The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1867-05-31
Horace Greeley-His Letter to the New
York Union League.


York Union League.
The New York Tribune Of Friday last
contains letter from GREELEY to the New
York Union League. In political sense
it is one of the raciest and most remarka-
BILE productions of the day. The extracts
we have annexed embrace its pith. Going
back two years, GREELEY refers to the as
sassination of President LINCOLN as almost
appalling calamity, that seemed in an in
slant to curdle all the milk of human kind
ness in twenty millions of American breasts"
and then goes on to say:
ssAt once irsidious efforts were set on foot
to turn the fury thus engendered against
me, because of my pertinacieus advocacy of
mercy to the vanquished. CHANGING to en-
ter the club house, the next Saturday even
ing, [ received full broadside of your
scowls, ere we listened to clerical har-
angue intended to prove that Mr. Lincoln
had been providentially removed because of
his notorious leanings towards clemency, in
order to make way for a successor who
would give the rebels full measure of stern
justice. / was soon made to comprehend
that had no sympathizers, Or none who
dared seem such, in your crowded assem-
blage, and some maladriot admirer having
few days afterward made the club pres
ent of my portrait, its bare reception was
resisted in speech from the chair by your
then president-a speech whose vigorous in
vective was justified solely by my pleadings
for clemency to the rebels. At once con-
certed howl of denunciation and rage was
sent up from every side against me by the
little creatures whom God, for some inscru-
table purpose, permits to edit majority of
our minor journals, echoed by yell of
stop my paper" from thousands of
imperfectly instructed readers OF the 1ri-
Janc. One impudent puppy wrote me to
answer ategorically whether [ was or was
not in favor of hanging JEFF. Davis, adding
that must stop his paper if were not.
Scores volunteered assurances that | was
defying public opinion that most of my
readers were against me, as it L could be
induced to write what they wished said,
rather than what they needed to be told |
never before realized so wildly the base
ness Of the editorial vocation according to
the vulgar conception of it. The din raised
about my ears now is nothing to what
then endured and despised am humiiia-
ted by the reflection that it is or was in the
power of such insects to annoy me, even by
pretending to discover with surprise some
thing that have for years been publicly
and elnphatically proclaming."
The following is the conclusion of the
letter
"Gentlemen, shaifnot attend your meet
ing this evening. | have an engagement
out of town, and shall keep it. | do not
recognize you as capable of judging or even
fully comprehending me. You evidently
regard me as weak sentimentalist mis-
lead by maudin philosophy. | arraign
you as narrow minded block heads, who
would like to be useful to great and good
cause, bnt don't know how. Your attem pt
to base great enduring party on the hate
and wrath necessarily engenderd by a
bloody civil war is as though you should
plant colony on an iceberg which had
somehow driited into tropical ocean, |
tell you here that, out of life constantly
devoted to the good of human kind, your
children will select my going to Richmond
and signing the bail bond as the wisest act,
and will feel that it did more for freedom
and humanity than all of you were compe-
tent to do, though you had lived to the age of
Methuselah | ask nothing of you, then
but that you proceeded to your end by a
direct frank, manly way. Don't slide of
into mild resolution Of censure, but move
the expulsion which you proposed, and
which | deserve, if | deserve any reproach
whatever All | care for is, that you may
make this square, stand-up fight and re-
cord 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 fol-
all, that [ dare you and defy you, and that
[ propose to fight it out on the line that |
have held from the day Of Lees surrender
So.long as any man was seeking to overthrow
our government, he was an 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 t(
the assertion of equal rights of all men
which has become practically Unidentified
with loyalty and nationality, [ shall dc
my best to deprive them of power; but
whenever he ceases to be thus, [ demand
his restoration to all the privileges of Amer
lean citizenship. | give you a fair notice
that shall [ urge the e-enfranchisemen'
of those now prescribed for rebellion, as
shall feel confident that this course is con
sistcnt with the freedom of the blacks ant
the unity of the republic; and that | shall
demand recall OF. all now in exile only fo
participating in the rebellion, wheneve
the country shall have been so thoroughl
pacifed that its safety will not thereby b
engendered.
The letter cowed the League, and it j
furthermore likely to produce marked i'm
preston upon republicans generally.
! THE CATHOLIC WoRLD.-The Jun
/ L.. .<.H4 L. IL :.