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GREELEY, HORACE. 



New York, proofs of winch secured his release, 

 and he left the prison with the quaint comment 

 that his last opportunity for learning French 

 had passed away. Mr. Greeley began his po- 

 litical career as a "Whig, and, though denying 

 the right of the party leaders to fetter his con- 

 science, he acted with that party generally, 

 until the formal organization of the Repub- 

 lican party in 1855, when he gave in his alle- 

 giance to it, having, indeed, been one of its 

 founders. But he was too independent to be 

 bound by party harness, and on minor issues 

 often bolted from the behests of the leaders. 

 These bolts were, however, never for either 

 party or personal ends, but from a conviction, 

 always honest if sometimes mistaken, that the 

 cause of right would be subserved thereby. 

 He sustained the war and President Lincoln 

 (whose nomination, indeed, he had done much 

 to bring about), but he did it after his own 

 fashion. He certainly committed some errors, 

 but his heart was evidently in the right place ; 

 and, before long, it was fully understood that 

 the Tribune was the vigorous defender of the 

 Union, and the earnest assailant of all who 

 sought its overthrow. Still, Mr. Greeley loved 

 peace, and when he saw, or thought he saw, 

 an opportunity to terminate the long and 

 bloody strife, he was swift to try to improve 

 it. When the war was over, he retained no 

 malice, but sought fairly and openly, and 

 against much bitter hostility, the pacification 

 and restoration of the whole country. His 

 consenting to be one of the bondsmen of Jef- 

 ferson Davis was at the time a very unpopular 

 act, and undoubtedly cost him the senatorship 

 (a position which he had long desired, from 

 honorable motives), but it was done from the 

 belief that it was right, and without a moment's 

 hesitation. "With each year, however, he had 

 become more impatient of partisan dictation, 

 more convinced of the corruption which was 

 permeating all parties, and was not probably 

 sorry for the opportunity (without any per- 

 sonal motive in the beginning) to bolt from 

 those partisan leaders, under whose whip and 

 spur he had long been restive. That he ex- 

 pected the Cincinnati nomination (however 

 much he might have desired it), is hardly prob- 

 able; that, having received it, there was but 

 one course for him to pursue the one he did 

 pursue must be obvious to every candid man. 

 The canvass was one of exceptional bitterness, 

 even ferocity in some quarters, but his own 

 part in it was characterized by dignity, ability, 

 and a measure of courtesy as undeserved as it 

 was unexpected, even by his friends. Its sad 

 ending is a painful commentary on the frailty 

 of human life; the sickness and death of his 

 wife, the latter event occurring but a week 

 before the election ; his withdrawal from the 

 canvass in September, to watch by her dying 

 bed; his deep grief; the greatness of his de- 

 feat ; the struggle of the overwearied, over- 

 tasked brain to still go on with its weary round 

 of duties ; the wreck of a noble intellect; the 



death scene, the hastening of even his bitterest 

 foes to do honor to the dead these are all 

 matters of record. The sad fact remains that, 

 whatever may have been his qualifications or 

 want of qualifications for the presidency, the 

 presidential canvass caused us the loss of the 

 most active journalist of the day. His traits 

 of personal character are best described in the 

 words of one whose intimate associations with 

 him for years amply qualified him to speak of 

 them: 



The character of Mr. Greeley has been held too 

 long in a conspicuous light before the public to re- 

 quire any formal or elaborate analysis in this place. 

 No American citizen was probably known to a 

 greater number of persons. Although the recipient 

 of few public offices, his life was, emphatically, a 

 public one. One of the common people, by birth 

 and education, himself, he lived with the people, 

 and before the people. One of his greatest delights 

 was in popular discussion. He never shrunk from ar- 

 gument, and loved to measure the minds of other 

 men with his own. He had no concealment, no dis- 

 guises, no subterfuges; he carried his heart upon 

 his lips ; his thoughts and feelings must have vent ; 

 and so transparent was his nature, that, in the utter- 

 ance of his convictions, he did not always pay suffi- 

 cient court to the conventional proprieties of time 

 and place. He was a man of wide, if not intimate, 

 companionship. He was at home in the society of a 

 great variety of minds. No diversities of culture, 

 or taste, or even of opinion, impaired the cordiality 

 of his friendships. His closest ties were often with 

 men whose pursuits he did not share, whose princi- 

 ples he did not adopt, whose habits of thought, per- 

 haps, he did not even fully comprehend, but over 

 whom he exerted a powerful attraction, by the subtle 

 magnetism of his character. His own sympathies 

 were rather with the great masses of humanity, than 

 with the peculiar traits that constitute the essence 

 of personality. He was more apt to look at men in 

 the light of effective forces, grouping them according 

 to their respective energies, than to study the ex- 

 pression of the inner and individual qualities which 

 distinguish them from one another. He habitually 

 asked what a person could do, rather than what he 

 was, estimating the mn less by his intrinsic being 

 than his incidental activity. His own power of ac- 

 complishment was wonderful. No weight of re- 

 sponsibility, or magnitude of service, was ever felt 

 as a burden. He never hesitated to do the work of 

 two men with his single hand, nor to crowd the work 

 of two days into one. Always he appeared insensi- 

 ble to weariness, without the consciousness of satiety 

 in labor, or exhaustion of force. If, at times, he 

 needed change, he never showed the need of rest. 

 The variety of his undertakings was as remarkable 

 as the promptness of his performance. He seldom, 

 if ever, failed to keep an appointment, or to justify 

 a promise. 



Mr. Greeley combined a singular hospitality to 

 new ideas with a profound attachment to conserva- 

 tive principles. He had no passion for innovation. 

 He sought no change for the sake of change. He 

 clung tenaciously to an opinion which he had once 

 adopted, and rarely surrendered in his manhood a 

 conviction of his youth. Both his religious and 

 political creeds were formed at an early age, and no 

 essential principle of either was renounced in after- 

 life. Though generally regarded as a radical think- 

 er, he had no tendency to revolutionary or destruc- 

 tive measures. Extremes of opinion, or of practice, 

 found no favor in his eyes. He cherished a whole- 

 some distrust of the fantastic love of novelty which 

 makes no account of ancient landmarks, or of an- 

 cient prejudices. However glittering the promisea 

 of the future, he firmly held his anchorage in the 



