103 Facts About Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor and publisher who was the founder and editor of the New-York Tribune.

Horace Greeley was apprenticed to a printer in Vermont and went to New York City in 1831 to seek his fortune.

Horace Greeley wrote for or edited several publications and involved himself in Whig Party politics, taking a significant part in William Henry Harrison's successful 1840 presidential campaign.

Horace Greeley broke with the Radicals and with Republican President Ulysses Grant because of corruption, and Greeley's view that Reconstruction era policies were no longer needed.

Horace Greeley was the new Liberal Republican Party's presidential nominee in 1872.

Horace Greeley lost in a landslide despite having the additional support of the Democratic Party.

Horace Greeley was devastated by the death of his wife five days before the election and died one month later, prior to the meeting of the Electoral College.

Horace Greeley was born on February 3,1811, on a small farm about five miles from Amherst, New Hampshire.

Horace Greeley was the son of poor farmers Zaccheus and Mary Horace Greeley.

Horace Greeley attended the local schools and was a brilliant student.

In 1822, Horace Greeley ran away from home to become a printer's apprentice, but was told he was too young.

In 1826, at age 15, Horace Greeley was made a printer's apprentice to Amos Bliss, editor of the Northern Spectator, a newspaper in East Poultney, Vermont.

Horace Greeley remained there only briefly, going from town to town seeking newspaper employment, and was hired by the Erie Gazette.

In late 1831, Horace Greeley went to New York City to seek his fortune.

In 1832, Horace Greeley worked as an employee of the publication Spirit of the Times.

Horace Greeley built his resources and set up a print shop in that year.

Horace Greeley published the campaign newssheet of the new Whig Party in New York for the 1834 campaign, and came to believe in its positions, including free markets with government assistance in developing the nation.

Horace Greeley was subscribing to Graham's principles at the time, and to the end of his life rarely ate meat.

Horace Greeley had stopped over in Washington, DC, on his way south to observe Congress.

Horace Greeley took no honeymoon with his new wife, returning to work while his wife took up a teaching job in New York City.

Horace Greeley hired Greeley as editor of the state Whig newspaper for the upcoming campaign.

In 1839, Horace Greeley worked for several journals, and took a month-long break to go as far west as Detroit.

Horace Greeley was deeply involved in the campaign of the Whig candidate for president in 1840, William Henry Harrison.

Horace Greeley published the major Whig periodical, the Log Cabin, and wrote many of the pro-Harrison songs that marked the campaign.

Horace Greeley was one of the first newspaper editors to have a full-time correspondent in Washington, an innovation quickly followed by his rivals.

Part of Horace Greeley's strategy was to make the Tribune a newspaper of national scope, not merely local.

In December 1841, Horace Greeley was offered the editorship of the national Whig newspaper, the Madisonian.

Horace Greeley demanded full control, and declined when not given it.

However, when Clay was nominated by the Whigs, he was defeated by the Democrat, former Tennessee governor James K Polk, though Greeley worked hard on Clay's behalf.

Horace Greeley had taken positions in opposition to slavery as editor of The New-Yorker in the late 1830s, opposing the annexation of the slaveholding Republic of Texas to the United States.

Horace Greeley hired Margaret Fuller in 1844 as first literary editor of the Tribune, for which she wrote over 200 articles.

Horace Greeley lived with the Greeley family for several years, and when she moved to Italy, he made her a foreign correspondent.

Horace Greeley promoted the work of Henry David Thoreau, serving as literary agent and seeing to it that Thoreau's work was published.

Police reports, scandals, dubious medical advertisements, and flippant personalities were barred from its pages; the editorials were vigorous but usually temperate; the political news was the most exact in the city; book reviews and book-extracts were numerous; and as an inveterate lecturer Horace Greeley gave generous space to lectures.

Horace Greeley, who had met his wife at a Graham boarding house, became enthusiastic about other social movements that did not last and promoted them in his paper.

Horace Greeley subscribed to the views of Charles Fourier, a French social thinker, then recently deceased, who proposed the establishment of settlements called "phalanxes" with a given number of people from various walks of life, who would function as a corporation and among whose members profits would be shared.

Under the laws then in force, the Whig committee from the Sixth District chose Horace Greeley to run in the special election for the remainder of the term, though they did not select him as their candidate for the seat in the following Congress.

The Sixth District, or Sixth Ward as it was commonly called, was mostly Irish-American, and Horace Greeley proclaimed his support for Irish efforts towards independence from the United Kingdom.

Horace Greeley easily won the November election and took his seat when Congress convened in December 1848.

Horace Greeley's selection was procured by the influence of his ally, Thurlow Weed.

Horace Greeley was quickly noticed because he launched a series of attacks on legislative privileges, taking note of which congressmen were missing votes, and questioning the office of House Chaplain.

In January 1849, Horace Greeley supported a bill that would have corrected the issue, but it was defeated.

Horace Greeley tried to change the name of the United States to "Columbia", abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and increase tariffs.

One lasting effect of the term of Congressman Horace Greeley was his friendship with a fellow Whig, serving his only term in the House, Illinois's Abraham Lincoln.

Horace Greeley's term ended after March 3,1849, and he returned to New York and the Tribune, having, according to Williams, "failed to achieve much except notoriety".

The Tribune remained a Whig paper, but Horace Greeley took an independent course.

Horace Greeley opposed both the war and the expansion of slavery into the new territories seized from Mexico and feared Taylor would support expansion as president.

Horace Greeley considered endorsing former President Martin Van Buren, candidate of the Free Soil Party, but finally endorsed Taylor, who was elected; the editor was rewarded for his loyalty with the congressional term.

Horace Greeley vacillated on support for the Compromise of 1850, which gave victories to both sides of the slavery issue, before finally opposing it.

In 1853, with the party increasingly divided over the slavery issue, Horace Greeley printed an editorial disclaiming the paper's identity as Whig and declaring it to be nonpartisan.

Horace Greeley was confident that the paper would not suffer financially, trusting in reader loyalty.

Horace Greeley attended the first New York state Republican Convention in 1854 and was disappointed not to be nominated either for governor or lieutenant governor.

The switch in parties coincided with the end of two of his longtime political alliances: in December 1854, Horace Greeley wrote that the political partnership between Weed, William Seward and himself was ended "by the withdrawal of the junior partner".

Horace Greeley was angered over patronage disputes and felt that Seward was courting the rival The New York Times for support.

In 1853, Horace Greeley purchased a farm in rural Chappaqua, New York, where he experimented with farming techniques.

In 1856, Greeley published a campaign biography by an anonymous author for the first Republican presidential candidate, John C Fremont.

Horace Greeley sponsored a host of reforms, including pacifism and feminism and especially the ideal of the hard-working free laborer.

Horace Greeley demanded reforms to make all citizens free and equal.

Horace Greeley talked endlessly about progress, improvement, and freedom, while calling for harmony between labor and capital.

Horace Greeley's editorials promoted social democratic reforms and were widely reprinted.

In 1859, Horace Greeley traveled across the continent to see the West for himself, to write about it for the Tribune, and to publicize the need for a transcontinental railroad.

Horace Greeley planned to give speeches to promote the Republican Party.

Nevertheless, after speaking before the first ever Kansas Republican Party Convention at Osawatomie, Kansas, Horace Greeley took one of the first stagecoaches to Denver, seeing the town then in course of formation as a mining camp of the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.

Horace Greeley encountered Native Americans and was sympathetic but, like many of his time, deemed Indian culture inferior.

Nevertheless, when one of the dark horse candidates for the Republican nomination, Abraham Lincoln, came to New York to give an address at Cooper Union, Horace Greeley urged his readers to go hear Lincoln, and was among those who accompanied him to the platform.

Horace Greeley thought of Lincoln as a possible nominee for vice president.

Horace Greeley attended the convention as a substitute for Oregon delegate Leander Holmes, who was unable to attend.

One subscriber cancelled, regretting the three-cent stamp he had to use on the letter; Horace Greeley supplied a replacement.

When he was attacked in print, Horace Greeley responded in kind.

Horace Greeley launched a campaign against corruption in the New York Legislature, hoping voters would defeat incumbents and the new legislators would elect him to the Senate when Seward's term expired in 1861.

Horace Greeley made it clear that a Republican administration would not interfere with slavery where it already was and denied that Lincoln was in favor of voting rights for African Americans.

Horace Greeley's forces did not have enough votes to send him to the Senate, but they had enough strength to block Evarts's candidacy.

Williams concludes that "for a brief moment, Horace Greeley had believed that peaceful secession might be a form of freedom preferable to civil war".

Horace Greeley was supportive even during the military defeats of the first year of the war.

Horace Greeley's prodding of Lincoln culminated in a letter to him on August 19,1862, reprinted on the following day in the Tribune as "The Prayer of Twenty Millions".

Horace Greeley secured arms from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and 150 soldiers kept the building secure.

Horace Greeley agreed, and over the next eight months he penned a 600-page volume, which would be the first of two, entitled The American Conflict.

In 1862, Horace Greeley had approached the French minister to Washington, Henri Mercier, to discuss a mediated settlement.

In July 1864, Horace Greeley received word that there were Confederate commissioners in Canada, empowered to offer peace.

Horace Greeley returned to New York, and the episode, when it became public, embarrassed the administration.

Horace Greeley did not initially support Lincoln for nomination in 1864, casting about for other candidates.

Horace Greeley was gratified by both Lincoln's re-election and continued Union victories.

Horace Greeley was among those who signed the bail bond, and the two men met briefly at the courthouse.

Horace Greeley ran for Senate in the legislative election held in early 1867 but lost to Roscoe Conkling.

Also in 1868, Horace Greeley sought the Republican nomination for governor but was frustrated by the Conkling forces.

Horace Greeley soon pronounced Hay the most brilliant at that craft ever to write for the Tribune.

Horace Greeley served as treasurer and lent Meeker money to keep the colony afloat.

In 1871, Horace Greeley published a book What I Know About Farming, based on his childhood experience and that from his country home in Chappaqua.

Horace Greeley continued to seek political office, running for state comptroller in 1869 and the House of Representatives in 1870, losing both times.

Horace Greeley gathered around him an eclectic group of supporters whose only real link was their opposition to Grant, whose administration had proved increasingly corrupt.

Horace Greeley was one of the best-known Americans, as well as being a perennial candidate for office.

Horace Greeley was more minded to consider a run for the Republican nomination, fearing the effect on the Tribune should he bolt the party.

Horace Greeley was spoken of as a possible candidate, as was Missouri Governor Benjamin Gratz Brown.

Former minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams then took the lead, but on the sixth ballot, after a "spontaneous" demonstration staged by Reid, Horace Greeley gained the nomination, with Brown as vice presidential candidate.

Ronald White writes, "No one summed up Horace Greeley's strength and weakness better than Grant, who wrote a friend, 'He is a genius without common sense'".

Horace Greeley resigned as editor of the Tribune for the campaign, and, unusually for the time, embarked on a speaking tour to bring his message to the people.

Horace Greeley campaigned on a platform of intersectional reconciliation, arguing that the war was over and the issue of slavery was resolved.

The anti-Horace Greeley campaign was famously and effectively summed up in the cartoons of Thomas Nast, whom Grant later credited with a major role in his re-election.

Nast's cartoons showed Horace Greeley giving bail money for Jefferson Davis, throwing mud on Grant, and shaking hands with John Wilkes Booth across Lincoln's grave.

Horace Greeley received 2,834,125 votes to 3,597,132 for Grant, who secured 286 electors to 66 for Greeley.

Horace Greeley resumed the editorship of the Tribune, but quickly learned there was a movement underway to unseat him.

At the recommendation of a family physician, Horace Greeley was sent to Choate House, the asylum of Dr George Choate at Pleasantville, New York.

Horace Greeley supported vegetarianism, opposed liquor, and paid serious attention to any ism anyone proposed.