The Horace Greeley Foundation

Greeley and the Tribune played important roles in shaping Union policy during the Civil War. Sometimes Greeley anticipated events; occasionally he was out-of-step; but always his views were influential.

Entire books have been written about Greeley’s ambivalent relationship with candidate and then president Abraham Lincoln. “Having [Horace Greeley] firmly behind me will be as helpful to me as an army of one hundred thousand men,” Lincoln wrote in November 1861.

At first Greeley favored avoiding war by allowing Southern states to secede. Then the Tribune raised the battle cry “On to Richmond!” Later in the war, Greeley was a proponent of a negotiated settlement.

In August 1862, Greeley wrote and published a lengthy open letter to Lincoln entitled “The Prayer of Twenty Million,” calling upon him to emancipate the slaves of Rebels. Greeley was harsh in his criticism of the President, writing that Lincoln was “strangely and disastrously remiss in the discharge of your official and imperative duty.”

Lincoln replied in a letter that was widely quoted: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

In September, following the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln announced his intention to issue the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.