Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-06-02
COL. BLANTON DUNCAN AND NIB.
GREELEY.

lowing caro- In the LOUISVILLE COHtef-JOUf-
nal:
As You have published an article from
the UNION AND AMERICAN, give you the
information that the date was misprinted.
You will find it correctly given Gin the Lou
isville Commercial of May 26, 1929, as Nov.
26, 1861.
The extract has been published for weeks
in hundreds of papers, and has not been
denied. 1t would be simply a bubble to
say that it did not appear in 1860, as there
was no war then, and the context shows the
fact of its publication during the war.
BLANTON DUNCAN.
May 80, 1872.
Col. Duncan does not profess to have
copied the extract upon which he comment
ed in his letter in the Louisville Ledger,
from the files of the Tribune, but found it
floating about in the newspapers. Our file
of the Tribune does not extend to Nov.
%, 1861, and consequently we cannot
verify or contradict the extract assumed to
have been published in that days issue.
But we are skeptical as to its having ap-
peared in the editorial columns of the Tri-
bune, because its spirit is so different from
that which Characterised the course Of Mr..
Greeley shortly before and after tie date
on which it is assumed to have been pub
lished. The extract in question (purport-
ing to be from the Tribune of Nov.
20, 1861 is as follows:
Therefore shall we initiate the South no
more in war than in peace. When
the rebelliOus traitors are overwhelmed in
the field, and scattered like leaves before an
angry wind, it must not be to return to
r1saceful and contented homes. They must
lind poverty at their firesides, and see priva-
- in the anxious eyes of mothers and the
rags of children"
The New York Times of May 10 publish
es a number of extracts from the New York
Tribune, from which we reproduce the fol-
lowing:
From the Tribune Of 23d of February 1851, five
DAYS after the Inauguration" Of jeff Davis.
ave have repeatedly said, and we once
more insist, that the great principle en-
bodied by Jefferson in the Declaration OF
American Independence, that Governments
of the governed, is sound and Just; and that
if the slave States, the cotton States, or
the Gulf States, only choose to form an in
dependent nation, they hare clear moral
yfGbt 10 do so. We have said, and still
maintain, that provided the cotton States
have fully and definitely made up their
minds to 90 by themselves, there IS no need
of foIating about 1t for they have only to
exercise reasonable patience, and they will
be let of in peace and good will. Wheneoer
70 shall be clear that the great body of the
Southern people haze become CORcluSiUeLy
ciieaated from the Union, and anxious to
escape from Il, ne lCU do our best TO for
tUdrd their Uielos."
In a letter to 81. McChesney, of Troy,
n. p, dated September %, 1868, and pub
Iishad in the New York TGb1rne of the
Goth Of the same month, Horace Greeley,
speaking Of the right Of secession, thus de-
clared himself:
HBut / stu insist that, if it had been
proved that the people Of the slave States
or even of the cotton States alOne-had
resIly desired to dissolve the Union, and
ha6 pea, eff tlly,deiibtr ltely I'd authorize iVes
Nv Expressed that wish, 10e should have assem-
led TO Il, At all events l should"
We submit these extracts as throwinga
yerydecided doubt GU the commences of the
extract given by Col. Duncan. or if such
publication did appear in the Trj-
bnpe of the date mentioned by Col. Dun
can, that il was probably inserted without
the sanction or knowledge of Mr.. Greeley,
as the extracts we have given show his gen.
nine sentiments both before and after that
date