The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-10


twenty votes. As the result proved, his cal
oulation was accurate, for the subsequent cleo
tion of delegates only confirmed his statements.
And he did not hesitate to say, if beaten by
anybody, he thought Grant ought to do 1t. TO
be beaten by Mcclellan he never considered in
the range of possibilities. Our self-suficient
critic thinks Horace Greeley, according to
Seward. "a great man, so full of genius aud
power that if he had common sense he would be
dangerous" Well, we had thought when the
Seward-Johnson reactionary convention was
planned, at which one Doolittle was floor
manager, that the philosopher of the Tribune
was little dangerous Still, we may be mis-
taken. But If our recollection is accurate, the
first man to expose the dangerous character of
that coalition which trihed with, while IL pan
dered to the South, only to bind the North to
the chariot-wheels of a policy which was ami
mated only by selishness, and had no aim but
power, the first man who really led the people
against the imperial power of Presidential
patronage ,ods Horace Greeley. And yet-and
yet-our shadow of shade, whose inspiration
comes not from the friends but from the enc
mics of the country, thinks Horace Greeley, if
he had common sense, ''would be dangerous 10
Oh, sensible, magnanimous, and self-apprecia-
tive criticism Oh, 'the pity of it, Iago,"
that the world should grope in darkness so
long, ignorant of thy identity, hiding still
nnder the shadow of thy own impersonality
While United States Senators were busy
with their little fears about collectors and
assessors, Horace Greeley was the first and
bTavest man to expose the base and wicked
meanness which sought to Sind in new, and
stronger, and more lasting bonds, 1000, 600 of
the helpless, and yield them blind, bleeding,
and hopeless, after 200 years of bondage, to
their masters, whose tenderest mercy breathed
cruelty, oppression, and crime.
Common sense ~ If we are not mistaken
~. I,,e.A
which sees, in the poets language, that the
'individual withers, but the State is more and
more;" that any one mans aspirations and
personal aims are nothing-less than the dust
in the balance-as compared with the good of
the milliOns-the striving to make them hap
pier for our having lived in the world. There
is wisdom, as well as wit, in Garrick's pro-
logue, which says that serious reflection on
| the evils in the world insensibly leads man
towards religion or politics, else he runs mad!
Mr.. Greeley is remarkable for his intel
| leotual conscientiousness. Many men are
| morally honest few men have intellectual in
tegrity. Mr. Seward said New York had no
leader after the Constitutional amendment
became part of the Congressional plan of re-
construction. New York found leader, and
| when, by almost unanimous consent the Sena-
torship was accorded to him, with the popular
and tacit understanding that Horace Greeley
| would give up half his platform, universal
| amnesty" he not only refused the moral
bribe, but grimly refused even to be silent on
that question. Show me another example
He lost the Senatorial purple but he gained
in the hearts of the people; for if man
plants himself indomitably on the right, the
| great world will sooner or later swing around
to him. Horace Greeley has made Presidents
| and unmade them.
His Tribune has made half our public mer
"great," but he, unselfsh, never "giving up Il
| party what was meant for mankind, " has gone
steadily onward, scarcely ever being in Office
if we may except his half term in Congress
and his election as delegate at large to tn
Constitutional Convention of New York.
No man has ever said more bitter things, o.
true, against Andrew Johnson than the philo
sopher of the Tribune and yet Andrew johnson
sends his name to the Senate as Minister t.
Austria, knowing well that he cannot swerv,
him hairs breadth from the line of principle
Mr.. Greeley is not without personal vanity
and not without ambition. Who is ? Wha
manly ring has his letter dissolving the ole
partnership of Seward, Weed, and Greeley
selfrespect could no longer permit him to b,
the servant of such a man as Thurlow Weed
He said so, and it was a noble thing to say
1t when he did ard as he did. The writer tC
whom we have so often referred, not because
of the merit of the article, but because of Mr.
Greeley's unselfsh devotion to principle, de-
| mandeu Lnat some one, Ot his own free will
and accord, should make some answer, how.
ever imperfect and fragmentary, to the animus
of the magazine sketch. The writer thinks
Mr. Greeley "a great man and great fool, or,
to adopt mild euphemism, a great ohild.''
(NeaV Jersey Magazine.)
Napoleon's definition Of great man was
that man who did great things. And the de-
feat alone of the Seward Johnson plan Of
restoration, backed, as it was pretended to be,
by the great name of Abraham Lincoln, stamps
Mr.. Greeley's name with greatness forever,
and his fame will grow brighter and brighter
as he nears the perfect day. 1t is the heart
that makes the soldier; and all philosophy
teaches us that the intellect, when true to the
line, acts through the sensibilities.
We can count on the fingers of either hand
the public men in America whom power never
warped. Horace Greeley, to his eternal honor
be it said, is one of the five righteous, and
like Abou Ben Adhem, his ''name leads all the
rest" If we made exceptions, they would be
in favor of Stevens and Sumner, Garrison and
Phillips.
Horace Greeley never abandons a principle
-he never went back on friend. That he is
not undertood he we'll knows, and has said So
when addressing his friends as ''narrow-
minded blockheads," " who meant to serve the
country but did not know how. And the act
for which he has been most severely oensured
was done from the loftiest and purest motives,
and after consultation with the great men in
whom we all trust, but who have not yet been
generous enough to share the blame which the
populace are ready always, upon the slightest
provocation, to shower upon their prophets,
CRYING one day HHosanna - and the next daY