to be allowed to stand, forever undisturbed and faithfully respected.

More than two years before the establishment of The NewYorker, Dr. Sylvester Graham, a man of strong and acute mind, and unusually well informed in respect of the human anatomy, delivered a series of lectures in the city, advocating a new system of diet. He believed that health is the necessary result of obedience, disease, of disobedience to physical laws; that all stimulants, of whatsoever nature, are unwholesome, injurious; that spices and condiments are to be placed in the same category; that better food than the flesh of animals can almost always be procured, and is far preferable. He also believed that food, otherwise good, might be made too concentrated to be wholesome; and he, therefore, advocated the use of unbolted flour in the making of all bread. The Doctor converted a considerable number to the adoption of "the Graham system," and Horace Greeley gave it his general assent, though he did not then, nor ever afterwards, wholly reject the use of meat, or tea-"when black and very good."

A boarding-house upon the Graham system was established, and hither Mr. Greeley betook himself with his baggage. Here he became acquainted with Miss Mary Y. Cheney, a teacher, a young lady of accomplishments and culture, and a radical "Grahamite." She afterwards removed to Warrenton, North Carolina, whence the acquaintance with Mr. Greeley was continued by correspondence. In consequence whereof, The New-Yorker of July 16, 1836, at the head of its list of marriages, contained the following:

"In Immanuel church, Warrenton, North Carolina, on Tuesday morning, 5th inst., by Rev. William Norwood, Mr. HORACE GREELEY, editor of The New-Yorker, to Miss MARY Y. CHENEY, of Warrenton, formerly of this city."

The marriage was according to the Episcopal ceremony; and on this occasion, at any rate, Horace Greeley was dressed in a manner which would have satisfied the taste of the most fastidious gentleman. On returning with his bride to NewYork, he stopped for a brief visit in Washington. He was

LAST OF THE NEW-YORKER.

83

profoundly impressed with the Senate, thinking it unsurpassed in intellectual greatness by any body of fifty men ever convened. He thought Mr. Clay was the most striking person on the floor, and Mr. Calhoun one of the plainest. Daniel Webster he did not see; but predicted great distinction for Mr. Crittenden.

At the time of his marriage, Mr. Greeley considered himself worth five thousand dollars, and the master of a business which, with his labour, would yield him at least one thousand dollars annually,-a sum sufficient for the respectable support of a small family in those days. About this time he dissolved partnership with Mr. Winchester, who took the job department of the establishment, he, The New-Yorker office. His anticipations of income proved to be sadly at fault. The financial crash of 1837 brought him to the verge of ruin and involved him deeply in debt. Throughout the year he found himself compelled to confront a net loss of about one hundred dollars per week. He constantly and vigourously appealed to his delinquent subscribers, but all in vain. As a rule, they were as badly broken as he was. And so, oppressed by debt, he struggled on, hoping against hope, and fighting bravely to the last, until after he had founded that great daily journal by which his name shall be lastingly perpetuated, and, no doubt, his beneficent influence continued evermore.

The final discontinuance of The New-Yorker is thus described by himself:

"When I at length stopped The New-Yorker (September 20, 1841), though poor enough, I provided for making good all I owed to its subscribers who had paid in advance, and shut up its books whereon were inscribed some $10,000 owed me in sums of $1 to $10 each, by men to whose service I had faithfully devoted the best years of my life,-years that, though full of labour and frugal care, might have been happy had they not been made wretched by those men's dishonesty. They took my journal, and probably read it; they promised to pay for it, and defaulted; leaving me to pay my paper-maker, type-founder, journeymen, etc., as I could. My only requital was a sorely achieved but wholesome lesson. I had been thoroughly burned out, only saving my books, in the great Ann Street fire (August 12, 1835); I was burned out again in February, 1845; and, while the destruction was complete, and the insurance but partial, I had the poor consolation, that the account-books of The New-Yorker —

which I had never opened since I first laid them away, but which had been an eye-sore and a reminder of evil days whenever I stumbled upon them- were at length dissolved in smoke and flame, and lost to sight

Meanwhile, before The New-Yorker stopped, events of vast importance had transpired in the State and Nation, with the bringing about of which Horace Greeley had had much to do. It is fit, therefore, that we should now glance at the political history of this period, that we may justly estimate his influence upon his cotemporaries, and correctly note the impress of his mind upon his times.

'Recollections, p. 97.

CHAPTER VI.

CHIEFLY OF THE "LOG-CABIN" CAMPAIGN.

The Presidential Election of 1836-"Old Hickory"- Greeley's Opinion of Martin Van Buren-Thurlow Weed Calls on Mr. Greeley - The Latter Induced to Take Charge of a "Campaign" Paper at Albany-The Jeffersonian -A Model Political "Organ"-The Graves and Cilley Duel-Success to the Whigs in New York State-William H. Seward Elected Governor-The Remarkable Presidential Campaign of 1840 -The Harrisburgh Convention-Nomination of General Harrison -"Tippecanoe and Tyler Too"-Log-Cabins and Hard Cider-Mr. Greeley Edits The Log-Cabin Newspaper-Its Character-Prodigions Success-The Nation Aroused-Notices of Some of The Most Noted Orators-Triumph-The Death of President Harrison-Mr. Greeley Determines to Establish a Daily Journal in New-York.

THE second election of Andrew Jackson was followed by "good times" throughout the country. The National Banks had been overturned. The Federal revenue was deposited in State banks ("the Pet Banks," as they were called by the Whigs), which had thereby been enabled to make a great expansion of issues and loans, flooding the country with currency. Prices were high; speculation was rife; money, such as it was, abounded plentifully; there was great demand for labour; there was, in fine, a tidal wave of universal prosperity sweeping over the country. And for all this, "Old Hickory," as President Jackson was generally called, was given the credit. He became the autocrat of the dominating party; dictating its policy, nominating its candidates, and bearing them on to success by the strength of his mighty name. There never has been an American President so preposterously praised and so cruelly abused as Andrew Jackson. He was illiterate, ungenteelly profane, a swaggerer, a bully, a duellist, and a bigamist. Such were among the mildest descriptions by his opponents. Decency could not endure the pictures of him as painted by the pot-house politicians of the opposition. On

the other hand, he was represented by his friends as the second father and saviour of his country. No praise of him could be too highly drawn; no eulogium too extravagant. In truth, he was a man of great good sense, of wonderfully correct intuitions as to the wishes of the people, of magnificent pluck, and of invincible will. He was a first-rate hater of his enemies, and a most chivalrously devoted friend.

Circumstances of a peculiar nature had made President Jackson not only the friend but the patron of Martin Van Buren. The President willed that Van Buren should be his successor; and he was. Mr. Van Buren was not the nominee of the Democratic party, but of Andrew Jackson, and as such was undoubtedly stronger than if he had been nominated by an untrammelled national convention. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was nominated for Vice-President. The Whigs, without any caucus or convention, ran General Harrison for President and Francis Granger for Vice-President. An independent ticket, consisting of Hugh L. White, of Tennessee, and John Tyler, of Virginia, contested the South with the regulars of the Jackson party. The result developed unexpected strength on the part of the Whigs, who carried Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, losing Pennsylvania by a very small majority, while two Southern States voted for White, and, in addition, Virginia refused to vote for Johnson, so that he had to be chosen VicePresident by the Senate.

Mr. Greeley had ardently supported the candidacy of General Harrison, but was therein seconded by very few politicians in the East. The result vindicated his judgment, and demonstrated the fact that Harrison either was more popular or Van Buren more obnoxious than had been commonly supposed.1

'The election of Van Buren was extremely distasteful to Mr. Greeley, who seems to have had anything but an exalted opinion of "the Sage of Kinderhook." He says, in his "Recollections of a Busy Life:"

"Mr. Van Buren's election to the Presidency always seemed to me anomalous, and I am not yet fully reconciled to it. He had none of that personal magnetism which made General Jackson and Mr. Clay respectively the idols of their contending parties. He was not even an orator, was far inferior to Silas Wright as a debater, and to William L. Marcy in