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Selected American history
The Life of Abraham Lincoln
By Henry Ketcham
CHAPTER XXX.
LINCOLN AND GREELEY.
Much of the mischief of the world is the work of people who mean well.
Not the least of the annoyances thrust on Lincoln came from people who
ought to have known better. The fact that such mischief-makers are
complacent, as if they were doing what was brilliant, and useful, adds
to the vexation.
One of the most prominent citizens of the United States at the time of
the civil war was Horace Greeley. He was a man of ardent convictions,
of unimpeachable honesty, and an editorial writer of the first rank. He
did a vast amount of good. He also did a vast amount of mischief which
may be considered to offset a part of the good he accomplished.
His intellectual ability made it impossible for him to be anywhere a
nonentity. He was always prominent. His paper, the New York Tribune,
was in many respects the ablest newspaper of the day. Large numbers of
intelligent republicans took the utterances of the Tribune as gospel
truth.
It is not safe for any man to have an excess of influence. It is not
surprising that the wide influence which Greeley acquired made him
egotistic. He apparently came to believe that he had a mortgage on the
republican party, and through that upon the country. His editorial
became dictatorial. He looked upon Lincoln as a protege of his own who
required direction. This he was willing to give,--mildly but firmly.
All this was true of many other good men and good republicans. But it
was emphatically true of Greeley.
If there is anything worse than a military man who plumes himself upon
his statesmanship, it is the civilian who affects to understand
military matters better than the generals, the war department, and the
commander-in-chief. This was Greeley. He placed his military policy in
the form of a war-cry,--"On to Richmond!"--at the head of his editorial
page, and with a pen of marvelous power rung the changes on it.
This is but one sample of the man's proneness to interfere in other
matters. With all the infallibility of an editor he was ever ready to
tell what the President ought to do as a sensible and patriotic man.
He would have saved the country by electing Douglas, by permitting
peaceable secession, by persuading the French ambassador to intervene,
by conference and argument with the Confederate emissaries, and by
assuming personal control of the administration. At a later date he
went so far as to propose to force Lincoln's resignation. He did not
seem to realize that Lincoln could be most effective if allowed to do
his work in his own way. He did not grasp the truth that he could be of
the highest value to the administration only as he helped and
encouraged, and that his obstructions operated only to diminish the
efficiency of the government. If Greeley had put the same degree of
force into encouraging the administration that he put into hindering
its work, he would have merited the gratitude of his generation.
He was singularly lacking in the willingness to do this, or in the
ability to recognize its importance. Like hundreds of others he
persisted in expounding the duties of the executive, but his
patronizing advice was more harmful in proportion to the incisiveness
of his literary ability. This impertinence of Greeley's criticism
reached its climax in an open letter to Lincoln. This letter is, in
part, quoted here. It shows something of the unspeakable annoyances
that were thrust upon the already overburdened President, from those
who ought to have delighted in holding up his hands, those of whom
better things might have been expected. The reply shows the patience
with which Lincoln received these criticisms. It further shows the
skill with which he could meet the famous editor on his own ground; for
he also could wield a trenchant pen.
Greeley's letter is very long and it is not necessary to give it in
full. But the headings, which are given below, are quite sufficient to
show that the brilliant editor dipped his pen in gall in order that he
might add bitterness to the man whose life was already filled to the
brim with the bitter sorrows, trials, and disappointments of a
distracted nation. The letter is published on the editorial page of the
New York Tribune of August 20, 1862.
"THE PRAYER OF TWENTY MILLIONS:
"To ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States:
"DEAR SIR: I do not intrude to tell you--for you must know already--
that a great proportion of those who triumphed in your election, and
of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the Rebellion now
desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by
the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of the
Rebels. I write only to set succinctly and unmistakably before you
what we require, what we think we have a right to expect, and of what
we complain.
"I. We require of you, as the first servant of the Republic, charged
especially and preeminently with this duty, that you EXECUTE THE
LAWS...."
"II. We think you are strangely and disastrously remiss in the
discharge of your official and imperative duty with regard to the
emancipating provisions of the new Confiscation Act...."
"III. We think you are unduly influenced by the counsels, the
representations, the menaces, of certain fossil politicians hailing
from the Border States...."
"IV. We think the timid counsels of such a crisis calculated to prove
perilous and probably disastrous...."
"V. We complain that the Union cause has suffered and is now suffering
immensely, from mistaken deference to Rebel Slavery. Had you, Sir, in
your Inaugural Address, unmistakably given notice that, in case the
Rebellion already commenced were persisted in, and your efforts to
preserve the Union and enforce the laws should be resisted by armed
force, you would recognize no loyal person as rightfully held in
Slavery by a traitor, we believe that the Rebellion would have
received a staggering, if not fatal blow...."
"VI. We complain that the Confiscation Act which you approved is
habitually disregarded by your Generals, and that no word of rebuke for
them from you has yet reached the public ear...."
"VII. Let me call your attention to the recent tragedy in New Orleans,
whereof the facts are obtained entirely through Pro-Slavery
channels...."
"VIII. On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one
disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union Cause who
does not feel that all attempts to put down the Rebellion and at the
same time uphold its inciting cause are preposterous and futile--that
the Rebellion, if crushed out to-morrow, would be renewed within a year
if Slavery were left in full vigor--that the army of officers who
remain to this day devoted to Slavery can at best be but half way loyal
to the Union--and that every hour of deference to Slavery is an hour of
added and deepened peril to the Union...."
"IX. I close as I began with the statement that what an immense
majority of the Loyal Millions of your countrymen require of you is a
frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws of the
land, more especially of the Confiscation Act.... As one of the
millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any sacrifice
but that of Principle and Honor, but who now feel that the triumph of
the Union is indispensable not only to the existence of our country,
but to the well-being of mankind, I entreat you to render a hearty and
unequivocal obedience to the law of the land."
"Yours,"
"HORACE GREELEY."
"NEW YORK, August 19, 1862."
Those who are familiar with the eccentricities of this able editor will
not be slow to believe that, had Lincoln, previous to the writing of
that letter, done the very things he called for, Greeley would not
improbably, have been among the first to attack him with his caustic
criticism. Lincoln was not ignorant of this. But he seized this
opportunity to address a far wider constituency than that represented
in the subscription list of the Tribune. His reply was published
in the Washington Star. He puts the matter so temperately and
plainly that the most obtuse could not fail to see the reasonableness
of it. As to Greeley, we do not hear from him again, and may assume
that he was silenced if not convinced. The reply was as follows:
"EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 22, 1862.
"HON. HORACE GREBLEY,
"DEAR SIR: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself
through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements,
or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now
and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may
believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against
them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone,
I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always
supposed to be right. As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you
say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the
Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The
sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union
will be 'the Union as it was.' If there be those who would not save the
Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree
with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they
could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My
paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not
either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without
freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the
slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and
leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and
the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union:
and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to
save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am
doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe
doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when
shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall
appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my
view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft expressed
personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."
"Yours,
A. LINCOLN."
Not the least interesting fact connected with this subject is that at
this very time Lincoln had the Emancipation Proclamation in mind. But
not even the exasperating teasing that is fairly represented by
Greeley's letter caused him to put forth that proclamation prematurely.
It is no slight mark of greatness that he was able under so great
pressure to bide his time.
This was not the last of Greeley's efforts to control the President or
run the machine. In 1864 he was earnestly opposed to his renomination
but finally submitted to the inevitable.
In July of that year, 1864, two prominent Confederates, Clay of
Alabama, and Thompson of Mississippi, managed to use Greeley for their
purposes. They communicated with him from Canada, professing to have
authority to arrange for terms of peace, and they asked for a safe-
conduct to Washington. Greeley fell into the trap but Lincoln did not.
There is little doubt that their real scheme was to foment discontent
and secure division throughout the North on the eve of the presidential
election. Lincoln wrote to Greeley as follows:
"If you can find any person, anywhere, professing to have authority
from Jefferson Davis, in writing, embracing the restoration of the
Union and the abandonment of slavery, whatever else it embraces, say to
him that he may come to me with you."
Under date of July 18, he wrote the following:
"To whom it may concern:"
"Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity
of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by
and with an authority that can control the armies now at war with the
United States, will be received and considered by the Executive
government of the United States, and will be met on liberal terms on
substantial and collateral points; and the bearer or bearers thereof
shall have safe-conduct both ways."
"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."
Greeley met these "commissioners" at Niagara, but it turned out that
they had no authority whatever from the Confederate government. The
whole affair was therefore a mere fiasco. But Greeley, who had been
completely duped, was full of wrath, and persistently misrepresented,
not to say maligned, the President. According to Noah Brooks, the
President said of the affair:
"Well, it's hardly fair to say that this won't amount to anything. It
will shut up Greeley, and satisfy the people who are clamoring for
peace. That's something, anyhow." The President was too hopeful. It did
not accomplish quite that, for Greeley was very persistent; but it did
prevent a serious division of the North.
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