The Portland daily press., 1872-06-19
TERMS $500 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE.

thousand volunteers. That act he thought
i, uimlse and unfortunate, but as it was com
hhdeu ana could not be reeeded from his ad-
VICE 70 tne PRESIDENT was to make as the
next best thing, only single effort with that
army, ana II that effort was unsuccessful then
terms he could with the South.
Mr.. Lincoln did not, we hardly need saw
even entertain such counsel as this. which
whatever may have been its motive. was
counsel for which none but rebels could Ia,
grateful. But private effort with the Presi-
dent having thus failed, Mr.. Greeley thereaf
ter made his appeals to the public under the
signature of his own initials in his own paper
lie urged settlement at any cost OF honor,
with all the zeal of Colorado Jewett, and in
intimate, almost fraternal labors with that
remarkable patriot; he proposed that four
hundred millions of dollars should be paid to
the shareholders as the price of their slaves,
and as an inducement to them to give up the
war; and falling in these efforts, as he had in
others, TO patch up peace and DESTROY con-
hdence in Mr.. Lincon's administration, he
endeavored to inveigle the President into a
conference with such creatures as George
Sanders and others, pretending TO represent
the rebels at Niagara, by which they hoped
to gain time and embarrass the government.
1t did not increase Mr.. Greeley's complacen-
cy, which in those times was so often and so
fudely shaken, nor check the deep hostility
which he felt toward Mr.. Lincoln, that these
famous efforts at peaee-making only covered
its author with ridicule Then, at another
time, he was actively interested in the elder
Blalrs attempt to patch up peace on the
Potomac; and at another put himself in cor
respondence with the French Minister at
Washington, who hoped to induce his master,
the Emperor Napoleon, to intercede between
the United States and the Confederacy, and
10 Dring about the recognition of the latter,
ostensibly on the plea ofhumanity, but with
out regard to the fate of four millions of ne
groes, whose special champion Mr.. Greeley Is
now said to have been.
Through the whole of the war, in short,
from the firing upon Sumter to the capture
OF Richmond, the efforts and the influence of
Mr.. Greeley were exercised virtually on be-
half OF the rebels, inasmuch as they were
constant and unwearied to bring the war to
an end, no matter at what cost of honor or
OF territory. This he was ready to do at any
moment at the instigation Of the northern
friends of the rebels, while he never went
near MIR. Lincoln to give him one word of
comfort or of cheer, to offer to sustain him
before the people, or to hold up the weary
hands OF the man on whose firmness and
Judgment depended such tremendous issues.
And, finally, when the war was over, when
differences OF opinion among ourselves, at
least, should have been forgotten and forgiv-
en-. in view of the magnificent result of I'm
ion preserved and slavery abolished, the vim
dictiveness of Mr.. Greeley against Presi-
dent who had scorned his advice that he
might save his country, was still cherished as
virtue. In "The American Conflict,"-a
book which some of our readers may remem-
Der as written by Mr.. Greeley, though con-
sisting OF two large volumes and meant to be
an exhaustive history of the war, the name of
Abraham Lincoln never appears except as it
was absolutely necessary to use it in its of
ficial relations. III the student of history a
hundred years hence should resort to that
work-if such case is supposable-for infor-
nation in regard to the war, he would never
gather from it that the President had any
thing to do with its successful termination;
that the people then and posterity forever
owed it to him more than to any other man
that Freedom had not veed her face in sor-
row, and Civilization had not turned her
footsteps backward in the re-establishment
OF personal servitude and the triumph of po-
ltical despotism.
Perhaps it is too much to expect of Mr.
Greeley's advocates that they shall be truth
ful. But at least we advise them not to make
themselves any more ridiculous than, in the
nature OF the case, is absolutely necessary.