[New York Tribune, Dec. 8, 1860.] . . . We again avow our deliberate conviction that whenever six or eight contiguous States shall have formally seceded from the Union, and avowed the pretty unanimous and earnest resolve of their people to stay out, it will not be found practicable to coerce them into subjection; and we doubt that any Congress can be found to direct and provide for such coercion. One or two States may be coerced; but not an entire section or quarter of a Union. If you do not believe this, wait and see. [New York Tribune, Dec. 17, 1860.] . . . But if ever seven or eight States send agents to Washington to say, “We want to get out of the Union,” we shall feel constrained by our devotion to human liberty to say, “Let them go.” And we do not see how we could take the other side without coming in direct conflict with those rights of man which we hold paramount to all political arrangements, however convenient and advantageous. [New York Tribune, Dec. 24, 1860.] . . . Most certainly we believe that governments are made for the peoples, not peoples for governments; that the latter derive their just power from the consent of the governed; and whenever a portion of this Union, large
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Union.
What, then, were the doctrines held by Horace Greeley on this subject during the year 1860, both before and after the actual secession of South Carolina and several other Southern States?
I will quote from the Tribune editorials of Mr. Greeley some statements which will enlighten the people of the country as to the state of mind of a very considerable portion of the Republican party.
These people followed the lead of the editor of the Tribune until, by his incessant hounding of the administration, he caused the government to precipitate the disastrous battle of Bull Run, fought on the 21st day of July, 1861, and by his continual cry of “On to Richmond” instigated a war upon the Southern Confederacy for doing that which he had encouraged them to do and justified them in doing, to wit, peaceably seceding from the Union.
It is needless, perhaps, for me to say that I did not believe in Horace Greeley's statesmanship or teachings in 1860, nor before or after.
I shall not quote his insane ravings for immediate battle in 1861.
The following are extracts from his editorials in 1860:--
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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