Horace Greeley, the son of a New England farmer and day laborer, was born in Amherst, New Hampshire, in February 1811. The economic struggles of his family meant that Greeley received only irregular schooling which ended when he was fourteen. He then apprenticed to a newspaper editor in Vermont and found employment as a printer in New York and Pennsylvania. Seeking to improve his prospects, he gathered his possessions and a small amount of money and in 1831 set out for New York City. The twenty year old Greeley found various jobs which provided some capital and in 1834 he founded a weekly literary and news journal, The New Yorker. An avid reader, eager to write as well as edit, Greeley contributed to the journal. It gained an increasing audience and gave him a wide reputation. However, it failed to make money and Greeley supplemented his income by writing, especially in support of the Whig Party. His connections with Thurlow Weed, William H. Seward, and other Whigs led in 1840 to his editorship of the campaign weekly, The Log Cabin. The paper's circulation rose to about 90,000 and contributed significantly both to William Henry Harrison's victory and Greeley's influence. Greeley also directly participated in the Whig campaign by giving speeches, sitting on committees, and helping to manage the state campaign. In April 1841, Greeley set himself on the path to national prominence and power when he launched the New York Tribune. The Tribune was multifaceted, devoting space to politics, social reform, literary and intellectual endeavors, and news. It was very much Greeley's personal vehicle. Assisted by a talented and versatile staff, Greeley made the Tribune an enormous success. It merged with The Log Cabin and The New Yorker, expanded its staff and circulation throughout he 1840s and 1850s, and by the start of the Civil War had a total circulation of more than a quarter of a million. Greeley opposed slavery as morally deficient and economically regressive and during the 1850s he supported the movement to prevent its extension. He opposed the Mexican War, approved Wilmot's Proviso, which called for the restriction of slavery in territories gained as a result of that war, and denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Greeley's free-soil sentiments brought him quickly into the Republican party's camp and he attended the national organization meeting of the party at Pittsburgh in February 1856. He supported the Republican candidate in the presidential contest of 1856 and four years later he attended the Republican national convention in Chicago. Initially supporting Edward Bates he turned to Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the balloting. Once war came, Greeley joined the radical antislavery faction of the Republican party and demanded the early end of slavery. He denounced more conservative Republicans and criticized Lincoln for proceeding too cautiously to eradicate the institution. When Lincoln finally announced his Emancipation Proclamation, Greeley applauded the decision.
After the war, he joined the Congressional Radicals in supporting equality for the freedmen. The Tribune also advocated the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. At the same time, Greeley favored measures to restore relations with the South. In 1867 he recommended Jefferson Davis's release from prison and he signed Davis's bond. He gradually grew disaffected with the Grant administration because of its corruption and indifference to civil service reform and also because of its continued enforcement of Reconstruction measures in the South. While much admired, Greeley was also regarded as eccentric and odd, in both his personal appearance and his reformist ideas. When in 1872, the anti-Grant Liberal Republicans and the Democrats nominated Greeley to challenge Grant, Greeley was attacked as a fool and a crank. He suffered a tremendous defeat in the election, carrying only six border and southern states. During the period following the Civil War, Greeley's association with the Tribune underwent significant change. The era of personal editorship was ending, and as the Tribune increased in size, Greeley's influence diminished. Following his defeat in t he election of 1872, Greeley found that control of the paper had passed out of his hands. Shocked by his electoral repudiation, the recent death of his wife, and the effective loss of his editorship, Greeley suffered a breakdown of both mind and body, and died on November 29, 1872, at Pleasantville, New York.
Horace Greeley favored westward expansion. The phrase GO WEST, YOUNG MAN came to symbolize the idea that agriculture could solve many of the nation's problems of poverty and unemployment characteristic of the big cities of the East. It is one of the most commonly quoted sayings from the nineteenth century and may have had some influence on the course of American history. Some sources have claimed the phrase is derived from the following advice in Greeley's July 13, 1865, editorial in the New York Tribune, but this text does not appear in that issue of the newspaper. The actual editorial instead encourages Civil War veterans to take advantage of the Homestead Act and colonize the public lands. "Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting, and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country."
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