Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-05-29

removed because Of his notorious lean
ings toward clemency, in order TO make
way for successor who would give the
rebels full measure Of stern just ce.
II was soon made to comprehend that
! had no sympathizers, or none who
dared seem such, in yoar crowded as
semblage, and some maladroit admlrer
having q few days afterward made the
club present Of my portrait, its bare
reception was resisted, in a speech from
the chair by your then President-a
speech whose vigorous invective was
justified solely by my pleadings for
clemency TO the rebels. At once q con-
centrated howl Of fdenunciation and rage
was sent up from every side against me
by the little creatures whom God, for
some inscrutable purpose, permits to
edit majority of our minor journals,
echoed by yell of Stop my paper,
from thousands Of imperfectly instructed
readers of the Tribune One impudent
puppy wrote me to answer categoricslly
whether / was or was not in favor of
hanging jeff. Davis, adding | must stop
his paper if | were not. Scores volun-
teered assurances that / was defying
public opinion that most Of my readers
were against me, as if could be in
duced to write what they wished said,
rather than what they needed to be told.
never before realized so vividly the
business of the editorial vocation, &C
cording to the vulgar conception Of it.
The din raised about my ears now is
nothing to what then endured and de-
spised. | am humiliated by the rehee-
ton that it is or was in the power of such
insects to annoy me, even by pretending
to discover with surprise something that
/ have for years been publicly and en-
phatieally proclaiming.
The following is the conclusion Of the
letter:
GEETLEMEN-I shall not attend your
meeting this evening. | have an en-
gagement out of town, and shall keep it,
| do not recognize you as capable OF
judging or even fully apprehending me.
You evidently regard me as weak
sentimentalist, misled by maudlin phi
losophy arraign you as narrow-mind-
ed blockheads, who would like to be use-
full to a great and good cause, but don't
know how Your attempt TO base great
and enduring party on the hate and
wrath necessarily engendered by bloody
civil war, is as though you should plant
colony on an iceberg which had some
how drifted inte tropical ocean. | tell
you here, that out of life constantly
devoted to the good of human kind, your
children will select my going to Rich.
mond and signing that bail-bond as the
w..sest act, and will feel that it did more
for freedom and humanity than all of you
were competent to do, though you had
lived to the age of Methuselah.
II ask nothing of you, then, but that
you proceed to your end by direct,
frank, manly way. Don't slide off into
a mild resolution of censure, Lut move
the expulsion which you purposed, and
which / deserve if i deserve any re-
proach whatever. All l care for is this,
that you make this square stand-up
fight and record your judgments by yeas
and nays. | care not how few vote with
me, or how many vote against me, for
know that the latter will repent in dust
and ashes before three years have
passed. Understand, once for ALL that |
dare you, and defy you, and that l pro
pose to fight it out on the line that /
have held from the day of Lees surren-
der. So long as any man was seeking to
overthrow our Government he was my
enemy; from the hour in which he laid
down his arms he was my formerly
erring countryman. So long as any is
at heart opposed to the national unity,
the Federal authority, or. to the asser-
ton Of the equal rights of all men,
which has become practically identified
with loyalty and nationality, l shall do
my best to deprive him of power; but
whenever he ceases to be thus, / demand
his restoration to all the privileges of
American citizenship.
II giveyou fair notice that | shall urge
the re enfranchisement of those now pro-
scribed for rebellion, so soon as shall
feel confident that this course is consist
ent with the freedom Of the blacks and
the unity of the Republic; aud that /
shall demand recall of all now in exile
only for participating in the rebellion,
whenever the country shall have been so
thoroughly paciGed that It's safety will
not thereby be endangered. And so,
gentleman, hoping that you will hence
forth comprehend me somewhat better
than you have done, | remain,
"Yours, HORACE GREELEY"