John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[111] In all this the Tribune gradually rose in favor, and whatever may be said of its views on this or that subject, no one can turn over its pages in the ponderous volumes of the public library without coming to the conclusion that they constitute an interesting epitome of the country's daily history. Dana's hand is recognized on every page of the issues for 1851, here advocating a railroad to the Pacific, as the best means of controlling the trade of India, there favoring the nomination of presidents without the aid of a convention, and their election by the direct vote of the people. In one article he denounced the Democratic policy of abolishing paper money, while in another he commended the noble example of Iowa in abolishing the penalty of death. The next day we find him favorably considering Mr. Seward's doctrine of the “higher law” in connection with the return of fugitive slaves. Then follows an editorial commenting upon A. T. Stewart's marble palace as an illustration of

the tendency of commerce to concentrate into fewer and fewer hands, impelled by an unexpressed instinct that economy and reliability are thereby attained. The man who keeps a stock of goods worth hundreds of thousands and sells annually to the value of millions can afford to undersell his smaller-dealing competitor, and cannot afford to bear the reputation of dishonesty and slipperiness. Hence as trade concentrates it becomes cleaner, fairer, more upright. The great operator may be no honester intrinsically than his petty rival, but his public is far wider and its opinions more important.

But the fear of dissolution and secession had become deeply fixed even at that early day in the minds of the Southern people, and especially in those of the South-Carolinians. Greeley was abroad, and Dana had not yet come to regard our political situation as one of pressing danger. In June, 1851, he wrote with incredulity: