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petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, “By our latest advices from Washington we learn that the event which we have long anticipated — a disruption of the ties which bind us together as a nation, through the influence of the Abolition question-seems on the brink of occurrence.”
Before the Tribune was a year old its editor's patience was tried by a decision of the United States Supreme Court (Prigg vs. Pennsylvania) that the right of a slaveholder to capture a fugitive slave anywhere was absolute, State laws to the contrary notwithstanding, and it said, “The effect of this decision will be to deepen the impression on the public mind that the existence of slavery for some is inconsistent with, and fatal to, the preservation of perfect freedom for any.”
Greeley's greatest effort in behalf of a presidential candidate was made for Clay, whose name he had kept at the head of his editorial page throughout 1843, and for whose election he labored the next year as he never labored again.
Clay's status as a slave-owner was the subject of attacks (which the Tribune called “a foul conspiracy” ) by the Democrats and the Liberty men, both before and after his nomination, and on January 16,
New York, D. Appleton and Company, March 1903.
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