passed. Understand, once for all, that I dare you and defy you, and that I propose to fight it out on the line that I have held from the day of Lee's surrender. So long as any man was seeking to overthrow our government, he was my enemy; from the hour in which he laid down his arms, he was my formerly erring countryman. So long as any is at heart opposed to the national unity, the Federal authority, or to that assertion of the equal rights of all men which has become practically identified with loyalty and nationality, I shall do my best to deprive him of power; but, whenever he ceases to be thus, I demand his restoration to all the privileges of American citizenship. I give you fair notice, that I shall urge the re-enfranchisement of those now proscribed for rebellion so soon as I shall feel confident that this course is consistent with the freedom of the blacks and the unity of the Republic, and that I shall demand a recall of all now in exile only for participating in the Rebellion, whenever the country shall have been so thoroughly pacified that its safety will not thereby be endangered. And so, gentlemen, hoping that you will henceforth comprehend me somewhat better than you have done, I remain,

Yours,

NEW-YORK, May 23, 1867.

HORACE GREELEY.

There are some expressions in this letter which it were to be wished had been omitted, but upon the whole, it was a ringing defiance and challenge which Mr. Greeley's assailants richly merited at his hands. The Club resolved that there had been nothing "in the action of Horace Greeley, relative to the bailing of Jefferson Davis, calling for proceedings in this Club." Gracious Club!

One of the most remarkable effects of the storm which was made to grow out of this affair, was that upon the sale of his history of the war. It had previously been very large and steady, but for a time after the bailing of Mr. Davis almost entirely ceased, thousands who had subscribed for it refusing to take their copies! The storm having blown over, the sales of "The American Conflict" again became great and steady.

There is one point in the case of Mr. Greeley's entering upon Mr. Davis's recognizance, which I have never seen properly explained. The condition of the bond was, not to get Mr. Davis released from imprisonment, but that he should appear and answer to the indictment which had been found against him, and abide the order of the court therein. If Mr. Davis had herein defaulted, or shall do so, then the bond becomes forfeit, and the money payable, and not before. There is no statute

JUDGE CLIFFORD.

437 of limitations against an indictment for treason. If the government could have wisely tried Mr. Davis, why has it not done it? He is under obligation to appear when called upon, and undoubtedly would appear, upon due summons. And this among other reasons because he would not allow Horace Greeley's bond to become forfeit. If, then, the government was relieved of culpability for a great cruelty, without harm to any right, or injury to any proceeding connected with the trial of Jefferson Davis, the government was, and still is, indebted for it all to the wisdom and courage and magnanimity of Horace Greeley. Though it is undoubtedly true that Mr. Greeley herein rendered Mr. Davis an incalculably great and noble service, it is no less true that the service he hereby rendered the government of the United States was even greater.

Having reflected as profoundly and candidly upon this subject as I know how to do, I have deliberately arrived at the conclusion, that Mr. Greeley's act in this matter was the best, the wisest, the most benignant of a long life crowded full of good, and wise, and benignant actions. And I doubt not that the children of those who non-concur herein will deliberately reverse the judgment of their fathers.

NOTE. While this work is passing through the press, I find an account of a dinner given to Mr. Justice Clifford, of the Supreme Court of the United States at Charleston, South Carolina, in the latter part of March, 1873, by Colonel Richard Lathers, whereat Judge Clifford stated some facts in regard to the case of Jefferson Davis which had not been generally known. There were several noted Northern and Southern men present. After a long talk upon the celebrated Webster-Parkman murder, which Judge Clifford had prosecuted, the conversation was led into the case of Mr. Davis. It is thus reported by The Daily News of Charleston:

Another event of great historical interest in which Judge Clifford participated was the solemn consultation of a small number of the most able lawyers of the North at Washington, a few months after the war, upon the momentous question as to whether the Federal Government should commence a criminal prosecution against the Hon. Jefferson Davis for his participation and leadership in the war of secession. In this council, which was surrounded at the time with the utmost secrecy, and which has never yet been described, were United States Attorney General Speed, Judge Clifford, the Hon. William M. Evarts, and perhaps half a dozen others, who had been selected from the whole Northern profession for their legal ability and acumen, and the result of their deliberation was the sudden abandonment of the case by the Federal Government in view of the insurmountable difficulties in the way of getting a final conviction, which were revealed by their patient study of the law bearing upon the case. Mr. Hoadley,

then and now a near neighbour and intimate friend of Judge Clifford, relates that, before the latter set out for Washington to join this conference, he paid him (Mr. Hoadley) the compliment of calling upon him to consult upon the momentous question which he was about to assist in solving, and it was agreed between them that, unless it were clear that the conviction of Mr. Davis would follow his trial, and that the law and the facts on the side of the prosecution would be irresistible in the Supreme Court, as well as in whatever court of original jurisdiction the case might be initiated, it would be the part of wisdom and true statesmanship, as well as policy, not to begin the prosecution. The conference took place, and was long, learned, and profound. The Federal Constitution, the law of nations, the decisions of the Supreme Court in the trial of Aaron Burr, and other causes celebres, having more or less bearing on the case then under consideration, and the whole list of State trials in the history of the civilized world, were studied, weighed, analyzed, and dissected. The council were divided upon some points and agreed upon others. Some were at first strenuous for prosecution; others who had weighed the subject more carefully, insisted from the first upon the futility of such a course; and finally the wiser counsels of the latter prevailed, and the proposed prosecution of Mr. Davis was, as will be remembered, suddenly abandoned, although it may doubtless be news to many of our readers to learn that this sudden change of policy was the direct result of this solemn conclave. After the council had adjourned, and Judge Clifford had returned to his home, Mr. Hoadley inquired the result of their deliberations, and Judge Clifford made a striking and characteristic reply in something like the following language: "Remarkable as the fact may appear, we find that the laws of the United States are not so constructed as to afford any certainty of punishing high treason or rebellion, and Mr. Davis, if arraigned under them, cannot be brought to conviction. Perhaps it is that the men who framed our fundamental law and system of government, and who were then fighting for liberty, with halters about their necks, did not pay much attention to the question of punishing in the future the acts which they were committing themselves."

Another reminiscence, illustrating the sentiment of the thinking men in the North, in 1865, was related by Mr. Hoadley of the Hon. John A. Andrew, then Governor of Massachusetts. It was on the day of the grand review of the Federal army in Washington; a number of gentlemen were being entertained at the residence of Gen. S. L. M. Barlow, in that city, and the conversation had turned to the subject of bringing the leaders of the Confederate cause to punishment under the criminal law of the land, when Gov. Andrew expressed himself as follows: "It cannot be done. The criminal law has no application here. Why, it is proved by its very title that the criminal law is a law for criminals-the laws or the code of laws formed by the great body of the people, who are in the main good men, for the regulation and punishment of the bad men scattered here and there throughout society. But when a whole people commit an act, rash, impolitic, and direful in its consequences though it may be, and the best and wisest men and women of the whole people participate therein, encourage and lead it, it is impossible to consider the criminal law as being framed to meet that case, or as being in any way applicable thereto. These people appealed to the arbitrament of war, and they have suffered by the war-that is their punishment. I believed in giving them war, when it was war they wanted,-yes, and I gave a Captain's commission once to a Massachusetts sergeant for no other reason than that he had, with his own hands, hanged seven guerrillas. That was war; that was the measure of their punishment, but criminal law has nothing to do with this case." This declaration of the emphatic Governor of Massachusetts caused *the remark, when related yesterday, that it had an historical parallel in the famous words of Burke, when he told the British Parliament, in reference to the American revolutionists, that he "knew of no way to write an indictment of a whole people."

We need not doubt that a3 the years roll on, history will as triumphantly vindicate the memory of Horace Greeley in other instances of misrepre sentation, as, we now cannot help seeing, it will speedily do in reference to his wise and magnanimous action in the case of Jefferson Davis.

CHAPTER XXV.

MORE HISTORY OF THE TRIBUNE.

More of The Tribune's "Isms" Proudhon -Endorses the Principle of the "Woman's Rights" Reform - Advocates Labour Reform Association Adopted in The Tribune Office - An Era of Energetic Idium A Desciption of The Tribune Establishment - How the Paper Is Edited Mention of Tribune Writers-The Composition RoomPress Room-Counting Room-The "Weekly" Day - Resume of Tribune History from Its Beginning-Vitality of a Great Journal.

HAVING accompanied Mr. Greeley through the most momentous era of the republic's history: through scenes of high excitement and of stirring, great events, a period of the hard-won victory of great ideas: it will be appropriate now to recur to matters of a more peaceful, quiet nature.

The Tribune continued to prosper, notwithstanding the fair play it gave to "isms," an "ism" being, of course, an unpopular idea. Had The Tribune lived a little while before the discovery of America by Columbus, we make no doubt it would have given full hearing to the theory of sphericalism; to the visionary notion, namely, that the earth is round. Had it been in existence so long ago as the time of Galileo, it would have allowed him at least a column a week for the advocacy of his visionary and heretical hypothesis that the world is a moving rather than a stationary planet. For such unauthorized ideas, The Tribune would have been excommunicated by the regulars, and pronounced a dangerous journal by the interested representatives of the flat and stand-still world.

It might appear to have been Mr. Greeley's judgment that every new idea, correct or erroneous, advocated by a respectable mind, with a good object, was entitled to respectful consideration; and that every doctrine, dogma, and practice which he believed to be wrong and hurtful, should receive hearty condemnation, no matter how unpopular that condemnation might

be. Thus we find him saying at a time when a certain political party of proscriptive creed was on the flood tide of success:

We are every day greeted by some sage friend with a caution against the certain wreck of our influence and prosperity which we defy by opposing the secret political cabal commonly known as "the Know-Nothings." One writes us that he procured one hundred of our present subscribers, and will prevent the renewal of their subscriptions in case we persist in our present course; another wonders why we will destroy our influence by resisting the popular current, when we might do so much good by falling in with it and guiding it, and so on.

To the first of these gentlemen we say: "Sir: We give our time and labour to the production of The Tribune, because we believe that to be our sphere of usefulness; but we shall be most happy to abandon journalism for a less anxious, exacting, exhausting vocation, whenever we are fairly and honourably released from this. You do not frighten us, therefore, by any such base appeals to our presumed selfishness and avarice; for if you could induce not merely your hundred but every one of our subscribers to desert us, we should cheerfully accept such a release from our present duties, and try to earn a livelihood in some easier way. So please go ahead!"

And now to our would-be friend who suggests that we are wrecking our influence by breasting the popular current: "Good sir! do you forget that whatever influence or consideration The Tribune has attained has been won, not by sailing with the stream but against it? On what topic has it ever swam with the current, except in a few instances wherein it has aided to change the current? Would any one who conducted a journal for popularity's or pelf's sake be likely to have taken the side of liquor prohibition, or anti-slavery, or woman's rights, or suffrage regardless of colour, when we did? Would such a one have ventured to speak as we did in behalf of the anti-renters, when everybody hereabouts was banded to hunt them down unheard? Can you think it probable that, after what we have dared and endured, we are likely to be silenced now by the cry that we are perilling our influence ?"

And now, if any would prefer to discontinue The Tribune because it is and must remain opposed to every measure or scheme of proscription for opinion's sake, we beg them not to delay one minute on our account. We shall all live till it is our turn to die, whether we earn a living by making newspapers or by doing something else.

More than fifteen years afterwards, in the last book of permanent usefulness which came from his pen, when speaking of "the farmer's calling," he says:

I have repeatedly been stung by the receipt of letters gravely informing me that my course and views on a current topic were adverse to public