Year: 1872

The charge made by the opposition press
that Greeley is not a rnan of firmness is cas-
lily refuted by the following extracts from his
letter to the Union League Club, when that
organization was about to expe him for going
on jeff. Davis bonds:


By these Presents Greeting-To Messrs.
George w. Blunt, John A. Kennedy, Johu
0. Stone, Stephen Hyatt, and thirty other
members of the Union League Club:


Gentlemen i was favored on the 18th
instant by an official note from our ever cour-
teous President, John Jay, notifying me that
a requisiiion had been presented to him for
ga special meeting of the club, at an early
day, for the purpose of taking into consider
alton the conduct of Greeley, a member OF
this club, who has become a bondsman for
Jefferson Davis, late chief officer ofHhe Retel
Government.


Gentlemen, shall not attend your meet
ing this evening. | have an engagement
out of town, and | shall keep it. | do not
recognize you as capable of Judging, or even
fully appreciatng me. You evidently re-
gard me as weak sentmentaist, misled by
a maudlin philosophy.


| arragn you as narrowminded block
heads, who would like to be useful to great
and good cause, but don't know how. Your
attempt to base great enduring party on
the hate and wrath necessarily engendered
by bloody civil war is as though YOU
should plant a colony on an iceberg which
has somehow drifted into a tropical ocean
| tell you here that, out Of life earnestly
devoted to the good Of human kind, your
children will select my going to Richmond and
signing that bond as the wisest act, and will
feel that it did more for freedom and human
ity than all of you We're competent to do,
though you had lived to the age of Methu-
selah.


ask nothing of you, then, but that you
proceed to your end by a direct, frank
and manly way. Don't slide off into mild
resolution of censure, but move the expu-
sion which you proposed, and which | de-
serve if deserve any reproach whatever
All care for s, that you make this square
stand up tight, and record your Judgment by
ayes and nays. care not how few vote
with me; for know the latter will repent it
in dust and ashes before three years have
passed. Understand, once for all, that
dare you and defy you, that ] propose to
fight it out on the line that have held since
the days of Lees surrender So long as any
man was seeking to overthrow our Govern
ment he was my enemy; from the hour in
which he threw dowu his arms he was my
formerly erring countryman.


So long as any is at heart opposed to the
national unity, the Federal authority, or to
that assertion to the equal rights of all men
which has become practically identified with
loyalty and nationality, | shall do my best
to deprive him of power; but when he ceases
to be thus, | demand his restoration to all
privileges Of American citizenship. give
you fair notice that shall urge the rcfran-
chisement of those now prescribed for rebel
lion SO soon as shall feel confident 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 only for participating in the rebellion
whenever the country shall have become so
thoroughly paciied 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.
Il.