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GREELEY, HORACE (1811-187z)
Online EncyclopediaOriginally appearing in Volume
V12,
Page 533
of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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See also: GREELEY, See also:HORACE (1811-187z) , See also:American statesman and See also:man of letters, was See also:born at See also:Amherst, New See also:Hampshire, on the 3rd of See also:February 1811. His parents were of Scottish-Irish descent, but the ancestors of both had been in New See also:England for several generations. He was the third of seven See also:children. His See also:father, Zaccheus Greeley, owned a See also:farm of 50 acres of stony, sterile See also:land, from which a See also:bare support was wrung. Horace was a feeble and precocious lad, taking little See also:interest in the See also:ordinary See also:sports of childhood, learning to read before he was able to talk plainly, and the See also:prodigy of the neighbourhood for accurate spelling. Before Horace was ten years old (1820), his father became bankrupt, his See also:home was sold by the See also:sheriff, and Zaccheus Greeley himself fled the See also:state to See also:escape See also:arrest for See also:debt. The See also:family soon removed to See also:West Haven, See also:Vermont, where, all working together, they made a scanty living as See also:day labourers. Horace from childhood desired to be a printer, and, when barely eleven years old, tried to be taken as an apprentice in an See also:office at See also:Whitehall, New See also:York, but was rejected on See also:account of his youth. After three years more with the family as a day labourer at West Haven, he succeeded, with his father's consent, in being apprenticed in the office of The See also:Northern Spectator, at See also:East Poultney, Vermont. Here he soon became a See also:good workman, See also:developed a See also:passion for politics and especially for See also:political See also:statistics, came to be depended upon for more or less of the editing of the See also:paper, and was a figure in the See also:village debating society. He received only $40 a See also:year, but he sent most of his See also:money to his father. In See also:June 1830 The Northern Spectator was suspended.Meantime his father had removed to a small See also: tract of See also:wild land in the dense forests of Western See also:Pennsylvania, 30 M. from See also:Erie. The released apprentice now visited his parents, and worked for a little See also:time with them on the farm, meanwhile seeking employment in various See also:printing offices, and, when he got it, giving nearly all his earnings to his father. At last, with no further prospect of See also:work nearer home, he started for New York. He travelled on See also:foot and by See also:canal-See also:boat, entering New York in See also:August 1831, with all his clothes in a bundle carried over his back with a stick, and with but $10 in his See also:pocket. More than See also:half of this sum was exhausted while he made vain efforts to find employment. Many refused to employ him, in the belief that he was a runaway apprentice, and his poor, See also:ill-fitting See also:apparel and rustic look were everywhere greatly against him. At last he found work on a 32m0 New Testament, set in See also:agate, See also:double columns, with a See also:middle See also:column of notes in See also:pearl. It was so difficult and so poorly paid that other printers had all abandoned it. He barely succeeded in making enough to pay his See also:board See also:bill, but he finished the task, and thus found subsequent employment easier to get. In See also:January 1833 Greeley formed a See also:partnership with See also:Francis V. See also:Story, a See also:fellow-workman. Their combined See also:capital amounted to about $150.Procuring their type on See also: credit, they opened a small office, and undertook the printing of the See also:Morning See also:Post, the first cheap paper published in New York. Its projector, Dr Horatio D. Shepard, meant to sell it for one cent, but under the arguments of Greeley he was persuaded to See also:fix the See also:price at two cents. The paper failed in less than three See also:weeks, the printers losing only $50 or $6o by the experiment. They still had a See also:Bank See also:Note Reporter to See also:print, and soon got the printing of a tri-weekly paper, the Constitutionalist, the See also:organ of some lottery dealers. Within six months Story was drowned, but his See also:brother-in-See also:law, See also:Jonas See also:Winchester, took his See also:place in the See also:firm. Greeley was now asked by See also:
The second year ended with 7000 subscribers and a further loss of $2000. By the end of the third year The New Yorker had reached a circulation of 9500 copies, and had sustained a See also: total loss of $7000. It was published seven years (until the 20th of See also:September 1841), and was never profitable, but it was widely popular, and it gave Greeley, who was its See also:sole editor, much prominence. On the 5th of See also:July 1836 Greeley married See also:Miss See also:Mary Y. Cheney, a See also:Connecticut school teacher, whom he had met in a Grahamite (vegetarian) boarding-See also:house in New York. During the publication of The New Yorker he added to the scanty income which the See also:job printing brought him by supplying editorials to the See also:short-lived Daily Whig and various other publications. In 1838 he had gained such See also:standing as a writer that he was selected by See also:Thurlow See also:Weed, See also:
On the 3rd of See also: April 1841, Greeley announced that on the following Saturday (April loth) he would begin the publication of a daily newspaper of the same See also:general principles, to be called The Tribune. He was now entirely without money. From a See also:personal friend, James Coggeshall, he borrowed $1000, on which capital and the editor's reputation The Tribune was founded. It began with 500 subscribers. The first week's expenses were $525 and the receipts $92. By the end of the See also:fourth week it had run up a circulation of 6000, and by the seventh reached 11,000, which was then the full capacity of its See also:press. It was alert, cheerful and aggressive, was greatly helped by the attacks of See also:rival papers, and promised success almost from the start. From this time Greeley was popularly identified with The Tribune, and its See also:share in the public discussion of the time is his See also:history. It soon became moderately prosperous, and his assured income should have placed him beyond pecuniary worry. His income was See also:long above $15,000 per year, frequently as much as $35,000 or more. But he lacked business See also:thrift, inherited a disposition to endorse for his See also:friends, and was often unable to distinguish between deserving applicants for aid and adventurers. He was thus frequently straitened, and, as his necessities pressed, he sold successive interests in his newspaper.At the outset he owned the whole of it. When it was already firmly established (in July A4T), he took in See also:
After May 1845 a semi-weekly edition was also printed, which ultimately reached a steady circulation of from 15,000 to 25,000. From the outset it was a See also: cardinal principle with Greeley to hear all sides, and to extend a See also:special hospitality to new ideas. In March 1842 The Tribune began to give one column daily to a discussion of the doctrines of See also:
Co-operation among working men he continued to urge throughout his See also: life. In 1850 the Fox Sisters, on his wife's invitation, spent several weeks in his house. His attitude towards their "rappings" and "spiritual manifestations" was one of observation and inquiry; and in his Recollections he wrote concerning these manifestations: " That some of them are the result of juggle, See also:collusion or See also:trick I am confident; that others are not, I decidedly believe." From boyhood he had believed in a protective tariff, and throughout his active life he was its most trenchant advocate and propagandist. Besides constantly urging it in the columns of The Tribune, he appeared as See also:early as 1843 in a public debate on " The Grounds of See also:Protection," with See also:Samuel J. See also:Tilden and Parke See also:Godwin as his opponents. A See also:series of popular essays on the subject were published over his own See also:signature in The Tribune in 1869, and subsequently republished in book form, with a See also:title-See also:page describing protection to home See also:industry as a See also:system of See also:national co-operation for the elevation of labour. He opposed woman See also:suffrage on the ground that the See also:majority of See also:women did not want it and never would, and declared that until woman should " emancipate herself from the thraldom to See also:etiquette," he " could not see how the ` woman's rights theory ' is ever to be anything more than a logically defensible See also:abstraction." He aided See also:practical efforts, however, for extending the See also:sphere of woman's employments. He opposed the theatres, and for a time refused to publish their advertisements. He held the most rigid views on the sanctity of See also:marriage and against easy See also:divorce, and vehemently defended them in controversies with See also:Robert See also:Dale See also:Owen and others. He practised and pertinaciously advocated total See also:abstinence from spirituous liquors, but did not regard prohibitory See also:laws as always See also:wise. He denounced the repudiation of state debts or the failure to pay interest on them. He was zealous for .Irish See also:repeal, once held a place in the " See also:Directory of the Friends of See also:Ireland," and contributed liberally to its support.He used the occasion of' Charles See also: Dickens's first visit to See also:America to urge See also:international See also:copyright, and was one of the few. editors to avoid alike the flunkeyism with which Dickens was first received, and the ferocity with which he was assailed after the publication of his American Notes. On the occasion of Dickens's second visit to America, Greeley presided at the great banquet given him by the press of the See also:country. He made the first elaborate reportsof popular scientific lectures by See also:
Greeley's political activity, first as a Whig, and then as one of the founders of the Republican party, was incessant; but he held few offices. In 1848-1849 he served a three months' See also: term in See also:Congress, filling a vacancy. He introduced the first bill for giving small tracts of See also:government land free to actual settlers, and published an exposure of abuses in the See also:allowance of mileage to members, which corrected the evil, but brought him much personal obloquy. In the National Republican See also:Convention in 186o, not being sent by the Republicans of his own state on account of his opposition to William Seward as a See also:candidate, he was made a delegate for Oregon. His active hostility to Seward did much to prevent the success of that statesman, and to bring about instead the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. This was attributed by his opponents to personal motives, and a See also:letter from Greeley to Seward, the publication of which he challenged, was produced, to show that in his struggling days he had been wounded at Seward's failure to offer him office. In 1861 he was a candidate for See also:United States senator, his See also:principal opponent being William M. See also:Evarts. When it was clear that Evarts could not be elected, his supporters threw their votes for a third candidate, Ira See also:Harris, who was thus chosen over Greeley by a small majority. At the outbreak of the war he favoured allowing the Southern states to secede, provided a majority of their people at a See also:fair election should so decide, declaring " that he hoped never to live in a See also:Republic whereof one See also:section was pinned to the other by bayonets." When the war began he urged the most vigorous See also:prosecution of it. The " On to See also:Richmond " appeal, which appeared day after day in The Tribune, was incorrectly attributed to him, and it did not wholly meet his approval; but after the defeat in the first See also:battle of See also:Bull Run he was widely blamed for it. In 1864 he urged negotiations for See also:peace with representatives of the Southern Confederacy in See also:Canada, and was sent by President Lincoln to confer with them.They were found to have no sufficient authority. In 1864 he was one of the Lincoln Presidential See also: electors for New York. At the See also:close of the war, contrary to the general feeling of his party, he urged universal See also:amnesty and impartial suffrage as the basis of reconstruction. In 1867 his friends again wished to elect him to the See also:Senate of the United and urging the repeal of the See also:stamp duty on advertisements. In 1855 he made a second trip to See also:Europe. In See also:Paris he was arrested on the suit of a sculptor, whose statue had been injured in the New York World's Fair (of which he had been a director), and spent two days in See also:Clichy, of which he gave an amusing account. In 1859 he visited See also:California by the overland route, and had numerous public receptions. In 1871 he visited See also:Texas, and his trip through the southern country, where he had once been so hated, was an See also:ovation. About 1852 he See also:purchased a farm at Chappaqua, New York, where he afterwards habitually spent his Saturdays, and experimented in See also:agriculture. He was in See also:constant demand as a lecturer from 1843, when he made his first See also:appearance on the See also:platform, always See also:drew large audiences, and, in spite of his See also:bad management in money matters, received considerable sums, sometimes $600o or $7000 for a single See also:winter's lecturing. He was also much sought for as a contributor, over his own signature, to the weekly See also:newspapers, and was sometimes largely paid for these articles. In religious faith he was from boyhood a Universalist, and for many years was a conspicuous member of the leading Universalist See also:
His published See also: works are: Hints Toward Reforms (1850); Glances at Europe (1851); History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension (1856); Overland See also:Journey to See also:San Francisco (1860); The American Conflict (2 vols., 1864—1866); Recollections of a Busy Life. (1868; new edition, with appendix containing an account of his later years, his See also:argument with Robert Dale Owen on Marriage and Divorce, and Miscellanies, 1873); Essays on Political See also:Economy (1870); and What. I know of Farming (1871). He also assisted his brother-in-law, See also:
He was dissatisfied with General See also:
The only states Greeley carried were See also: Georgia, See also:Kentucky, See also:Maryland, Missouri, See also:Tennessee and Texas. He had resigned his editorship of The Tribune immediately after the nomination; he now resumed it cheerfully; but it was soon apparent that his See also:powers had been overstrained. For years he had suffered greatly from sleeplessness. During the intense excitement of the campaign the difficulty was increased. Returning from his campaign tour, he went immediately to the bedside of his dying wife, and for some weeks had practically no See also:sleep at all. This resulted in an inflammation of the upper membrane of the See also:brain, See also:delirium and See also:death. He expired on the 29th of See also:November 1872. His funeral was a See also:simple but impressive public See also:pageant. The See also:body See also:lay in state in the See also:City See also:
" Our later See also:
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