generally understood, however, that Mr. Greeley and his fellow-zealots of the Whig faith were fighting mainly for a high protective tariff, a consolidated national bank in the hands of a corporate monopoly, and under the "protection" of the government, and a profuse expenditure of national funds for building local improvements, such as wharves, railroads, etc. Of the doctrine we have nothing to say at present; but we call attention to the school of politics in which the present Democratic candidate received his first lessons.

GREELEY ON D. S. DICKINSON.

During the early history of the Tribune, Greeley was at Albany a good deal, and sent thence copious "editorial correspondence" to his paper. In one of these letters we read his opinion of Daniel S. Dickinson-a man of much nobler aims and purer ideas of public management than himself. Putting on a sweet smartness of style, with a little smattering of French which he had picked up somewhere and seemed anxious to air, our young editor wrote:

"I hear that my very sensitive friend, Daniel S. Dickinson, of Broome (familiarly, Scripture Dick), is a candidate for Secretary of State, Attorney General, or almost anything that is comfortable. I hardly credit it. Mr. Dickinson's talents are rather of a forensic than executive order. He ought to go to Congress manifestly; his peculiar style of oratory would create more amusement than a puppet show, and his words would suffice at any time to still the fiercest words of disorder,—the angriest burst of passion, at the first sound of his voice would subside in a horse laugh. There was a rare low comedian (the French would say farceur) spoiled when he became a statesHe must not come here, therefore, but go to Congress." The description certainly did not fit Mr. DickinWould it not fit Mr. Greeley better?

man.

son.

GOES TO CONGRESS.

Mr. Brooks to

In the fall of 1848, Mr. Greeley was elected to Congress on the same ticket with James Brooks, of the Express-Mr. Greeley to serve out the remainder of a deceased member's term, which expired on the 4th of March following, and fill the whole term succeeding that. This arrangement does not seem to have satisfied Mr. Greeley's idea of what was due him from the party, or rather the party managers, for in the famous letter to Governor Seward, in 1854, he uses this language: "I was once sent to Congress for ninety days, merely to enable Jim Brooks to secure a seat therein for four years. * * * James White (you hardly know how good and true a man he is) started my name for Congress, and Brooks's packed delegation thought I could help him through, so I was put on behind him."

Greeley's career in Congress does not appear to have been very successful. He proposed measures enough, and was especially active in behalf of his hobby of then-abolition of mileage-but never got any proposition before the House in a way or at a time to receive consideration. At the same time, he was constantly berating his fellow members through his correspondence for the Tribune -a course which could not be expected to conciliate them toward him, or any of his favorite measures. One of his epistolary attacks, of which a member named Rust, of Arkansas, was the object,

brought that gentleman down upon Mr. Greeley with a cane, in a very dastardly attack-the only one, we believe, which the philosopher has ever received, notwithstanding he has applied "fighting" epithets to a majority of his fellow citizens, either individually or by class.

WISHES TO BE GOVERNOR.

In 1854 Greeley experienced one of the severest disappointments of his life. He then desired intensely the nomination of the Whigs for Governor of New York, and his failure to get that nomination may be said to have embittered his political life and changed the whole future course of the Tribune. His paper had, up to this time, been a truthful party organ, working implicitly for the nominations of the Whig party; but from this time it became a habitual bolter of nominations and a spitter upon platforms. The animus of its subsequent course is easily learned from the letter which Mr. Greeley addressed to Mr. Seward, on the 11th of November, immediately following the election which assured Seward's return to the Senate.

Greeley had, as already mentioned, desired the nomination of the Whigs for Governor. His almost Herculean efforts in behalf of Whig principles had, as he urges in the letter referred to, deserved some such recognition as this from the party. But there were considerations which prevented his nomination-chief of which was the almost abso

lute certainty of his being defeated, and with him Governor Seward for the Senate, if he should run. For ten years his paper had been the "organ," not merely of the Whig party, but of all the isms which had found lodgment in the big scraggy brain of its editor. And whatever Greeley had advocated, he had advocated in the most belligerent and extreme fashion, giving no quarter to his opponents, nor charity to their motives or opinions. These ten years had been probably the most prolific period of the Tribune's history in the development of isms-the crop including Fourierism, Grahamism, Maine-law-ism, Spiritualism, Woman's Rights-ism, (which Greeley was then, but not now, disposed to favor) and an infinite number of minor crotchets in which the philosopher indulged, perhaps no more than a journalist and reformer of society ought (several of them he did not fully adoptonly favoring them enough to enable his opponents in the press to stigmatize him with them), but still much more than is advisable in a candidate for the chief magistracy of a State in which political parties are balanced as evenly as the most delicately poised scale. On this account, Mr. Thurlow Weed, the most adroit and influential of Mr. Seward's friends, waited upon Mr. Greeley and urged him to abandon the idea of running for Governor. He was successful in this, but Greeley added, "Suppose you try my name for Lieutenant Governor, and see whether I am so odious."

When the convention assembled at Albany, it was found advisable to give the second place upon the Gubernatorial ticket to some gentleman whose action, in an emergency, could be depended upon more implicitly than that of Greeley could be. For instance, Greeley had given notice, in the Tribune, that he should support "Maine Law" candidates for the legislature, no matter what their political principles or their general character. This course might easily throw the majority of one branch of the legislature into the hands of the Democrats, (or "Locos," as Greeley then called them) and defeat Seward, the tower of strength of the Liberal Whigs and (as all old citizens remember) the champion of the anti-slavery element of politics. The result was that Myron H. Clark, a poor stick, but a man who happened to be in favor with all wings of the party, was nominated for Governor, and Henry J. Raymond, a journalistic rival of Greeley, was put in nomination for Lieutenant Governor.

The ticket won; but the manner of making it up had proved the last feather that broke the back of Greeley's patience, long groaning, it seems, under real or fancied wrongs. These wrongs consisted in the neglect of Seward to provide Greeley with a fat office at several opportunities which had occurred. These opportunities Greeley mentioned in his letter, referred often to his "extreme poverty," rebuked Seward with having been hard upon him in a judicial decision upon a libel case (!) and an