Greeley, HORACE, American journalist, described by Whittier as 'our later Franklin,' was born at Amherst, New Hampshire, February 3, 1811. His father was a small farmer, always poor; and Horace, the third of seven children, after acquiring the rudiments of education at a common school, entered a printing-office as an apprentice (1826), at East Poultney, Vermont, and rose so far as to assist in editorial work on the Northern Spectator. Released from his apprenticeship in 1830 by the suspension of this paper, he worked for some time as a journeyman printer in various country offices, and in August 1831 made his way to New York with ten dollars in his pocket, and his stick and bundle over his shoulder. He had difficulty in obtaining work at first owing to the oddity of his appearance. For fourteen months he worked as a journeyman printer, when he started business along with a fellow-workman, and in 1834 commenced the New Yorker, a literary weekly paper, for which he wrote essays, poetry, and other articles. His first marked success, however, was the Log Cabin, a Whig campaign paper which contributed largely to bring about the election of General W. H. Harrison to the presidency in 1840, and which was afterwards continued for some months. On April 10, 1841, he published the first number of the New York Tribune, of which he was the leading editor till his death. In the same year he merged his weekly papers, the Log Cabin and the New Yorker, in the Weekly Tribune, which rose to have a large circulation in the rural districts. The Tribune has been an earnest advocate of temperance, co-operation, international copyright, a protective tariff, the abolition of slavery and capital punishment, and other reforms; was at first Whig, then anti-slavery Whig, and was finally recognised as the organ of the extreme or radical Republican party. Greeley advocated and adopted to some extent the social theories of Fourier. Among the contributors whom he gathered around him were such well-known writers as G. W. Curtis, W. H. Fry, C. A. Dana, Margaret Fuller, and Bayard Taylor; while he was amongst the first American journalists to recognise the genius of Dickens, Bret Harte, and Swinburne. His business faculty was indifferent, and he was easily imposed upon by impecunious people and adventurers.
In 1848 Greeley was elected to congress by one of the districts of New York, to fill a vacancy, but failed in his congressional career by agitating an unwelcome reform in the mileage payments to members. In 1851 he visited Europe, and was chairman of one of the committees of the Great Exhibition. He was again in Europe in 1855. His aspirations to political position were defeated by the more conservative party leaders, and he, in turn, is supposed to have helped the nomination of Lincoln instead of Seward in 1860. On the secession of the southern states from the union, Greeley at first advocated their right to secede, as being in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Independence; but when the war began he became one of its most zealous advocates, rival newspapers alleging that he caused the premature advance that resulted in the defeat of the government troops at Bull Run, July 21, 1861. He published an impressive anti-slavery appeal in the Tribune, entitled 'The Prayer of Twenty Millions,' which, besides making a profound impression, drew from Lincoln a remarkable letter; and within a month thereafter the emancipation proclamation was issued. After Lee's surrender he warmly advocated a universal amnesty; and his going to Richmond and signing the bail-bond of Jefferson Davis awakened a storm of public indignation. In spite of oratorical defects Greeley was a good and popular speaker. In religious faith he was a Universalist. In 1872 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency, receiving 2,834,079 of the popular vote, as against 3,597,070 for General Grant; the strain proved too great for him, and he died 29th November of the same year.—A town in northern Colorado, which he helped to colonise, was named Greeley. Greeley's works include The American Conflict (2 vols. 1864-66); Recollections of a Busy Life (1868); Essays on Political Economy (1870); What I know of Farming (1871). There are Lives by Parton, Reavis, and Ingersoll, and a memorial volume (1873).