Greeley, Horace

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Horace Greeley

Born February 3, 1811
Amherst, New Hampshire

Died November 29, 1872
New York, New York

Newspaper publisher and editor, writer, and presidential candidate

"I am weary of fighting over issues that ought to be dead—that logically were dead years ago. When slavery died, I thought that we ought speedily to have ended all that grew out of it by universal amnesty and impartial suffrage."

An influential newspaper publisher and writer, Horace Greeley was a significant public figure for reform from the 1840s to the early 1870s and was affectionately called "Uncle Horace" by admiring readers. He was a leading proponent for abolition (end of slavery) through the Civil War years, supported programs for the poor and working class, and sought to improve society through pacifism (nonviolence) and cooperation. During the Reconstruction era (1865–77), Greeley rallied for civil rights legislation and favored policies of reconciliation toward former members of the Confederacy. The latter view distanced Greeley from many Northern Republicans still bitter over the Civil War (1861–65). Greeley had been a Republican since the party was founded in the mid-1850s, but he ran for president as a Democrat in 1872. That year proved tragic for Greeley: He was heavily criticized during the presidential campaign, endured the death of his wife, lost a landslide election, and lost control of the famous newspaper he had founded over thirty years earlier. Greeley died a broken man less than a month after the 1872 election.

New York, New York

Horace Greeley was born in Amherst, New Hampshire, on February 3, 1811. He was the third child of Zaccheus Greeley and Mary Woodburn. The family was poor and Greeley had little education, but he was encouraged to learn to read by his mother. At the age of fourteen, Greeley was apprenticed to Amos Bliss, editor of the Northern Spectator in Vermont. (An apprentice learns a trade by assisting a skilled craftsperson.) Greeley learned how to set print for periodicals (magazines, newspapers, and journals). When the Northern Spectator ceased publication in 1830, Greeley stayed with his parents for a short while and briefly worked with printers in the area but found little opportunity in small towns of the northeast.

With about $25 in savings and his possessions tied together with a piece of cloth, Greeley set out for New York City at age twenty in 1831. After several weeks, he found a job printing an edition of the New Testament of the Bible. While working on various other printing jobs, Greeley regularly read periodicals for news and to learn how news was reported. He had saved enough money by early 1833, before he turned twenty-two, to take on printing jobs with a partner, Jonas Winchester. The duo also produced two periodicals, Sylvester's Bank Note and Exchange Manual and the Constitutionalist, both of which combined information on winning lottery numbers with assorted news items.

In March 1834, Greeley and Winchester founded a weekly literary and news journal called the New Yorker. (This was not the same publication as the modern day New Yorker magazine, which was founded during the 1920s.) The journal contained some original contributions by Greeley and other writers as well as reprinted stories, fiction, reviews, and transcripts of notes from musical compositions from American and foreign newspapers. While Greeley struggled to make a success of the New Yorker, his personal life took a happy turn when he met Mary Youngs Cheney, an independent-minded social activist and schoolteacher. They married on July 5, 1836, and would have seven children. However, only two of the children lived into adulthood. The emotional pain of losing so many children contributed to Mary Greeley's increasing isolation and mental and physical ailments.

Success with political writings

To earn extra money, Greeley began writing political articles for the Daily Whig and other newspapers. He was a member of the Whig Party, which began in the 1830s and lasted to the 1850s. Most Whigs were against slavery and were more socially reform-minded than their rivals in the Democratic Party. Greeley's political writings and his editorial skills drew the attention of New York's Whig leaders, Thurlow Weed (1797–1882) and William H. Seward (1801–1872). Greeley was picked by them to edit a weekly magazine, the Jeffersonian, through which the Whig Party communicated its views to a national audience. Periodicals were the major form of mass media in the United States during the nineteenth century. The Jeffersonian ran for one year as a general information magazine and supporter of Whig views.

Preparing for the 1840 presidential campaign, Whig leaders selected Greeley to edit and publish the Log Cabin. Immensely popular, the Log Cabin reached a circulation of almost one hundred thousand subscribers. Greeley became a public figure through his work on the periodical and was invited to make speeches, sit on committees, and help manage the Whig campaign in New York.

Seeing an opportunity for an inexpensive daily newspaper that represented the views of the Whig Party, Greeley merged the New Yorker and the Log Cabin and combined his own money and a loan to launch the New York Tribune in April 1841. The political activism of the Tribune brought quick attention and sales, and it was soon established as the best New York City newspaper at a time when more than twelve daily papers were published.

When Greeley took on a partner, Thomas McElrath (1807–1888), to concentrate on production efficiency, he was freed to focus on writing and shaping the editorial views of the Tribune. The paper became known for accurate and lively presentation of news, literary reviews and stories, and for Greeley's progressive views on civil, political, and economic equality. Greeley wrote editorials supporting free distribution of government lands on the frontier to settlers; attacking government land grants to railroads; opposing capital punishment; demanding abolition; and supporting labor unions (in 1850, Greeley became the first president of the New York Printers' Union). The paper opposed the Mexican-American War (1846–48), viewing it as an offensive action against another country that was intended to expand the United States and spread slavery further.

Public figure

Greeley began traveling widely during the 1850s as a popular speaker and voice at political conferences. After serving briefly as a U.S. representative from New York—he was selected to fill a vacant seat from December 4, 1848, to March 3, 1849—Greeley toured Europe in 1851 and spoke before the English parliament. In 1853, he purchased a fifty-four acre farm in Chappaqua, New York. He spent weekends there and wrote articles on his experiences with farming.

By the mid-1850s, a national version of the New York Tribune, called the Weekly Tribune, was launched. It quickly became a leading national newspaper. The abolitionist movement was growing stronger and the Tribune helped represent it as the nation grew divisive over slavery. Greeley advocated resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which permitted slave owners to pursue fugitive slaves into nonslave states. Greeley joined the Republican Party when it was formed in 1854. The new party appealed to antislavery Whigs and Democrats. He attended the national organization meeting in 1856 when, for the first time, Republicans nominated a presidential candidate, explorer John C. Frémont (1813–1890).

The Media Changes Political Campaigns

The Log Cabin, edited and published by Horace Greeley, was significant because it helped change the nature of presidential campaigns in the United States. In its one-year existence during the 1840 presidential race, the magazine helped make songs and slogans part of presidential campaigns, alongside issues and speeches. The title of the magazine reflected the Whig Party's portrayal of its candidate, William Henry Harrison (1773–1841; served 1841), as a farmer who lived in a log cabin and drank apple cider. This folksy image was meant to appeal to common people and contrast with that of Harrison's opponent, President Martin Van Buren (1782–1862; served 1837–1841), who was portrayed as an urban political sophisticate and wine drinker, out of touch with the common voter.

During this period, Greeley published books drawn from his newspaper writings on political issues and his travels. His books included Hints Toward Reforms (1850), Glances at Europe (1851), and An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco in the Summer of 1859 (1860). Greeley also editedHistory of the Struggle for Slavery Extension or Restriction in the United States (1856). As a political candidate, Greeley was far less successful: He failed in attempts for Congress in 1850, lieutenant governor of New York in 1854, and the U.S. Senate in 1861 and 1863. He later failed as a candidate for the House of Representatives in 1868 and 1870. Still, Greeley was a respected and popular public figure, beloved to admirers as "Uncle Horace" and seen as somewhat comical to his opponents. Caricatures (exaggerated cartoon drawings) of Greeley appeared frequently, showing the beard that grew around his throat and his habit of wearing a broad-brimmed hat and disheveled clothes.

During the Civil War years, Greeley found difficulty balancing his pacifist views with political activism. While momentum grew strong among abolitionists for viewing the Civil War as a moral cause, Greeley continued advocating peaceful resolution, even though political solutions to end slavery had failed for decades. He challenged President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65) for not immediately emancipating slaves. In 1863, he advocated that the Union and Confederacy should present their cases before an international mediator (someone without bias who settles disputes), and he worked to begin peace negotiations. He did not support reelection of Lincoln as president in 1864 until two months before the election. Greeley had wanted immediate abolishment of slavery, while Lincoln took more gradual steps that would lead to a constitutional amendment that banned slavery.

Controversial Reconstruction figure

Following the Civil War, Greeley supported passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 (which granted citizenship to all the people born in the United States) and the Fifteenth Amendment (which mandated that voting rights were not to be denied due to race). He advocated reconciliation of the Union, an end to antagonism between the North and South, and amnesty (a free pardon) toward former soldiers of the Confederacy. Greeley was personally involved in the release of Jefferson Davis (1808–1889; see Confederate Leaders entry), who had served as president of the Confederacy. Outraged Northerners, who wanted to punish participants in the Confederacy, reacted bitterly to Greeley: The New York Tribune lost almost half of its subscribers, and many book buyers cancelled orders for Greeley's two-volume history, The American Conflict (1868), which recounts the causes, incidents, and results of the Civil War and opinions on slavery since 1776.

Greeley's Power with Words

As an editorial and feature writer for one of the nation's most popular newspapers of the nineteenth century, Horace Greeley attracted the attention of many readers. Among them was the president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Since periodicals were the dominant form of mass media at the time, they carried tremendous influence. On August 19, 1862, Greeley wrote an open letter to Lincoln in the New York Tribune titled "The Prayer of Twenty Million." In his letter, Greeley demanded that Lincoln commit himself definitely to emancipation (freedom from slavery). Lincoln's reply was published several days later, addressed "to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right." In the famous reply, Lincoln explained to the large readership of the Tribune that his sole purpose for the Civil War was to preserve the Union. He hoped that slavery would end, but as president his main responsibility was to ensure the United States remained intact.

Another example of Greeley's public power is reflected in the saying he is most associated with—"Go west, young man." The saying was intended to inspire young men to settle in the western frontier where they would find opportunity, independence, and success through self-reliance. The phrase actually dated back to an Indiana newspaper writer, John Soule, in 1851, but when Greeley repeated it over a decade later, it became popular and remained associated with him.

Greeley supported the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson (1808–1875; served 1865–69; see entry) in 1868, referring to him in an editorial as "an aching tooth in the national jaw" for Johnson's refusal to sign civil rights legislation. Greeley supported Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885; served 1869–77; see entry) in his successful run for the presidency in 1868. By 1870, however, Greeley dropped his support for Grant because Greeley believed presidents should only serve one term and because he disagreed with some of Grant's actions as president. Greeley was concerned that Grant had appointed too many government workers as a way of returning political favors, was against Grant's efforts to annex (claim as U.S. territory) Santo Domingo, and believed some of Grant's policies were harsh towards the South.

In an editorial in a May 1871 edition of the New York Tribune, Greeley officially opposed Grant's bid for reelection. He became increasingly distanced from the most powerful members of the Republican Party, which included the president and a group of congressmen responsible for most of the legislation that became law during the Reconstruction era.

Greeley became part of a faction (small group) within the Republican Party that challenged the president and the most powerful congressmen. In March 1872, the members of the faction, called the Liberal Republicans, broke with the Republican Party and nominated Greeley as their candidate for president. The Liberal Republicans formed a coalition with Democrats to support an opponent to Grant in the 1872 campaign. By the time Democrats met in Cincinnati, Ohio, in May 1872 to plan their national convention, Greeley had some support to become the party's presidential nominee. The Democratic national convention held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in July 1872 was divided on several candidates. Many party regulars disliked Greeley because he had supported Republican policies for years. When Greeley won the nomination after hotly contested voting, many Democrats left the convention with no intention of supporting Greeley.

Honors for Greeley

The town of Greeley, Colorado, a planned community, was named in honor of Horace Greeley. Another example of Greeley's lasting influence is the Horace Greeley Award, presented by the New England Press Association in honor of Greeley, "one of the greatest and most dedicated journalists in the history of American journalism."

The presidential campaign of 1872 was among the uglier campaigns in American history. Republicans attacked Greeley as a traitor, and he was not treated with seriousness and respect by many major newspapers and commentators. Influential political cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840–1902) regularly lampooned (ridiculed) Greeley.

Emotionally drained by heavy criticism and a long campaign tour, Greeley returned home a few weeks before the election to care for his dying wife. He had little sleep as he sat by her bedside. Mary Greeley died on October 30, 1872. A week later, Greeley was soundly defeated in his bid for the presidency, winning only six states and losing in the electoral college, 286 to 66. When he returned to the office of the Tribune later in November, Greeley discovered that daily operations and editorial responsibilities had been permanently taken over by others.

Greeley soon suffered a mental breakdown and was hospitalized. His health declined rapidly and he died on November 29, 1872. Greeley's funeral, held in New York City on December 4, was attended by President Grant and members of his administration as well as a huge number of supporters.