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his lead for many years as the most influential Republican editor of the country.
The war feeling was by no means extinguished.
Distrust of the
South had not yet disappeared.
It was counting on a great uncertainty, therefore, for
Greeley to expect to lead out of his old party's ranks, in 1872, the body of Republicans who had taken their political instruction from his pen. The task would have been an easier one before the war. But, while
Greeley's electoral vote was small, his popular vote reached 2,834,079, and this was large enough to account for the continued devotion of all his strictly personal following.
The Tribune, on November 7, printed a card from Greeley announcing his resumption of the editorship “which he relinquished on embarking in another line of business six months ago,” and saying that it would be his effort to make the paper “a thoroughly independent journal, treating all parties and political movements with judicial fairness and candor, but courting the favor and deprecating the wrath of no one.”
He would gladly say anything he could to unite the whole people on a platform of universal amnesty and impartial suffrage, but for the present he could do most for that end by silence.
As he
