to drain a swamp ought to begin witli this, and be sure of at
least two feet fall from his lowest point at flood-time in
Spring before he cuts his first drain. Of all unprofitable
work, burying tiles where water will run sometimes one way,
sometimes the other, until they choke wdth mud and become
utterly useless, is most discouraging. But thorough under-
draining is the basis of all lasting improvement in farm or
garden culture ; and we should either drain our swamps
thoroughly, or provide for flooding them in Winter and lay
them down to cranberries. I do not doubt that this latter
is in many cases the wiser disposition, except where the



308



RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.



vicinity of a city or village forbids it, from due regard to
others' health. But my swamp is close by a hamlet which
is soon to be quite a village : so it must and shall be drained ;
an^, that thoroughly done, it will be cheap at five hundred
dollars per acre, since it needs little hut draining to assimilate
it in fertnity to a patch of Western prairie. If I live, it shall
yet come to.




^-^^



Af.



My barn is a fair success. I placed it on the shelf of my
hill, nearest to the upper (east) side of my place, because a
barn-yard is a manufactory of heavy fertilizers from materials
of lesser weight ; and it is easier to draw these down hill than
up. I built its walls wholly of stones gathered or blasted
from the adjacent slope, to the extent of four or five thousand
tons, and laid in a box with a thin mortar of (little) lime and
(much) sand, filling all the interstices and binding the whole
into a solid mass, till my walls are nearly one solid rock,



MY FARMING. 309

while the roof is of Vermont slate. I drive into three stories,
— a basement for manures, a stable for animals, and a story
above this for hay — wliile grain is pitched into the loft or
" scaffold " above, from whose tioor the roof rises steep to a
heio-ht of sixteen to eighteen feet. There should have been
more windows for light and air ; but my barn is convenient,
while impervious to frost, and I am confident that cattle are
wintered in it at a fourth less cost than when they shiver
in board shanties, with cracks between the boards that
will admit your hand. jSTo part of our rural economy is
more wasteful than the habitual exposure of our animals to
pelting, chiUing storms, and to intense cold. Building witli
concrete is still a novelty, and was far more so ten years ago,
when I built my barn. I could now build better and cheaper ;
but I am glad that I need not. I calculate that this barn
wiU be abidingly useful long after I shall have been utterly
forgotten ; and that, had I chosen to have my name lettered
on its front, it would have remained there to honor me as a
builder, long after it had ceased to have any other signifi-
cance.



"You will be sick of living in the country within two
years," I was confidently told when I bought ; " and your
place will be advertised for sale." " Then the sheriff's name
will be at the foot of the advertisement," I responded. The
mere fact that / am not yet sick of it proves nothing, since I
only try to spend Saturdays upon it, and am often unable to
do even that ; but my wife, who spends most of each year
there, and has done so ever since* it was bought, is equally
constant in her devotion ; and the bare idea of exchanging
our place for any other has ncA^er yet suggested itself to either
of us. With a first-rate stone or brick house to shut out the
cold, I doubt if either of us would, of choice, live elsewhere,
even in "Winter. For, while the young may love to wander,
and may feel that they enjoy the fragrance of otliers' flowers,
the stately grace of their woods, I think we all, as we grow
old, love to feel and know that some spot of earth is pecu-



310 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

liarly oiir own, — ours to possess and to enjoy, — ours to
improve and to transmit to our children. As we realize the
steady march of years in the thinning of our blanched locks,
the deepening of our wrinkles, we more and more incline to
shun travel and crowds and novelties, and concentrate our
affections on the few who are infolded by " that dear hut, our
home."



" But what of the profits of your farming ? You have said
nothing of them" I often hear. Well : it is not yet time to
speak of them, — in fact, they are, as yet, unspeakably small.
Thus far, I have been making a farm, rather than working
one ; and the process is not yet complete. The first Apple-
trees of my planting, are just beginning to bear ; my best land,
•having been recently bought, and as yet imjDerfectly drained,
is still unproductive. Nor do I expect that farming — or
anything else — will pay without better oversight than I have
yet been able to accord it.

"Do you not perceive," said one near to me, "that your
man there does not more than half work ? " " Certainly," I
replied ; " I am quite aware of it. Were he disposed to be
efficient, he would work his own land, not mine." You can
scarcely hire any work well done, to which you cannot give
personal attention. Publishing newspapers by proxy would
be still more ruinous than farming.

But I close with a confident assertion that good farming
WILL pay — yes, docs pay — right here by New York, — pay
generally, and pay well. Of course, he who lacks capital
must work to disadvantage in this as in everything else ; and
a little capital will go further in the Far West than on tlie
crowded seaboard ; but I feel certain that e-\^en / could make
money by farming in Westchester County, if I could give my
time and mind to it ; and that a good farmer, with adequate
means, can, in following his vocation, do as well near this city
as a reasonable man could expect, or wisely desire.



XXXVIII.

"SEWARD, WEED, AND G-REELEY."

AS I had first engaged conspicuously in political strife at
the invitation of ^Ir. Tliurlow Weed, and had thus been
brought, very soon afterward, into familiar and confidential
relations with his next friend, Mr. William H. Seward, I was
measurably identified with, if not thoroughly devoted to, their
mutual fortunes, for the next fifteen or sixteen years. While
editing The Jeffersonian in Albany, I wrote and reported (im-
perfectly) legislative proceedings for Mr. Weed's paper. The
Albany Evening Journal ; and, though I had no part in
nominating Mr. Seward for Governor in 1838, I did whatever
I could to help elect him ; and so at his reelection in 1840.
(He had previously been State Senator, elected in 1830 ; but
had been badly defeated by WiUiani L. Marcy, when first a
candidate for Governor, in 1834) When, after four years of
obscuration, the Wliig star was again in the ascendant, in
1846 - 48, 1 was a zealous, if not very effective, advocate of his
election to the United States Senate.

Apart from politics, I liked the man, though not blind to
his faults. His natural instincts were humane and progres-
sive. He hated Slavery and aU its belongings, though a
seeming necessity constrained him to write, in 1838, to this
intensely pro-Slavery city, a pro-Slavery letter, which was at
war with his real, or at least with his subsequent, convictions.
Though of Democratic parentage, he had been an Adams man,
an Anti-]\Iason, and was now thoroughly a "Whig. The policy
of more extensive and vigorous Internal Improvement liad no
more zealous champion. By nature, genial and averse to



312 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

pomp, ceremony, and formality, few piil)lic men of his early
prime were better calculated to attract and fascinate young
men of his own pa:rty, and holding views accordant on most
points with his.

Yet he had faults, which his accession to power soon dis-
played in bold relief. His natural tendencies were toward a
government not merely paternal, but prodigal, — one which,
in its multiform endeavors to make every one prosperous, if
not rich, was very likely to whelm all in general embarrass-
ment, if not in general bankruptcy. Few Governors have
favored, few Senators voted for, more unwisely lavish expen-
ditures than he. Above the suspicion of voting money into
his own pocket, he has a rooted dislike to opposing a project
or bill whereby any of his attached friends are to profit. And,
conceited as we all are, I think most men exceed him in the
art of concealing from others their overweening faith in their
own sagacity and discernment.

Mr. Thurlow Weed was of coarser mould and fibre, — tall,
robust, dark-featured, shrewd, resolute, and not over-scrupu-
lous, — keen-sighted, though not far-seeing. Writing slowly
and with dif&culty, he was for twenty years the most senten-
tious and pungent writer of editorial paragraphs on the Ameri-
can press.

In pecuniary matters, he was generous to a fault while
poor ; he is said to be less so since he became rich ; but I am
no longer in a position to know. I cannot doubt, however,
that if he had never seen Wall Street or Washington, had
never heard of the Stock Board, and had lived in some yet
undiscovered country, where legislation is never bought nor
sold, his life would have been more blameless, useful, and
happy.

I was sitting beside him in his editorial room soon after
Governor Seward's election, when he opened a letter from a
brother Whig, which ran substantially thus : —

" Dear Weed : I want to be a Bank Commissioner. You know
how to fix it. Do so, and draw on me for whatever sum you may
see fit. Yours truly."



"SEWARD, WEED, AND GREELEY." 313

In an instant, his face became preternaturally black with
mingled rage and mortification. " My God ! " said he, " I
knew that my political adversaries thought me a scoundrel,
but I never tiU now supposed that my friends did." He at
once responded to the overture to this effect : —

" Sir : I have received your letter, and shall lay it before the
Governor elect, with whom it will doubtless have the influence it
deserves. Yours."

Though generally in hearty accord, these fast friends were
not entirely so. Seward, born in comfortable circumstances,
and educated a gentleman, had none of the " Poor White "
prejudice against Blacks ; while it was other^vise with Weed,
whose origin and training had been different. 3Iy New Eng-
land birth and Federal antecedents saved me from sharing
this infirmity, to which the poverty and obscurity of my boy-
hood might else have exposed me.

I was early brought into collision with both my seniors on
the subject of a Eegistry Law. Every Whig who had been
active in the political contests of tliis city was instinctively
and intensely a cliampion of a registration of legal voters ;
knowing well, by sad experience, that, in its absence, enormous
frauds to our damage are the rule, and honest and legal voting
the exception. So, in the first legislature of our State that
was Whig all over, a bill was introduced, with my very hearty
assent and active support, which provided for a registration
of voters here ; and it had made such headway before it at-
tracted the serious attention of Messrs. Seward and Weed,
that aU their great influence could not prevent the Whig
members supporting and passing it. Yet the measure was so
intensely deprecated by tliem, as tending to alienate the un-
distinguished poor, and especially those of foreign birth, from
our side, by teaching them to regard the Wliigs as liostile to
their rights, that the purpose of vetoing it was fiiUy formed
and confidentially avowed ; and, though it was at length
abandoned, and the biU signed, Mr. Weed assured me that
the Governor would liave preferred to lose his right hand.



314 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

On one important question, Mr. Weed and I were antipodes.
Believing that a currency in part of paper, kept at par witli
specie, and cuiTent in every part of our country, was indis-
pensable, I was a zealous advocate of a National Bank ; which
he as heartily detested, believing that its supporters would
always be identified in the poj)ular mind with aristocracy,
monopoly, exclusive privilege, &c. He attempted, more than
once, to overbear my convictions on this point, or at least
preclude their utterance, but M^as at length brought appar-
ently to comprehend that this was a point on which we must
agree to differ.

The pohtical canvass of 1854 in our State was unlike any
other ever known. The advocacy and passage of the Ne-
braska Bill had disorganized and seriously weakened the
Democrats ; the Whig party had wasted to a shadow, yet an
august, imposing, venerable shade ; the question of Liquor
Prohibition, grown suddenly prominent by reason of its suc-
cess in Maine, was rapidly effacing, or at least overriding,
party lines ; while the American, or " Know-Nothing " move-
ment had not only a considerable, though ill-defined, genuine
strength, but had attracted crowds of nominal adherents,
intent on diverse special ends. Though the State had been
two or three years under Democratic rule by large majorities,
no one could safely guess how this year's election would re-
sult.

I was a member of the first anti-Nebraska or Eepublican
State Convention, which met at Saratoga Springs in Septem-
ber ; but Messrs. Weed and Seward for a while stood aloof
from the movement, preferring to be still regarded as AVliigs.
We made no nominations at that time, but provided for a
nominating convention at a later day ; meantime, the AMiigs
held theirs, and nominated Myi"on H. Clark for Governor,
with Henry J. Raymond for Lieutenant. The Eepublicans
and the Prohibitionists severally held conventions thereafter,
and adopted these candidates, finding them all they could
ask. The Democrats had been rent afresh by their old feud



"SEWARD, WEED, AND GREELEY." 315

respecting Slavery iii the Territories : the " Softs " running
the incumbent, Horatio Seymour ; tlie " Hards," Greene C.
Bronson, for Governor. The " American " candidate was
Daniel Ullmann. \\Tien the vote was canvassed, it was
found thus divided : —



Gov. Clark 156,804

Seymour .... 156,495

Ullmann (^/n.) . . . 122,282

Bronson 33,851



Lt.-Gov. Raymond . . , 157,166

Ludlow {Soft) . 128,833

Scroggs {Am.) . . 121,037

Ford {Hard) . . 52,074



The Whigs had both branches of the Legislature by large
majorities, and they had like majorities for every candidate
on their State ticket but their Governor, who was barely
elected. And, though the "Americans" claimed many of
the members elect, and with reason, we, who had been labor-
ing to secure the return of Governor Seward to the Senate,
hieiv that wc had succeeded, — that many of the votes con-
fidently counted on by his adversaries were sure for him.
There were some members who actually voted against him,
who would have voted for him had their votes been needed.

Wlien all was beyond contingency, I wrote Governor
Seward a private letter, intended for his eye alone ; but the
pointed and misleading allusions to it by certain of the Gov-
ernor's devoted followers, after his failure to be nominated
for President at Chicago in 1860, impelled me to demand it
for publication, and to print it. It is, vcrhatim, as follows : —

HORACE GREELEY TO WILLTAM H. SEWARD.

New York, Saturday Evening, November 11, 1854.
Governor Seward : The Election is over, and its results suf-
ficiently ascertained. It seems to me a fitting time to annoimce
to you the dissolution of the political firm of Seward, Weed, and
Greeley, by the withdrawal of the junior partner, — said with-
di'awal to take effect on the morning after the first Tuesday in
February next. And, as it may seem a great presumption in me
to assume that any such firm exists, especially since the public
was advised, rather more than a year ago, by an editorial rescript
in The Evening Joiunal formally reading me out of the Wliig party,
that I was esteemed no longer either useful or ornamental in the



316 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

concern, you will, I am siu-e, indulge me in some reminiscences
which seem to befit the occasion.

I was a poor young printer and Editor of a Literary Joiunal,
— a very g,ctive and bitter Whig in a small way, but not seeking
to be known out of my own Ward Conmiittee, — when, after the
great Political Revulsion of 1837, I was one day called to the City
Hotel, where two strangers introduced themselves as Thurlow
Weed and Lewis Benedict, of Albany. They told me that a cheap
Campaign Paper of a peculiar stamp at Albany had been resolved
on, and that I had been selected to edit it. The announcement
might well be deemed flattering by one who had never even sought
the notice of the gi'eat, and who was not known as a jDartisan
writer ; and I eagerly embraced their proposal. They asked me
to fix my salary for the year ; I named $ 1,000, which they agreed
to ; and I did the work required, to the best of my ability. It
was work that made no figure, and created no sensation ; but I
loved it, and I did it well. When it was done, you were Governor,
dispensing offices worth $ 3,000 to $ 20,000 per year to yom- friends
and compatriots, and I returned to my garret and my crust, and
my desperate battle with pecuniary obligations heaped upon me
by bad partners in business and the disastrous events of 1837.
I believe it did not then occur to me that some one of these abun-
dant places might have been offered to me without injustice ; I
now think it should have occuiTcd to yoii. If it did occur to me,
I was not the man to ask you for it ; I think that should not have
been necessary, I only remember that no friend at Albany in-
quired as to my pecuniary circumstances ; that your friend (but
not mine), Robert C. Wetmore, was one of the chief dispensers of
your patronage here ; and that such devoted compatriots as A. H.
WeUs and John Hooks were lifted by you out of paiiperism into
independence, as I am glad I was not ; and yet an inquiry from
you as to my needs and means at that day would have been timely,
and held ever in grateful remembrance.

In the Harrison campaign of 1840, I was again designated to
edit a campaign paper. I published it as well, and ought to have
made something by it, in spite of its extremely low price ; my ex-
treme poverty was the main reason why I did not. It compelled
me to hire press-work, mailing, &c., done by the job, and high
charges for extra work nearly ate me up. At the close, I was still



"SEWARD, WEED, AND GREELEY." 317

without property and in debt ; but this paper had rather improved
my position.

Now came the great scramble of the swell mob of coon min-
strels and cider-suckers at AVashington, — I not being counted in.
Several regiments of them went on from this city ; but no one of
the whole crowd — though I say it who should not — had done
so much toward General HaiTison's nomination and election as
yours respectfully. I asked nothing, expected nothing ; but you,
Governor Seward, ought to have asked that I be postmaster of
New York. Your asking would have been in vain ; bu.t it would
have been an act of grace neither w^asted nor undeserved.

I soon after started The Tribmie, because I was m'ged to do
so by certain of yom- ft-iends, and because such a paper was needed
here. I was promised certain pecuniary aid in so doing ; it might
have been given me without cost or risk to any one. All I ever
had was a loan by piecemeal of $ 1,000 from James CoggeshaU,
God bless his honored memory ! I did not ask for this ; and I
think it is the one sole case in which 1 ever received a pecuniary
favor from a political associate. I am very thankful that he did
not die till it was fully repaid.

And here let me honor one grateful recollection. Wlien the
"Whig party under your ride had offices to give, my name was
never thought of; but when, in 1842-4.3, we were hopelessly out
of power, I was honored with the party nomination for State
Printer. When we came again to have a State Printer to elect as
well as nominate, the place went to Weed, as it ought. Yet it is
worth something to know that there was once a time when it was
not deemed too gi'eat a sacrifice to recognize me as belonging to
jow household. If a new office had not since been created on piu*-
pose to give its valuable patronage to H. J. Kaymond, and enable
St. John to show forth his Times as the organ of the Whig State
Administration, 1 should have been still more grateful.

In 1848, your star again rose, and my warmest hopes were
realized in your election to the Senate. 1 was no longer needy,
and had no more claim than desire to be recognized by General
Taylor. I think I had some claim to forbearance fi'om you.
What I received thereupon was a most humiliating lecture in the
shape of a decision in the libel-case of Redfield and Pr ingle, and an
obligation to publish it in my own and the other journal of our



318 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

supposed fima. I thought, and still think, this lecture needlessly
cruel and mortifying. The plaintifl's, after using my columns to
the extent of their needs or desires, stopped writiijg, and called on
me for the name of their assailant. I proffered it to them, — a
thoroughly responsible name. They refused to accept it, unless it
should prove to be one of the four or five first men in Batavia !
— when they had known from the first who it was, and that it
was neither of them. They would not accept that which they had
demanded ; they sued me instead for money ; and money you
were at liberty to give them to your heart's content. I do not
think you were at liberty to humiliate me in the eyes of my own
and your* public as you did. I think you exalted yom- own
judicial sternness and fearlessness unduly at my expense. I
think you had a better occasion for the display of these qualities
when Webb threw himself imtimely upon you for a pardon which
he had done all a man could do to demerit. (His paper is paying
you for it now.)

T have publicly set forth my view of your and owr duty with
respect' to Fusion, Nebraska and party designations. I will not
repeat any of that. I have referred also to Weed's reading me out
of the Whig party, — my crime being in this, as in some other
things, that of doing to-day what more politic persons will not be
ready to do till to-morrow.

Let me speak of the late canvass. I was once sent to Con-
gress for ninety days, merely to enable Jim Brooks to secure a
seat therein for four years. I think I never hinted to any human
being that I would have liked to be put forward for any place.
But James W. White (you hardly know how good and true a man
he is) started my name for Congress, and Brooks's packed dele-
gation thought I could help him through, so I was put on behind
him. But this last Spring, after the Nebraska question had
created a new state of things at the North, one or two personal
friends, of no political consideration, suggested my name as a
candidate for Governor, and I did not discom'age them. Soon,
the persons who were afterward mainly instrumental in nominat-
ing Clark came about me, and asked if I could secm'e the Know-

* If I fim not mistaken, this judfjment is the only speech, letter, or docu-
ment, addressed to the puhlic, in which you ever recognized my existence. I
hope I may not go down to posterity as embalmed therein.



"SEWARD, WEED, AND GREELEY." 319

Nothing vote. I told them I neither could nor would touch it, —
on the contrary, I loathed and .repelled it. Thereupon, they
turned upon Clark.

I said nothing, did nothing. A hundred people asked me
who should be run for Governor. I sometimes indicated Patter-
son ; I never hinted at my own name. But by and by Weed
came down and called me to him, to teU me why he covdd not
support me for Governor. (I had never asked nor counted on hh
support.)

I am sure Weed did not mean to humiliate me, but he did it.
The upshot of his discourse (very cautiously stated) was this : If I
were a candidate for Governor, I shoiild beat not myself only, but
you. Perhaps that -v^-as true. But, as I had in no manner solicited
his or your support, I thought this might have been said to my
friends, rather than to me. I suspect it is true that I could not
have been elected Governor as a Whig. But had he and you been
favorable, there ivould have been a party in the State, ere this,
which could and woidd have elected me to any post, without in-
juring myself or endangering your reelection.

It was in vain that I urged that I had in no manner asked a
nomination. At length, I was nettled by his language — well
intended, but very cutting, as addressed by him to me — to say,
in substance, " Well, then, make Patterson Governor, and try my