The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1852-06-02
A Portrait of Horace Greeley.

In the Unit. an able scientific journal
published in New York, we find the
following picture of Horace Greeley:
Mr. Greeley has no constitutional APP
probation of truth. He is not morally
imprcssiblc. He does not feel Truth, |
and then use his intellect as mere in
strument to sustain it, to prove it to
those who require Intellectual proof and
to corroborate his own Moral Apprecia-
tions. He cannot distinguish between
Right and Wrong without using the In
tellect, which is his highest Guide-his
highest primary cause of action.-Def |
cient in ConscientiOusness and Firmness, |
his Ideality and Hope consorting with !
the Intellect-the latter perverted into
mere Intellectual and Animal Antici-
patton His spiritual Faculty inactive
-dozing-he is just as likely to take a
false position as true one and Self
Esteem or conceit, rather, being the larg
est organ in the group of viii, the best
part of his life is spent in repelling the
assaults made on his motives-in ex-
planning and defining his positions, which
he cannot do very satisfactorily be-
cause he has no purpose.
Mr. Greeley is as often dissatisfied
with the position his organization forces
him into as his opponents arc ; but once
having taken them his conceit makes
him defend them He loves and hates
his works at the same time-loves them
because they are his own, and hates them
because they are no bctter-because he
has no unitdry purpose to accomplish
by them, and because he is obliged to
defend them, which he cannot help doing
as long as he continues to place SO high
an estimate on his intellcct-so little on
the power of God This sclf-estecm or
conceit in Mr. Greeley is mistaken by
some for Firmness, in which he is quite
deficient Mr.. Greeley is dodger.-
Dodgers are artful, not firm If Mr..
Greeley had irmness he would not be
running from one extreme to the other
and changing his plans.
\ man deficient i'll religion and con-
scientiousness can have no fixed purpose.
. Do right and leave the rest to God"
is not Mr. Greeleys motto. The Tri-
bune and the Tariff first God and the
Right next"
When Mr. Greeley does seek the
truth, he looks for it in the wrong way
through his intellect, instead of through
God directly
But Mr. Greeley is not honest as II
reformer Land Reform, Temperance
Association, Anti Hanging, and Anti
Slavery must be all sacrificed for the
party" and the party" must be sacri-
feed for the IribuRe. When it is his
interest to help on a reformation he sees
it, and does help it on-"judiciously';"
and he shouts so loudly, when victory
is gained that reformers often think him
the prime mover in the matter, rather
than an interested and polite auxiliary.
lie is a reformer in the intellectual sense
of the word lie is not sincere, ear
nest, devoted particular reformer. Mon
ey he cares little about-little about
plans He looks with interest on the
particular workings of plan, only in as
far as it supports an idea. He looks for
facts to corroborate ideas, rather than
for ideas to corroborate facts
Mr. Greeley's "judicious" silence on
some points contributed, in great meas
ure, to spread abroad an idea that he is
honest or rather, to limit a knowledge
; of his dishonesty. If a Locofoco Presi-
dent had signed the Fugitive Slave Bill,
Webster's "quarto" would have been ex-
hausted in abusing him. Every bad act
of his life-oftcn exaggerated-would
have been recorded. The man would
have been stamped a hell-hound before
the world But Mr. Greeley has "every
confidence in the present Administra-
ton"
Reforners are evidently much mista-
ken in his character He has neither
purpose nor plan-of his own. A man
that is deficient in Conscientiousness and
Firmness can have no purpose Mr..
Greeley, therefore, adopts the views of
others; but, having no fixed standard,
by which to Judge them, he absorbs the
highest and the lowest, with equal avid
ity, if, in his opinion, they serve his i'm
mediate (he has no other) wants A
mong others, he often seizes moral ideas,
but he receives them intellectually, and
treats them with Difference proportion
ate to their immediate usefulness, rather
than to their positive rank He is often
about equally supplied, in his intellectual
contests, with the weapons of both
Heaven and He'll 1t would be difficult
for Mr. Greeley to decide whom to thank,
after having gained a victory-God or
the devil