William Alexander Linn, Horace Greeley Founder and Editor of The New York Tribune

[153] of Greeley's part in this struggle. He did not accept any part of the compromise at the start. He announced open rebellion against his old leader's position. He repudiated the argument of Webster in the 7th of March speech. He did ally himself, later in the contest, with the compromisers, but only to find that the so-called compromise was an apple of discord, which did as much as anything else preceding the war to arouse Northern opinion, make clear the aim of the slave power, and elect an antislavery President.

Clay's compromise and Webster's famous speech had their origin in the fear that the South would attempt to destroy the Union, and Henry Wilson almost excuses Webster in view of the picture which the orator drew of the conflict that such an attempt would incite. The South had been growing more and more restless under the continued opposition to the introduction of slavery in California and New Mexico, the activity of the Northern Abolitionists, and such an indication of the Northern temper as was seen in the vote concerning slavery in the District of Columbia. Greeley did not believe that the body politic in the South would ever mean disunion, and he was not to be coerced by the threats of what he considered to be the voice