Year: 1867

wished said rather than what they needed to
be told. never before realized so vivldly the
aseness OF the editorial vocation according TO
the vulgar conception of IT, The din raised
about my ears now is nothing to that then en-
duTed an ana . desPised: am Inundated 6y the
insects to annoy me, even bv pretending to dis
cover with surprise something that have for
years been publicly. .emphatically proclaim1ng.


must hurry over much that deserves a para
graph to call your attention distinctly to occur
rences in November last Upon the Repuh-
licans having, by desperate effort, handsomely
carried our State against formidable looking
com mbina:ion ofrecent and venomous apostates
with our natural adversaries a cry arose from
several quarters that 1 ought TO be chosen
United States Senator. At once kind, discreet
keep still about Universal Amnesty, and your
election is certain. Just be quiet a few weeks
You have no occasion to speak now" 1
slept on the well-meant suggestion, and deli
berately concluded that | could not, in Justice
to myself defer to 1t. could not purchase
Office even by passive negative dlssimulatiOn
No man should be enabled to say TO me, in
your rejected, condemned amnesty hobby, l
would not have given you my vote" So
wrote and published, on the 9th of that month,
my manifesto entitled "The True Bases of Re-
construction" wherein. repellng the idea that
proposed a dicker with the ex-Rebels, ex-
plicity said:-


IT am for Universal Amnesty-so far as immunity
from fear of punshment or coniscatlon is concerned
sent be defeated dtd think II desirable that Jefer
son Davis should be arTaigned and tried for treason





been been done many months ago But LILY IL WaS G not 3 done
evil than good 1t would reklnde passions that have
nearly burned out or been huAhed to sleeps It would
arrest the progress of reconciliation :and kindly feel.
larger Indirectly; and-unless the jury were scanda-
lousy packtd-it would result in non.agreement or
served by such a trial; andGRoidng Davis neither
better nor worse than several others-would have
him treated as they are"


Is it conceivable that men who can read, and
who were made aware of this declaration-for
OF MIR. Fessendens condemnation of my views
at the Club, two or three evenings thereafter
can now pretend that my aiding TO have Davis
bailed is something novel and unexpected?


-Gentlemen, 1 shall not attend your meeting
this evening. l have an engagement out of
town, and shall keepit. do not recognize you
ing me. You evidently regard me as a weak
sentimentalist, misled by maudlin philoso-
ply. arraign you as narrow-m nded block
heads, who would like to be useful to a great
and good cause, but don't know how. Your
attempt to base great, enduring party on the
hate and wrath necessarily engendered by q
bloody civil war is as though you should plant
q colony on an iceberg which had somehow
drifted into tropical ocean. l tell you here
that, out of a life earnestly devoted to the good
OF human kind, your children will select my
going TO Richmond and signing that bail bond
for freedom and humanity than all of you were
competent to do, though you had lived to the


/ ask nothing of you, then, but that you pro.
ceed to your end by direct, frank, manly way.
DOu' Slule OH lulO Hlllu GeSOluJlOn OF
but move the expulsion which you purposed,
and which deserve If deserve any reproach
whatever All care for is, that you make this
q square, stand-up fight, and record your judg-
ment by yeas and nays. l care not how few
vote with me, nor how many vote against me-;
for know the latter will repent 1t in dust and
ashes before three years have passed. Under
stand, once for all, that dare you and defy you,
and thatI 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 my enemy; from the
hour in which he laid down his arms, he was
my form erly erring countryman. So long as any
is at heart opposed to the National unity, the
Federal authority, or to that assertion of the
equal rights of all men which has become prac-
tically identified with loyalty and nationality,
1 shall do my best to deprive him of power but,
whenever he ceases to be thus, l demand his
restoration to all the privileges of American
citizenship. give you fair notice that shall
urge the eenfranchisement of those now pro-
scribed for rebellion soon as shall feel con-
hdent that this course is consistent with the
freedom of the blacl ks and the unity of the
republic, and that shall demand a recall of all
now in exile only for participating in the Rebel
lion, 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
somewhat better than you have done, remain,


Yours, HORACE GREELEY,


New York, May %, 1867