Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures, And TriumphsFuller, Osgood E. (Osgood Eaton)
History
Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs
Fuller, Osgood E. (Osgood Eaton)
Biography
had been gathering volume and momentum for years, and whose piling
waters at last burst through and bore down every barrier. Mr. Greeley
had long been doing all in his power to swell the tide of popular
feeling against slavery, and it was chiefly in consequence of the
tremendous force he had given to the movement that that barbarous
institution was at last swept away. It is the most extraordinary
revolution ever accomplished by a single mind with no other instrument
than a public journal.
It may be said, indeed, that Mr. Greeley had many zealous coadjutors.
But so had Luther able coadjutors in the Protestant Reformation; so had
Cromwell in the Commonwealth; so had Washington in our Revolution; so
had Cobden in the repeal of the corn laws. They are nevertheless
regarded as the leading minds in the respective innovations which they
championed; and by as just a title Mr. Greeley will hold the first place
with posterity on the roll of emancipation. This is the light in which
he will be remembered so long as the history of our times shall be read.
It may be said, again, that Mr. Greeley's efforts in this direction were
aided by the tendencies of his time. But so were Luther's, and
Cromwell's, and Washington's, and everybody's who has left a great mark
on his age, and accomplished things full of consequences to future
generations. The first qualification for exerting this kind of fruitful
influence is for the leader to be in complete sympathy with the
developing tendencies of his own epoch. This is necessary to make him
the embodiment of its spirit, the representative of its ideas, the
quickener of its passions, the reviver of its courage in adverse turns
of fortune, the central mind whom other advocates of the cause consult,
whose action they watch in every new emergency, and whose guidance they
follow because he has resolute, unflagging confidence to lead. In the
controversies in which Mr. Greeley has been behind his age, or stood
against the march of progress, even he has accomplished little. Since
Henry Clay's death, he has been the most noted and active champion of
Protection; but that cause steadily declined until the war forced the
government to strain every source of revenue, and since the close of the
war free-trade ideas have made surprising advances in Mr. Greeley's own
political party. On this subject he was the disciple of dead masters,
and hung to the skirts of a receding cause; but in this school he
acquired that dexterity in handling the weapons of controversy which
proved so effective when he advanced from the position of a disciple to
that of a master, and led a movement in the direction towards which the
rising popular feeling was tending. Mr. Greeley's name will always be
identified with the extirpation of negro slavery as its most
distinguished, powerful, and effective advocate.
THE BRAVE JOURNALIST.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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