Washington Confederation, February 20, 1861

One of the worst (if not the worst) men in America is Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune. The present crisis, so full of impending evil to our common country, in a great measure has been brought about by his agency. His paper, the Tribune, has an immense circulation among the wild enthusiasts, fanatics, and one-idea people of the land, and, added to this, it is the text-book of all who profess to love the poor negro.

He knows much of human nature—in fact, he is acquainted with all the avenues that lead to the heart of man. He writes plausibly and ably, and while professing to love mankind, stirs up the worst passions of the heart in order to gain some selfish end.

With his class he has influence and power, as was shown in the defeat of Seward and the nomination of Lincoln at Chicago. His towering ambition was shown in a late attempt to secure the senatorship of his State in place of William H. Seward, the ablest man in the Republican ranks.

The Kansas murders, the John Brown raid, and the present horrible condition of the country, is more owing to Greeley than any other living man.

And now, while the conservative, Union-loving men of the country are trying to offer something to calm the popular storm that looks as though it would overwhelm and destroy us, this man Greeley is doing all he can to give "back bone" to the desperate abolitionists who, unfortunately for the country, are among the legislators of the land. If a man in the Republican ranks shows the least love for the Constitution and the Union, Greeley at once reads him out of the party. In his Tribune of Saturday last we find the following double-leaded article:

"We do not wish to congratulate the friends of the Union and the constitution a moment too soon, but we will at least tell them that we are greatly cheered by the intelligence from Washington. There seems now to be a fair possibility that we may after all avoid the degradation, the shame, the ruin of a new compromise. Not that the efforts in behalf of such a surrender are abandoned[;] not that the outside pressure by which they were supported have been withdrawn; not that all Republicans have anew and more faithfully sworn allegiance to freedom and to honor, and to their country; but that the higher spirit of those whose motto is "Faithful Forever" seems to be prevailing over the lower impulses with which they have so gallantly and immovably contended. It is possible that we may yet be defeated and disgraced; but there is better reason for hope than at any previous day since the meeting of Congress."

By the "friends of the Constitution and the Union" he means the Abolitionists and other fanatics who are the enemies of the Constitution and the Union—the enemies of our common country. Greeley has power, but it is a power for evil; discord, trouble, wrangling, and strife follow in his wake. If he only created difficulty in a small community, it would not be so bad; but to stir up the ire of a whole nation, and that, too, a nation like ours, is very wicked indeed. If there ever was a bad man, that man is Horace Greeley.