Greeley, Horace, 1811-1872

<p>Horace Greeley (February 3, 1811 – November 29, 1872) was an American newspaper editor and publisher who was the founder and editor of the New-York Tribune, among the great newspapers of its time. Long active in politics, he served briefly as a congressman from New York, and was the unsuccessful candidate of the new Liberal Republican party in the 1872 presidential election against incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant, who won by a landslide.</p>

<p>Greeley was born to a poor family in Amherst, New Hampshire. He was apprenticed to a printer in Vermont and went to New York City in 1831 to seek his fortune. He 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. The following year, he founded the Tribune, which became the highest-circulating newspaper in the country through weekly editions sent by mail. Among many other issues, he urged the settlement of the American West, which he saw as a land of opportunity for the young and the unemployed. He popularized the slogan "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." He endlessly promoted utopian reforms such as socialism, vegetarianism, agrarianism, feminism, and temperance while hiring the best talent he could find.</p>

<p>Greeley's alliance with William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed led to him serving three months in the House of Representatives, where he angered many by investigating Congress in his newspaper. In 1854, he helped found and may have named the Republican Party. Republican newspapers across the nation regularly reprinted his editorials. During the Civil War, he mostly supported Lincoln, though he urged the president to commit to the end of slavery before Lincoln was willing to do so. After Lincoln's assassination, he supported the Radical Republicans in opposition to President Andrew Johnson. He broke with Republican President Ulysses Grant because of corruption and Greeley's sense that Reconstruction policies were no longer needed.</p>

<p>Greeley was the new Liberal Republican Party's presidential nominee in 1872. He lost in a landslide despite having the additional support of the Democratic Party. He was devastated by the death of his wife five days before the election and died himself one month later, before the Electoral College had met.</p>

GREELEY, HORACE, a Representative from New York; born in Amherst, N.H., February 3, 1811; attended the public schools; apprenticed to the art of printing in East Poultney, Vt., 1826-1830; worked as a journeyman printer in Erie, Pa., in 1831, and later in New York City; commenced the publication of the Morning Post January 1, 1833, but it was soon discontinued; published the New Yorker 1834-1841; edited the Log Cabin in 1840; founded the New York Tribune April 10, 1841, and edited it until his death; elected as a Whig to the Thirtieth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the unseating of David S. Jackson and served from December 4, 1848, to March 3, 1849; was not a candidate for reelection in 1848; visited Europe in 1851 and was chairman of one of the juries at the World's Fair in London; commissioner to the Paris Exposition in 1855; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1860 from Oregon, being denied a place on the New York delegation; unsuccessful candidate for Senator in 1861; delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1867; at the close of the Civil War advocated universal amnesty, and in May 1867 offered bail for Jefferson Davis; unsuccessful Republican candidate for election in 1870 to the Forty-second Congress; nominated by the Liberal Republicans in Cincinnati in 1872 and by the Democrats in Baltimore for the Presidency, but was defeated by Grant; died near New York City November 29, 1872; interment in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, N.Y.