while, the impetuous Editor-in-Chief proceeded with his own hands to set the matter in type, and continued to assist till the form was ready to be lowered away to the press-room in the basement. In an hour or two the streets resounded with the cry, "Extra Trybune; 'yival of the Baltic." Then, but not till then, Horace Greeley might have been seen in a corner of an omnibus, going slowly up town, towards his residence in Nineteenth street.

CHAPTER XXV.

RECENTLY.

Deliverance from Party-A Private Platform-Last Interview with Henry Clay-Horace Greeley a Farmer-He irrigates and drains-His Advice to a Young Man-The Daily Times-A costly Mistake-The Isms of the Tribune-The Tribune gets Glory-The Tribune in Parliament-Proposed Nomination for Governor-His Life written A Judge's Daughter for Sale.

DURING the first eight or nine volumes of the Tribune, the history of that newspaper and the life of Horace Greeley were one and the same thing. But the time has passed, and passed forever, when a New York morning paper can be the vehicle of a single mind. Since the year 1850, when the Tribune came upon the town as a double sheet nearly twice its original size, its affairs have had a metropolitan complexity and extensiveness, and Horace Greeley has run through it only as the original stream courses its way through a river swollen and expanded by many tributaries. The quaffing traveler cannot tell, as he rises from the shore refreshed, whether he has been drinking Hudson, or Mohawk, or Moodna, or two of them mingled, or one of the hundred rivulets that trickle into the ample stream upon which fleets and 'palaces' securely ride. Some wayfarers think they can, but they cannot; and their erroneous guesses are among the amusements of the tributary corps. Occasionally, however, the original Greeley flavor is recognizable to the dullest palate.

The most important recent event in the history of the Tribune

occurred in November, 1852, when, on the defeat of General Scott and the annihilation of the Whig party, it ceased to be a party paper, and its editor ceased to be a party man. And this blessed emancipation, with its effect upon the press of the country, was worth that disaster. We never had great newspapers in this country while our leading papers gave allegiance to party, and never could have had. A great newspaper must be above everything and everybody. Its independence must be absolute, and then its power will be as nearly so as it ought to be.

It was fit that the last triumph of party should be its greatest, and that triumph was secured when it enlisted such a man as Horace Greeley as the special and head champion of a man like General Scott. But as a partisan, what other choice had he? To use his own language, he supported Scott and Graham, because,

"1. They can be elected, and the others can't.

"2. They are openly and thoroughly for PROTECTION TO HOME Industry, while the others, (judged by their supporters,) lean to Free Trade.

"3. Scott and Graham are backed by the general support of those who hold with us, that government may and should do much positive good."

At the same time he 'spat upon the (Baltimore compromise, profugitive law) platform,' and in its place, gave one of his own. As this private platform is the most condensed and characteristic statement of Horace Greeley's political opinions that I have seen, it may properly be printed here.

OUR PLATFORM.

"I. As to the Tariff:-Duties on Imports-specific so far as practicable, affording ample protection to undeveloped or peculiarly exposed branches of our National Industry, and adequate revenue for the support of the government and the payment of its debts. Low duties, as a general rule, on rude, bulky staples, whereof the cost of transportation is of itself equivalent to a heavy impost, and high duties on such fabrics, wares, &c., as come into depressing competition with our own depressed infantile or endangered pursuits. "II. As to National Works :-Liberal appropriations yearly for the improvement of rivers and harbors, and such eminently national enterprises as the Saut St. Marie canal and the Pacific railroad from the Mississippi. Cut down the expenditures for forts, ships, troops and warlike enginery of all kinds, and add largely to those for works which do not 'perish in the using,' but will re

main for ages to benefit our people, strengthen the Unicn, and contribute far more to the national defense than the costly machinery of war ever could.

"III. As to Foreign Policy:-'Do unto others [the weak and oppressed as well as the powerful and mighty] as we would have them do unto us.' No shuffling, no evasion of duties nor shirking responsibilities, but a firm front to despots, a prompt rebuke to every outrage on the law of Nations, and a generous, active sympathy with the victims of tyranny and usurpation.

"IV. As to Slavery :--No interference by Congress with its existence in any slave State, but a firm and vigilant resistance to its legalization in any national Territory, or the acquisition of any foreign Territory wherein slavery may exist. A perpetual protest against the hunting of fugitive slaves in free States as an irresistible cause of agitation, ill feeling and alienation between the North and the South. A firm, earnest, inflexible testimony, in common with the whole non-slaveholding Christian world, that human slavery, though legally protected, is morally wrong, and ought to be speedily terminated.

"V. As to State rights:-More regard for and less cant about them. "VI. ONE PRESIDENTIAL TERM, and no man a candidate for any office while wielding the vast patronage of the national executive.

"VII. REFORM IN CONGRESs :-Payment by the session, with a rigorous deduction for each day's absence, and a reduction and straightening of mileage. We would suggest $2,000 compensation for the first (or long), and $1,000 for the second (or short) session; with ten cents per mile for traveling (by a beeline) to and from Washington."

The Tribune fought gallantly for Scott, and made no wry faces at the 'brogue,' or any other of the peculiarities of the candidate's stump efforts. When the sorry fight was over, the Tribune subinitted with its usual good humor, spoke jocularly of the late whig party,' declared its independence of party organizations for the future, and avowed its continued adhesion to all the principles which it had hoped to promote by battling with the whigs. It would still war with the aggressions of the slave power, still strive for free homesteads, still denounce the fillibusters, and still argue for the Maine Law.

"Doctor," said a querulous, suffering invalid who had paid a good deal of money for physic to little apparent purpose, "you don't seem to reach the seat of my disease. Why don't you strike at the seat of my disorder?"

"Well, I will," was the prompt reply, "if you insist on it ;" and, lifting his cane, he smashed the brandy bottle on the sideboard.'"

And thus ended the long connection of the New York Tribune with the whig party

In the summer of 1852, Пorace Greeley performed the melancholy duty of finishing Sargent's Life of Henry Clay. He added little, however, to Mr. Sargent's narrative, except the proceedings of Congress on the occasion of Mr. Clay's death and funeral. One paragraph, descriptive of the last interview between the dying statesman and the editor of the Tribune, claims insertion:

"Learning from others," says Mr. Greeley, "how ill and feeble he was, I had not intended to call upon him, and remained two days under the same roof without asking permission to do so. Meantime, however, he was casually informed of my being in Washington, and sent me a request to call at his room. I did so, and enjoyed a half hour's free and friendly conversation with him, the saddest and the last! His state was even worse than I feared; he was already emaciated, a prey to a severe and distressing cough, and complained of spells of difficult breathing. I think no physician could have judged him likely to live two months longer. Yet his mind was unclouded and brilliant as ever, his aspirations for his country's welfare as ardent; and, though all personal ambition had long been banished, his interest in the events and impulses of the day was nowise diminished. He listened attentively to all I had to say of the repulsive aspects and revolting features of the Fugitive Slave Law and the necessary tendency of its operation to excite hostility and alienation on the part of our Northern people, unaccustomed to Slavery, and seeing it exemplified only in the brutal arrest and imprisonment of some humble and inoffensive negro whom they had learned to regard as a neighbor. I think I may without impropriety say that Mr. Clay regretted that more care had not been taken in its passage to divest this act of features needlessly repulsive to Northern sentiment, though he did not deem any change in its provisions now practicable."

A strange, but not inexplicable, fondness existed in the bosom of Horace Greeley for the aspiring chieftain of the Whig party. Very masculine men, men of complete physical development, the gallant, the graceful, the daring, often enjoy the sincere homage of souls superior to their own; because such are apt to place an extravagant value upon the shining qualities which they do not possess. From Webster, the great over-Praised, the false god of cold New Eng.