67S Boole Jt 7f4 Horace 's Views on Virginia, ANI> *c» WHAT HE KNOWS ABOUT THE SOUTH— SLAVE-BREED- ING — MIXED SCHOOLS— MISCEGENATION — MAKING SECTIONAL WAR— KANSAS AND THE SOUTH— FAVORING SECESSION— LETTING "THE ERR- ING SISTERS GO"-CONFISCATION, RAPINE, AND RAVAGE— SLAVE INSURRECTIOJ —SUPPORTING GENERAL BUTLEF NEW ORLEANS ORDER— THE KU KLUX TRIALS, &c, &c, &o. When Mr. Greeley wrote his account of "The American Conflict," he stated in the preface that he had made frequent and copi- ous citations from letters and other docu- ments, because he "could only thus present the views of political antagonists In terms which they must recognize and respect as authentic." He also declared that history is recorded in the journals of our country more fully than elsewhere. It may then be as- sumed that the autheetie views of Mr. Gree- ley are to be found in the editorial columns of the New York Tribune, over which he had entire control, from the establishment of the paper, in 1851, until after his nomination at Cincinnati, and in which he invariably re- pudiated any statement which he was un- willing to indorse that had found its way into the columns for which he held himself responsible. The following extracts from the editorial columns of the Tribune must, consequently, be regarded as accurate and fair statements of Mr. Greeley's views. Mr. Greeley appears to have had an especial antipathy toward Virginia, as displayed in articles like the following: "There stands the South-look at her! Virgmia, the birthplace of Washington, sank to the level of a mere negro- breeding terri- tory, and those slaves the most valuable that have the largest mixture of the blood of the nrst families. Gentlemen of Virginia are now engaged in rearing mulattoes to be sold and hunted by blood-hounds as above pro- fessionally advertised. A white ruffian buys slaves within a stone's throw of Mount Ver- non or Monticeilo for a few hundred dollars and then further South hires them out or employs them, living on their labor, taking their earnings from them by force like a cow? ardly footpad; disporting his aristocracy at the springs in the summer, and rejoicing in some shabby title of major, colonel or gen- eral—and this is American Democracy. " This system, which is only upheld bv one hundred and fifteen thousand slave- owners—the odd eight hundred thousand or one million of adult male whites h the South not owning slaves— must not oniy be ac- cepted and approved by the mechanics and laborers of the North, but we must consent and assist in its extension and perpetuation It must be the shibboleth of all political en- joyment and aspiration; of present advan- ^ ge , 2P d futl,r e glory."— From ths Km York Iribune of March 7, 1854. MIXED SCHOOLS. Mr. Greeley's sympathy for the colored people is not to be wondered at, as it appears from the following article, addressed to the editor of a Virginia paper, that he went to Eds' school with black children, sat on the same bench and recited in the same class with them: "We have already assured the Virginian that the editor of this journal went to the same common school with black children, not for a few days, but for three winters; sat on the same bench, and recited in the same classes with them, and received no possible damage therefrom. Why not take notice of this assurance? And we know of no rural school district in New England from whose school colored children are excluded. "—From the JY. Y. Tribune, of January 16, 1872. SOCIAL EQUALITY AND AMALGAMATION. Mr. Greeley has not only advocated "equal- ity before the law," but he has virtually ar- rayed himself as a champion of "social equal- ity" and of "miscegenation," as the follow- ing extracts show. They are in plain Eng- lish, and can not be misunderstood: "A raan proud of his purse may scorn a poor negro as he would a poor white man. A man systematically acquiescent in the wrongs and cruelties of society may 9hun a negro as he would any unpopular white. A man who has himself been underestimated, may be jealous of any attempt to do justice to others. But we must insist that all this settles nothing except our human inhuman- ity—except that in spite of our religious pro- fessions we do not dwell together as breth- ren, except that we donOt, in spite of our Bibles, believe that God has made all men of one blood. "It is hard to decide how long this preju- dice may continue to influence society; and it wiil probably continue to be felt long after all traces of it have disappeared from the statute books of all the States. But this thing is certainly clear— that under the Constitu- tion, in its most liberal interpretation, and admitting our cherished American doctrine of equal human rights, if a white man pleases to marry a black woman, the mere fact that she is black gives no one a right to interfere to prevent or set aside such marriage. We do not say that such a union would 'he wise, but we do distinctly assert that society has nothing to do with the wisdom of matches, and that we shall have, to the end of the chapter, a great many foolish ones which laws are powerless to prevent. We do not say that such matches would be moral, but wo do declare that they would be infinitely more so than the promiscuous concubinage which has so long shamelessly prevailed upon the Southern plantations. If a man can so far conquer his repugnance to a black wo- man as to make her the mother of his chil- dren, we ask, in the name of the divine law and of decency, why he should not marry her ? We are not in favor of any law com- pelling a Copperhead to marry a negress, un- less under circumstances which might com- pel him to marry a white woman or go to prison; but we insist that if the Copperhead or anybody else is anxious to enter into such union it is not for the Legislature to forbid x79(* him, or for his fellow creatures to prontr&nci him a violator of the law of nature and God. "— From the Mw York Tribune of March 16 1864. " If by 'amalgamation ' is meant the inter- mingling of the white and black races, and if the question be, 'Do you consider this ad- visable or desirable?' our answer is, no, we do not. There seems to us a natural repul- sion between whites and blacks which may indeed be overborne or defied, but which must have been implanted for some good end, and which we therefore respect and desire to see respected. There will generally arise quite enough provocations to difference in the married state without superadding this (it seems to us) natural instinctive repug- nance of race. Hence, as a rule, we do not think tho intermarriage of Christians with Jews advisable; nor that of Roman Catholics with Protestants; nor even that of sternly Or. thodox with rationalizing Quakers, Unitari- ans, and Universalists. " We do not say that these differences of creed are insuperable bars to marriage, but that other things being equal, it were better to seek partners for life among those with whom you have no essential difference or dis- agreement. "But if our correspondent means would you by law prohibit and punish intermar- riages between white and black our answer must be, • No, we would not.' Civd law has no warrant to interfere in matters of taste. We should certainly advise no white man to marry a black, but if such a couple were re- solved to marry we would interpose no legal obstacle, and desire none." — From the JVew York tribune of July 31, 1865. "The Express feels bad because the Trib- une discusses the question of a mixtuire of white and black blood, and sees no objection to treating a colored woman just as if she were white in the matter of seduction, mar- riage, &c. The horrible consequences of black and white mixture are doubtless fear- ful here, but down in Dixie no such qualms exist; there the breeding of a brawny and salable mulatto boy, or of a saddle-colored girl for the brothels of New Orleans, is some- thing to brag of; and many such a boy and • many such a prostitute boasts the best blood of the chivalry. When Kichard M. Johnson married a negro and raised a large family by her no Democratic stomach revolted. We have among us in this city at this very time the mulatto daughter of Brigadier General Huger and the mulatto son of Brigadier General Withers, both the fathers being now in im- portant commands in the rebel army— the mothers undoubtedly in slavery or the grave. We have also recently had slave children here much whiter than the editors of the Express— fair, blue-eyed children, with bills of sale in their pockets. "—From the New York Tribune, March 17, 1864. " Here is a large number of nearly white children, of slave mothers, who have recently been, and we presume still are, presented to audiences by the Freedmen's Aid Society in illustration of the need of effort for the moral / and intellectual improvement of the freed- i, men. Several of thorn are well-known chil- j dren of rebel generals and statesmen— not one is known or believed to have had a Re- publicai father. And the fullest inquiry and scrutiny will demonstrate incontestably the truth that, for every white father of a colored child who sympathizes with the views of the Tribune there are at least one hundred who howl and gnash their teeth whenever this journal is named, being Cop- perheads on this side of the military lines and rank rebels on the other. " This truth does not rest upon anti-slavery testimony. Whoever will read Chancellor Harper's Vindication of Slavery will find that he admits the universality of 'miscegena- tion ' between the white young men and the colored women of the slave States. He rather glories in this as less corrupting to the young • slaveholders than the illicit intercourse with lewd womeu which prevails in non-slave- holdinir communities. And a sister of Presi- dent Madison once observed, ' We Southern wives are but the mistresses of seraglios.' We might pile proof on proof of the general truth she there asserted; but the topic is un- savory, and the fact perfectly notorious. It is written broadly on the face of Southern so- ciety, especially in the great cities." — From theMio York Tribune of March 28, 1864. WHAT HE SAID ABOUT FIGHTING IN KANSAS. Mr. Greeley had always been a professed advocate of peace, yet when the struggle was commenced for the possession of Kansas, he implored the young men of the North to go fefeere and fight the settlers from the South. " Let the North furnish men and money, settlers, and Sharp's rifles, and these two po- litical assassins shall be taught the way of liberty better than they have ever yet learned that lesson. They accidentally wielded the Executive arm of the National Government to-dny, but two years hence will see these two men subsided to their original spheres — the one a second-rate New Hampshire poli- tician, the other an ambidexterous, question- able citizen of the still old Puritan town of Newburyport; their opinions and power just equal with that of any two average Yankees on the street. Indeed, that the Emigrant Aid Society, well backed, is more than a match for ail the pro-slavery legislation of Congress and all the Kansas messages of the Executive to boot. But it must be well backed, and we trust 'its backers are aware of their elevated agency and ready for the discharge of their whole duty. Give us, then, men and money, settlers and Sh irp's rifles, and let us see if private associate enterprise in behalf of liberty is not stronger than the combined rascality of every branch of the, Government against it." — From the Nexo York Tribune of February 1, 1856. "Pour into Kansas, brave men and true, with your rifles in your hands, and range yourselves on the side of the brave men there already, who during the past winter, have done and suffered so much to maintain their rights and yours, the -great rrght^and eaus# of all the SIorth-Freedornfor Kansas. "Young men full of ardor, enthusiasm-; and thirst for action and glory, cow is your timei This is no fillibustering expedition, of which the object is to rob others. You go only to claim your own — your own, guarantee! to you by the very provisions of the Kansas- Nebraska act itself— your quarter section of land and your rights as a sovereign squatter. But you go not for yourself alone, you go for us all ; not merely to claim your own land, and to claim your individual rights, but as the representatives of Freedom and the Free States — to reestablish over Kansas and Missouri Prohibition, and to save the North- ern States from being first deluded and cheated at Washington into accepting the Squatter Sovereignty principle in exchange for the Missouri Prohibition, and upon going to Kansas to exercise this Squatter Sover- eignty, being kicked out of the house by the Border Ruffians. "As there will be no want of young men and true, with bold hearts and strong arms, to go upon this enterprise, so we trust there will be no want of money, which is at once the sinew of war and the stimulus of peaceful occupa- tions. Those of us who are too old to go, or are detained here by indissoluble ties' or other duties, can freely contribute not only to the general funds of the various emigrant aid societies, but to the private outfit of worthy men qualified to make good citizens in Kansas. "Above all, let there be no lack of arms, and those of the most efficient sort. Plenty* of arms and plenty of men to use them are the only guarantee against the massacre and ex- pulsion before the summer is over of the free State men now in Kansas. Nothing but their Sharpe's rifles and their courage pre vented the massacre aud expulsion of the Lawrence men last winter." — From {he Beta York Daily Tribune of March 7, 1858. "But the mischief that is brewing is not. alone in Kansas. There are dee»>-laid plots of treason to freedom consummating in Washington. The arch disunionist, Jeffer- son Davis, who signalized his career in the Senate of the United States by advocating an overthrow of the Government in case all of our California acquisition below 36° 30' was not surrendered to Slavery by special stipulation, aspires to the post of Command- er-in-Chief of the Army. He is Mr. Pierce's Secretary of War, and a leading man in the Cabinet. Should he achieve his objtct, all that we know of his antecedents leads us to believe that he would not hesitate to use his influence to spread Slavery in the West and North at the point of the bayonet, and if at- tempts were made to resist it in any effective manner, he would exert all his power to sub- vert the Government. The Free States are surrounded by plots and toils and complica- tions, in respect to the subjugation of this Government by the slave-holders, of which the people little' dream. We are approaching the crisis which will decide whether Slavery or Freedom is to mold the destinies of Amer- ica." — From the New York Tribune of April, FAV0E3 Secession and urges peaceful SEPARATION. "When the South began to speak in earnest about Secession, and the establishment of a Southern Confederacy, Mr. Greeley did not dissuade them, but gave them encouraging "aid and comfort," as will be seen by the following extracts from his paper : " As to Secession, I have said repeatedly, and here repeat, that, if the People of the Slave States, or of the Cotton States alone, really wish to get out of the Union, 1 AM IN FAVOR OF LETTING THEM OUT, as soon as that result can be peacefully and constitutionally attained. But their case cannot be so urgent as to require that the President and bis subordinates should perjure themselves in deference to its requirements. It they will only be patient, trot rush to seizing Federal forts, arsenals, arms, and sub-treasuries, but take, first, delib- erately, a fair vote by ballotof their own citi- zens, none being coerced or intimidated, and that vote shall indicate a settled resolve to get out of the Union, I WILL DO ALL I CAN TO HELP THEM OUT at an early day."— From the New York Tribune of Janu- ary 24, 1861. " What I demand is proof that the Southern People really desire separation from the Free States. ■ Whenever assured that such ii their , settled wish, I SHALL JOYFULLr CO- ' OPERATE WITH THEM TO SECURE THE END TEE Y SEEK. Thus far I have had evidence" of nothing but a purpose to bully and coerce the North. Many of the Secession emissaries to the Border Slave States tell the people they address that they do not really mean to dissolve the Union, but only to secure what they term their rights— in the Union. Now, as nearly all the people of the Slave States either are, or seem to be, in favor of this, the present menacing front of Secession proves nothing to the purpose. Maryland and Virginia have no idea of break- ing up the Union, but they would both dearly like to bully the North into a compromise. Their Secession demonstrations prove just this, and nothing more." — From the New York Tribune of January 21, 1861. " We have steadfastly affirmed and upheld Mr. Jefferson's doctrine, embodied in the Declaration of American Independence, of the Right of Revolution. We have insisted that where this right is asserted, and its ex- ercise is properly attempted, it ought not to be necessary to subject all concerned to the woes and horrors of civil war. In other words, what one party has a right to do, an- other can have no right to resist. And we have urged that, had the great mass of the Southern People really desired a dissolution of the Union, and been willing to exercise a rea- sonable patience, their end might have been at- rtfd without devastation and carnage: for WE, with thousands more in the "North, would have done all in our power to incline our fellow-citizens to defer their request and let them go in PEACE. Hence we have contended that the violent, terrorist, outrageous proceedings of the Southern- Jacobins — their seizure of the National forts, armories, arsenals, sub-treas- uries, &c, culminating in the bombardment of Fort Sumter — were not inexcusable in themselves, but signally calculated to de- feat the end they professed to have in view. Take the case of our own Pacific Em- pire as a further illustration. No doubt, the People of California and Oregon are to day loyal and fervent in their devotion to the Union. But they are mainly natives of the Atlantic or Gulf States — ' bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh * — and their loy- alty is a matter of education, of feeling, and of habit. Fifty years hence, when our Pacific coast shall have a population of ten or twelve millions, mainly born on that slope, it will be very different. Now, should the time arrive in our day when the great body of the Peopie of our Pacific States shall say deliberately, kindly, firmly, ro those this side of the Rocky Mountains, 'You are stronger than we — older, more wealthy, more power- ful — but we ask you to let us go; for we believe we can do better by ourselves than with you-*- WE shall respond, and urge others to respond, 'Go in peace, and Heaven's blessing attend you.' We believe that is the right, the wise, the Christian answer to such a request, and that the world will yet percieve and recognize the truth."— From the New York Tribune of May 14, 1862. But when the North rose up in arms Mr. Greeley then asserted : "The Union can not be dissolved." He was also ferocious iu his denunciations against the very people for whom he had expressed so much sympathy, as passages like the following show : " We hold traitors responsible for the work upon which they have precipitated us, and we warn them that they must abide the full penalty. * * * The rebels of that State (Virginia) and Maryland may not flatter themselves that they can enter upon a war against the Government and afterwards re- turn to quite and peaceful homes. They choose to play the part of traitors, and they muse suffer the penalty. The worn-out race of emasculated first families must give place to sturdier people, whose pioneers are now on their way to Washington, at this moment. In regiments. An allotment of land in Vir- ginia would be a fitting reward to the brave fellows who have gone to fight their country's battles." — From the JSew York Tribune' of April 23, 1861. "But nevertheless we mean to conquer them — not merely to defeat, but to conquer, to subjugate them— and we shall do this the most mercifully the more speedily we do it. But when the rebellious traitors are over- whelmed in the. field and scattered like leaves before an angry wind, it must not be to re- turn to peaceful and contented home. Thev must find poverty at their firesides, and see privation in the anxious eves of mothers and the rags of children."— From the New York. Tribune of May 1, 1861, SLAVE INSURRECTIONS— JOHN BSOWK. Mr. Greeley had indirectly sympathized with John Brown in his attempt to organize a negro insurrection at Harper's Ferry, and after the breaking out of hostilities he was evidently confident that the bloody scenes of 'San Domingo were to be repeated through- out the South: " The Insurrection, so called, at Harper's Ferry, proves a verity. Old Brown of Osa- wata'ime, who was last heard of on his way from Missouri to Canada with a band of run- away slaves, now turns up in Virginia, where he seems to have been for some months, plotting and preparing for a general stam- pede of slaves. How he came to be in Har- per's Ferry, and in possession of the United States Armory, is not yet clear ; but he- was probably betrayed or exposed, and seized the Armory as a place of security until he could safely get away. The whole affair seems the work of a madman; but John Brown has so often looked death serenely in the face that what 6eems madness to others doubtless wore a different aspect to him." — From the J\ r ew York Tribune of October 19, 1859. DENMARK VESSET. "The narrative of Denmark Vessey's Insur- rection iu South Carolina, nearly forty years ago, which we publish t. lis morning, has at this time a peculiar interest. Not a paper comes to us from the South in which we do not find anxious endeavors to inculcate the conviction that the slaves are trustworthy, satisfied with their lot, ready to take arms in defense of the system beneath which they languish in bondage. Their masters declare that the enthusiasm of their human property has to be restrained, and that only the neces- sities of home labor prevent them from send- ing to the war every able-bodied slave they possess. Meanwhile, they organize strong guards, keep ever a sleepless eye on the move- ments of the negroes, and* punish with more than ordinary cruelty the smallest offenses against the harsh rules of the plantation. " The strange history of the insurrection referred to is lull of suggestions which show to the people of the SjiitU quite as clearly as to us ac the North how hollow aud false is all the boasted confidence the former express, and what an appalling danger lies always in wait at the threshold of the slaveholder. If there were ever nearoes who could be trusted by their masters, those engaged with Vessey in his conspiracy were they. The event showed that natural cunning,sharpened by an unconquerable and overpowering longing for freedom, was there, as it is now, more than a match for the vigilance of the overseer, aud that a seeming affection was with them but a cloak for concealing plots of direst vengeance. "The system of slavery — ever accursed — has not improved in these forty years. The hand of the taskmaster has not grown lighter, nor are the bonds worn with greater ease. Toe nature of the slave changes not, nor does the instinctive, God-imparted craving for freedom diminish in force as the years of toil run on. The dark storm-cloud hangs to- day over the South more awful in its black- ness than ever before, and the moment of its terrible descent draws nearer with each de- velopment in the rapid course of passing . events. The slave-holder, whether on foe plantation or in the populous city, knows this well, and writhes beneath the knowledge with a dreary anxiety which no bravado can conceal. If the tempest does not break in frightful power it will be only because an arm mightier than the arm of man is out- stretched to restrain it."— From the New York Tribune of May 21, 1861. EFFECT OF EMANCIPATION. "There are three and a half millions of slaves and half million of free blacks in the rebel States. Here are four of the nine mil- lions now ruled by Jeff. Davis— is it, can it be, pretended that these will be set against us by the proclamation of freedom? Surely not. "But the whites of the South, it is said, will hate and fight us worse than they have done. How can they? It was not this policy which impelled to the slaughter of the Massachusetts volunteers in the streets of Baltimore. It was not this policy which led the rebel soldiery encamped at Bull Run last winter to make riugs and other triukets of the bones of our slaughtered brethren, dug up for the purpose. It was not this which induced the rebels iu Arkansas to'shoot our scalded and shrieking soldiers in White River, disabled aud mortally hurt by the ex- plosion of the steam-chest ml their vessel by a cannon shot. Nor was it the policy which sent John Bell, Alex. H. Stephens, Thomas A. R. Nelson, and so many other vehement Unionists of two years since over to the re- bellion, and silenced all open repugnance to Disunion in the revolted States." — From the New York Daily Tribune, January 1, 1863. RECALLING SAN DOMINGO. "It has been estimated that in fifty years the extreme Southern States will contain a vast population of slaves, far exceeding the whites who own them. How does any man suppose that these dozen million or so of slaves can be kept in subjection under such circumstances? It is folly to think of it. They will theu have gained a vast addition to their present average of intelligence; the dangerous admixture of white blood will be infused among them in greater proportion, and not all the troops that can be raised aud brought to the field will be sufficient to sub- due tliem. On this head read the lesson of St. Domingo. When the blacks there rose upon their masters the proportion between the two was as 500,000 to 50,000. The whites were driven from the country with horrible cruelties, the natural revenge of a servile and oppressed race. Powerful armies were sent against these revolted slaves, millions upon millions were spent for their subjugation, but in vain. A Negro State now occupies the loveliest, and most fertile of the Antilles, and by a natural sentiment of jealousy, no white "is permitted to become a citizen of the country. "A similar fate awaits the southern ex- tremity of the United States unless the whites are wise betimes. There is no alternative between emancipation under some form and a servile revolt. Sooner or later it must come, and let those supporters of slavery who are most competent judge whether half a cen- tury is too soon for its arrival. "Free the blacks, or in time they will ter- ribly free themselves. Men cannot be made chattels forever — it is unsafe to suppose it. The negroes of South Carolina and Missis- sippi may be docile, and submissive now, but they will not be so always. That is a fatal delusion that cannot be too soon abandoned." —From the New York Tribune of May 8. MAKING ALLIES. "Four Millions of sturdy bondmen, nearly all residents of the Rebel States, stand wait- ing and wondering what is to be their part in this contest, what their ad vantage therefrom. They form the majority of the people of South Carolina and nearly or quite a majority of those of the several other revolted States. They are about one-third of the population of Jeff. Davis' dominion. Their interest in the struggle is practical— vary practical in- deed. They want many things, but, before all else, Liberty. They are willing to work for it, run for it, fight for it, die for it. There can not be a rational doubt of the ability of the Government to enlist the sympathies and the efforts of these Four Millions of Jeff's subjects on the side of the Union by simply promising them Freedom. Talk of confisca- tion does not move them, for it involves the idea of — to their minds, at least — of deporta- tion and sale to new masters. Talk of con- fiscating, or even freeing, those only who have been employed in the rebel armies, does not much effect them; for it seems partial, timid, aud selfish. But say to them that all whose masters are involved In the rebellion shall be Free, and they will feel that their day is at length dawning. They will not hasten to throw away their lives by mad, senseless insurrections; but they will watch for opportunities to escape and come within our liues, bringing information certainly, and perhaps arms or other material aid. And the bare fact that their slaves are watching their chances to get away and over to the Union side, will immensely weaken the rebels." — Fom the New York Tribune of December 11, 1861. SUSTAINING BUTLER. Mr. Greeley appeared to entertain an es- special antipathy against the ladies of the South, and when General Butler's New Or- leans order was made the subject of general comment at home and abroad, it was thus defended in the Tribune: " Jeff. Davis has said, in a proclamation, that ' the soldiers of the United States have been invited and encouraged in general orders to insult and outrage the wives, the mothers, and the sisters of cur citizens.' " This is a very wicked falsehood. It was by the ' wives,' ' mothers,' and ' sisters' afore- said that the insults were given; it was by the 'soldiers of the United States' that they were received. No single instance is given in which a woman in Louisiana tas been wantonly insulted by a Union soldier. But it was a part of the regular tactics of the se- cessionists of New Orleans to incite their women to insult our unoffeuding soldiers there by every kind of contemptuous, pro- voking grimace, jeer, and gesture, trusting to their petticoats for impunity. When he had borne quite enough of this General But- ler brought it to a sudden and full stop by the following order: " ' Headq'rs Department of the Gulf, "May 15, 1862. "•'As the officers and the soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from women calling themselves 'Ladies of New Orleans,' in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and cour- tesy on our part, it is ordered hereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture, or move- ment, insult or show contempt forany officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her vocation. " 'By command of Maj. Gen. Butler. " 'Geo. C. Strong, A. A. G.' "We hold this order most righteous, timely, and wise. The woman who seeks to attract special attention in public of men who are utter strangers to her fixes her own position. General Butler did but state truly what that position is. If a rebel army should occupy thiscitv, and our own women did not refrain from hissing, floutiug, and spitting at the soldiers, we would justify their General in issuing just such a proclamation as General Butler's. No human being has been harmed in mind, body, or estate by it, and the abuse at which it was aimed was wholly and in- stantly corrected- by it. All that Jeff, really has to complain of is that his women can. uo longer insult our soldiers with impunity."— From the New York Tribune of December 29, 1862. A Paris correspondent of the Tribune, who had expressed the public sentiment of Europe concerning General Butler's order, was thus rebuked: "It is a curious instance of how much a man of sound common sense may be biased by a popular clamor to see on how wide a tangent our lively Paris correspondent flies off at the mere mention of General Butler's proclamation to the ill-bred women of New Orleans. He, in common with all indignant members of Parliament and the English press, is determined to believe that General Butler's intention was to give official notice of the arrival of that moment anxiously in- quired for by one of the ladies in ' Don Juan' when the whole city was to be given up to extreraest license. We are nobsurpriaed at this in English journals; indeed, their malice is not capable of any invention that can aston- ish us; and we do nut doubt, as they insist upon it we are under the dominion of mob- law, that the President's late visit to West Point, when heard of in Europe, will be rep- resented as necessarily made in secret to es- cape assassination. Should our Paris corre- spondent lend a willing ear to a calumny so outrageous as this, and yet so likely to be made, it would hardly surprise us more than that he should be the dupe of the silly outcry against General Butler."— From the JSew York Tribune, June 27, 1862. SECOND SOBER THOUGHT. Years afterward Mr. Greeley's " sober sec- ond thought" approved General Butler's order in the following editorial articles: "One thing, however, we confess, surprises us. If the little dogs consider General But- ler to be the most contemptible of mankind, it is very strange that by their conspicuous and constant enmity they should insist upon elevating him to a position of first-rate pub- lic importance. Some of the gentle- voiced damsels of the South who thought that a na- tion could be scolded into existence and per- petuity, nick-named. General Butler 'the Beast;' and if they found any satisfaction in this spirit of feminine vehemence, we dare say the General had no objection to their amusing themselves in their own natural way at a time when restraint upon their tongues might have resulted in mortal in- ward agitations. It is true that the sensitive creatures were not allowed to insult Union soldiers in the street, but how they must have chattered and chided in the privacy of the boudoir 1 How particular they must have grown in their zoological classification, se- lecting those animals which were their pet aversions, or which they regarded with re- spectful timidity, and applying their names to the unfortunate major general! We shouldn't wonder if in this way poor Butler was sometimes likened to a rhinocerous. or perhaps a hippopotamus! Fortunately if these indignities were ever inflicted, they did not come to his ears. They might have broken his heart. "The Government confided to General Butler a somewhat thankless task— the restor- ation of law and order in a city not particu- larly law-abiding and orderly in the best of times, and at that critical moment full of des- perate adventurers and turbulent ruffians who, for months, had been unchecked in their career of licentiousness and brutal audacity Tlxe service was undertaken, and no man can say without falsehood that it was not per- formed with all possible consideration for the feelings of the peaceable citizens, and with, out any consideration whatever for the feel- ings of the openly traitorous, the secretly knavish, and the impudenUy violent. It was impossible for General Butler to please those who persisted in ealling themselves ' a con- quered people.' It was equally impossible for him to please those Northern sympathi- zers who were sorry that New Orleans had i£len into our hands at all."— Frofi the Veto •f^ 3 ' Daily Tribune, August 28, 1868. ANOTHER ENDORSEMENT. "The hearty, emphatic good will where- with General Butler is regarded by the great mass of the loyal upholders of our country's integrity in her late struggle, rests on very intelligible grounds. They like him for rea- sons identical with those which impel the rebels and pro-rebels to hate him so intensely. Though his military career was not in all re- spects brilliant, and though a part of it sub- jected him to the unflattering ciiticism of General Grant, it is certain that the expedi- tion to Ship Island and New Orleans was substantially projected and executed by him, and that its success gave the Rebellion the heaviest and most damaging blow that it re- ceived during the first two years of the war. In wresting irrevocably from the Confeder- acy its most wealthy and populous city, its commercial focus and storehouse, General Butler did it greater material and moral damage than it received at Donelson, Shiloh, Antietam, or Murfreesborough. "But it is not the material value of his mil- itary services that has most commended the elder of the Massachusetts major generals to the popular heart. The masses recognize and admire in him the first leader of our forces who evinced a clear comprehension of the nature and animus of the rebellion, and the ability and will to deal with them as they deserve!. Up to the outbreak of this war General Butler had, through life, been the political intimate and ally of 'the Chiv- alry,' and understood them lim a brother. He comprehended from the start that their preposterous assumptions of social superior- ity must be met at the threshold, and utterly defied and trampled on. "His polite but firm refusal at an early day to return Major Cary's fugitive negroes, on the just and solid ground that they were 'contraband of war,' like horses or intrench- ing tools, showed him the man for the occa- sion. His stern dealings with the New Or- leans gambler who tore down the American flag after it had been hoisted by our forces over a city fairly wou by their valor, and his famous 'Order No. 28,' advising the she-secesh of that city that they could no longer wantonly insult our soldiers with impunity, were moral victories for the Union arms of signal value and promise. They made plain t j the most stolid apprehen- sion the fact that territory fairly recovered from the rebellion was no longer a part of the Confederacy, and could not be used for thc- prosecution of its warfare, at least while under the command of General But- ler. That the Rebels should hiss and howl, foam and rave whenever aud wherever they might safely do so, was a matter of course; that they should accuse the man they so detested of stealing the spoons .they never had, was paltry, if you will, but very human. Weil might they set a price on could not match — a head illuminated by eyes the head so prolific of devices which they which they could execrate aud caricature as malformed and hideous, but which they could not curse into blindness to any of their traitorous plots or contrivances." — From the JV:w York Tribune, November 6, 1863. SOW HE SLANDERED SOUTHERN DEMOCRATS. "To 'love rum and hate niggers' basso long been the essence of the Democratic faith that the cooler, wiser heads of the party vainly spend their strength in efforts to lift it out of the rut in which they plainly see that it can only run to perdition. While Slavery en- dured negro hate was an element of positive strength in our political contests, so that the Constitutional Conventions of this and other free States were usually carried by the Dem- ocrats on the strength of appeals to the coarser and baser whites to 'let the nigger knowhisplace.'"— Tribune, April!, 1871. Mr. Greeley was an early denunciator of the Kuklux demonstrations, and while urg- ing their suppression by martial law, he did not lose sight of his Protection theory. THE KUKLUX KLAN. "The present Kuklux demonstrations at the South are simply a mere cowardly phase of the Rebellion. They are a fulfillment of the Rebel menace that the civil war could and should be prosecuted for twenty years after the overthrow and dispersion of the Rebel armies. Its object is to ' let the nigger knowhisplace,' which, now as ever, in the Rebel conception, is under the heel of the white man. "Until this skulking warfare with masks, instead of banners and torches in place of grenades, shall have been somehow termi- nated, the Republican party can not chauge its attitude, noi can it give that attention and emphasis to questions of political econ- omy and finance which the public good im- peratively requires. Pledged by all its glo- rious past to inflexible and paramount fidelity to the rights of man, it can not while these are assailed and imperiled devote much at- tention to the policy of raising or lowering the imposts now payable on the importation of iron, or fabrics, or sugar. And, in the absence of such attention, there is great danger that unwise and injurious changes in the tariff may be made, which, if their na- ture and bearings were fully understood, would be condemned and defeated." — From the New York Tribune of March 11, 1871. THE KUKLUX AND THE COMING ELECTION. "That men are daily killed throughout most of the Southern States, because they are Republicans, is just as sure as the fact that those States were lately the arena of a great civil war. There has been not less than five thousand negroes killed because of their color and their politics in these States since General Grant's election; and not one white Southron has been punished for such murder. Nay, the brutal murderer of a white military officer at Vicksburg, Miss., walks the streets of that city as freely and proudly as though he were the hero of some great Confederate victory. "Gentlemen opposite! we respectfully warn you that you are making up a record that will expose you to a fearful judgment in the next Presidential election. The people of the United States do not believe in whole- sale assassination as a political maneuver, and will uphold no party that resorts to it. You may carry most of the intervening elec- tions, when the issue is not distinctly and vigorously pressed home upon the masses, but, when we come to 1872, you will as- suredly be beaten by the votes of men who are not politicians and are now not voting at all. We shall only have to drive home the facts which prove your complicity in the crimes now convulsing the South, and you will inevitaoly go under. If you succeed in defeating legislation to protect the loyal men of the South from the crimes to which they are now exposed and subjected, your fourth suc- cessive discomfiture iii a Presidential struggle will be signal and conclusive." — From the New York Tribune of March 1-1, 1871. Mr. Greeley continued up to the spring of the present year to urge the punishment of those who had been arrested by the Fed- eral authorities as connected with the Ku- klux demonstrations. The following article ' is but one of many of a similar import : "The Kuklux trials which have just been concluded at Columbia, S. C, reveal a social condition in that State, which shows how low down are still the poor whites, whose pov- erty and ignorance were part of the slave svstem. These trials showed too, how the vindictive hatred of freedom -still clings to the higher classes of the South, and how easy His for the ex-slaveholder to turn his oppression of the black man agaiust the low class which befriended him or hesitates to jo>n in organized society to drive him out. Nobody can say that these trials have not been fairly conducted. The prisoners were defended by such eminent legal counsel as the Hon. Henry Stan bery, ex- Attorney Gen- eral of the United States, and the Hon. Rev- erdy Johnson. But the testimony brought out overwhelmed all argument, and forty- seven of these wretches confessed then crimesin open court, six othera were con- victed, and seveuty-two indictment, embrac- ing over five hundred persons, were found. The story of brutality, crime, violence, and moral degradation made up from the revela- tions of the witnesses is too revolting for re- cital; it is a dark chapter in the history of civilization; it is a burning disgrace to the partv which organized the conspiracy, aided and abetted its agents, and did its best to suppress the evidence now published to the world." — From the New York Tribune oj Jartr vary 10, 1872. So might the record be continued through almost couutless pages of the same sort of innuendo, accusation, slander, and libel. These things establish the aptness of an epi- gram once launched against him by one, now a leading admirer, which runs in this wise— "HORACE GREELEY, FOUNDER OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE, FIBST IN FEACE ; LAST IN WAR ; AND LEAST IN TEE iSeaETS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN." * LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 789 521 3