The editor viewed his calling as a jealous mistress, declining all suggestions of public office or any other diversion from it. In 1861 it was rumored that Lincoln wished to appoint him Minister to Spain, and the _Post_ promptly disposed of the suggestion that he would accept. “Those who are acquainted with Mr. Bryant know,” it said, “that there is no public office from that of the Presidency of the United States downward which he would not regard it as a misfortune to take. They know that he has expected no offer of any post from the government, and would take none if offered.” Grant also would have given him an important diplomatic position had he been ready to receive it. In 1872 it was thought necessary to publish the following tactful CARD FROM MR. BRYANT Certain journals of this city have lately spoken of me as one ambitious of being nominated for the Presidency of the United States. The idea is absurd enough, not only on account of my advanced age, but of my unfitness in various respects for the labors of so eminent a post. I do not, however, object to the discussion of my deficiencies on any other ground than that it is altogether superfluous, since it is impossible that I should receive any formal nomination, and equally impossible, if it were offered, that I should commit the folly of accepting it. WM. C. BRYANT. New York, July 8, 1872. He avoided those controversial by-ways into which Greeley, as in his debate with Henry J. Raymond upon Socialism, so eagerly rushed. In 1860 the country’s foremost economist, Henry C. Carey, challenged him to a joint discussion of the tariff, and the _Post_ replied that Bryant never accepted such invitations. “His duties as a journalist and a commentator on the events of the day and the various interesting questions which they suggest, leave him no time for a sparring match with Mr. Carey ...; and he has no ambition to distinguish himself as a public disputant. His business is to enforce important political truths, and to refute what seem to him errors, just as the occasions arise....” A time more malapropos for a long tariff debate could hardly have been selected.