 made through ' mediums ' proceed from those wlio are 
 said to be their authors, nor from the spirits of the de- 
 parted at all. Certain developments strongly indicate 
 that they do ; others that they do not. We know 
 that they say they do ; which is evidence so far as it 
 goes, and is not directly contradicted or rebutted. 
 That some of them are tlie result of juggle, collusion, 
 or trick, I am confident ; that others are not^ I de- 
 cidedly believe. The only certain conclusion in the 
 premises to which my mind has been led is forcibly 
 
MR. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 225 
 
 set forth by Shakspeare in the words of the Danish 
 prince : — 
 
 ' There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' 
 
 " 7. I find my ' spiritual ' friends nowise less bigoted, 
 less intolerant, than the devotees at other shrines. 
 They do not allow me to see through my own eyes, but 
 insist that I shall see througli theirs. If my conclu- 
 sion from certain data differs from theirs, they will not 
 allow my stupidity to account for our difference, but 
 insist on attributing it to hypocrisy, or some other 
 form of rascality. I cannot reconcile this harsh judg- 
 ment with their professions of liberality, their talk of 
 philosophy ; but, if I speak at all, I must report what 
 I see and hear." 
 
 Mr. Greeley, among other things said not to his 
 credit, has been charged with being a " spiritualist." 
 How any one could bring such a charge against him, 
 with the above-made statements from his own pen, is 
 more than I am able to comprehend ; and I fancy 
 there would not be much dependence placed upon 
 these " rappings " if everybody rapped them as he 
 has.. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 
 
 These Suits Numerous. — J. Fenimore Cooper's Character valued at Two 
 Hundred Dollars. — His Nephew and himself the Lawyers. — Horace his 
 own Lawyer. — Horace not allowed to plead his own Case and to have 
 Counsel ; but Cooper is allowed to. — Injustice and Absurdity of the Law 
 of Libel in the State of New York. — The Whig Editors only prosecuted. 
 — Editors do not claim Immunity to Libels. — Mr. Greeley's Logic — 
 Base Fellows. — New- York Laws Worse than English. The Greater the 
 Truth stated, the Greater the Libel. — Mr. Greeley did Much for tlie 
 Press in this Case. — Wonderful Rapidity of Writing. — The Judge's 
 Charge Worse than Cooper's Plea. — Mr. Greeley gives a most Humor- 
 ous Turn to this Whole Libel-Business. — His Defence resulted in Good. 
 
 ALMOST every editor of a daily newspaper has 
 had a large experience in the items which are 
 placed at the head of this chapter. They are a com- 
 mon nuisance, and, though sometimes justifiable, 
 generally most unjust and scandalous. Hence Mr. 
 Greeley, in his " Recollections," well says, — 
 
 " Editorial life has many cares, sundry enjoyments, 
 with certain annoyances ; and prominent among these 
 last are libel-suits. I can hardly remember a time 
 when I was absolutely exempt from these infestations. 
 
 226 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 227 
 
 In fact, as they seem to be a main reliance for support 
 of certain attorneys destitute alike of character and 
 law, I suppose they must be borne for an indefinite 
 period. The fact that these suits are far more com- 
 mon in our State than elsewhere cannot have escaped 
 notice ; and I find the reason of that fact in a per- 
 version of the law by our judges of thirty to fifty 
 years ago. 
 
 " The first notable instance of this perversion oc- 
 curred in the trial of Root vs. King, at Delhi, about 
 1826. Gen. Erastus Root was a leading Democrat 
 through the earliest third of this century ; and was, in 
 1824, a zealous supporter of William H. Crawford for 
 president. As president of the Senate, he presided 
 at the joint meeting of the two Houses wherein elect- 
 ors of president were chosen ; when, to his and his 
 friends' sore disappointment, a large number of 
 Adams and but few Crawford men received the 
 requisite majority, the friends of Adams and those 
 of Clay having privately united on a common ticket. 
 When the votes for this ticket began to be counted 
 out, presaging a Crawford defeat. Gen. Root at- 
 tempted to break up the joint meeting, and thus 
 invalidate the election. For this and other such 
 acts he was severely handled by ' The New- York 
 American ; ' whose editor, Charles King, was there- 
 upon sued by Root for libel ; and the case being tried 
 
228 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 at Delhi, where Root resided and was lord paramount, 
 the jury, under the rulings of a Democratic judge, 
 gave the plaintiff fourteen hundred dollars damages. 
 It was a most unjust verdict, based on a perversion 
 of the law, which, if sustained, left the press no 
 substantial liberty to rebuke wrong-doing or chastise 
 offenders ; and the perversion of justice thus effected 
 naturally led to still further and worse aberrations. 
 
 " Ten or a dozen years afterward, Mr. J. Fenimore 
 Cooper returned from a long residence abroad, during 
 which many of his novels had been written. A man 
 of unquestioned talent, — almost genius, — he was 
 aristocratic in feeling, and arrogant in bearing, alto- 
 gether combining in his manners what a Yankee once 
 characterized as ' winning ways to make people hate 
 him.' Retiring to his paternal acres near Coopers- 
 town, N.Y., he was soon involved in a difficulty with 
 the neighboring villagers, who had long been accus- 
 tomed, in their boating - excursions on the lake 
 (Otsego), to land and make themselves at home for an 
 hour or two on a long, narrow promontory or * point' 
 that ran down from his grounds into the lake, and 
 whom he had now dissuaded from so doing by legal 
 force. The Whig newspaper of the village took up 
 the case for the villagers ; urging that their extrusion 
 from ' the point,' though legal, was churlish, and im« 
 pelled by the spirit of the dog in the manger: where- 
 
I^IBELS AND LIBEL-StriTS. 229 
 
 upon Cooper sued the editor for libel, recovered a 
 verdict, and collected it by taking the money — 
 through a sheriif's officer — from the editor's trunk. 
 By this time several Whig journalists had taken up 
 the cudgels for the villagers and their brother-editor ; 
 and as Mr. Cooper had recently published two caustic, 
 uncomplimentary, self-complacent works on his coun- 
 trymen's ways and manners, entitled ' Homeward 
 Bound,' and ' Home as Found,' some of these casti- 
 gations took the form of reviews of those works. One 
 or more appeared in ' The Courier and Enquirer,' 
 edited by James Watson Webb ; at least one other in 
 ' The Commercial Advertiser,' edited by William L. 
 Stone ; while several racy paragraphs, unflattering to 
 Mr. Cooper, spiced the editorial columns of ' The 
 Albany Evening Journal,' and were doubtless from 
 the pen of its founder and then editor, Mr. Thurlow 
 Weed. Cooper sued them all ; bringing several 
 actions to trial at Fonda, the new county-seat of Mont- 
 gomery County. He had no luck against Col. 
 Webb, because, presuming that gentleman moneyless, 
 he prosecuted him criminally, and could never find a 
 jury to send an editor to prison on his account. Col. 
 Webb was defended in chief by Ambrose L. Jordan, 
 afterwards attorney-general of the State, an able and 
 zealous advocate, who threw his whole soul into his 
 cases, and who did by no means stand on the defensive. 
 
230 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 
 
 " In one of his actions against Mr. Weed he was 
 more fortunate. Weed had not given it proper atten- 
 tion ; and, when the case was called for trial at Fonda, 
 he was detained at home by sickness in his family, 
 and no one appeared for him : so a verdict of four 
 hundred dollars was entered up against him by 
 default. He was on hand a few hours afterward, and 
 tried to have the case re-opened ; but Cooper would 
 not consent : so Weed had to pay the four hundred 
 dollars and costs. Deeming himself aggrieved, he 
 wrote a letter to ' The Tribune,' describing the 
 whole performance ; and on that letter Cooper sued 
 me as for another libel. 
 
 " The first writ wherewith I was honored by the 
 author of 'The Pioneers,' &c., cited me to answer at 
 Ballston, Saratoga County, on the first Tuesday (I 
 believe) in December, 1842 ; and I obeyed it to the 
 letter. I employed no lawyers, not realizing that I 
 needed any. In its turn, the case was called, and 
 opened in due form by Richard Cooper (nephew 
 of Fenimore) for the plaintiff. No witnesses were 
 called; for none were needed. I admitted the publi- 
 cation, and accepted the responsibility thereof: so the 
 questions to be tried were these : ' Was the plaintiff* 
 libelled by such publication ? If so, to what amount 
 was he damaged ? ' When Richard had concluded, I 
 said all that I deemed necessary for the defence ; and 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 231 
 
 then Fenimore summed up his own cause in a longer 
 and rather stronger speech than Richard's, and the 
 case was closed. So far, I felt quite at my ease : but 
 now the presiding judge (Willard) rose, and made a 
 harder, more elaborate, and disengenuous speech 
 against me than either Richard or Fenimore had 
 done ; making three against one, which I did not 
 think quite fair. He absolutely bullied the jury on 
 the presumption that they were inclined to give a 
 verdict for the defendant, which he told them they 
 were nowise at liberty to do. I had never till that 
 day seen one of them, and had never sought to effect 
 any intimacy or understanding with them : so I must 
 say that the judge's charge seemed to me as unfair as 
 possible. The jury retired at its close, and, on ballot- 
 ing, seven of them voted to make me pay a hundred 
 dollars, two voted for five hundred dollars, one for 
 ten hundred dollars, and two for nothing at all, or 
 very nearly so. They soon agreed to call it two 
 hundred dollars, and make it their verdict ; which 
 they did. When all the costs were paid, I was just 
 three hundred dollars out of pocket by that lawsuit. 
 I have done better and worse in other cases ; but 
 having been most ably and successfully defended in 
 several, maugre the proverb that ' He who pleads his 
 own cause has a fool for a client,' I am satisfied, that 
 could I have found time, in every case wherein I was 
 
232 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 sued for libel, to attend in person, and simply, briefly 
 state the material facts to the jury, I should have had 
 less to pay than I have done. There is always danger 
 that the real merits of your case will be buried out 
 of sight under heaps of legal rubbish. But it is not 
 possible for a business-man to spend his whole life in 
 court-rooms, waiting for his case to be called ; and I 
 have often been sued in distant counties, where I 
 could scarcely attend at all. 
 
 " I left Ballston in a sleigh directly upon the render- 
 ing of the verdict ; caught a steamboat, I think, at 
 Troy ; and was at my desk in good season next morn- 
 ing : so that, by eleven, p.m., I had written out and 
 read in proof, besides other matter, my report of the 
 trial, which filled eleven columns of the next morn- 
 ing's ' Tribune.' I think that was the best single day's 
 work I ever did. I intended that the report should 
 be good-natured, perhaps even humorous ; and some 
 thought I succeeded. But Fenimore seems not to 
 have concurred in that opinion : for he sued me 
 upon the report as a new libel, or rather as several 
 libels. I was defended against this new suit by Hons. 
 William H. Seward and A. B. Conger, so cleverly, that 
 though there were hearings on demurrer, and various 
 expensive interlocutory proceedings, the case never 
 came to trial. Indeed, the legislature had meantime 
 overborne some of the more irrational rulings of our 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 2'd'6 
 
 judges; while our judiciary itself had undergone 
 important changes through the political revolution in 
 our State, and the influence of our Constitution of 
 1846 : so that the press of New York now enjoys a 
 freedom which it did not in the last generation. 
 
 " I say, the press ; yet only the journals of one 
 party were judicially muzzled. Rather more than 
 forty years ago, Mr. Weed, then living at Rochester, 
 was positively and generally charged through the 
 Democratic journals with having shaved off or pulled 
 out the whiskers of a dead man in order to make 
 the body pass for that of the long-missing, never- 
 recovered William Morgan, of anti-Masonic fame. 
 The charge was an utterly groundless calumny, 
 having barely a shred of badinage to palliate its 
 utterance. Mr. Weed sued two or three of his de- 
 famers ; but the courts were in the hands of his 
 political adversaries, and he could never succeed in 
 bringing his cases to trial. Finally, after they had 
 been kicked and cuffed about for ten or a dozen years, 
 they were kicked out, as too ancient and fish-like to 
 receive attention. 
 
 '' This was, probably, the best disposition for him 
 that could have been made of them. If he had tried 
 them, and recovered nominal verdicts, his enemies 
 would have shouted over those verdicts as virtually 
 establishing the truth of their charges ; while, if he 
 
 20* 
 
234 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 had been awarded exemplary damages, these would 
 have been cited as measuring the damages to be given 
 against him. 
 
 " Tliis consideration was forcibly brought home to 
 me when, years afterward, having been outrageously 
 libelled with regard to a sum of a thousand dollars, 
 which it was broadly intimated that a railroad or 
 canal company in Iowa had given me for services 
 rendered, or to be rendered, I ordered suits commenced 
 against two of the most reckless libellers. But, when 
 time had been allowed for reflection, I perceived that 
 I could afford neither to lose nor to win these suits ; 
 that such verdicts as I ought to recover would be cited 
 as measuring the damages that I ought to pay in all 
 future libel-suits brought against me : so I gladly 
 accepted such retractions as my libellers saw fit to 
 make, and discontinued my suits. Henceforth, that 
 man must very badly want to be sued who provokes 
 me to sue him for libel." 
 
 Mr. Greeley further adds, — 
 
 " I have often heard it asserted from the bench that 
 editors claim impunity to libel; which is not the 
 truth. What I claim and insist on is just this : That 
 the editor shall he protected by the nature and exigencies 
 of his calling to the same extent, and in the same degree, 
 that other men are protected hy the exigencies, the require- 
 ments, of THFiR callings or positions respectively. 
 
LIBELS AND LLBEL-SUITS. 235 
 
 " For instance : A judge on the bench, a lawyer at 
 the bar, may libel atrociously, and, I hold, may be 
 fairly held responsible for such libel ; but the law will 
 not presume him a libeller from the mere fact that he 
 speaks disparagingly of some person or persons. A 
 householder applied to for the character of his late 
 servant may respond : ' I turned him off because I 
 found him an eye-servant, a drunkard, and a thief : ' 
 yet the law will presume no malice not specifically 
 proven ; because it avers, that, in giving his ex-servant's 
 character, that householder was acting in the line of 
 his duty. Had he posted up those precise words in a 
 public place, the law would have presumed malice, 
 because no duty required such posting. 
 
 '' Now, let us apply the principle above enunciated 
 to the actual case in hand. Jefferson Jones posts up 
 in a bar-room, livery-stable, or on the town-pump, these 
 words : ' Clifford Nokes was last night caught stealing 
 a hog, and was committed by Justice Smith to await 
 indictment and trial.' The law will presume that 
 posting malicious, and will deal harshly with Jones if 
 he should fail to prove it literally true. And why ? 
 Clearly because no duty required him to make any 
 such proclamation of his neighbor's alleged frailty ; 
 because of the fair natural presumption that he was 
 moved so to post by hate or malevolence. But that 
 same paragraph might appear in the columns of any 
 
236 LIFE OF HOKACE GKEELEY. 
 
 journal that habitually printed police intelligence, 
 without justifying or rendering plausible a kindred 
 presumption. It miglit, indeed, be proved that the 
 editor had inserted the item with malicious intent to 
 injure Nokes ; and tlien I say, ' Punish the libeller 
 to the extent of the law.' But I protest against 
 presuming an editor a libeller, because in the routine 
 of his vocation, the line of his duty, he prints informa- 
 tion which may prove inaccurate or wholly erroneous, 
 without fairly exposing him to the pres-umption that 
 he was impelled to utter it by a malevolent spirit, a 
 purpose to injure or degrade. Am I understood ? 
 
 '' Twice in the course of my thirty odd years of 
 editorship I have encountered human beings base 
 enough to require me to correct a damaging statement, 
 and, after I had done so to the extent of their desire, 
 to sue me upon that retracted statement as a libel ! 
 I think this proves more than the depravity of the 
 persons implicated ; that it indicates a glaring defect 
 in the law or the ruling under which such a manoeuvre 
 is possible. If the law were honest, or merely decent, 
 it would refuse to be made an accomplice of such 
 villany." 
 
 The matter alleged to be libellous was printed in 
 "The Tribune," Nov. 17, 1841. The trial was held 
 at Saratoga. Mr. Greeley defended himself, and gives 
 the following account of the trial : — 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 237 
 
 " The responsible editor of ' The Tribune ' returned 
 yesterday morning frcm a week's journey to and so- 
 journ in the county of Saratoga ; having been thereto 
 urgently persuaded by a supreme-court writ, requiring 
 him to answer to the declaration of Mr. J. Fenimore 
 Cooper in an action for libel. 
 
 " This suit was originally to have been tried at the 
 May circuit at Ballston ; but neither Fenimore (who 
 was then engaged in the Coopering of Col. Stone of 
 * The Commercial ' ) nor we had time to attend to it : 
 so it went over to this term, which opened at Ballston 
 Spa oil Monday, Dec. 5. We arrived on the ground 
 at eleven o'clock of that day, and found the plaintiff 
 and his lawyers ready for us, our case No. 10 on the 
 calendar, and of course a good prospect of an early 
 trial. But an important case involving water-rights 
 came in ahead of us (No. 8), taking two days ; and it 
 was half-past ten, a.m., of Friday, before ours was 
 reached, — very fortunately for us, as we had no law- 
 yer, had never talked over the case with one, or made 
 any preparation whatever, save in thought ; and had 
 not even found time to read the papers pertaining to 
 it till we arrived at Ballston. 
 
 " The delay in reaching the case gave us time for all ; 
 and that we did not employ lawyers to aid in our con- 
 duct or defence proceeded from no want of confidence 
 in or deference to the many eminent members of the 
 
238 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. 
 
 bar there in attendance besides Mr. Cooper's three 
 able counsel, but simply from the fact that we wished 
 to present to the court some considerations which wo 
 thought had been overlooked or overborne in the re- 
 cent trials of the press for libel before our supreme 
 and circuit courts, and which, since they appealed 
 more directly and forcibly to the experience of editors 
 than of lawyers, we presumed an ordinary editor 
 might present as plainly and fully as an able lawyer. 
 We wished to place before the court and the country 
 those views which we understand the press to maintain 
 with us of its own position, duties, responsibilities, and 
 rights, as affected by the practical construction given 
 of late years in this State to the law of libel, and its 
 application to editors and journals. Understanding 
 that we could not appear both in person and by 
 counsel, we chose the former; though, on trial, we 
 found our opponent was permitted to do what we sup- 
 posed we could not. So much by way of explanation 
 to the many able and worthy lawyers in attendance on 
 the circuit, from whom we received every kindness ; 
 who would doubtless have aided us most cheerfully if 
 we had required it, and would have conducted our 
 case far more skilfully than we either expected or 
 cared to do. We had not appeared there to be saved 
 from a verdict by any nice technicality or legal subtlety. 
 ^' The case was opened to the court and jury by Rich- 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 239 
 
 ard Cooper, nephew and attorney of the plaintiff, in a 
 speech of decided pertinence and force. Mr. Richard 
 Cooper has had much experience in this class of cases, 
 and is a young man of considerable talent. His man- 
 ner is the only fault about him, being too elaborate 
 and pompous, and his diction too bombastic to produce 
 the best effect on an unsophisticated auditory. If he 
 will only contrive to correct this, he will yet make a 
 figure at the bar ; or rather he will make less figure, 
 and do more execution. The force of his speech was 
 marred by Fenimore's continually interrupting to dic- 
 tate and suggest to him ideas, when he would have 
 done much better if left alone. For instance : Feni- 
 more instructed him to say that our letter from Fonda, 
 above recited, purported to be from the ' correspond- 
 ent of '' The Tribune," ' and thence to draw and press 
 on the jury the inference that the letter was written 
 by some of our own corps whom we had sent to 
 Fonda to report these trials. This inference we were 
 obliged to repel in our reply, by showing that the 
 article plainly read ' Correspondence of '' The Trib- 
 une," ' just as when a fire, a storm, or some other 
 notable event, occurs in any part of the country or 
 world, and a friend who happens to be there sits 
 down and despatches us a letter by the first mail to 
 give us early advices, though he has no connection 
 with us but by subscription and good-will, and perhaps 
 never wrote a line to us in his life till now. 
 
240 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 " The next step in Mr. Richard Cooper's opening, we 
 had, to the declaration against us, pleaded the general 
 issue, — that is, not guilty of libelling Mr. Cooper ; at 
 the same time fully admitting that we had published 
 all that he called our libels on him, and desiring to 
 put in issue only the fact of their being or not being 
 libels, and have the verdict turn on that issue. But 
 Mr. Cooper told the jury (and we found, to our cost, 
 that this was New- York supreme and circuit court 
 law), that, by pleading not guilty^ we had legally admit-' 
 ted ourselves to he gidlty ; that all that was necessary 
 for the plaintiff under that plea was to put in our 
 admission of publication, and then the jury had 
 nothing to do but to assess the plaintiff's damages 
 under the direction of the court. In short, we were 
 made to understand that there was no way under 
 heaven — we beg pardon ; under New- York supreme- 
 court law — in which the editor of a newspaper 
 could plead, to an action for libel, that the matter 
 cliarged upon him as libellous was not in its nature or 
 intent a libel, but simply a statement, according to 
 the best of his knowledge and belief, of some noto- 
 rious and every way public transaction, or his own 
 honest comments thereon, and ask the jury to decide 
 whether the plaintiif's averment or his answers 
 thereto be the truth ! To illustrate the beauties of 
 ' the perfection of human reason,' always intending 
 
LIBELS AND LLBEL-SUITS. 241 
 
 JSTew-York circuit and supreme court reason, on this 
 subject, and to show the perfect soundness and per- 
 tinence of Mr. Cooper's logic according to the decis- 
 ions of these courts, we will give an example. 
 
 " Our police-reporter, say, this evening, shall bring 
 in on his chronicle of daily occurrences the follow- 
 ing : — 
 
 " ' A hatchet-faced chap with mouse-colored whis- 
 kers, who gave the name of John Smith, was brought 
 in by a watchman who found him lying drunk in the 
 gutter. After a suitable admonition from the justice, 
 and on payment of the usual fine, he was discharged.' 
 
 " Now, our reporter, who, no more than we, ever 
 before heard of this John Smith, is only ambitious to 
 do his duty correctly and thoroughly, to make his 
 description accurate and graphic, and perhaps to pro- 
 tect better men, who rejoice in the cognomen of John 
 Smith, from being confounded with this one in the 
 popular rumor of his misadventure. If the paragraph 
 should come under our notice, we should probably 
 strike it out altogether, as relating to a subject of no 
 public moment, and likely to crowd out better matter. 
 But we do not see it ; and in it goes. Well, John 
 Smith, who 'acknowledges the corn' as to being 
 accidentally drunk and getting into a watch-house, is 
 not willing to rest under the imputation of being 
 ' hatchet-faced ' and having ' mouse-colored whiskers,' 
 
 21 
 
242 LiFE OF HOEACE GEEELEi?. 
 
 retains Mr. Richard Cooper, — for he could not do bet- 
 ter, — and commences an action for libel against us. 
 We take the best legal advice, and are told that we 
 must demur to the declaration ; that is, go before a 
 court without a jury, where no facts can be shown, 
 and maintain that the matter charged as uttered by 
 us is not libellous. But Mr. Richard Cooper meets us 
 there, and says justly, ' How is the court to decide, 
 without evidence, that this matter is not libellous ? If 
 it was written and inserted for the express purpose of 
 ridiculing and bringing into contempt my client, it 
 clearly is libellous. And then as to damages : my 
 client is neither rich nor a great man ; but his char- 
 acter in his own circle is both dear and valuable to 
 him. We shall be able to show on trial that he was 
 on the point of contracting marriage with the daugh- 
 ter of the keeper of the most fashionable and lucra- 
 tive oyster-cellar in Orange Street, whose nerves were 
 so shocked at the idea of her intended having a 
 " hatchet-face and mouse-colored whiskers," that she 
 fainted outright on reading the paragraph (copied 
 from your paper into the next day's " Sun "), and was 
 not brought to until a whole bucket of oysters which 
 she had just opened had been poured over her in a 
 hurried mistake for water. Since then, she has 
 frequent relapses and shuddering, especially when my 
 client's name is mentioned, and utterly refuses to see 
 
LIBELS AND LTBEL-SUlTS. 243 
 
 or speak to him. The match is dead broke ; and my 
 client loses thereby a capital home, where victuals 
 are more plentiful and the supply more steady than it 
 has been his fortune to find them for the last year or 
 tvv^o. He loses with all this a prospective interest in 
 the concern ; and is left utterly without business, or 
 means of support, except this suit. Besides, how can 
 you tell, in the absence of all testimony, that the 
 editor was not paid to insert this villanous description 
 of my client by some envious rival for the affections 
 of the oyster-maid, who calculates both to gratify his 
 spite and -advance his lately hopeless wooing ? In 
 that case it certainly is a libel. We affirm this to be 
 the case ; and you are bound to presume that it is. 
 The demurrer must be overruled.' And so it must be. 
 No judge could decide otherwise. 
 
 " Now we are tlirown back upon a dilemma. We 
 may plead justification, in which case we admit that 
 our 'publication was, on its face, a libel; and now woe 
 to us if we cannot prove Mr. Cooper's client's face as 
 sharp, and his whiskers of the precise color, as stated ! 
 A shade more or less ruins us. For, be it known, by 
 attempting a justification we have not merely admitted 
 our offence to be a Hbel, but our plea is an aggravation 
 of the libel, and entitles the plaintiff to recover higher 
 and more exemplary damages. We have just one 
 chance more, — to plead the general issue; to wit, that 
 
244 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 we did not libel the said John Smith, and go into court 
 prepared to show that we had no malice toward or 
 intent to injure Mr. Smith, never heard of him before, 
 and have done all we know how to make him repara- 
 tion ; in short, that we have done and intended 
 nothing which brings us fairly within the iron grasp 
 of the law of libel. But here again, while trying our 
 best to get in somehow a plea of not guilty, we have 
 actually pleaded guilty (so says the supreme-court 
 law of New York). Our admitted publication (no 
 matter of what) concerning John Smith proves irre- 
 sistibly that we liave libelled him. We are not entitled 
 in any way whatever to go to the jury with evidence 
 tending to show that our publication is not a libel, 
 or, in overthrow of the legal presumijtmi of malice, to 
 show that there actually was none. All that we possi- 
 bly can offer must be taken into account merely in 
 mitigation of damages. Our hide is on the fence, you 
 see, anyhow. 
 
 " But to return to Richard's argument at Ballston. 
 He put very strongly against us the fact, that our 
 Fonda correspondent (see declaration above) consid- 
 ered Fenimore's verdict there a meagre one. ' Gen- 
 tlemen of the jury,' said he, ' see how these editors 
 rejoice and exult when they get off with so light a 
 verdict as four hundred dollars ! They consider it a 
 triumph over the law and the defendant. They don't 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 245 
 
 consider that amount any thing. If you mean to 
 vindicate the laws and the character of my client, you 
 see, you must give much more than this.' This was 
 a good point, but not quite fair. The exultation over 
 the ' meagre verdict ' was expressly in view of the fact 
 that the cause was undefended ; that Fenimore and 
 his counsel had it all their own way, — evidence, ar- 
 gument, charge, and all. Still Richard had a good 
 cliance here to appeal for a large verdict ; and he did. 
 it well. 
 
 " On one other point Richard talked more like a 
 cheap lawyer, and less like a — like what we had 
 expected of him, than through the general course of 
 his argument. In his pleadings he had set forth 
 Horace Greeley and Thomas McElrath as editors and 
 proprietors of ' The Tribune ; ' and we readily enough 
 admitted whatever he cliose to assert about us, except 
 the essential thing in dispute between us. Well, on 
 the strength of this he puts it to the court and jury 
 that Thomas McElrath is one of the editors of ' The 
 Tribune,' and that he, being (having been) a lawyer, 
 would have been in court to defend this suit if there 
 was any valid defence to be made. This, of course, 
 went very hard against us ; and it was to no purpose 
 that we informed him that Thomas McElrath, though 
 legally implicated in it, had nothing to do practically 
 with this matter (all which he knew very well long 
 
 21* 
 
246 LIFE OP HOEACE GREELEY. 
 
 before), and that the other defendant is the man who 
 does whatever libelling is done in ' The Tribune,' and 
 holds himself evey where responsible for it. We 
 presume there is not much doubt even so far off as 
 Cooperstown as to who edits ' The Tribune,' and who 
 wrote the editorial about the Fonda business (in point 
 of fact, the real and palpable defendant in this suit 
 never conversed with his partner a quarter of an hour 
 altogether about this subject, considering it entirely 
 his own job ; and the plaintiff himself, in conversation 
 with Mr. McElrath, in the presence of his attorney/, had 
 fully exonerated Mr. McElrath from any thing more 
 than legal liability). But Richard was on his legs as a 
 lawyer : he pointed to the seal on his bond, and 
 therefore insisted that Thomas McElrath v^^as act and 
 part in the alleged libel, not only legally, but actually, 
 and would have been present to respond to it if he had 
 deemed it susceptible of defence ! As a lawyer, we 
 suppose this was right ; but, as an editor and a man, 
 we could not have done it." 
 
 At the conclusion of this story, Mr. Greeley addressed 
 the jury in the following speech : " ' Should you find, 
 gentlemen,'" says Mr. Greeley, " ' that I had no right 
 to express an opinion as to the honor and magnanimity 
 of Mr. Cooper in pushing his case to a trial as related, 
 you will, of course, compel me to pay whatever damage 
 has been done to his character by such expression, 
 
Libels and libel-suits. 247 
 
 followed and accompanied by his own statement of the 
 whole matter. I will not predict your estimate, gen- 
 tlemen ; but I may express my profound conviction 
 that no opinion which Mr. Cooper might choose to 
 express of any act of my life, no construction he 
 could put upon my conduct or motives, could possibly 
 damage me to an extent which would entitle or incline 
 me to ask damages at your hands. 
 
 "'But, gentlemen, you are bound to consider, you 
 cannot refuse to consider, that, if you condemn me to 
 pay any sum whatever for this expression of my opin- 
 ion on his conduct, you thereby seal your own lips, 
 with those of your neighbors and countrymen, against 
 any such expression in this or any other case : you will 
 no linger have a right to censure the rich man who 
 harasses his poor neighbor with vexatious lawsuits 
 merely to oppress and ruin him, but will be liable by 
 your own verdict to prosecution and damages whenever 
 you shall feel constrained to condemn what appears to 
 you injustice, oppression, or littleness, no matter how 
 flagrant the case may be. 
 
 " ' Gentlemen of the jury, my character, my reputa- 
 tion, are in your hands. I think I may say that I 
 commit them to your keeping untarnislied : I will not 
 doubt that you will return them to me unsullied. 
 I ask of you no mercy, but justice. I have not sought 
 this issue ; but neither have I feared nor shunned it. 
 
248 LIFE OF HORACE GREELE^. 
 
 Should you render the verdict against me, I shall de- 
 plore far more than any pecuniary consequence the 
 stigma of libeller which your verdict would tend to cast 
 upon me, — an imputation which I was never, till now, 
 called to repel before a jury of my countrymen. But, 
 gentlemen, feeling no consciousness of deserving such 
 a stigma ; feeling at this moment, as ever, a profound 
 conviction that I do not deserve it, — I shall yet be con- 
 soled by the reflection that many nobler and worthier 
 than I have suffered far more than any judgment here 
 could inflict on me for the rights of free speech 
 and opinion,- — the right of rebuking oppression and 
 meanness in the language of manly sincerity and 
 honest feeling. By their example may I still be up- 
 held and strengthened ! G-entlemen,! fearlessly await 
 your decision.' 
 
 '' Mr. J. Fenimore Cooper summed up in person 
 the cause for the prosecution. He commenced by 
 giving at length the reasons which had induced him to 
 bring this suit to Saratoga. The last and only one 
 that made any impression on our mind was this, — that 
 he had heard a great deal of good of the people of 
 Saratoga, and wished to form a better acquaintance 
 with them. (Of course, this desire was very flattering : 
 but we hope the Saratogans won't feel too proud to 
 speak to common folks hereafter ; for we want liberty 
 to go there again next summer.) 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 249 
 
 " Mr. Cooper now walked into the public press and 
 its alleged abuses, arrogant pretensions, its interfer- 
 ence in this case, probable motives, &c. ; but the 
 public are already aware of his sentiments respecting 
 tlie press, and would not thank us to recapitulate 
 them. His stories of editors publishing truth and 
 falsehood with equal relish may have foundation in 
 individual cases, but certainly none in general practice. 
 No class of men spend a tenth part so much time or 
 money in endeavoring to procure the earliest and best 
 information from all quarters as it is their duty to do. 
 Occasionally an erroneous or utterly false statement 
 gets into print, and is copied ; for editors cannot 
 intuitively separate all truth from falsehood : but 
 the evil arises mainly from the circumstance that 
 others tlian editors are often the spectators of events 
 demanding publicity ; since we cannot tell where the 
 next man is to be killed, or the next storm will rage, or 
 the next important cause be tried. If we had the power 
 of prophecy, it would then be time to invent some 
 steam-lightning balloon, and have a reporter ready on 
 the spot the moment before any notable event should 
 occur. This would do it ; but now we luckless editors 
 must too often depend on the observation and reports 
 of those who are less observant, less careful, possibly 
 in some cases less sagacious, than those of our own 
 tribe. Our limitations are not unlike those of Mr. 
 
250 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 Weller, juii., as stated while under cross-examination 
 
 in the case of Bardell vs. Pickwick : — 
 
 " ' Yes, I have eyes,' replied Sam ; ' and that's just 
 it. If they was a pair of patent double million mag- 
 iiifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power, p'raps I might 
 be able to see through a flight of stairs and a deal 
 door; but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision's 
 limited.' 
 
 " Fenimore proceeded to consider our defence, 
 which he used up in five minutes by pronouncing it 
 no defence at all. It had nothing to do with the mat- 
 ter in issue whatever ; and we must be very green if 
 we meant to be serious in offering it. (We ivere 
 rather green in supreme-court libel law, that's a 
 fact ; but we were put to school soon after, and have 
 already run up quite a little bill for tuition, which is 
 one sign of progress.) His Honor the judge would tell 
 the jury that our law was no law wliatever, or had 
 nothing to do with this case. (So he did: Cooper 
 was right here.) In short, our speech could not have 
 been meant to apply to this case, but was probably the 
 scrapings of our editorial closet, — mere odds and 
 ends, — what the editors call ' Balaam.' Here fol- 
 lowed an historical digression concerning what editors 
 call ' Balaam,' which, as it was intended to illustrate 
 the irrelevancy of our whole argument, we thought 
 very pertinent. It wound up with what was meant 
 
LIBELS AND LLBEL-SUITS. 251 
 
 for a joke about Balaam and his ass, which, of course, 
 was a good thing; but its point wholly escaped us, 
 and we believe the auditors were equally unfortunate. 
 However, the wag himself appreciated and enjoyed it. 
 
 " There were several other jokes (we suppose they 
 were) uttered in the course of this lively speech ; but 
 we didn't get into their merits, probably not being in 
 the best humor for joking. But one we remembered 
 because it was really good, and came down to our com- 
 prehension. Fenimore was replying to our remarks 
 about the ' handsome Mr. Effingham,' when he observed, 
 that, if we should sue him for libel in pronouncing us 
 not handsome, he should not plead the general issue, 
 but justify. That was a neat hit, and well planted. 
 We can tell him, however, that, if the court should rule 
 as hard against him as it does against editors when 
 they undertake to justify, he would lind it difficult to 
 get in the testimony to establish a matter even so 
 plain as our plainness. 
 
 " Personally, Fenimore treated us pretty well on 
 this trial : let us thank him for that, and so much 
 the more that he did it quite at the expense of 
 his consistency and his logic. For, after stating 
 plumply that he considered us the best of the whole 
 press-gang he had been fighting with, he yet went on 
 to argue that all we had done and attempted with the 
 intent of rendering him strict justice had been in 
 
252 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 aggravation of our original trespass ! Yes, there he 
 stood, saying one moment we were, on the whole, 
 rather a clever fellow, and every other arguing that 
 we had done nothing but to injure him wantonly and 
 maliciously at first, and then all in our power to 
 aggravate that injury! (What a set the rest of us 
 must be !) 
 
 " And here is where he hit us hard for the first time. 
 He liad tallied over an hour, without gaining, as we 
 could perceive, an inch of ground. When his compli- 
 ment was put in, we supposed he was going on to say 
 he was satisfied with our explanation of the matter, 
 and our intentions to do him justice, and would 
 now throw up the case : but, instead of this, he 
 took a sheer the other way, and came down upon us 
 with the assertion that our publishing his statement 
 of the Fonda business with our comments was an 
 aggravation of our original offence ; was, in effect, 
 adding insult to injury. 
 
 " There was a little point made by the prosecution 
 which seemed to us too little. Our Fonda letter had 
 averred that Cooper had three libel-suits coming off 
 there at that circuit, — two against Webb, one against 
 Weed. Richard and Fenimore argued that this was a 
 lie : the one against Weed was all. The nicety of 
 the distinction here taken will be appreciated when we 
 explain that tlie suits against Webb wcie indictments 
 for libels on J. Fenimore Cooper, 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 253 
 
 "We supposed that Fenimore would pile up the law 
 against us, but were disappointed. He merely cited 
 the last case decided against an editor by the supreme 
 court of this State. Of course, it was very fierce 
 against editors and their libels, but did not strike us 
 as at all meeting the issue we had raised, or covering 
 the grounds on which this case ought to have been 
 decided. 
 
 " Fenimore closed very effectively with an appeal 
 for his character, and a picture of the sufferings of his 
 wife and family, — his grown-up daughters often suf- 
 fused in tears by these attacks on their father. Some 
 said this was mawkish ; but we consider it good, 
 and think it told. We have a different theory as to 
 what the girls were crying for ; but we won't state it, 
 lest another dose of supreme-court law be adminis- 
 tered to us. Q Not any more at present, I thank ye.') 
 
 "Fenimore closed something before two o'clock, 
 having spoken over an hour and a half. If he had not 
 wasted so much time in promising to make but a short 
 speech and to close directly, he could have got through 
 considerably sooner. Then he did wrong to Richard by 
 continually recurring to and making fulsome eulogiums 
 on the argument of ' my learned kinsman.' Richard 
 had made a good speech and an effective one, — no 
 mistake about it, — and Fenimore must mar it, first by 
 needless, provoking interruptions, and then by praises, 
 
 22 
 
254 LIFE OP HOBACE GEEELBY. 
 
 which, though deserved, were horribly out of place and 
 out of taste. Fenimore, my friend, you and I had 
 better abandon the bar : we are not likely either of us 
 to cut much of a figure there. Let us quit before we 
 make ourselves ridiculous. 
 
 " His Honor Judge Willard occupied a brief half- 
 hour in charging the jury. We could not decently 
 appear occupied in taking down this charge ; and no 
 one else did it : so we must speak of it with great cir- 
 cumspection. That he would go dead against us on 
 the law of the case we knew right well from his decis- 
 ions and charges on similar trials before. 
 
 " Not having his law-points before us, we shall not 
 venture to speak of them. Suffice it to say, that 
 they were New- York supreme and circuit court law, 
 — no better and no worse than he has measured off to 
 several editorial culprits before us. They are the set- 
 tled maxims of the supreme court of this State in 
 regard to the law of libel as applied to editors and 
 newspapers ; and we must have been a goose to expect 
 any better than had been served out to our betters. 
 The judge was hardly, if at all, at liberty to know or 
 tolerate any other. 
 
 "But we have filled our paper, and must close. 
 The judge charged very hard against us on the facts 
 of the case, as calling for a pretty sizable verdict : 
 our legal guilt had, of course, been settled long before 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 255 
 
 in the supreme court. When the charge commenced, 
 we would not have given Fenimore the first red cent 
 for his verdict ; when it closed, we understood that 
 we were booked to suffer some. If the jury had 
 returned a verdict in our favor, the judge must have 
 been constrained by his charge to set it aside as con- 
 trary to law. 
 
 " The jury retired about half-past two, and the rest 
 of us went to dinner. The jury were hungry too, 
 and did not stay out long. On comparing notes, 
 there were seven of them for a verdict of a hundred 
 dollars, two for two hundred dollars, and three for 
 five hundred dollars. They added these sums up 
 (total twenty-six hundred dollars), divided by twelve ; 
 and the dividend was a little over two hundred dol- 
 lars : so they called it two hundred dollars damages, 
 and six cents costs, which, of course, carries full costs 
 against us. We went back from dinner ; took the 
 verdict in all meekness ; took a sleigh, and struck a 
 bee-line for New York. 
 
 '' Thus for ' The Tribune ' the rub-a-dub is over, 
 the adze, we trust, laid aside, the staves all in their 
 places, the hoops tightly driven, and the heading not 
 particularly out of order. Nothing remains but to 
 pay piper or cooper, or whatever ; and that shall be 
 promptly attended to. 
 
 ^' Yes, Fenimore shall have his two hundred dollars. 
 
256 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 To be sure, we don't exactly see how we came to owe 
 him that sum ; but he has won it, and shall be paid. 
 ' The court awards it, and the law doth give it.' We 
 should like to meet him, and have a social chat over 
 the whole business, now it is over. There has been a 
 good deal of fun in it, come to look back ; and, if he 
 has as little ill-will toward us as we bear to him, there 
 shall never be another hard thought between us. 
 We don't blame him a bit for the whole matter : he 
 thought we injured him, sued us, and got his pay. 
 Since the jury have cut down his little bill from 
 three thousand to two hundred dollars, we won't 
 higgle a bit about the balance, but pay it on sight. 
 In fact, we rather like the idea of being so munificent 
 a patron (for our means) of American literature ; 
 and we are glad to do any thing for one of the most 
 creditable (of old) of our authors, who are now 
 generally reduced to any shift for a living by that 
 grand national rascality and greater folly, the denial 
 of international copyright. ' My pensive public,' 
 don't flatter yourself that we are to be rendered 
 mealy-mouthed toward you by our buffeting. We 
 shall put it to your iniquities just as straight as a 
 loon's leg, calling a spade a spade, and not an oblong 
 garden implement, until the judicial construction of 
 the law of libel shall take another hitch, and its 
 penalties be invoked to shield communities as well as 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 'Zbl 
 
 individuals from censure for their transgressions. 
 Till then, keep a bright lookout ! 
 
 " And Richard, too, shall have his share of ' the 
 spoils of victory.' He has earned them fairly, and, 
 in the main, like a gentleman, making us no needless 
 trouble, and, we presume, no needless expense. All 
 was fair and above-board, save some little specks in 
 his opening of the case, which we noticed some hours 
 ago, and have long since forgiven. For the rest, we 
 rather like what we have seen of him ; and if any- 
 body has any law-business in Otsego, or any libel-suits 
 to prosecute anywhere, we heartily recommend Rich- 
 ard to do the work, warranting the client to be hand- 
 somely taken in and done for throughout. (There's 
 a puff, now, a man may be proud of. We don't give 
 such every day out of pure kindness. It was Feni- 
 more, we believe, that said on the trial, that our 
 word went a great way in this country.) Can we say 
 a good word for ^ou, gallant foeman ? We'll praise 
 any thing of yours we have read except ' The Moni- 
 kins.' 
 
 " But sadder thoughts rush in on us in closing. 
 Our case is well enough, or of no moment ; but we 
 cannot resist the conviction, that by the result of these 
 Cooper libel-suits, and by the judicial constructions 
 which produce that result, the liberty of the press, 
 its proper influence and respectability, its power to 
 
258 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEt. 
 
 rebuke wrong and to exert a salutary influence upon 
 the public morals, is fearfully impaired. We do not 
 see how any paper can exist, and speak and act 
 worthily and usefully, in this State, without subject- 
 ing itself daily to innumerable unjust and crushing 
 prosecutions and indictments for libel. Even if 
 juries could have nerves of iron to say and do what 
 they really think right between man and man, the 
 costs of such prosecution would ruin any journal. 
 But the liberty of the press has often been compelled 
 to appeal from the bench to the people. It v^ill do so 
 now, and, we will not doubt, with success. Let not, 
 then, the wrong-doer who is cunning enough to keep 
 the blind side of the law, the swindling banker who 
 has spirited away the means of the widow and orphan, 
 the libertine who has dragged a fresh victim to his 
 lair, imagine that they are permanently shielded, by 
 this misapplication of the law of libel, from fearless 
 exposure to public scrutiny and indignation by the 
 eagle gaze of an unfettered press. Clouds and 
 darkness may for the moment rest upon it ; but they 
 cannot, in the nature of things, endure. In the very 
 gloom of its present humiliation we read the predic- 
 tion of its speedy and certain restoration to its rights 
 and its true dignity, — to a sphere, not of legal suf- 
 ferance merely, but of admitted usefulness and 
 honor." 
 
LIBELS AND LIBEL-SOTTS. 259 
 
 It must be confessed Mr. Greeley handled this 
 whole affair of libel-suits in an able and admirable 
 way, and in such manner as resulted in good to the 
 press generally, and in honor to the great State of 
 New York ; for, since that period, the press has been 
 less trammelled, and the State has reviewed and 
 amended her uncouth, senseless, and contradictory 
 code, and adopted one more in accordance with our 
 rcDublican institutions and common sense. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 His First Visit in 1851. — At the World's Fair of that Year, he is made Chair- 
 man of one of the Juries. — He delivers tlie Address to the Constmctor of 
 the Palace. — His Second Visit to the Old World. — He is arrested in 
 Paris for Debt, and imprisoned. 
 
 nv /TR. GREELEY'S first visit abroad was made in 
 ^^-■- the year 1851. He was appointed one of the 
 commissioners to the World's Fair this year in London. 
 In his " Recollections," he gives the following account 
 of this visit : — 
 
 " Having left New York in the stanch American 
 steamship ' Baltic,' Capt. J. J. Comstock, on the 11th 
 of April, when a cold north-easter had just set in, we 
 took it with us across the Atlantic, rarely blessed 
 with a brief glimpse of the watery sun during our 
 rough passage of twelve days and some hours, encoun- 
 tering a severe gale on our first night out, and another 
 as we reached soundings on the Irish coast ; and, being 
 surfeited with rain and head-winds during our entire 
 
 260 
 
MK. GEEELEY's visits TO EUROPE. 261 
 
 passage, I was sick unto death's door for most of the 
 time, eating by an effort when I ate at all, and as 
 thoroughly miserable as I knew how to be : so that 
 the dirty, grimy little tug that at last approached to 
 take us ashore at Liverpool seemed to me, though by 
 uo means white-winged, an angel of deliverance ; and 
 my first meal on solid, well-behaving earth will long be 
 remembered with gratitude to the friends who provided 
 and shared it. I have since repeatedly braved the 
 perils and miseries of the raging main, and have never 
 found the latter so intolerable as on that first voyage ; 
 yet the ocean and I remain but distant, unloving 
 acquaintances, with no prospect of ever becoming 
 friends. 
 
 " teaching London just before the Exhibition opened, 
 I was accorded by the partiality of my countrymen 
 who had preceded me (somewhat strengthened, I 
 believe, by their jealousy of each other) the position 
 of chairman of one of the juries ; each of the 
 countries largely represented in the Exhibition being 
 allowed one chairman. My department (Class X.) 
 included about three thousand lots (not merely three 
 thousand articles), and was entitled, I believe, ' Hard- 
 ware ; ' but it embraced not only metals, but all man- 
 ner of devices for generating or economizing gas, 
 for eliminating or diffusing heat, &c. The duties 
 thus devolved upon me were entirely beyond my 
 
262 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 
 
 capacity : but my vice-chairman, Mr. William Bird, 
 a leading British iron-master and London merchant, 
 was as eminently qualified for those duties as I was 
 deficient ; and between us tlie work was so done, that 
 no complaint of its quality ever reached me. We had 
 several most competent colleagues on our jury, among 
 them M. Spitaels of Belgium, a director of the Vielle 
 Montaigne Zinc Mines, and one of the wisest and best 
 men I ever knew." 
 
 When Mr. Greeley reached London, he immediately 
 repaired to the residence of the publisher John Chap- 
 man ; and this was his home during his stay in that 
 city. 
 
 Mr. Greeley was appointed by the commission a 
 member of the jury on hardware; and of this jury he 
 was made chairman. 
 
 A great banquet was given by the London commis- 
 sioners to the commissioners from foreign countries. 
 Lord Ashburton, who presided at this banquet, desired 
 that the toast in honor of Mr. Joseph Paxton, the 
 architect of the Crystal Palace, should be given by an 
 American; and Mr. Riddle, the commissioner from the 
 United States, named Mr. Greeley as the proper man 
 to do it, which he did in the following admirable 
 speech : — 
 
 " Li my own land, my lords and gentlemen, where 
 Nature is still so rugged and unconquered, where popu- 
 
MB. Greeley's visits to europe. 268 
 
 latioii is yet so scanty, and the demands for human 
 exertion are so various and urgent, it is but natural 
 that we should render marked honor to labor, and 
 especially to those who, by invention or discovery, con- 
 tribute to shorten the processes and increase the effi- 
 ciency 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 exhi- 
 bition 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 the nations, 
 with few large accumulations of the fruits of manufac- 
 turing 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 Exhibition, 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 pre- 
 dominant on this side witli respect to the edifice 
 required for the Exhibition, the doubts as to the prac- 
 ticability of erecting one sufficiently capacious and 
 commodious to contain and display the contributions 
 
264 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 of the whole world, the apprehension that it could 
 not be rendered impervious to water, the confident 
 assertions that it could not be completed in season for 
 opening the Exhibition on the 1st of May as promised, 
 all found an echo on our shores ; and now the tid- 
 higs 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 labor, and especially of 
 those ' captains of industry ' by whose conceptions 
 and achievements our race is so rapidly borne onward 
 in its progress to a loftier and more benignant des- 
 tiny. We shall be likely to appreciate more fully the 
 merits of the wise statesman, by whose measures a 
 people's thrift and happiness are promoted ; of the 
 brave soldier, who joyfully pours out his blood in 
 defence of the rights or in vindication of the honor 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 honor also to those 'cap- 
 tains 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 orphan* 
 I give you, therefore, ' The health of Joseph Paxton, 
 Esq., designer of the Crystal Palace.' " 
 
MK. Greeley's visits to Europe. 265 
 
 His first trip to Europe was one of the most interest- 
 ing events of his " busy life ;" and the first thing he 
 did on his arrival in New York was to get out an 
 extra, containing the news by " The Baltic," in advance 
 of aiiy other paper. This he was able to do, as he had 
 fully prepared it on the voyage. He attended to this 
 before he visited his home, thus showing how he 
 was wedded to " The Tribune " and the editorial 
 profession. 
 
 In the spring of 1855, Mr. Greeley again visited 
 Europe. This was the first year of the Paris Exposition. 
 Mr. Greeley remained abroad this time three months. 
 In this second visit abroad, Mr. Greeley was arrested on 
 a claim for debt. In reference to this affair, he states 
 tho following as the ostensible ground of this arrest 
 and imprisonment : '' I had been looking at things, if 
 not into them, for a good many years prior to yesterday. 
 I had climbed mountains and descended into mines, 
 had groped in caves and scaled precipices, seen Venice 
 and Cincinnati, Dublin and Mineral Point, Niagara 
 and St. Gothard, and really supposed I was approxi- 
 mating a middling outside knowledge of things in 
 general. I had been chosen defendant in several libel- 
 suits, and been flattered with the information that my 
 censures were deemed of more consequence than those 
 of other people, and should be paid for accordingly. 
 I have been through twenty of our States, yet never 
 d8 
 
266 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 
 
 ill jail outside of New York ; and over half Europe, 
 yet never looked into one. Here I had been seeing 
 Paris for the last six weeks, visiting this sight, then 
 that, till there seemed little remaining worth looking 
 at or after ; yet I had never once thought of looking 
 into a debtor's prison. I should probably have gone 
 away next week as ignorant in that regard as I came, 
 when circumstances favored me most unexpectedly 
 with an inside view of this famous maison de detention^ 
 or prison for debtors, 70 Rue de Clichy. I think what 
 I have seen here, fairly told, must be instructive and 
 interesting ; and I suppose others will tell the story if 
 I do not, and I don't know any one whose opportunities 
 will enable him to tell it so accurately a^ I have else- 
 where. 
 
 " But first let me explain and insist on the important 
 distinction between inside and outside views of a prison. 
 People fancy they have been in a prison when they 
 have by courtesy been inside of the gates : but that is 
 properly an outside view ; at best, the view accorded 
 to an outsider. It gives you no proper idea of the 
 place at all, — no access to its penetralia. The differ- 
 ence even between this outside and the proper inside 
 view is very broad indeed. The greenness of those 
 who don't know how the world looks from the wrong 
 side of the gratings is pitiable : yet how many reflect 
 on the disdain with which the lion must regard tho 
 
MR. Greeley's visits to burope. 267 
 
 bumpkin who perverts his goad-stick to the ignoble use 
 of stirring said lion up ! or how many suspect that 
 the grin wherewith the baboon contemplates the 
 human ape, who, with umbrella at arm's-length, is 
 poking Jocko for his doxy's delectation, is one of con- 
 tempt rather than complacency! Rely on it, the 
 world seen here behind the gratings is very different 
 in aspect from that same world otherwise inspected. 
 Others may think so : I know it. And this is how : — 
 " I had been down at the Palace of Industry, and 
 returned to my lodgings, when, a little before four 
 o'clock yesterday afternoon, four strangers called for 
 me. By the help of my courier, I soon learned that 
 they had a writ of arrest for me at the suit of one 
 Mons. Lechesne, sculptor, affirming that he sent a 
 statue to the New- York Crystal-palace Exhibition, at 
 or on the way to which it had been broken, so that it 
 could not be (at all events it had not been) restored 
 to him : wherefore he asked of me, as a director 
 and representative of the Crystal-palace Association, 
 to pay him douze mille francs^ or twenty-five hundred 
 dollars." . . . 
 
 We should like to give the reader the balance of 
 this humorous description ; but space prevents, 
 
CHAPTER XYl. 
 
 HORACE Greeley's variety op characters. 
 
 Mr. Greeley's Views of Working-Meii. — Mr. Greeley as a Lecturer. — Mr 
 Greeley an Author. — The Work published. — Addresses and Essays. — 
 All for the Working-Men. — Mr. Greeley as a Man of Letters. — The 
 Great Trees of Mai-iposa. — His Honesty. — " The Tribune " an Educa- 
 tor. — An Editor to speak reproachfully of Horace Greeley — what is he '? 
 — What Whittier, the Quaker-Poet, said. — How much it implies. — " He 
 who would strike Horace Greeley would strike his Mother." — Testimony 
 of Kev. Dr. Bellows ; of W. E. Robinson ; of the Poet Whittier. — Remarks 
 on Mr. Greeley's Letter of Acceptance of the Cincinnati Nomination. — 
 On his Dress. — Of his Inconsistency. — Proposal to buy the Slaves. — 
 Signing Jeflf. Davis's Bail. — Comparison between Abraham Lincoln and 
 Horace Greeley in their Childhood and Youth: both Poor; both Readers; 
 both loved by their Fellows; both excelled their Teachers. 
 
 AS a working-man, he always worked hinaself. 
 From a boy up, all along, personally, he has 
 been a worker. 
 
 But I now mean more than this, — more than that 
 he worked with his own hands : I mean tliat he 
 wished to do something for the working-men by which 
 they should receive more profit than the simple wages 
 of a hireling for their labor. Mr. Greeley had 
 
 238 
 
MR. Greeley's variety of characters. 269 
 
 looked into organizations in society in various forms ; 
 he had written and talked about common-stock move- 
 ments, Fourierism, &c.; till these questions seemed 
 in some measure to be brought home to him : '' Physi- 
 cian, heal thyself;" make "The Tribune" a company 
 concern. While Horace Greeley and McElrath are 
 rich in owning" The Tribune," and are talking about 
 aiding the working-men to escape from the condition 
 of mere hirelings, and be benefited by sliaring in the 
 profits of tlieir labor, why not make " The Tribune " 
 a stock association ? Tliese men had a right to reply, 
 as they often did, "If this is the true principle, and 
 you are sincere in advocating it, Mr. Greeley, why not 
 try it yourself ? ' Tribune ' of the people ! make 
 the experiment ; practise what you preach." 
 
 This was an argumentum ad homineyji, as well as an 
 argumenturn ad rem ; and, as everybody acknowledged 
 Mr. Greeley to be an honest man, there seemed to be 
 no way for him to escape putting his advice into 
 practice ; nor, indeed, did he wish to escape from it. 
 
 So the establishment of " The Tribune " was valued 
 at a hundred thousand dollars, and divided into a 
 hundred shares of a thousand dollars each. The 
 leading men in each department of " The Tribune " 
 took shares, and finally to such an extent, that 
 Messrs. Greeley and McElrath owned only about two- 
 thirds of the concern. V 
 
 23* 
 
 \ 
 
270 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 
 
 This experiment in the business of " The Tribune," 
 so far as is known, has worked well ; and thus Mr. 
 Greeley has united his preaching with his practice. 
 
 Lecturing has, in these times, become a great 
 business ; and every man of note in any way must 
 try his hand at it, — some because they think they can 
 do it well, others because they are pressed into the 
 service. We rather think Mr. Greeley was of the 
 latter class. In our opinion, papers are preferable to 
 lectures. Mr. Greeley has succeeded in making a 
 paper which has been appreciated by tlie public. He 
 has also given many lectures which have contained 
 much information. But he was never made for an 
 orator. Still Mr. Parton, in his '' Life of Horace 
 Greeley," says, " Some who value oratory less than 
 any other kind of labor, and whom the tricks of elo- 
 cution offend except when they are performed on the 
 stage, — and even there they should be concealed, 
 — have expressed the opinion that Mr. Greeley is, 
 strictly speaking, one of the best speakers of which 
 this metropolis can boast." 
 
 Mr. Greeley has been very frequently called on to 
 make speeches at public meetings and various enter- 
 tainments. He has rarely declined such a call ; nor 
 has he met it without saying something worth being 
 heard. He has lectured upon many subjects, among 
 which may be named the following: " What the Sister 
 
MK. Greeley's variety of characters. 271 
 Arts teach as to Farming," " Emancipation of Labor," 
 
 &G. 
 
 In 1850 the Messrs. Harper published a volume of 
 Mr. Greeley's Lectures and Essays, entitled " Hints 
 toward Reforms." The work is somewhat of a curi- 
 osity, and never had a very large sale, though some 
 two thousand copies were disposed of. 
 
 The title-page of these '' Hints," &c., contains 
 three quotations, or mottoes, from three different 
 authors. The first is poetical, from Rev. Henry Ware, 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Hasten the day, just Heaven ! 
 Accomplish thy design, 
 And let the blessings thou hast freely given 
 
 Freely on all men shine. 
 Till equal rights be equally enjoyed, 
 And human power for human good employed ; 
 Till Law, and not the Sovereign, rule sustain, 
 And Peace and Virtue undisputed reign." 
 
 The second is from Henry Ward Beecher, and is 
 as follows : — 
 
 "Listen not to the everlasting conservative, who pines an! 
 whines at every attempt to drive him from the spot where he Las 
 so lazily cast his anchor. Every abuse must be abolished. Thsj 
 whole system must be settled on the right basis. Settle it ten 
 times, and settle it many, you will have the work to begin again. 
 Be satisfied with nothing but the complete enfranchisement of 
 humanity, and the restoration of man to the image of his God." 
 
272 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 
 
 The third one is from Charles Mackay, and is 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Once the welcome light has broken, 
 
 Who shall say 
 What the imagined glories of the day ? 
 What the evil that shall perish 
 
 In its ray ? 
 
 Aid the dawning, tongue and pen 1 
 Aid it, hopes of honest men ! 
 Aid it, paper ! aid it, type ! 
 Aid it, for the hour is ripe ! 
 And our earnest must not slacken 
 
 Into play. 
 Men of thought, and men of action, 
 
 Clear the way." 
 
 Though Mr. Greeley had probably written and 
 published more that had been read than almost any 
 other man in America, yet, so far as I am apprised, 
 this was the first book ever sent forth from his pen. 
 These lectures and essays were prepared for lyceums, 
 young men's clubs and associations, &c. ; and the 
 author says in his preface, " They were written in 
 the years from 1842 to 1848 inclusive, each in haste, 
 to fulfil some engagement already made, for which 
 preparation had been delayed, under the pressure of 
 seeming necessities, to the latest moment allowable. 
 
A calling whose exactions are seldom omitted for a 
 day, never for a longer period, and whose require- 
 ments, already excessive, seem perpetually to expand 
 and increase, may well excuse the distraction of 
 thought, and rapidity of composition, which it renders 
 inevitable. At no time has it seemed practicable to 
 devote a whole day, seldom a full half-day, to the 
 production of any. of the essays. Not until months 
 after the last of them was written did the idea of 
 collecting and printing them in this shape suggest 
 itself; and a hurried perusal is all that has since been 
 given them." 
 
 The one grand object of these lectures and essays 
 seems to be the improvement and education of the 
 working-classes. 
 
 He says, " Why should those by whose toil all com- 
 forts and luxuries are produced, or made available, 
 enjoy so scanty a share of them ? Why should a man, 
 able and eager to work, ever stand idle for want of 
 employment in a world where so much needful work 
 impatiently awaits the doing ? Why should a man be 
 required to surrender something of his independence 
 in accepting employment which will enable him to 
 earn by honest effort the bread of his family ? Why 
 should the man who faithfully labors for another, and 
 receives therefor less than the product of his labor, 
 be currently held the obliged party, rather than he 
 
2T4 LIFE OF HOBACE GHEELEY. 
 
 wlio buys the work, and makes a good bargain of it ? 
 In short, why should speculation and scheming ride 
 so jauntily in their carriages, splashing honest work as 
 it trudges humbly and wearily by on foot ? " 
 
 These are questions of common sense, and show how 
 deeply interested Horace Greeley has been in the wel- 
 fare of working-men, himself emphatically a working- 
 man all his life. They were discussed years ago by the 
 " philosopher," as he has been sometimes ironically 
 called, as though he plainly foresaw all the movements 
 of the laboring-classes in our day. All must admit 
 Mr. Greeley had a heart fully sympathizing with this 
 numerous class in the community, and a prescience 
 far outstripping most of his coadjutors. But, as pre- 
 viously said, the object of this book is not to unduly 
 exalt the man, but to show him as he was. 
 
 Mr. Greeley admits that the greatest obstacle to the 
 progress and elevation of the working-man is to be 
 found in himself, — in his own ignorance, improvidence, 
 and want of temperance. Thus he talks about the 
 man who will be successful in business, even when he 
 is a boy : " A keen observer could have picked him out 
 from among his schoolfellows, and said, ' Here is the 
 lad who w^ill die a bank-president, owning factories, 
 and blocks of stores.' Trace his history closely, and 
 you find that in his boyhood he was provident and 
 
ME. Greeley's variety of characters. 27 o 
 
 frugal ; that he shunned expense and dissipation ; 
 that he feasted and quaffed seldom, unless at others' 
 cost ; that he was rarely seen at balls or frolics ; 
 that he was diligent in study and in business ; that 
 he did not hesitate to do an uncomfortable job if it 
 bade fair to be profitable ; that he husbanded his 
 hours, and made each count one, either in earning, or 
 in preparing to work efficiently." 
 
 Thus he shows how a laboring-man makes him- 
 self. 
 
 So I might go on and exliibit his advice to the 
 educated, — how they might create around them a hal- 
 lowed atmosphere for the ignorant ; what an example 
 they might set (as some do) of morals and refined 
 manners, &q. 
 
 So, did space allow, I might show Horace Greeley 
 as a statesman, a farmer, a philanthropist ; but the 
 limits prescribed to this volume will not permit it. 
 
 A few words may be added here respecting him as 
 a man of letters. We have referred to his first book 
 as an author. He made an overland journey from 
 New York to San Francisco in 1859, of which he gave 
 a full account in "The Tribune." It was, indeed, a 
 wonderful exploring tour ; and any one, even now, 
 must be greatly instructed, as well as amused, in reading 
 his descriptions of what he saw and heard. We give a 
 single extract, — a description of the trees of Mariposa, 
 
276 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 
 
 which he regarded as larger than those of Cala- 
 veras : — 
 
 " We went up to the Mariposa trees early next 
 morning. The trail crosses a meadow of most luxu- 
 riant wild grass, then strikes eastward up the hills, 
 and rises almost steadily, but in the main not steeply, 
 for five miles, when it enters and ends in a slight de- 
 pression or valley, nearly on the top of this particular 
 mountain, where the big trees have been quietly nestled 
 for I dare not say how many thousand years. 
 
 " That they were of very substantial size when David 
 danced before the ark, when Solomon laid the foun- 
 dations of the temple, when Theseus ruled in Athens, 
 when ^neas fled from the burning wreck of van- 
 quished Troy, when Sesostris led his victorious Egyp- 
 tians into the heart of Asia, I have no manner of doubt. 
 The big trees, of course, do not stand alone : I appre- 
 hend that they could not stand at present, in view of the 
 very moderate depth at which they are anchored to 
 the earth. 
 
 " Had they stood on an unsheltered mountain-top, or 
 even an exposed hillside, they would doubtless have 
 been prostrated — as, I presume, thousands like them 
 were prostrated — by the hurricanes of centuries before 
 Christ's advent ; but the localities of these, though 
 probably two thousand five hundred feet above the 
 South Merced, and some four thousand five hundred 
 
MR. Greeley's variety oe characters. 277 
 
 above the sea, are sheltered and tranquil, though several 
 of these trees have manifestly fallen within the present 
 century. Unquestionably they are past their prime ; 
 though to none more than to them is applicable the 
 complimentary characterization of ' a green old age.' " 
 
 A sketch of the life and career of Horace Greeley 
 has now passed before us. It has not been the object 
 of the compiler (for the work necessarily could be little 
 more than a compilation) to applaud and exalt him 
 above measure ; but as, since his nomination for the 
 presidency, men, artists, editors, public officers, and 
 those in high places, have descended to ridicule, 
 scandalize, and vilify the former good name and 
 blameless character of Horace Greeley, we cannot 
 close this sketch of his life without bringing fairly 
 before the reader the obligations we are under to this 
 man. It is sadly to be regretted that no man can be 
 nominated for the presidency of the United States 
 without being pounced upon and covered with mud 
 by those of less talent and honor than he. It was 
 well said of the bully Rust, who attacked and beat 
 Mr. Greeley during his congressional term, " The 
 man who would strike Horace Greeley would strike 
 his mother : " so tlie editor of a newspaper who would 
 vilify Horace Greeley would not hesitate to degrade 
 Washington or Lincoln. On this point we cannot do 
 
 24 
 
278 LIFE OF, HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 better than quote the following from one of this pro- 
 fession, — the editor of " The Telegraph" of Phila- 
 delphia : — 
 
 *' We all know the record of his life, and that from 
 the hour that he first went to New York a penniless, 
 friendless boy, eager to do a man's work in the world, 
 unto this day, when he is rich, famous, honored, no 
 one has ever truly uttered a single word against his 
 truth or his honesty. Last of all Americans should 
 Mr. Nast's pencil of scurrility be pointed for him ; 
 last of all should a newspaper editor or artist aid to 
 degrade him : for to him, more than to any or all 
 others, are newspaper men and the people indebted 
 for the highest, noblest, purest type of newspaper 
 excellence that this country has ever known. 
 
 " In all the records of American journalism, there 
 is no name that shines with such true and steady 
 light as that of Horace Greeley. ' Theoretical ' he is 
 called, and ' visionary.' Is ' The New- York Tribune ' 
 a theory or a vision ? That is the work of his life ; 
 the daily business of all his honorable, useful years. 
 Slavery is dead : the theories of ' The Tribune ' edu- 
 cated the people to kill slavery. The Republican 
 party is the party that saved the country : ' The 
 Tribune ' created the Republican party. Ask editors 
 what its editorial management under Horace Greeley 
 has been, and they reply, ' As nearly perfect as it 
 
MR. GREELEY'S VARIETY OP CHARACTERS. 279 
 
 could be made.' Ask printers what its mechanical 
 management and equipment are, and they answer, 
 ' Matchless.' 
 
 " ' Theoretical' ? Yes : Horace Greeley has always 
 been theoretical ; for there never has been an improve- 
 ment suggested to him for making newspapers more 
 valuable to the people 'that Horace Greeley has not 
 tested ; not one of real value that he has not adopted. 
 It is a foul bird that soils its own nest, and it is an 
 abject newspaper man indeed who throws dirt upon 
 the foremost in America, — upon the one who has done 
 the most to make editing of a newspaper the noblest 
 work that any of us ever set to do. There is not one 
 of us who can attempt to degrade Horace Greeley 
 without degrading himself; not one who can disgrace 
 him without disgracing his profession." 
 
 Everybody says Horace Greeley is honest ; and no 
 less a man than the poet Whittier, who has had a 
 lifelong acquaintance with him, says, " There are no 
 reasons of a moral or intellectual character why he 
 should not be elected president." Will any one tell 
 us what reasons, then, can be adduced against his 
 being chosen to fill that important station ? 
 
 He is honest : then he will oppose stealing in all its 
 multifarious phases. He will oppose bribery and 
 corruption, which, to say the least, have appeared 
 sometimes in our government. If, as Whittier says, 
 
280 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 lie is intellectually qualified, he wiU know sufficient 
 not to bestow offices upon men totally unqualified to 
 fill them. 
 
 Honesty and intellectuality will lead him to oppose 
 a standing army in time of peace ; to withstand 
 military and railroad rings, and all other rings that 
 tend to swindle the people. 
 
 Honesty and intellect combined will teach him 
 better than to put all his relations, and those of his 
 wife too, into government offices. He will not show 
 the white feather when John Bull begins to bluster 
 about " The Alabama" or any other claims. He will 
 not proscribe men for holding political opinions 
 contrary to his own, nor consider our greatest states- 
 men disqualified for high positions because they may 
 not fall in with his peculiar notions on some favorite 
 plan of his own. He is in favor of putting honest 
 men into office. He is in favor of peace ; nor is he 
 one of those that " bite with their teeth, and cry 
 peace " with their lips. As he is not a military char- 
 acter, he is in favor of the civil forms superseding 
 the military. He is in favor of giving every State its 
 just right under the Constitution of the nation. He 
 is in favor of universal suffrage, universal amnesty, 
 and universally allowing men to vote as they please. 
 He is in favor of the one-term presidency, — that a 
 president shall not employ his first four years iu 
 
]vni. geeeley's variety of characters. 281 
 
 electioneering for a second election. He is in favor 
 of tlie laboring-classes, as one must necessarily be 
 who has worked his own way up from that of a poor 
 boy to his present high and honorable condition in 
 life. By his own iron will and his indomitable 
 industry he mastered poverty and adversity, as Frank- 
 lin of the same craft did, till he has placed himself in 
 honorable and independent circumstances. He is in 
 favor of our republican institutions ; and, while he 
 stands on an advanced Republican platform, it is no 
 disparagement to him that the Democracy has adopted 
 the same, and selected him, as did the Republicans, 
 as their leader, and to be the next president of the 
 United States of America. 
 
 A few specimens may be given from gentlemen of 
 letters, of high religious character, of editors, and even 
 of office-holders, who have known Horace Greeley, and 
 labored with him many years in the editorial profession 
 and in various other walks of life. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Bellows, who has lived and labored side 
 by side with Horace Greeley in the city, in " The 
 Liberal Christian '^ says, " At home in city and country, 
 and on both sides of the continent ; with the qualities 
 of tlie Yankee, — simple as shrewd, and shrewd as 
 simple ; good-natured as a healthy child, and passion- 
 ate as the same on occasions ; a wide lover of his 
 species, and a tremendous hater of many of its individ- 
 24* 
 
282 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 
 
 ual varieties ; open as the day, and inscrutable as the 
 night ; devoted to principle when not absorbed by 
 measures ; strong as a giant when some political 
 Delilah has not shorn his locks in her lap ; so pure 
 that dirt won't stick to him, which makes him a little 
 too free in going into it ; not to be known by his 
 associates, because quite superior to many of them ; 
 capable of a superhuman frankness and a Trappian 
 silence, — certainly America finds in him at this mo- 
 ment its most characteristic representative. He is the 
 American par excellence.''^ 
 
 Take the following from the testimony of W. E. 
 Robinsoai in an address from a speech in Brooklyn, 
 N.Y. : — 
 
 " Over thirty years ago, while in Yale College, it 
 was my good fortune to become acquainted with 
 Horace Greeley. It was before ' The Tribune' was 
 started, and while he was editing ' The New-Yorker' 
 and ' Log-Cabin.' Soon after ' The Tribune ' was es- 
 tablished, I became its Washington correspondent, and 
 was connected with it as correspondent and assistant 
 editor more than ten years. After ceasing to be his cor- 
 respondent and assistant, I was for nearly ten years his 
 lawyer. I saw much of him, had much correspondence 
 with him, and ought to know him well, and be able to 
 give a proper estimate of his character ; and such an 
 estimate as I am able to give I shall submit to you, my 
 neighbors and friends, in all truth and sincerity. 
 
MR. GEEELEY's variety OF CHARACTERS. 283 
 
 " Some things can be said of Horace Greeley which 
 no libeller even dare question. He is a natural demo- 
 cratic republican of the best type. Burns was not a 
 truer democrat, nor was Jefferson a purer republican. 
 I venture to say that no man could detect a change in 
 his countenance, whether a duke asked him for infor- 
 mation, or an outcast solicited alms. With him, above 
 all men I ever knew, rank and wealth are nothing : 
 manhood is the gold, and mind the true nobility. He 
 is the ablest writer and chief journalist among the giant 
 intellects of our day. His life is one of singular purity 
 and simplicity. He never forgets his friends. His 
 word once given, and you can stake your life on its 
 performance ; and his monogram, written on his face 
 and in his heart by the Almighty, and inscribed by 
 himself on every step of his career from the dawn of 
 early childhood to tlie noon of honored manhood, is 
 honesty. His charity is unbounded. I can convey no 
 idea of this trait of his character. Hour after hour, 
 and daily, I have seen the destitute and heart-broken of 
 both sexes, the unfortunate outcasts and wanderers 
 from all climes and all classes, invade the ever-open 
 door of his charity ; and never have I seen any one 
 ' sent empty away ' while he had a shilHng or could 
 boi-row one. I often looked on with amazement, 
 knowing his antipathy to whiskey and tobacco, as I 
 liave seen some poor creature, whom he had known in 
 
284 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 earlier days, staggering to his desk, and asking for relief, 
 which was not denied, even under the certainty that it 
 would be left in the first bar-room. I have seen his 
 hat full of protested notes on which he had lent money ; 
 and when, as his lawyer, I have remonstrated with him 
 for taking such paper, he usually replied that any one 
 would lend on good paper. It was tliose tliat could 
 not borrow elsewhere, and on paper negotiable nowhere, 
 that complimented him with their business. He is a 
 singularly pure and modest man. In thirty years of 
 pretty intimate acquaintance, I never heard him use a 
 word that would bring the slightest flutter of crimson 
 to the purest cheek that womanhood ever unveiled to 
 society. I do not believe that he ever told or could be 
 induced to listen to a vulgar story. And this almost 
 superhuman purity of character is perhaps what has 
 made him such a favorite among talented and refined 
 women. For, although woman was the cause of our 
 losing Eden, she brought with her more than man did 
 of its purity ; and its loss would have been intolerable 
 if Adam had failed to bring her with him. 
 
 " But there are things in his character about which 
 people differ, or pretend to differ. Even those who 
 concede to him the great virtues I have mentioned 
 pretend to deprecate his election to the presidency 
 through fear that he lacks sound judgment, executive 
 ability, financial skill, and iiscrimination of character. 
 
MR. GPEELEY's variety OF CHARACTERS. 285 
 
 How wofully they are mistaken who seem to see the 
 shadow of those suspicions his election and brilliant 
 administration will show. I have had some experience 
 among public men for many years at Washington ; I 
 have known intimately most of the illustrious Ameri- 
 can statesmen of the second generation, — Clay, 
 Webster, Calhoun, Benton, Crittenden, Mangum, and 
 others ; and I never knew any one whose judgment 
 was more keen and unerring, whose ideas of executive 
 management were more enlarged and liberal, whose 
 knowledge of finance and political economy was clearer 
 or more extensive, and whose estimate of character was 
 more quick and comprehensive : and, if we honestly 
 weigh his character against that of the more and less 
 illustrious of those wlio have filled the executive chair, 
 we shall discover in him the honesty of Washington, 
 the brain of Jefferson, the firmness of Jackson, and 
 the wisdom of half a dozen of our later presidents ; 
 while, as a writer, he is far superior to them all. It 
 will be something to boast of to see once more in 
 the chair of Washington an honest and an able man. 
 It will be something to boast of, that, at the close of 
 tlie first century of our government, the ablest writer 
 that ever filled the executive chair was elected by our 
 votes. It will be a pleasure worth a century's waiting 
 to read his messages. 
 
 " There is a stubborn fear among certain nervous 
 
286 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 money-bags that things are going to ruin if Greeley is 
 elected ; and this is said by men who have felt proud 
 of having voted for Harrison, Polk, Lincoln, and Grant. 
 It is not my cue to say any thing against Gen. Grant ; 
 I think the country owes him too much to hear with 
 pleasure any thing against him personally : but what 
 was he when taken from his Missouri tannery, in 
 knowledge and character, compared with Horace 
 Greeley ? What was Abraham Lincoln, cracking 
 jokes on Western circuits, compared with Horace 
 Greeley, except what he had learned, as I have often 
 heard him acknowledge, from Mr. Greeley's paper ? 
 What was Gen. Taylor, or James K. Polk, or Gen. 
 Harrison, or all of them put together, for ability, states- 
 manship, and character, before they were elected, as 
 compared with Horace Greeley ? Clay, Calhoun, 
 Benton, and Webster could not get the chair which 
 Harrison, Polk, and Tyler filled ; and, when Lincoln 
 was nominated, the same sneers were common against 
 him that now salute Mr. Greeley. His boots and dress 
 and walk and dignity were no better than Greeley's. 
 He was a rail-splitter, as Mr. Greeley is a wood-chopper ; 
 but, for all that, what rank does he hold among our 
 recent presidents ? Second only to that with which 
 Mr. Greeley will retire in 1877. 
 
 " Do these men, who object to him as wanting in 
 ability, not know that he has taught most of our living 
 
statesmen what they know ? But, while knowledge is 
 power, honesty is the craving of the nation's heart ; 
 and in no one so much as in Mr. Greeley can that 
 craving be gratified. He is thoroughly upright and 
 ingrained, and stubbornly honest. There is not gold 
 enough in California nor stamps enough in the national 
 currency to bribe him to do a dishonest act. You 
 could as easily drive the most stubborn mule that ever 
 braced his foot against his driver's mandate as to drive 
 Mr. Greeley into the path way which leads to dishon- 
 esty." 
 
 I here adduce the letter of a lifelong friend of Mr. 
 Greeley ; one .well known in the community, and of 
 irreproachable character and unimpeachable integ- 
 rity ; moreover, one who has labored shoulder to 
 shoulder with Mr. Greeley for a quarter of a century 
 in the antislavery cause : — 
 
 WHAT THE QUAKER POET THINKS OF THE 
 PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 The following letter from Mr. John G. Whittier 
 appeared in " The Springfield Republican : " — 
 
 Amesbury, lOth 5tla mo., 1872. 
 Edwin Morton, Esq., Boston. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Thy note of to-day is just received. 
 In replying to it, I must premise that I have no inten- 
 tion, at this time, of entering into the question of the 
 
288 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 
 
 presidency, further than to say that the recent com- 
 plications of this question may be largely attributed 
 to an attempt to forbid the right of choice of candi- 
 dates to E-epublicans in advance of the nominating 
 convention, and to the deliberate insult to the friends 
 of freedom in the treatment of Senator Sumner. As 
 regards the subject of thy inquiry, I have no hesita- 
 tion in saying that I place a very high estimate upon 
 the character, moral and intellectual, of Horace 
 Greeley. He is a man of whom his countrymen, 
 irrespective of politics, may well be proud. He has 
 built up in his sixty years a noble reputation. The 
 poor attempts to ridicule him, and to underrate his 
 eminent ability, at the present time, on the part of 
 some of our Republican papers, are best answered by 
 the eulogiums bestowed upon him in their own 
 columns heretofore. He can well afford to smile at 
 the feeble arrows of sarcasm which are expended on 
 his " white great-coat," and fail to reach the man 
 beneath it. Personally he is the most popular man 
 in the United States. It is very possible there may 
 be good reasons why he should not be president ; but 
 they are not to be found in his moral character, his 
 intellect, his principles, his purposes, his knowledge 
 of the interests and resources of the country. I 
 have no wish, as I have no reason, to withhold my 
 good opinion of an old friend at a time when so 
 
MR. GREELEY'S VARIETY OF CHARACTERS. 289 
 
 many Republicans deem it advisable, as a party expe- 
 dient, to assail him personally as well as politically. 
 I am very truly thy friend, 
 
 John G. Whittier. 
 
 There are many erroneous opinions abroad respecting 
 Horace Greeley. Some of them are, we doubt not, 
 seriously believed ; and some, it is feared, are stated to 
 draw votes from him in the coming election. 
 
 He is said to be " careless in his dress," and " wear- 
 ing his pants over one boot and under the other," with 
 much more of the same sort. The writer saw him in 
 his recent visit to the Jubilee in Boston, and can testify 
 that he has not inspected a more cleanly and decent- 
 ly dressed man for many years ; and he has seen a few 
 within that time. " The Cincinnati Commercial " 
 says of him, — 
 
 " The fact is, Mr. Greeley is a very well-dressed man. 
 His linen is faultless ; and, while his cravat-tie is never 
 elaborate, it is usually in the right place. He attends 
 dinner-parties frequently, wearing a dress-coat ; and in 
 the neatness of his hands and feet he is noticeable. 
 Strange as it may appear, his boots are smartly pol- 
 ished ; and his hands, notwithstanding his wood-chop- 
 ping performances, are small and white, and in form 
 symmetrical. Many a fine lady would be proud to 
 have hands of their whiteness and taper fingers." 
 
290 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEYi 
 
 It is said he is a " vegetarian ; don't eat meat.'* 
 This, also, is untrue, as has been seen in his own ac- 
 count of Grahamism. He is not a glutton, but par- 
 takes of all kinds of wholesome food. He is not as 
 corpulent and ridiculously rotund as Nast (rather 
 Nasty) caricatures him as being, but is of fair and 
 liberal development for a man of his years. 
 
 He is not a " wine-bibber." There is no doubt 
 about it that he is a strict temperance man. He never, 
 under any circumstances, tastes intoxicating liquor ; 
 enjoys his glass of water when the wine flows ; and 
 dissipates in a cup of tea. Tobacco he detests ; but, 
 being a philosopher, he sometimes sits in a cloud of 
 tobacco-smoke with complacency. 
 
 It is charged that Greeley, after telling the South to 
 go, shouted, " On to Richmond ! " He did neither the 
 one thing nor the other. When hostilities were 
 commenced by the bombardment of a United-States 
 fort by order of the provisional government of se- 
 ceded and confederated States, those who had striven 
 most earnestly for peace, and who had been willing to 
 make the greatest sacrifices to preserve it, were not 
 the least energetic in urging the prosecution of the 
 war. The words " On to Richmond " were not Mr. 
 Greeley's, but Mr. Dana's ; and they were right words. 
 The imbecility that divided our army, and held half 
 of it loitering at Harper's Ferry while the other half 
 
MH. gkeeley's variety OE CHAHACTERS. 291 
 
 was beaten at Bull Run by the whole force of the con- 
 federates, does not prove that those wlio favored a de- 
 cided march upon Richmond at that time were wrong. 
 The rebel veteran army that afterwards contested for 
 years the road to Richmond was not then in existence. 
 At Bull Run the main question was, which raw army 
 would run first ; and the flight happened to be toward 
 Washington rather than toward Richmond. If the 
 army fooled away under Patterson had appeared on 
 Beauregard's flank, the movement would have been 
 " on to Richmond," sure enough. 
 
 He is said to be cross and quarrelsome, and rude in 
 his manners. I can bear testimony to the falsehood 
 of such a statement. He is a genial, companionable 
 gentleman. He may be sharp upon loafers who seek 
 to waste his time upon nothing of moment, especially 
 where he has an editorial half done, and the printer is 
 waiting for the residue. In some such case, he may 
 have " answered a fool according to his folly ; " and 
 what wise editor would not do the same ? Those 
 who are specially troubled about his manners may con- 
 trast his bearing with that of another gentleman who 
 had " the freedom of our city " at the late Jubilee, and 
 take their choice. 
 
 It has been said that Greeley, in a pusillanimous 
 way, begged for peace, and embarrassed President 
 Lincoln. The truth is, in that connection he per* 
 
292 ^ LIFE OF HORACE GREELtEif. 
 
 formed a public service of value ; and, if greater at- 
 tention had been paid him by Lincoln, he would have 
 done better for the country. Here is the case : The 
 rebels assumed to be for peace. All they wanted, it 
 will be remembered, was to be let alone. The North- 
 ern sympathizers with the Rebellion cried, " Peace, 
 peace, when there was no peace ; " and their vocifera- 
 tion was, that the war had failed to restore the Union, 
 and that we must try and restore it by peaceful 
 measures. 
 
 At this juncture there was the news that persons 
 authorized to propose terms of peace were on the 
 borders. G-reeley, wisely and well, advised the presi- 
 dent that here was an opportunity that must not be 
 neglected. The thing to do was to see whether the 
 proposed or self-styled negotiators had authority, and 
 what they wanted. Greeley knew, and Lincoln knew, 
 that the confederates were unwilling to negotiate for 
 peace on the basis of the restoration of the Union. It 
 was quite certain that the terms they would propose 
 must be wholly inadmissible. Very well. Undoubted 
 evidence that there could be no tolerable peace, no 
 peace on the basis of the Union, would practically 
 unite the North. The fangs of tiie copperheads would 
 be at once drawn. Mr. Greeley insisted that so great 
 an opportunity should not be thrown away ; and he 
 was clearly right. 
 
ME. GREELEY'S VARIETY OF CHARACTERS. 293 
 
 Well, Greeley proposed " to buy the slaves, and pay 
 four hundred million dollars for their emancipation." 
 If this were so, it siiowed his wisdom and foresight ; 
 for, if his plan had been adopted, we should have 
 saved six hundred million dollars (for the war cost a 
 billion) ; and thousands of widows and orphans would 
 have blessed Horace Greeley to their dying-day. 
 
 Well, Greeley bailed Jeff. Davis : so he did ; and 
 Greeley ought to be " kilt " for it ; while Gerritt Smith, 
 who did the same, was a fit man to go to Philadelphia 
 to renominate Grant. It was an old Roman maxim, 
 Tittilla me, tittillabo te, — ''Tickle me, and I'll tickle 
 you." No matter what any man has ever done, if he 
 will now tickle Grant, and stickle for him. Yes, Gree- 
 ley signed Jeff. Davis's bond. Why should he not ? 
 This great public criminal, with hands reeking with 
 the blood of half a million men, was admitted to bail 
 by the Supreme Court of the United States, with the 
 full approval of the president and his cabinet. It was 
 notorious that the administration did not intend to try 
 him, or they never would have allowed bail for this 
 wholesale murderer, while it is uniformly denied to 
 the most ignorant wretch who takes a single life. If 
 any man in the country is responsible for the bailing 
 of Jeff. Davis, it is Ulysses S. Grant ; for he, by dis- 
 charging on parole Lee and his compeers in crime, 
 and by insisting that the faith of the country was 
 
 .25* 
 
^94 LIFE OF HOUACE GREELEY. 
 
 pledged to hold them harmless, rendered it impossible 
 that any of the traitors should be punished. Besides, 
 the government, by exchanging prisoners, acknowl- 
 edged the South to be belligerents; and to have 
 hung or shot Davis after his capture would have been 
 a violation of international law. 
 
 Well, there must be a cat under that white heap : 
 therefore all the rebels are going to vote for Greeley. 
 Are they ? Where is Henry A. Wise, who hung John 
 Brown ; Mosby, the vilest leader of a band of cut- 
 throats ; Long-street, and a hundred others ? In fact, 
 if the Grantites don't lie, all the South, blacks and 
 whites both, are going for Grant. This is a weapon 
 with two edges. 
 
 But I commenced to write the Life of Horace 
 Greeley by special request, and did not mean to say a 
 word about Grant ; and but for what is well known to 
 be palpable falsehood about Greeley would any refer- 
 ence have been had to the other candidate for the 
 presidency. The old adage should be remembered by 
 some of the Grant papers, " People who dwell in 
 glass houses," &c. 
 
 COMPARISON OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND 
 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 There were many things in common in the boy- 
 hood of "Abe Lincoln," our late martyred and greatly- 
 
Me. GREELEY S VARIETY OF CHARACTERS. 295 
 
 lamented president, and Horace Greeley, the present 
 candidate for the same high office. Indeed, in some 
 respects, there was a resemblance between Thomas 
 Lincoln, the father of Abe, and Zaccheus Greeley, 
 the father of Horace. But preference must be given 
 to Zach Greeley over Tom Lincoln. Both were 
 poor ; both failed to pay for the land they bought ; 
 both were rovers, going from place to place, and from 
 State to State, — Tom from Kentucky to Lidiana 
 and Illinois, and Zach from New Hampshire to 
 Vermont and Pennsylvania. Tom was assisted 
 greatly by his son Abe, and Zach by his son 
 Horace. There was a resemblance between the spell- 
 ing of the names of the Lincoln and the Greeley 
 families : the former was spelled '' Linckhorn," or 
 " Linckhern," or " Lincoln : " the latter was spelled 
 " Grely," " Greale," " Greele," and '' Greeley." 
 
 But between their sons Abe and Horace there 
 was a still more striking resemblance. Abe was 
 born in a solitary cabin, on a desolate spot, — a little 
 knoll in the midst of a barren glade on Nolin Creek, 
 in Kentucky, Feb. 12, 1809. 
 
 Abe, when about eight years old, dabbled in the 
 water, and came near being drowned on one occasion 
 when attempting to " coon " on Knob Creek, and 
 was saved only by the strenuous efforts of John 
 Duncan, the boy that was with him. Quite a re- 
 
296 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 semblance here between this and Horace, — saved by 
 his little brother from a similar fate in Hubbarton 
 Creek, when in his thirteenth year. 
 
 Abe was always chiding other boys for being cruel 
 to animals : he talked against, made speeches about, 
 and wrote poetry against, this practice. Horace, 
 always tender of animals, when he saw a boy throw 
 stones (a thing he never did) at a hog, rebuked him, 
 saying, " Now, you oughtn't to throw stones at that 
 hog: he don't know any thing." 
 
 Abe had but little schooling. His first teacher 
 was Hazel Dorsey, and his log schoolhouse was a mile 
 and a half from his father's cabin ; and, years after, it 
 was said, by those who survived, that Abe was even 
 then the equal, if not the superior, of any scholar 
 in his class. This " schoolhouse was built of unhewn 
 logs, and had holes for windows, in which greased 
 paper served for glass." Abe's whole schooling was 
 not more than six months ; and the reason was, 
 " it was no use ; for he excelled all his masters : so 
 he studied at home." 
 
 How apt was this resemblance to Horace's school- 
 ing, in the teachers, the boy, the schoolhouse, and the 
 studying at home because it was no use to go to 
 school I for, said Horace's teacher, " he knows more 
 than I do." 
 
 Abe's dress was as follows ; " He wore low shoes, 
 
MR. GKEELEY's VAKIETY OF CHAKACTERS. 297 
 
 buckskin breeches, linsey-woolsey shirt, and a cap 
 made of the skin of an opossum. The breeches 
 clung close to his thighs and legs, but failed by a large 
 space to meet the tops of his shoes : twelve inches re- 
 mained uncovered, and exposed that much of ' shin- 
 bone, sharp, blue, and narrow,' " 
 
 Horace's dress we have seen to have been " a straw 
 hat, generally in a state of dilapidation ; a tow shirt, 
 never buttoned ; a pair of trousers made of the family 
 material, very short in both legs, but one shorter than 
 the other." 
 
 Abe read all the books he could get either by buy- 
 ing or borrowing. He borrowed Weems's " Life of 
 Washington " of Josiah Crawford ; laid it where it got 
 wet; and Crawford made him "pull fodder" three 
 days, at twenty-five cents a day, to pay for it. The 
 books he read were " The Kentucky Preceptor," 
 ^sop's " Fables," '' Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's 
 " Pilgrim's Progress," " History of the United States," 
 " Arabian Nights," &g. 
 
 The books that Horace found in his father's house 
 were very few, — the Bible, Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress," " The Confession of Faith." " The American 
 Preceptor " was the first book he ever owned. He 
 read Byron, Shakspeare, and Mrs. Hemans's poems. 
 
 Both Abe and Horace loved to fish. 
 
 Both were peace-makers among their schoolmates^ 
 
298 LITE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 and both were beloved by all the boys of their ac- 
 quaintance ; and neither had an enemy. 
 Both were politicians from childhood. 
 Both were perfectly honest. Abe would do all he 
 promised to do, and Horace always did his '' stint." 
 
 Both wrote poetry. Here is some of Abe's when a 
 mere boy : — 
 
 " Let auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 And never brought to mind, 
 And Jackson be our president. 
 And Adams left behind." 
 
 In his first copy-book Abe wrote, — 
 
 " Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen : 
 He will be good ; but God knows when." 
 
 Again he wrote, — 
 
 " Abraham Lincoln is my name, 
 And with my pen I write the same : 
 I'll be a good boy ; but God knows when." 
 
 Again, — 
 
 " Good boys who to their books apply 
 Will all be great men by and by." 
 
 We have already given specimens of Horace's 
 poetry. 
 
 It must be confessed, that, in one thing, the compari- 
 son between Abe and Horace does not hold. Abe was 
 an excellent penman : Horace is not so good ; though 
 the latter's would bear comparison with that of the 
 late Bufus Ohoate, 
 
CHAPTER XVII.* 
 
 HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Division of the Republican Party. — Platform of the Liberals. — They nom- 
 inate Horace Greeley at the Cincinnati Convention as their candidate for 
 the Presidency. — He is also nominated by the Democratic convention at 
 Baltimore. — His Western Tour. — Electoral returns in November. — 
 He loses the Election, but receives a lai-ge nmnber of Votes. — Resump- 
 tion of Editorial Office of " The Tribune." —Death of his AVife. — His 
 Insomnia assumes a critical phase. — He gives up his work at " The 
 Tribune" office. — Contributes to but few issues of the Paper. — Upon 
 consultation of Physicians he is taken to the residence of Dr. Choate, 
 near Chappaqua. — All hope of his recovery given up. — Insomnia 
 develops into Inflammation of the Brain. — He dies on the evening of 
 November 29th, 1872. 
 
 IN the political campaign of 1872 a strong feeling 
 against the domination of rings resulted in a 
 division of the Republican party. The Liberals, as 
 the seceders were called, demanded a thorough re- 
 form of the civil service, as well as impartial suffrage 
 and universal amnesty. 'They desired to restore the 
 purity of tlie Presidential office ; to relieve the public 
 service of partisan tyranny and personal ambition ; 
 and declared that the "immediate and absolute re- 
 
 ^ Chapters XVII and XVIK by E. E, Brown. 
 
 299 
 
800 LIFE OF HOKACE GKEELEY. 
 
 moval of all the disabilities imposed on account of 
 the rebellion would result in complete pacification in 
 all sections of the country." These principles of the 
 Liberal party were not new to Horace Greeley. As 
 editor of '' The Tribune," he had always been a firm 
 advocate of civil service reform, and lie had frequently 
 declared that " all political rights and franchises 
 which had been lost through the war should and must 
 be promptly restored and re-established, so that there 
 should be no proscribed or disfranchised class 
 within the limits of the Union." The platform of 
 the Liberal party, therefore, was in realit}^ but an 
 exposition of principles that the great journalist had 
 long maintained. When he accepted the nomination 
 of this party at the Cincinnati Convention, it was 
 with the firm belief that the " new departure formed 
 the basis of a true beneficent national re-construc- 
 tion." And it was because he favored "Equal 
 Rights," that, two months later, the Democratic Con- 
 vention, at Baltimore, had announced the name of 
 Horace Greeley as their candidate for the Presidency. 
 He was the nominee not of a party, but of the people, 
 and the few months preceding the election were 
 spent by the indefatigable leader in earnest discus- 
 sions throughout the country of the great questions 
 involved in the contest. 
 
 Tn the electoral returns in November, Mr. Greeley 
 
HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. 301 
 
 received 2,834,079 votes, and General Grant 3,597,- 
 070. It will, therefore, be seen that although he 
 carried but few States, he was supported by a very 
 large number of citizens. 
 
 In the " Tribune '' of November sixth, the following 
 card appeared : 
 
 " The undersigned resumes the editorship of the 
 ' Tribune,' which he relijiquished on embarking in 
 another line of business six montiis ago. Henceforth 
 it shall be his endeavor to make this a tliorouglil\' 
 independent journal, treating all parties and politiccil 
 movements with judicial fairness and candor, but 
 courting the favor and deprecating the wratli of no 
 one. 
 
 "If he can hereafter say anything that will tend 
 to unite the whole American people on the broad 
 platform of universal amnest}^ and impartial suffrage, 
 he will gladly do so. For the present, however, he 
 can best commend that consummation by silence and 
 forbearance. The victors in our late struggle can 
 hardl}^ fail to take the whole subject of Southein 
 rights and wrongs into early and earnest considera- 
 tion, and to them, for the present, he remits it. 
 
 " Since he will never again be a candidate for any 
 oflQce, and is not in full accord with either of the 
 great parties which .have hitherto divided the coun- 
 try, he will be able and will endeavor to give wider 
 
302 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 and steadier regard to the progress of science, indus- 
 try, and the useful arts than a partisan journal can 
 clo ; and he will not be provoked to indulgence in 
 those bitter personalities which are the recognized 
 bane of journalism. Sustained by a generous public, 
 he will do his best to make ' The Tribune ' a power 
 in the broader field it now contemplates, as when 
 human freedom was imperiled, it was in the arena of 
 political partisanship. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 Horace Greeley." 
 
 Shortly after Mr. Greeley's return from his West- 
 ern tour, in the autumn of 1872, his wife, who had 
 been an invalid for years, sank into a rapid decline. 
 
 With increasing devotion, he watched beside her, 
 and the sight of her sufferings affected his nervous 
 system to such a degree that, when the opportunity 
 for rest returned, he seemed to have lost the power 
 of sleep. The death of Mrs. Greeley was a great 
 shock to him. " I shall never forget," said a personal 
 friend, " the heart-breaking impression made upon me 
 b}^ Mr. Greeley's fixed and most wistful look when, 
 amid the stray autumn leaves falling from the trees 
 of Greenwood, Mrs. Greeley's remains were borne 
 from the hearse to the opening of the family vault. 
 The strain upon liis physical endurance, and the more 
 tremeiidous strain upon his quick, emotional suscep- 
 
HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. 303 
 
 tibilities had been too much for him. The bow was 
 not only bent, but broken." 
 
 It was pitiful to see how wearily, day after day, he 
 dragged himself to his office, endeavoring to take up 
 the threads of his busy life again. Sometimes he 
 would lay down his pen, and hand to his assistant at 
 the "Tribune" office a few short articles, saying: 
 
 "I think you will find some ideas there worth 
 using, but I haven't felt able to work them out prop- 
 erly. You had better put them into shape." 
 
 He contributed to but four issues of the " Trib- 
 une " after resuming the editorial charge, and wrote 
 in all less than three columns and a half. The most 
 notable of these short articles was entitled " Conclu- 
 sions," in which he summed up his views of the polit- 
 ical campaign. 
 
 On Tuesday, the 12th of November, he gave up 
 the effort to work regularly at his office, and sent for 
 a physician. Various remedies were tried to induce 
 sleep, but all without avail. His nervous prostration 
 increased ; he had no appetite, and his case began to 
 assume a critical condition. 
 
 After a consultation, it was finally decided to 
 remove him to the residence of Dr. Choate, two or 
 three miles distant from his own country home at 
 Chappaqua. 
 
 The insomnia, however, from which he was suffer- 
 
304 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 iiig, had now developed into inflammation of the 
 brain, and at times he was delirious. 
 
 Upon Thursda}^ the 28tli, he began to fail so rap- 
 idly that all hopes of his recovery were given up. 
 His elder daughter, Ida, had been in constant attend- 
 ance throughout his illness, and upon Thursday 
 evening his younger daughter, Gabrielle, was sum- 
 moned. 
 
 After a restless night, he sank into a nearly uncon- 
 scious state, but about noon on Friday, he suddenly 
 aroused from the stupor and said very distinctly : " I 
 know that my RedecDier liveth." 
 
 It was a bleak November day. A light snow had 
 fallen, and sleighs were constantly running back and 
 forth to carry the latest bulletins to Chappaqua, the 
 nearest telegraph station. At half past three, the 
 sufPerer said in a weary tone to those about his bed- 
 side : " It is done ; " and these were his last articulate 
 words. At ten minutes before seven, upon Friday 
 evening, November 29th, he quietly passed away, 
 — " in peace, after so many struggles ; in honor, after 
 so much obloquy." It was the happy ending of a 
 grand career. 
 
 " My life," he had written some years before, " has 
 been anxious, but not joyless. Whether it shall be 
 prolonged few or more years, I am grateful that it 
 has endured so long, and that it has abounded in 
 
HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. 305 
 
 opportunities for good not wholly unimproved, and 
 in experiences of the nobler as well as the baser im- 
 pulses of human nature. . . . 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 tlie 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." 
 
CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 THE CONTEST ENDED. 
 
 Universal Grief throughout the country. — Lying in state at the City Hall 
 in New York. — Large proportion of working People in the waiting 
 crowds. — Touching Incidents. — Floral Decorations. — Funeral Services 
 at Dr. Chapin's Clnirch. — Extracts from Addresses by Henry Ward 
 Beecher and Dr. Chapin. — Procession to the Cemetery. — Proposal of 
 the Printers to erect a Monument to his memory at Greenwood. — Com 
 pletion of the same in the autumn of 1876. — The unveiling of the Statue. 
 — Extract from Bayard Taylor's Address. — Description of the Monu- 
 ment. 
 
 THE news of the death of Horace Greeley was 
 received throughout the country with tokens 
 of profound sorrow ; and when, upon Tuesday, 
 the third of December, his remains hiy in stat^i at 
 the city hall in New York, the quiet, tearful throngs 
 that crowded about his bier for one last look, gave 
 touching evidence of the universal affection borne 
 towards this great and good man. 
 
 The large proportion of working people, both men 
 and women, was especially noticeable in the waiting 
 crowds. 
 
THE CONTEST ENDED. 30T 
 
 " Yes ! " exclaimed one rough-looking man, " we 
 are working people here, and wliat if it does cost us 
 a little time ? It's little enough to lose a day for 
 Horace Greeley, who spent many a day working for 
 us. That man has done more to help working men 
 than any other American who ever lived ; and he's 
 done it by hard labor, too. He spent fort}^ years 
 working to elevate the condition of laboring men. 
 Lincoln was given a great opportunity to raise up 
 one race of working men ; but that was an accident 
 or a providence. Greeley has helped all men by 
 hard, earnest labor, and if what he did isn't so strik- 
 ing as what Lincoln did for the blacks, it's just as 
 real, every bit." 
 
 With an absence of all pomp and show, the casket 
 had been placed upon a simple dais in the Governor's 
 room, and just beside the door hung a shield of 
 black serge, sent by the people of Chappaqua, with 
 ears of wheat and the words ** It is done," just 
 above an axe and a pen. All day long beautiful 
 floral offerings of all descriptions were brought in 
 and placed upon the quaint old tables — relics of 
 by-gone Congressional days — that stood at the head 
 and foot of the casket, and one exquisite design 
 bore the words : " I know that my Redeemer liveth." 
 
 Farmers from the surrounding country towns came 
 to the city with their whole families ; professional 
 
808 LIFE OP HOKACE OREELEY. 
 
 aieii, mercLants, ragged little boot-blacks and news- 
 boys passed in side by side ; and it was estimated 
 that before the day was over, forty thousand people 
 had obtained entrance, while nearly as many more 
 were obliged to turn away after hours of waiting. 
 
 One old countryman said to the police in atten- 
 dance : " I have come a hundred miles to see 
 Horace Greeley ; can't you possibly get me in to 
 have one look at him ? " 
 
 The doors were already closed, but, after many 
 attempts, the man finally obtained his wish, and was 
 seen to come out a few moments later with wet eyes 
 and trembling lip. 
 
 The funeral services were held upon Wednesday, 
 the fourth of December, in the church of the Divine 
 Paternity (Dr. Chapin's), which was most beauti- 
 fully decorated with flowers, and filled to its utmost 
 capacity. 
 
 After the rendering of the chant " De Profundis," 
 b}^ the choir, and the reading of a few selections of 
 Scripture by the pastor, the sweet sympathetic voice 
 of Miss Kellogg poured forth that grand song of 
 faith and triumph, "I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth." 
 
 A friend who was present recalled the emotion 
 with which Mr. Greeley had listened to that sublime 
 strain on the last Christmas eve of his life ; and it 
 
THE CONTEST ENDED. 309 
 
 was with nioie than artistic power tlie singer ren- 
 dered those beautiful words that had fallen from the 
 dying lips of one she had long known as her kind 
 and generous patron. 
 
 A brief address followed, by Henry Ward Beecher, 
 and there was not a dry eye in the church when 
 he said : 
 
 " Horace Greeley gave the strength of his life to 
 education, to honest industry, to humanity, especially 
 toward the poor and unbefriended. He was feet 
 for the lame ; he was an eye for the blind ; was 
 tongue for the dumb ; and had a heart for those who 
 had none to sympathize with them. His nature 
 longed for more love than it had, and more sympathy 
 than was ever administered to it. The great heart 
 working through life fell at last. He has poured his 
 life out for thirty years into the life of his time. It 
 has been for intelligence, for industry, for an hon- 
 ester life and a nobler manhood ; and though it may 
 not be remembered by those memorials which carry 
 other men's names down, his deeds will be known 
 and felt to the latest generations in our land. . . 
 
 "O, men!" he exclaimed, "is there nothing for 
 3^ou to do — you who with uplifted hands a few 
 short weeks ago were doing such battle ? Think 
 of those conflicts in which you forgot charity, kind- 
 liness, goodness ! What do you think now ? " 
 
310 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY, 
 
 From Dr. Chapin's elegant discourse' we quote the 
 following : 
 
 " Whatever may have been the mistakes of Horace 
 Greeley, there was no mistake in the main principle 
 which inspired his labors and characterized his life. . 
 To men of different powers, different kinds of works 
 are assigned. Some are discoverers of truth, some are 
 inventors of instruments, some are builders of 
 states. But truly has it been said that the philan- 
 thropists, in the measure of their wisdom and their 
 purity of zeal, are the real ' fellow workmen ' of the 
 Most High. . They who by earnest effort against 
 evil, by indignant rebuke of wrong, by steadfast 
 advocacy of truth, justice, and freedom, work bene- 
 ficientl}^ for man, must truly work for God and work 
 witli God. How faithfully, how affectively 
 Horace Greeley wrought his work to those ends, it is 
 superfluous for me to show. He enlisted in that 
 war from which there is no discharge. He contended 
 against what he believed to be wrong, inspired not 
 less by the goodness of his heart than b}^ the strength 
 of his mind. He struck for what he believed to be 
 right until mind and heart gave way, and, marked 
 by scars and lionors, he lies dead upon the field." 
 
 At the conclusion of Dr. Chapin's discourse, Miss 
 T. Werneke sang Handel's " Angels ever bright and 
 fair," the benediction was pronounced, and then in 
 
^HE CONTEST ENDED. 811 
 
 the impressive stillness that folio vved, Zundel's beau- 
 tiful hymn " Beyond the Smiling and the Weeping," 
 was exquisitely rendered by Miss Antoinette Sterling. 
 
 The long funeral procession began to form as the 
 choir chanted, " What is life ? " The President and 
 suite, the governors and their suites, the editors and 
 other members of the " Tribune " staff, together with 
 delegations from numerous societies, formed an im- 
 posing parade, although there was no military, no 
 regalia, no banners. 
 
 About dusk, the solemn cortege reached Greenwood 
 cemetery, and here in the family vault on Locust 
 Hill, after a brief, imposing ceremony, the body of 
 Horace Greeley was deposited in its last resting 
 place. 
 
 During the following month it was proposed by 
 the printers of New York to erect to his memory in 
 Greenwood cemetery a statue composed of type 
 metal. 
 
 On the third of February, the anniversary of his 
 birth, the compositors throughout the country set up 
 a thousand ems each, and desired that the receipts 
 for the same should be expended in making and 
 erecting the statue. Several printing offices had, 
 from time to time, sent numerous pounds of old 
 type, so that sufficient material was at hand to erect 
 a life-size statue of J\lr. Greeley. The receipts in 
 
312 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 money, however, were as yet too small to secure the 
 services of a sculptor. A committee was then 
 formed, under the name of " The Trustees of tlie 
 Prmters' Greeley Memorial," with Thurlow Weed 
 as President, Peter S. Hoe as Treasurer, and William 
 W. Pasko as Secretary. 
 
 It was finally decided that type metal would not 
 form a lasting monument, and the committee agreed 
 to erect a bronze bust of heroic size, draped, and set 
 on a granite base and pedestal, with bronze bass-reliefs 
 on the panels. Designs were received from several 
 artists, but that of Charles Calverley (the sculptor 
 of the bust of John Brown in the Union League 
 Club) was preferred by the board. Subscriptions 
 came in from all parts of the country, but chiefly 
 from New York. Much help was also given by the 
 late John F. Cleveland, brother-in-law of Mr. 
 Greeley. 
 
 It was not until the fall of 1876, however, that the 
 monument was completed; and it was then agreed 
 that the unveiling should take place on December 
 fourth, the anniversary of the funeral services. 
 
 It was a bright winter's day, and as the hour 
 appointed for the ceremony was at half-past one, the 
 warm noon sun tempered the chill atmosphere. 
 About five hundred persons were present, most of 
 whom had known Mr. Greeley during his lifetime. 
 
THE CONTEST ENDED. 313 
 
 The president of the day, Thurlow Weed, and the 
 chaplin, Dr. Chapin, were unable to be present, but 
 Mr. Francis, one of the trustees, introduced William 
 H. Bodwell, who delivered the presentation address. 
 The bust, which had been draped with the American 
 flag, was then unveiled by the sculptor, and a beauti- 
 ful poem read by E. C. Stedman. 
 
 Said one who was present : 
 
 " As the friends of the old journalist gathered 
 once more about his grave, their affectionate memoir 
 seemed to bring back for an hour the warmth and 
 color of the departed summer. Far away the mag- 
 nificent panorama of the landscape was fitly marked 
 by the towers and roofs of the great city which sug- 
 gested his ' busy life,' his tireless industry, and the 
 humanit}^ toil-worn and troubled, for whose release 
 from conventional impediments he so assiduously 
 worked and thought, and was always writing and 
 printing and speaking. It was fitting that those who 
 knew him best and loved him best should make this 
 pilgrimage to his twice-honored grave. The gather- 
 ing was large enough to show in how many hearts 
 he was freshly remembered. There were old men, 
 some of them the earliest of his friends, and others 
 whose presence proved that death assuages all resent- 
 ments. There were those who had labored under 
 his direction, and who can never forget the lessons 
 
314 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. 
 
 which he taught them ; while of the many hundreds 
 who were there, we may safely say that there was not 
 one who did not recall Horace Greeley with a senti- 
 ment of affection and regret." 
 
 Bayard Taylor was the orator of the occasion, and 
 from his beautiful address we quote the following : 
 
 " The strong individuality of Horace Greeley was 
 equally moral and intellectual, and the lasting in- 
 fluence of his life will be manifested in both 
 directions. His memory does not depend upon 
 separate acts or conspicuous expressions ; it is based 
 upon and embraces the entire scope of his activity, 
 the total aim and effort of his life. He would have 
 been the last of men to present himself as a special 
 model for the imitation of his younger countrymen ; I 
 but there are few who will now deny that this gener- ] 
 ation is better, more devoted to lofty principles, less j 
 subservient to the dictation of party, wiser, more ; 
 tolerant and more humane, because he has lived, i 
 Nothing worthier can be said of any man. When \ 
 most men die the ranks close, and the line moves ' 
 forward without a visible gap ; but hundreds of ■ 
 thousands miss, and long shall continue to miss, the ■ 
 courageous front of Horace Greeley. Like Latour -, 
 d' Auvergne, the first grenadier of France, his name 
 is still called in the regiment of those who dare and • 
 do, for the sake of mankind, and the mournful 
 
THE CONTEST ENDED. 315 
 
 answer comes : ' Dead, upon the field of honor.' 
 . " I should like to speak of his tenderness and 
 generosity. I should like to explain the awkward 
 devices of his heart to hide itself, knowing that the 
 exhibition of feeling is unconventional, and sensitive 
 lest its earnest impulses should be misconstrued. 
 But the veil which he wore during life must not be 
 lifted by the privilege which follows death : enough 
 of light shines through it to reveal all that the 
 world need know. To me, his nature seemed like a 
 fertile tract of the soil of his native New Hampshire. 
 It was cleared and cultivated, and rich harvests clad 
 its southern slopes ; yet the rough primitive granite 
 cropped out here and there, and there were dingles 
 which defied the plow, where the sweet wild flowers 
 blossomed in their season and the wild birds built 
 their nests unharmed. In a word, he was a man who 
 kept his life as God fashioned it for him, neither 
 assuming a grace which was not bestowed, nor 
 disguising a quality which asserted its existence. 
 
 " A life like his cannot be lost. That sleepless 
 intelligence is not extinguished, though the brain 
 which was its implement is here slowly falling to 
 dust ; that helping and forbearing love continues, 
 though the heart which it quickened is cold. . He 
 lives, not only in the mysterious realm where some 
 purer and grander form of activity awaited him, but 
 
316 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 also as an imperishable influence in the people. 
 Something of him has been absorbed into a multi- 
 tude of other lives, and will be transmitted to their 
 seed. His true monument is as broad as the land 
 he served. This which you have erected over his 
 ashes is the least memorial of his life. But it stands 
 as he himself loved to stand, on a breezy knoll, 
 where he could bathe his brow in the shadows of 
 branches, and listen to the music of their leaves. It 
 looks to the city where he lived and labored. Com- 
 merce passes on yonder waters, and industry sends 
 up her smokes in the distance. So may it stand for 
 many a centmy, untouched by invasion from the sea, 
 or civil strife from within the land — teaching men 
 through its expressive lineaments, that success may 
 be modest, that experience may be innocent, that 
 power may be unselfish and pure." 
 
 The monument at Greenwood cemetery cost, in 
 all, about six thousand dollars. It is twelve feet in 
 height, with base of Quincy granite, and pedestal 
 and cap of the lighter-colored Maine granite. On 
 the eastern face of the pedestal is a bronze bass-relief, 
 representing the bo}^ Greeley standing at his printer's 
 case, with composing stick in hand. On the north 
 panel of the pedestal is a rude plow, while the oppo- 
 site side has a pen and scroll cut in relief from the 
 granite. 
 
THE CONTEST ENDED. 317 
 
 The panel on the west has a bronze phite contain- 
 ing these words : 
 
 HORACE GREELEY, 
 
 BORN FEBPwUARY 3, 1811. 
 DIED NOVEMBER 29, 1872. 
 
 FOUNDER OF 
 
 THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE. 
 
 The bust itself is of full heroic size, four feet in 
 height, and is worked out on the scale of a ten-foot 
 statue. The largeness, fullness of the head, and its 
 beautiful symmetry are very finely given, while the 
 slight lift of the eyebrows is especially characteristic. 
 The face represents Mr. Greeley as he looked ten 
 or fifteen years before his death, and a touching 
 criticism of the likeness was given by his old negro 
 friend, Louis Napoleon : " That's put thar for 
 him," he exclaimed, "and it'll do; but it isn't Mr. 
 Greeley, 'cordin' to my recollection. They've got 
 everything thar excep'n that ole care look of his'n." 
 
 The whole monument is surrounded with a 
 Quincy granite coping, twenty-seven feet in diam- 
 eter, and presents a fine appearance in summer, with 
 its beautiful background of foliage. The best view 
 of the face is obtained from a point half-way up the 
 knoll, and a little to the right of the approach to the 
 vault. 
 
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