Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1910-09-30
HORACE GREELEY AND
THE 1856 CONVENTION

Near the sleepy little New England VII
lage Of Amherst. n. H., stands an Oh.
weather-beaten farm house, gulitless OF
paint and as destitute of ornament as
Melchizedek OF relations,
There Horace Greeley was porn IN lsll'
Those hills he roamcd, gathered apples
In the old sidelinR orchard-obtained the
rudlments OF education at the cross-roaos
| observation-disclosures the magnificent elm
| still standing across the narrow road from
his fathers home and generally led the
life OF u farmer lad ian New hampshire at
that day-or at this day, for that matter.
by the roadside lies a toneboat-which
looks as though II may have been IN use
a hundred years ago, and seems good Tor
another hundred
But IF young Horace ever used IL In
getting boulders for those tremendous
stone field walls, he could not say with the
Vermont farmer who in building such a
fence left a cavity. and put for future use
this inscription upon a great rock round
er hv centuries OF glacial grinding:
| Here lies the body OF Solomon Eloldup,
Whose hands did cause these stone TO roll
up,
! And when the Lord shall call his soul up,
His body is designed to iii this hole up.
Young Greeley was designed to ill a
much larger place In the world.
He was charged with apOstasy when in
1872 he allowed the liberal and democratic
parties to put MIN in nomination for the
presidency. Possibly II was Il mistake, but
it was of the head, not the heart. Men did
not thcn and do not now appreciate the
boundiess bcncvolence and trustfulness of
Horace GreeIey's character. To the last
flicker OF his mind he was true as steel
TO the principles put forth by the New
Yorker" in 1S34-by the Log Cabin
which made his name famous In 1s40, in
connection with the campaign Of General
Harrison-and from 1s41 Onward by the
great New York Tribune. Horace Greeley
was one of the sturdy organizers of the
republican party and rocked its cradle at
the convention o. ISJ6.
A Memorable Gathering.
That gathering, whose s~emi-centennial
Philadelphia observed In June, 1906, was
In character and significance the most
memorable assembly the country has seen
since the days of Washington,
Mr.. Greeley was there representing his
Tribune" but he was much more THAI
a gatherer OF news-even then he was a
great political power, a creator of public
opinion.
In his "Recoliections of a Busy Life, .
speaking 0t the future of the Tribune
after his death. he expresses q hope that
1t may nave a more unerring sasacity
TO discern the right"
This was the very feature that dis
tinguished Mr.. Greeley. an almost super
natural 'sagacity to discern the right
He was so far In advance OF most of his
contemporaries that they lost sight of
him-cenld not understand him. To carry
he people with him he had to educate
them up to his great ideas, n grandly
did he do 1t. He was ever the steadfast
friend and helper of the oppressed. When
In congress, he introduced the law upon
which all our benevolent u. S. homestead
expansion is built.
His ~outspoken ideas OF justice to all, his
determined opposition to the extension of
slavery, his desire to let the south so, I'm
the belief that they would soon come back
without war, his vigorous upholding OF the
government when wan was declared, his
broad-minded ~magnanimity in the recon
struction period, mark him as a safe and
sane leader OF men.
Mr.. Greeley was built after the model
of William Wilberforce. who, laughed TO
scorn at his first introduction OF his bill
for the abolition OF slavery, was In no
way disconnected, but entered at once up
on a twenty-year stretch of forming and
educating English opinion, and though he
died before the full fruition of his hopes,
yet when England paid s1OO.0 900, 900 for
emancipation, ii was said that Wilberforce
went up to God bearing in his hands the
broken shackles of 100000 slaves" The
history can never be written of how Gree
ley. In the Tribune and upon the plat
form, moulded the opinions of men and
created the great republican party.
The nominee of the convention OF 1856,
job c. Fremont, was defeated, but the
party started upon a high plane. and the
Pathfinder polled the astounding vote of
i 800, coo. as against Mr.. Buchanan's $780,
600. This In spite OF the solid South
and ~Buchanan's personal popularity in the
north. We must remember, too, tina the
north was by no means educated in re-
publican principles. II was only five years
since Daniel Webster-the first statesman
of the north and a New Hampshire man
had fathered the fugitive slave law. which
made every man in the country an en-
forced slave-catcher should his services
be required.
Ahead OF Their Time.
Only a few years had passed since that
sanity a VIM. Lloyd Garrison, whose
picture, without knowing whose 1t was.
Harriet Martineau bought in a London
print shon. for the reason that 1T indi-
Gated the purest character she could i'm
ag,ne, had been dragged through the
streets of Boston with a rope about his
neck. because he had declared against
brutality shown to a black man. Mr..
Buchanan, too, was one OF the finest
gentlemen diving, and 1t may be always
remembered to his credit that he died a
bachelor. When he was a struggling
young lawyer he and DIR. Muhlenburg. of
gracious memory, were engaged to two
sisters, but the father OF the girls. a
purse-proud parvenu who owned an iron
mountain. would not allow his daughters
to marry these unknown Young men. All
four lived to be old and died faithful and
single.
1t must not be forgotten that though