Chapter 8: declaration of principles
- Defeat of General Scott for president -- filibustering -- Opposes Douglas's Nebraska bill -- tribune reduces expenses -- continued opposition to slavery -- against the know-nothing movement -- “manifest Destiny” -- failure of Fourierism -- bleeding Kansas -- organization of Republican party -- sleeping-cars suggested -- Defends the press
Having failed to elect a president who at least stood for an undivided Whig party, as well as for an undivided Union, the Tribune threw itself with all its accustomed energy again into the discussion of current politics and current diplomacy. Having commended Mr. Everett, who was secretary of state in Fillmore's cabinet, in the highest terms for his glowing and remarkable despatch in reference to this country's interests and aims in regard to Cuba, and having shown the unfitness of Cuba as well as the rest of the West India Islands for incorporation, at that time, into the Union, it left that subject with the declaration that, “We want no more ebony additions to the republic.” It took but little interest in the current discussion of “Manifest Destiny,” or the gradual absorption of the entire continent and its outlying island, because it believed that Douglas, Cass, and the other Northern statesmen who favored this doctrine were mere allies of the Southerners, who were thought by many to be seeking new territory in order that they might extend the bounds of slavery. It took strong grounds against the filibusters for similar reasons, as well as for their lawless disregard of the peace and property of neighboring [126] nations. It spoke with contempt of Walker's evanescent republic of Lower California, and upon every suitable occasion it returned with vehemence to the denunciation of slavery as “imperious, encroaching, truculent, and belligerent.” It opposed with all its power the movement of Douglas to override and repeal the Missouri Compromise as a “breach of solemn compact between the North and the South, which would inevitably open the door to fresh and fierce agitation,” the commencement of which, it claimed, “could not be charged against the side of freedom.” The year 1854 was taken up with similar discussions, in which it declared:
Slavery is an Ishmael. It is malevolent and malignant. It loves aggression, for when it ceases to be aggressive it stagnates and decays. It is the leper of modern civilization, but a leper whom no cry of “unclean” will keep from intrusion into uninfected company.It denounced “the rascals at Washington,” who “were plotting the surrender to slavery of the free territory west of the Mississippi” as the legitimate outcome of Pierce's election by the Democrats to the presidency. It brought forward every argument it could formulate against Douglas and his Nebraska bill, as intended to put into the hands of the dominant party, and of the settlers or “squatters” of the territory, sovereignty enough to make a slave State of what, under the Missouri Compromise, should have been forever dedicated to freedom. It denounced Pierce and Douglas, not only as confederates with each other, but as allies of the slave power in this unjustifiable scheme. Although successful in delaying its enactment into law, it failed, notwithstanding its extraordinary efforts, to defeat the measure. [127] But it had thoroughly aroused the spirit of freedom in the Northern States, and laid the foundation sleep in the hearts of the Northern people for that splendid campaign, which not only made both Kansas and Nebraska free States in due time, created the Republican party, elected Lincoln its second candidate to the presidency, but ultimately abolished slavery itself. In all its preliminary work the Tribune seemed to take no thought of its own interests. While it was unselfishly devoting its time, its talents, and its revenues to the antislavery cause, it is not to be disguised that its vehemence and radicalism had begun to estrange its conservative friends. The overwhelming defeat of General Scott for the presidency, and the division of the Whig party on sectional lines, had destroyed the party as an effective national organization. The Tribune, it will be remembered, had always been the leading Whig journal of the country, but its declaration, that if it had to give up Whiggery or opposition to slavery, it would give up Whiggery, doubtless cost it thousands of subscribers. Besides, many good and conservative people, perceiving the fierce determination of the Southern leaders, began to recognize that war was inevitable unless the passionate appeals of the antislavery men could be moderated, ceased to read the Tribune, where all the arguments and all the heat of the controversy were concentrated, and turned their backs upon the courageous but unrelenting and impracticable editors. By the middle of 1854, Greeley, who was the largest owner as well as the editor-in-chief, had come to the conclusion that to go on as they were would lead to ruin, and that expenses must be reduced. Dana seems to have opposed cutting down the paper, but was overruled. On September 1st he wrote to Pike, who was still in Washington, as follows: [128]
You see they have carried it against us, and cut the Tribune down. I don't believe it will do any permanent harm, though it must bring down the weekly to about one hundred thousand, I calculate. The saving effected by the change is some five hundred and fifty dollars a week-no trifle in these times. In addition to this, I am negotiating for a simultaneous rise to three cents by all the three papers. The Times is glad enough of the chance, and the Herald, I suppose, will come into the arrangement; at least Hudson says he is in favor of it, and when Bennett comes home, in about a fortnight, I shall push for immediate execution. The Tribune folks have agreed, and appointed me to settle it. I reckon that all three papers doing it together, neither one can suffer the slightest injury. There's no fear of any new competition; three hundred thousand dollars would scarcely suffice to create a new journal to hold its own with these three, and as for any serious decline in the demand for papers, that is still more out of the question. Hitherto the Daily Tribune, as such, has never made a cent, but has existed solely that something might be made on the weekly and semi-weekly. The proprietors of the Times admit that they have not made anything in three years existence, and also that, with thirty-five thousand circulation, they can't make anything at present prices. To the Tribune it will make a difference from the start of twelve hundred dollars a week, or sixty-two thousand dollars a year. This will leave something for leeway. The Whigs have got to nominate Greeley for governor and fight the Know-nothings, who are going in on a bargain to elect Bronson governor and Fillmore senator. Weed and the other leaders admit that Greeley is the only man who will do at all for the battle. The Softs will run Seymour on the rum tack, and it will be an interesting contest.... ... Snow tells me he has sacrificed mining property for which he had paid twelve thousand dollars cash, and glad to get off so. Greeley has fared worse. Why, last week he had to let good lands in Pike County, Pennsylvania, on which he had paid five thousand dollars, go to the dogs because [129] he couldn't raise five hundred dollars. So we go, and the worst not come yet. We are lucky who are not under the necessity of borrowing. ...The hope of putting up the price of daily papers in New York, although favored by the Herald, came to naught, because, under the influence of Raymond, the Times opposed it. In the end the reduction of expenses proved to be the salvation of the Tribune, which never missed an issue, but continued with renewed determination to be the organ of all who were in any way opposed to the extension or favored the destruction of slavery. On May 2d, in reply to the ominous warnings which reached it from many sides, it declared, this time in the unmistakable language of Greeley:
We do not believe the Union in any present danger, yet we say most distinctly that we should prefer to belong to a peace-loving, art-developing, labor-honoring, God-fearing confederacy of twenty millions of Freemen, rather than to a filibustering, war-making, conquest-seeking, slavery-extending union of thirty millions, one-sixth of them slaves. If this be treason, make the most of it.On the passage of the Nebraska bill through the House of Representatives, a few days later, the Tribune exclaimed:
Whatever may be the issue of the immediate struggle, we will unswervingly trust that the forces are silently maturing which shall rid our land ere many years of the scandal and crime of enslaving and auctioneering the countrymen of Washington and Jefferson-nay, we will trust that even the outrage just consummated, which seems for the moment so disheartening, shall in God's good providence be made signally instrumental in hastening that glorious day when the sun shall look down on no American slave. ... The permanence of the Union is predicable only [130] upon one of two conditions, either the South must put an end to slavery, or the North must adopt it ... ... But war has been made on freedom long enough, and defeats enough have been suffered, and please God the turn of slavery has now to come. Carthago delenda est. And the first beginning should be the consumption, as with flaming fire, of the “dough-faces” and white slaves of the North.... ... Gentlemen [of the South], you are too fast. The storm has but just begun to rise. Wait a little and you will know better than to undertake to breast it.... ... We object to slave-hunting at the North at all. If we had the power to determine the point, there never should be another slave-hunt on the soil of a free State, no matter how great the cost. If the slave States choose to separate from the free on that account, we should bid them go in peace, doing our best to preserve amity though the bonds of fraternity were severed.The foregoing extracts are undoubtedly from the pen of Greeley. They indicate clearly the attitude which he is known to have held then and afterwards. They foreshadow the position assumed later both by Seward and Lincoln, that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” that the Union could not continue to exist “half free and half slave.” They contain the first use of the word “dough-face” as the designation of a Northern man who truckled to the South, also one of the earliest declarations in favor of letting the slave States “go in peace.” But now comes an extract from an editorial bearing on the Know-nothing or Native-American movement, which was becoming active at that time. It is conceived in a broad and liberal spirit, and, from both internal and external evidence, may be designated as Dana's:
... We have no special regard for any country but this. Our ancestors were all here long before the Revolution, and were all among its most earnest supporters. When, however, [131] it is gravely proposed as Americans, that those who have come hither from Europe to find a home blest with liberty and plenty shall be permanently excluded from political rights here, including the right to be chosen whenever a majority shall see fit to choose them, we resist the demand as eminently and profoundly un-American, as well as anti-Republican. If our political fabric is not a gigantic he from foundation to turret, this exclusion is monstrous and suicidal. ...The year 1855 began with a fierce attack on Pierre Soule, the returning minister to Spain. His appointment was ascribed to the influence of the filibusters, who were said to have favored it as the best means of acquiring Cuba in the interest of slavery. That institution, it will be recalled, had not yet been abolished in the island, and the African slave-trade, although regarded by all the leading nations as piracy, was still carried on in the interest of the sugar planters. This article was followed by editorials and correspondence denouncing Mormonism, Know-nothingism, slave auctions, proposed amendments for “tightening up the rivets of the Fugitive-Slave law” and “the Ostend Manifesto.” Strangely enough, the Tribune now came out with a strong condemnation of the subsidy which Congress had at last voted to the Collins line of transatlantic steamers. It had formerly commended such a measure as a legitimate means of keeping the American flag afloat in that trade, but now classed it among other unjustifiable schemes, of which there were many, for robbing the national treasury of its surplus. Early in April, 1855, Greeley went to Europe, and remained absent till September. On his return he made arrangements to represent the paper in Washington, and thus Dana was left in actual charge during most of the year. He was therefore mainly responsible for its course on all public questions. His opinions are made known by [132] its editorials. But a strong side-light is thrown upon his personal occupations and feelings, as well as upon passing events, by certain letters written during the summer, and especially by one he wrote to James Pike, July 14th, as follows:
In September he wrote for the Tribune:You see my promptitude equals yours. You write, and I pay with equal exactness. But while domestic happiness causes us both to neglect these mere external passing duties, I don't know who has a right to complain. The truth is, I have been busy going to Westport to see my children-driving them about in old Bradley's one-horse wagon, rowing and sailing with them on the bay and Sound, gathering shells on the shore with them, picking cherries, lounging on the grass, gazing into the sky with the whole tribe about me! Who'd think of paying notes under such circumstances?
There's no delight like that in a pack of young children --of your own. Love is selfish, friendship is exacting, but this other affection gives all and asks nothing. The man who hasn't half a dozen young children about him must have a very mean conception of life. Besides, there ought always to be a baby in every house. A house without a baby is inhuman .... It's mighty easy for you to compliment the Tribune. Of course it's better than ever, and no thanks to you. I knew a lazy loafer, and a bridegroom to boot, would never write anything, and made my arrangements accordingly, though I said nothing to you about it. The occasion was too good a one to show whether you had a conscience or not, or any regard for your word. ... . . I'm charmed with that picture of Mrs. P. paddling a bark canoe, which you draw in such idyllic colors. I suspect the poetic is your true vein after all, next to theology. But what I really hope you are doing is the discipline of that stubborn obstinacy and wilfulness of yours into something like Christian meekness and domestic submission. Remember it's your duty, and do it with some grace. Bayard Taylor is going to Japan as United States Commissioner — if he gets the appointment. Perry puts him up [133] to trying for it, and tells him there is no doubt of his having it, as the Administration do not desire to make a political business of it, and he is the best man for the place who could possibly be found. Don't mention the scheme, as Bayard wouldn't like it known if he is disappointed. Good-bye, old fellow, and send me word a week before you write another article, so that I can prepare for it.Pike, First Blows of the Civil War.
Kansas will soon be either a free or a slave State, and her fate decides that of many which are to come after her. Mexico, Cuba, and Central America proper, the raw material for at least a dozen Skates, are all probably destined to come to us in time. Shall they come to us as free or slave States? This question seems to us by far the most momentous and vital of any now affecting our national politics.It should be noted here that at that time, in spite of opposition, the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny” was a popular one. It was doubtless encouraged by leading Democratic statesmen in the North with a view to restoring the balance of power between the slave and the free States. It was generally believed that Canada would naturally come into the Union as a free State, and would to that extent strengthen the antislavery sentiment. It was correspondingly popular in the North, and unpopular in the South. On the other hand, the annexation of Cuba, Mexico, and Central America, all of which were more or less *gen over to civil distractions, was favored in the South and opposed in the North. It was widely believed that their internal commotions would make their acquisition all the easier, and it came in due time to be regarded as certain that if Canada should be acquired, under whatever pretext, the Latin-American states would, [134] from the very nature of the case, be acquired also. It should here be noted, that with the settlement of the slavery question by the arbitrament of arms the people of both the Northern and Southern States speedily lost interest in annexation, and settled down to their own affairs, without paying particular attention to those of any neighboring country, except in compliance with the older and better-known doctrine first put forth by President Monroe. It was at midsummer of this year that the Tribune announced the failure of the North American Phalanx, and the sale of its property in New Jersey. Dana doubtless wrote the article commenting upon this event, and as it refers to the socialistic movement, in which he had been greatly interested, through his connection in the previous decade with the Brook Farm Association, I quote as follows:
... The sale of this domain will be generally regarded as in some sort closing that social movement which commenced in this country some fifteen years ago, and which, in various phases of its progress, has certainly exhibited many noble instances of devotion to ideas the most lofty and purposes the most generous. In the public mind the movement has been connected with what is called Fourierism, but the truth is that while the inculcations of Fourier have had more or less influence on the opinions of those engaged in the various practical experiments, still we know of no individual among them who has adopted all of the doctrines, true or fantastic, high or low, which compose his theory, nor of any body of individuals who have attempted to put them, or any part of them, in practise to any considerable extent. As yet there has never been an experiment of Fourier's social system either in this country or elsewhere. The socialist movement was in a certain degree original with the parties in this country .... Most [of the associations] were organized on the principle of joint-stock and dividing profits, according to the time spent in labor, but some adopted the principle of communism. [135] The great practical difficulty in these experiments has been to secure a due sense of responsibility, and a due vigilance for the common good. The immediate spur of self-interest not being directly felt as in the ordinary mode of life, and the needful amount of food and clothing being tolerably certain, the mass of the members have not been impelled to work so diligently or to save so carefully as if everything depended upon the economy of the day, or as if an employer were overlooking them. Thus a thriftless and careless way of going on has too often grown up in the association, and while a few have borne more than their share of the toil and care, others have borne less. The truth is indisputable that in the association pinching economy can less easily be practised than in isolated life. Keep people apart and they can bear privation and want, if not with facility, without complaint, but bring them into genial and natural relations, and what was before luxury becomes necessity. They require to be better fed and better housed, and to have much more leisure for the social pleasures and opportunities of culture put within their reach. Between association and poverty there is a natural contradiction, and we suspect that the former can never be completely realized until the progress of science, invention, and industry has endowed society with an abundance of wealth of every kind, such as we now scarcely imagine. That so lofty and satisfying an ideal of social life will one day be attained, it would be impossible to doubt. Indeed, it is intimated in all tradition and foretold in all prophecies. It is the dictate of common-sense, the essence of democracy, the promise of religion. Everything which increases the power of man over nature is a step towards it; everything which expands his intellect, or stirs a noble emotion in his heart, is a pledge of its final advent; and it would be as rational to deny that the earth revolves, or that the seasons succeed each other, as that civilized society grows towards a new condition immensely superior to any that the history of the past or the experience of the present can disclose.[136] It must be admitted by all who read it that this noble confession of faith is worthy of a more perfect realization than it has ever attained. It was never recalled or modified by the man who penned it. It is creditable alike to his heart, his discernment, and his practical sense, and while it ended his illusions in that direction, it marked an important step forward in his evolution. He entertained a brief hope that the experiment which Victor Considerant, who had been a member of the French Assembly when he was in Paris, was now making in Texas might prove to be successful, but that, too, was in due time recorded as a failure with the rest. The dreams of a better organization of society at large had already given way to the more practical duty of purifying and uplifting the social arrangements of our own country. The great duty which henceforth claimed Dana's constant attention was that of limiting slavery to its present bounds, and saving Kansas, Nebraska, and all other territory the nation might acquire in the future from the blight of slavery. This practical work took precedence over every consideration of a theoretical nature. It became the chief aim of Dana's life, the central subject of his thoughts and actions, and he threw himself into it with all his energy and determination. On July 31st President Pierce removed Governor Reeder, of Kansas, from office because he failed in some way properly to protect the antislavery immigrants who were coming into the territory. Under the teachings and appeals of the Tribune, a movement of population had been begun from the Northern States to Kansas, with the view of making it a free State; and under the principles of popular sovereignty, as propounded by Douglas and those who concurred with him, the free State men had just as much right to express their opinions and work for their adoption as the pro-slavery men. Bloodshed had already taken [137] place between the factions. Further collisions seemed to be inevitable, and the action of President Pierce,. unexpected as it was from a Democratic president, was received with hopeful approval. Excitement was increasing under the Tribune's trumpet calls. It had pointed out earlier in the year that Kansas was “the great question of our politics” ; that the South meant to make Kansas a slave State “at the point of the bowie-knife and the muzzle of the revolver” ; that a collision between the sections was inevitable; that “it was high time for the free States to define their position” and “do something against the atrocious strides of the slave powers to continental dominion” ; that the most efficacious measure would be to secure control of the House of Representatives; that free-State men who were willing to help should migrate to Kansas; that “Northern men of all parties and all sects should choose their colors” and get ready for “the coming struggle.” It declared that “the times to try men's souls had now come in Kansas” ; that the United States troops should take watch and ward over “the bullies of slavery, who desired to convert its prairies into bloody battlefields” ; that if the Federal government could not preserve the peace and protect the settlers in their rights, the Northern people should “prepare for ignominious surrender, or stand ready to meet outrage face to face on the soil of Kansas.” In its support of freedom, as the controversy grew, it predicted:
... War will be declared upon slavery first in the spot where it shall have encroached, and next upon whatever point it is vulnerable. When the contest comes we shall begin to see the natural consequences of those aggressions of the slave power which its champions are now so madly urging forward. ... Within its own limits let it exist if it can; but when it comes beyond them to make war on freedom, [138] let it be driven back as the direct enemy of the human race .. We are ourselves as much attached to the Union as the writers at Washington or any of its Southern friends can be, and yet even if we supposed the cry of disunion was alarming, we should not be driven from the defence of truth, justice, and liberty by menaces from any quarter. We regard the Union as an important means to an important end, but the end, in our view, is the more important of the two. ... It is a certain historical fact that the conservative men in the slave-holding States, the sort of men who composed the late Whig party in those States, with all their excellent and admirable qualities, never have been able to exercise any considerable influence even at home, and much less upon national politics, except as they were supported, maintained, and upheld by a powerful Northern party in which they never took the lead except to lead it to ruin. It was so in the days of Washington and John Adams. It has been so in our time. The whole course of our national history testifies in a voice not to be mistaken that the only way to enable the conservative men of the slave-holding States to make the slightest movement towards coming forward and aiding in undoing the wrong of which we complain, is to organize at the North a powerful party having that very object in view, and to which that aid can be afforded.Such declarations as these, and hundreds more which could be quoted while Greeley was absent in Europe, were either from Dana's pen, or selected by him from the daily contributions of his writers. They exerted a powerful influence in the organization of the Republican party, which took place on September 28, 1855. Referring to it on that day, the Tribune says, with exultation:
A noble work has been accomplished by the friends of republican freedom at Syracuse. A party has been organized on the basis of opposition to the extension of slavery in this country.[139] Other journals in the North and West, both before and after the formal organization was made, gave this movement efficient support, but its chief organ and principal champion thenceforth was the Tribune. While that great journal had thrown itself with all its force into the cause of freedom, it was not indifferent to anything else which concerned either the interests or the comforts of the public. It is an interesting circumstance that on October 3d of the same year it published an article favoring the establishment of Central Park in New York, and on the 11th one on railroad progress, in which it advocated sleeping and eating cars, in the following words:
Eating at our railroad stations is a very unsatisfactory and unwholesome performance. The passengers should eat as the cars roll on, leaving the time of stoppages for wood and water at their disposal. At 7 A. M. the provider should step aboard with his cooked food, which he deposits in a baggage half-car at the head of the train, where he should have a stove to heat water and keep his provisions warm. Then he should enter the forward passenger-car with food for four on a waiter, and the first four who wish to eat should take this, pay for it, face their seats to each other, and eat as deliberately as they choose. Thus all who want may be supplied. It seems about time that we should also have berths fitted up on our night trains.So far as known, this is the earliest suggestion on the subject which reached the public. It was not till several years later that it was carried into practical effect by Pullman and others. Near the close of this year the Tribune made a declaration which Dana repeated many years afterwards more than once in the columns of the Sun. That it was original [140] with him cannot be positively stated, but it savors strongly of his sententious style:
We are Free-Traders, but not of the school of Calhoun, Jeff Davis, Franklin Pierce, and the National Era. We are Free-Traders just as we believe in the millennium.About the same time a New York publication, in the interest of the book trade, came out with a general charge of corruption against the Press, which was at once resented by the Tribune as utterly unfounded and without justification. It has been repeated with many variations frequently since, against one or another of the leading New York dailies, but whatever else may be said, it is a gratifying fact that no one has ever undertaken seriously to prove it, and that up to the present day there is absolutely no proof to support it. Dana, who always exercised the most perfect independence in commenting upon the acts of public men, was also always the most strenuous advocate of a free and untrammelled press, and did perhaps more than any other American to maintain its privileges undiminished.
