Horace Greeley was editor of the New-York Tribune, among the great newspapers of its time. Long active in politics, he served briefly as a congressman from New York, and was the candidate of the Democratic and Liberal Republican parties in the 1872 presidential election. He was defeated by President Ulysses S. Grant on Election Day, but died before the casting of the electoral vote. Greeley was born to a poor family in New Hampshire. He was apprenticed to a printer in Vermont, and in 1831 went to New York City to seek his fortune. He wrote for or edited a number of publications, and involved himself in Whig Party politics, taking a significant part in William Henry Harrison's successful 1840 campaign. The following year, he founded the Tribune, which through weekly editions sent by mail became the highest-circulating newspaper in the country. Among many other issues, he urged the settlement of the American West, which he saw as a land of opportunity for the young and the unemployed. His alliance with William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed led to him serving four months in the House of Representatives, where he angered many by investigating Congress in his newspaper.
Horace Greeley was editor of the New-York Tribune, among the great newspapers of its time. Long active in politics, he served briefly as a congressman from New York, and was the candidate of the Democratic and Liberal Republican parties in the 1872 presidential election. He was defeated by President Ulysses S. Grant on Election Day, but died...