"The Decree has been made Absolute."
PRESIDENT JOHNSON AND HIS WAR ON CONGRESS
BY
CARL SCHURZ
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
I was on the point of returning to the West when I received a message from Horace Greeley, the famous editor of the New York Tribune, asking me to take charge of the news bureau of that journal in Washington, as its chief correspondent. Although the terms offered by Mr. Greeley were tempting, I was disinclined to accept, because I doubted whether the work would be congenial to me, and because it would keep me in the East. But Mr. Greeley, as well as some of my friends in Congress, persuaded me that, since I had studied the condition of things in the South and could give reliable information concerning it, my presence in Washington might be useful while the Southern question was under debate. This determined me to assent, with the understanding, however, that I should not consider myself bound beyond the pending session of Congress.