Greeley had played a very important part in the historic convention. The press gave him full credit for his activity, and he admitted it in his jubilant letter to Pike; but after returning to New York he seemed to think it wise to minimise his influence, claiming that the result would have been the same had he remained at home. "The fact that the four conspicuous doubtful States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois," he wrote, "unanimously testified that they could not be carried for Seward was decisive. Against this Malakoff the most brilliant evolutions of political strategy could not avail."[288] This two-column article, modestly concealing his own work, might not have led to an editorial war between the three great Republican editors of the State, had not Greeley, in the exordium of a speech, published in the Tribune of May 23, exceeded the limits of human endurance. "The past is dead," he said. "Let the dead past bury it, and let the mourners, if they will, go about the streets."
The exultant sentences exasperated Raymond, who held the opinion which generally obtained among New York Republican leaders, that Greeley's persistent hostility was not only responsible for Seward's defeat, but that under the guise of loyalty to the party's highest interests he had been insidious and revengeful, and Raymond believed it needed only a bold and loud-spoken accusation against him to fill the mind of the public with his guilt. In this spirit he wrote a stinging reply. "With the generosity which belongs to his nature, and which a feeling not unlike remorse may have stimulated into unwonted activity," said this American Junius, "Mr. Greeley awards to others the credit which belongs transcendently to himself. The main work of the Chicago convention was the defeat of Governor Seward, and in that endeavour Mr. Greeley laboured harder, and did tenfold more, than the whole family of Blairs, together with all the gubernatorial candidates, to whom he modestly hands over the honours of the effective campaign. Mr. Greeley had special qualifications, as well as a special love, for this task. For twenty years he had been sustaining the political principles and vindicating the political conduct of Mr. Seward through the columns of the most influential political newspaper in the country. His voice was potential precisely where Governor Seward was strongest, because it was supposed to be that of a friend, strong in his personal attachment and devotion, and driven into opposition on this occasion solely by the despairing conviction that the welfare of the country and the triumph of the Republican cause demanded the sacrifice. For more than six months Mr. Greeley had been preparing the way for this consummation. He was in Chicago several days before the meeting of the convention and he devoted every hour of the interval to the most steady and relentless prosecution of the main business which took him thither.
"While it was known to some that nearly six years ago he had privately, but distinctly, repudiated all further political friendship for and alliance with Governor Seward, for the avowed reason that Governor Seward had never aided or advised his elevation to office, no use was made of this knowledge in quarters where it would have disarmed the deadly effect of his pretended friendship for the man upon whom he was thus deliberately wreaking the long hoarded revenge of a disappointed office-seeker.... Being thus stimulated by a hatred he had secretly cherished for years, protected by the forbearance of those whom he assailed, and strong in the confidence of those upon whom he sought to operate, it is not strange that Mr. Greeley's efforts should have been crowned with success. But it is perfectly safe to say that no other man—certainly no one occupying a position less favourable for such an assault—could possibly have accomplished that result."[289]
Raymond's letter produced a profound impression. It excited the astonishment and incredulity of every one. He had made a distinct charge that Greeley's opposition was the revenge of a disappointed office-seeker, and the public, resenting the imputation, demanded the evidence. Greeley himself echoed the prayer by a blast from his silver trumpet which added to the interest as well as to the excitement. "This carefully drawn indictment," he said, "contains a very artful mixture of truth and misrepresentation. No intelligent reader of the Tribune has for months been left in doubt of the fact that I deemed the nomination of Governor Seward for President at this time unwise and unsafe; and none can fail to understand that I did my best at Chicago to prevent that nomination. My account of 'Last Week at Chicago' is explicit on that point. True, I do not believe my influence was so controlling as the defeated are disposed to represent it, but this is not material to the issue. It is agreed that I did what I could.
"It is not true—it is grossly untrue—that at Chicago I commended myself to the confidence of delegates 'by professions of regard and the most zealous friendship for Governor Seward, but presented defeat, even in New York, as the inevitable result of his nomination.' The very reverse of this is the truth. I made no professions before the nomination, as I have uttered no lamentations since. It was the simple duty of each delegate to do just whatever was best for the Republican cause, regardless of personal considerations. And this is exactly what I did.... As to New York, I think I was at least a hundred times asked whether Governor Seward could carry this State;[290] and I am sure I uniformly responded affirmatively, urging delegates to consider the New York delegation the highest authority on that point as I was strenuously urging that the delegations from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois must be regarded as authority as to who could and who could not carry their respective States.
"Mr. Raymond proceeds to state that I had, 'in November, 1854, privately but distinctly repudiated all further political friendship for and alliance with Governor Seward, and menaced him with hostility wherever it could be made most effective; for the avowed reason that Governor Seward had never advised my elevation to office,' &c. This is a very grave charge, and, being dated 'Auburn, Tuesday, May 22, 1860,' and written by one who was there expressly and avowedly to console with Governor Seward on his defeat and denounce me as its author, it is impossible not to see that Governor Seward is its responsible source. I, therefore, call on him for the private letter which I did write him in November, 1854, that I may print it verbatim in the Tribune, and let every reader judge how far it sustains the charges which his mouthpiece bases thereon. I maintain that it does not sustain them; but I have no copy of the letter, and I cannot discuss its contents while it remains in the hands of my adversaries, to be used at their discretion. I leave to others all judgment as to the unauthorised use which has already been made of this private and confidential letter, only remarking that this is by no means the first time it has been employed to like purpose. I have heard of its contents being dispensed to members of Congress from Governor Seward's dinner-table; I have seen articles based on it paraded in the columns of such devoted champions of Governor Seward's principles and aims as the Boston Courier. It is fit that the New York Times should follow in their footsteps; but I, who am thus fired on from an ambush, demand that the letter shall no longer be thus employed. Let me have the letter and it shall appear verbatim in every edition of the Tribune. Meantime, I only say that, when I fully decided that I would no longer be devoted to Governor Seward's personal fortunes, it seemed due to candour and fair dealing that I should privately but in all frankness apprise him of the fact. It was not possible that I could in any way be profited by writing that letter; I well understood that it involved an abdication of all hopes of political advancement; yet it seemed due to my own character that the letter should be written. Of course I never dreamed that it could be published, or used as it already has been; but no matter—let us have the letter in print, and let the public judge between its writer and his open and covert assailants. At all events I ask no favour and fear no open hostility.
"There are those who will at all events believe that my opposition to Governor Seward's nomination was impelled by personal considerations; and among these I should expect to find the Hon. Henry J. Raymond. With these I have no time for controversy; in their eyes I desire no vindication. But there is another and far larger class who will realise that the obstacles to Governor Seward's election were in no degree of my creation, and that their removal was utterly beyond my powers. The whole course of the Tribune has tended to facilitate the elevation to the Presidency of a statesman cherishing the pronounced anti-slavery views of Governor Seward; it is only on questions of finance and public economy that there has been any perceptible divergence between us. Those anti-democratic voters of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois, who could not be induced to vote for Governor Seward, have derived their notions of him in some measure from the Times, but in no measure from the Tribune. The delegations from those States, with the candidates for governor in Pennsylvania and Indiana, whose representations and remonstrances rendered the nomination of Governor Seward, in the eyes of all intelligent, impartial observers, a clear act of political suicide, were nowise instructed or impelled by me. They acted on views deliberately formed long before they came to Chicago. It is not my part to vindicate them; but whoever says they were influenced by me, other than I was by them, does them the grossest injustice.
"I wished first of all to succeed; next, to strengthen and establish our struggling brethren in the border slave States. If it had seemed to me possible to obtain one more vote in the doubtful States for Governor Seward than for any one else, I should have struggled for him as ardently as I did against him, even though I had known that the Raymonds who hang about our party were to be his trusted counsellors and I inflexibly shut out from his confidence and favour. If there be any who do not believe this, I neither desire their friendship nor deprecate their hostility."[291]
Greeley's demand for his letter did not meet with swift response. It was made on June 2. When Seward passed through New York on his way to Washington on the 8th, a friend of Greeley waited upon him, but he had nothing for the Tribune. Days multiplied into a week, and still nothing came. Finally, on June 13, Greeley received it through the hands of Thurlow Weed and published it on the 14th. It bore date "New York, Saturday evening, November 11, 1854," and was addressed simply to "Governor Seward." Its great length consigned it to nonpareil in strange contrast to the long primer type of the editorial page, but its publication became the sensation of the hour. To this day its fine thought-shading is regarded the best illustration of Greeley's matchless prose.
"The election is over," he says, "and its results sufficiently ascertained. It seems to me a fitting time to announce to you the dissolution of the political firm of Seward, Weed & Greeley, by the withdrawal of the junior partner—said withdrawal to take effect on the morning after the first Tuesday in February next. And, as it may seem a great presumption in me to assume that any such firm exists, especially since the public was advised, rather more than a year ago, by an editorial rescript in the Evening Journal, formally reading me out of the Whig party, that I was esteemed no longer either useful or ornamental in the concern, you will, I am sure, indulge me in some reminiscences which seem to befit the occasion.