John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

If silver becomes more or less plentiful, let the silver coinage be altered to conform to the fact.

We are accustomed to regard the utterances of our daily newspapers with indifference, or as unworthy of serious consideration, but surely no one can read even this hasty and incomplete summary of the Tribune's course without admitting that it at least was inspired and controlled by men who embodied a very high order of ability and altruism in their contributions to its columns. Nothing seems to have been too trivial, or too great, for that matter, for their consideration. Standing, as it were, like sentinels on a watch-tower, they caught the first signs of every social or political disturbance, and took cognizance of every event which promised to affect the public interest. So far as one can now see, they viewed nothing with selfishness, and expressed no opinions except for the guidance of their readers and the enlightenment of mankind at large. That Greeley, who was older and better known than Dana, was bitterly hated by the entire white population of the South, and also by the Northern Democrats, cannot now be denied. That the Tribune was looked upon as an incendiary sheet in many parts of the country, and that all who wrote for it were regarded with cruel intolerance as rabid radicals and abolitionists, is now difficult to understand. It is especially so when it is remembered that twenty years afterwards Greeley, without any change or recantation of principle, became the favorite candidate of the Southern States for the presidency, and Dana his most powerful advocate. They stood side by side for twelve years in support of every good and humane cause: for freedom as against slavery, for liberty as against tyranny, for peace as against war, for