第54章

In June, visiting New York in order to take part in a dinner given by various journalists and others to my classmate and old friend, George Washburne Smalley, at that time the London correspondent of the ``New York Tribune,'' I met, for the first time, Colonel John Hay, who was in the full tide of his brilliant literary career and who is, as I write this, Secretary of State of the United States. His clear, thoughtful talk strongly impressed me, but the most curious circumstance connected with the affair was that several of us on the way to Delmonico's stopped for a time to observe the public reception given to Mr. Horace Greeley on his return from a tour through the Southern States. Mr. Greeley, undoubtedly from the purest personal and patriotic motives, had, with other men of high standing, including Gerrit Smith, attached his name to the bail bond of Jefferson Davis, which released the ex-president of the Confederacy from prison, and, in fact, freed him entirely from anything like punishment for treason. I have always admired Mr. Greeley's honesty and courage in doing this. Doubtless, too, an equally patriotic and honest desire to aid in bringing North and South together after the war led him to take an extensive tour through sundry Southern States. He had just returned from this tour and this reception was given him in consequence.

It had already been noised abroad that there was a movement on foot to make him a candidate for the Presidency, and many who knew the characteristics of the man, even those who, like myself, had been greatly influenced by him and regarded him as by far the foremost editorial writer that our country had ever produced, looked upon this idea with incredulity. For of all patriotic men in the entire country who had touched public affairs Horace Greeley seemed the most eminently unfit for executive duties. He was notoriously, in business matters, the easy prey of many who happened to get access to him;--the ``long-haired men and short-haired women'' of the country seemed at times to have him entirely under their sway; his hard-earned money, greatly needed by himself and his family, was lavished upon ne'er-do-weels and cast into all sorts of impracticable schemes. He made loans to the discarded son of the richest man whom the United States had at that time produced, and in every way showed himself an utterly incompetent judge of men. It was a curious fact that lofty as were his purposes, and noble as were his main characteristics, the best men of the State--men like Seward, Weed, Judge Folger, Senator Andrews, General Leavenworth, Elbridge Spaulding, and other really thoughtful, solid, substantial advisers of the Republican party--were disliked by him, and yet no other reason could be assigned than this:--that while they all admired him as a writer, they could not be induced to pretend that they considered him fit for high executive office, either in the State or Nation. On the other hand, so far as politics were concerned, his affections seemed to be lavished on politicians who flattered and coddled him.

Of this the rise of Governor Fenton was a striking example. Doubtless there were exceptions to this rule, but it was the rule nevertheless. This was clearly and indeed comically shown at the reception given him in Union Square on the evening referred to. Mr. Greeley appeared at a front window of a house on the Broadway side and came out upon a temporary platform. His appearance is deeply stamped upon my memory. He was in a rather slouchy evening dress, his white hair thrown back off his splendid forehead, and his broad, smooth, kindly features as serene as the face of a big, well-washed baby.

There was in his appearance something at the same time nave and impressive, and the simplicity of it was increased by a bouquet, huge and gorgeous, which some admirer had attached to his coat, and which forced upon the mind of a reflective observer the idea of a victim adorned for sacrifice.

He gave scant attention to his audience in the way of ceremonial greeting, and plunged at once into his subject;--beginning in a high, piping, falsetto voice which, for a few moments, was almost painful. But the value of his matter soon overcame the defects of his manner; the speech was in his best vein; it struck me as the best, on the whole, I had ever heard him make, and that is saying much. Holding in his hands a little package of cards on which notes were jotted down, he occasionally cast his eyes upon them, but he evidently trusted to the inspiration of the hour for his phrasing, and his trust was not misplaced. I never heard a more simple, strong, lucid use of the English language than was his on that occasion. The speech was a very noble plea for the restoration of good feeling between North and South, with an effort to show that the distrust felt by the South toward the North was natural. In the course of it he said in substance:

``Fellow Citizens: The people of the South have much reason to distrust us. We have sent among them during the war and since the war, to govern them, to hold office among them, and to eat out their substance, a number of worthless adventurers whom they call ``carpet-baggers.''

These emissaries of ours pretend to be patriotic and pious;they pull long faces and say `Let us pray'; but they spell it p-r-E-y. The people of the South hate them, and they ought to hate them.''

At this we in the audience looked at each other in amazement; for, standing close beside Mr. Greeley, at that very moment, most obsequiously, was perhaps the worst ``carpet-bagger'' ever sent into the South; a man who had literally been sloughed off by both parties;--who, having been become an unbearable nuisance in New York politics, had been ``unloaded'' by Mr. Lincoln, in an ill-inspired moment, upon the hapless South, and who was now trying to find new pasture.

But this was not the most comical thing; for Mr.

Greeley in substance continued as follows:

``Fellow Citizens: You know how it is yourselves.