44 MR. geeeley's kesponsb. 



whicli the North cherished, our terrible Civil War might have 

 been averted. But such was not our privilege. There was no 

 time while Slavery was dominant in the South that any represen- 

 tative Northern man could have ti-aversed the South, and there 

 boldly and openly asserted the convictions of the North. Never ! 

 I recollect distinctly that, in that eventful winter of 1860-61, the 

 correspondents of Tlie Tribune, whom we were obliged to keep tra- 

 versing the South, were uniformly compelled to conceal their 

 business and to deny their views. Brave and true men they were ; 

 but they would have been torn to pieces as if by wolves if they had 

 been known as Tribune correspondents. They dared not address 

 their letters to 71ie Tribune office ; they had to address them to 

 private individuals in different parts of the City, in order that we 

 might receive them. So, during that momentous winter, I was, for 

 the first time, invited to deliver a lecture in the border city of St. 

 Louis, where there was already a rising Republican party. When 

 I had arrived say within 100 miles of St. Louis — when I was at 

 Springfield, 111. — I was met by a telegram from leading Republicans 

 in St. Louis, advising me not to come ; my invitation was virtually 

 withdrawn, and I was compelled to retui'n to the North. I was 

 not exjiected to say one word in St. Louis concerning politics. I 

 was j ourneying there at the invitation of a literary society to deliver 

 a literaiy lecture ; yet, since now it is said that at that time The 

 Tribune was aiding and inciting the Southern Secession, it may well 

 be remembered that its editor was turned back from a border cit}' 

 of the South, simply because it was proposed to have him deliver 

 a literary lecture before a literary society. I wish it had been 

 otherwise, and that we could have saved the half million of true 

 and brave men whose lives have since been sacrificed, because the 

 North and South failed to understand each other. 



Fellow-citizens, two months ago, I, for the first time, received a for- 

 mal and commanding invitation to visit the extreme South -Western 

 State of our common country. I at first declined peremptorily, believ- 

 ing it impossible for me to spare time to make the journey requii-ed. 

 But friends gathered around me ; invitation upon invitation poured 

 m ; and finally leading men of our City — capitalists wlio were wisely 

 and nobly investing their money in large sums to open up Texas to 

 the world and bring her into free and untrammeled intercourse with 

 the North — these, too, insisted that I should go. They said, " By all 

 means go down to Texas, for in so doing you may render the whole 



