Sunday, October 2, 2016

Horace Greeley to James S. Pike, May 16, 1850

New York, May 16, 1850.

Dear P.: I presume I confiscated your dollar — Swartwouted with it — absorbed it. I will repent and refund at the desk.

As to the editorship of the Republic, I beg to be excused. I shouldn't like to be called up to the big house after some cabinet flusteration and told, “York, you're not wanted.” No, sir, I thank ye! That wouldn't suit my amiable and modest disposition. It might tempt me to blaspheme, which I now studiously avoid.

What the deuce is the meaning of this row the lot of you are kicking up about the President's plan and Clay's Omnibus I can't conceive. I read all your letters most earnestly, but can't make out what you mean. The two schemes are six of one and half a dozen t'other; but if either is six and a half, I think it is Clay's; for that takes care of New-Mexico, which t'other don't. I mistrust you are very factious and selfish, some of you.

Yours,
Horace Greeley.
J. S. Pike, Esq.

SOURCE: James Shepherd Pike, First Blows of the Civil War: The Ten Years of Preliminary Conflict in the United States from 1850 to 1860, p. 62

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