Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1872-06-28
HORACE GREELEY.
The Davis R;sil-BOnd.

Extracts from Mr.. Greeley's letter
to the club in which it was proposed
to censure him for signing Mr.. Davis
bail bond:
From the n. Y Tribune, May IS, 1867.
By these Present, Grceting-TO McsSrS
Geo. ". Blunt, John Il. Kennedy.
John o. Stone, Stephen Hyatt and
thirty others, members Of the Union
League Cu6:
Gentlemen Il was favored on the
10Th instant by an official note from
our ever-courteous President, John
jay, notifying me that requisition
had been presented to him for "spe-
cial meeting of the club at an early
day, for the purpose of taking into
consideration the conduct of Horace
Greeley, O member of the club, who
has become bOndsman for Jefferson
Davis late chief Of the rebel govern
ment."
\
GentIenlen-I shall not attend your
meeting this evening. have an en-
gagement out of town, and shall keep
it. do not recognize you rs capable
of judging, or even fully experimenting
me. You evidently regard me as a
weak sentimentalist, misled by q
mauldin philosophy.
ARRAIGN YOU AS NARROW-MINDED
BLOCK-HEADS,
who would like to be usefuld to a great
and good cause, but don't know how.
Your attempt to base a great, enduring
party on the hate and wrath neceSsari-
ly engendered by bloody civil war
is as though you should plant colony
on the iceberg which had somehow
drifted into Il tropical ocean. | tell
you here that, out of q life earnestly
devoted to the good of human kind,
your children will select my going to
Richmond and signing that bail-bOnd
as the wisest 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 Me
thuselah.
/ ask nothing of you, then, but that
you proceed to your end by direct,
frank, manly way. Don't slide off
into mild resolution of censure, but
move the expulsion which you pro-
posed, and which l deserve, if / de-
serve any reproach whatever. All |
care for is, that you make this Il square
stand up fight, and record your judg-
mcnt by yeas and nays. | care not
how few vote with me, nor how many
vote against me; for l know that the
latter will repent it in dust and ashes
before three years have passed away.
Understand, once for all, that dare
you and defy you, and that propose
to fight it out Oh the line that | have
held from the day of Lees surrender.
So long as any man was seeking to
overthrow our government he was my
enemy; from the hour in which he
laid down Iris arms he was
MY FORMERLY ERRING COUNTRYMAN.
So long as any one is at heart OPP
posed to the national unity, the feder-
al authority, or TO the assertion of the
equal rights of all men, which has be-
come practically identified with loyal
ty and nationality, 1 shall do my best
to deprive him of power; but whenev-
er he ceases to be thus, demand his
restoration to all the privileges of
American citizenship. l give you fair
notice that | shall urge the re-enfran-
chisement of those now prescribed for
rebellion so soon as shall feel conf
dent that this course is consistent with
the freedom of the blacks and the
unity of the republic, and that shall
demand recall of all now in exile on
ly for participating in the rebellion
whenever the country shall have been
so thoroughly pacified that its safety
will not thereby be endangered.
And so. gentlemen, hoping that you
will henceforth comprehend me some
what better than you have done,
i remain, Yours,
HORACE GREELEY.
Ne'U York, Afdy %, 1867.