John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[114] hardly anywhere free schools for all the population; people striving to get rich by foul means where fair will not serve; our cities centres of filth, misery, and degradation; children dying in infancy by thousands instead of growing up to vigor and usefulness; health and beauty the exception and not the rule among those who do grow up; if we say men could settle down quietly in a state of things of which these are far from all the revolting and defective features, then we might well doubt whether humanity were here on earth for any purpose but to be the sport of some infernal and atheistic chance.

During this year the Tribune advocated an international copyright “as equitable and expedient” for both sides of the ocean, opposed the Democratic policy of indefinite annexation, declared its belief that “all America will be democratic and united in our confederation of States,” though “we would not seek to anticipate that time by violent means,” and wrote strenuously for the improvement of the great rivers and harbors of the West at the expense of the Federal government.

In the next issue it expressed its belief that slavery could not be perpetuated, but would, in accordance with the universal rule of history, “end by resistless necessity, naturally, and without dangerously convulsing the state, or violently, with its destruction.” “Shall we,” it asks, with prophetic solemnity, “take the way of nature or risk the distant oncoming revolution?”

The annexation of Cuba and Mexico, which was advocated by several Southern papers at this time, received no countenance from the Tribune. While it was naturally favorable to Cuban independence, it refused to excuse filibustering or to advocate the annexation of either of those countries for the benefit of slavery, or to facilitate the return of fugitive slaves, which it contended was the principal reason for the popularity of those measures in the South. It was deaf to the appeals of all who sought