ue decided, they both made common cause with their
State. Toombs served in the Confederate Cabinet and Army. Stephens,
vice-president of the Confederacy, seven years after the close of the
war again became a member of the House; an attenuated figure, confined
to a wheel-chair, but still vital and vigorous; respected by all; his
presence a visible symbol of the spanning of "the bloody chasm."

CHAPTER XVI

SOME NORTHERN LEADERS

Turning now to the North, the principal leaders in its political life
have already been mentioned, except Lincoln, whose star had not yet
risen; but it is worth while to glance at some of those who, apart from
Congress and public office, were molding public sentiment. Perhaps the
man of the widest influence on public opinion was Horace Greeley.
Through his _New York Tribune_ he reached an immense audience, to a
great part of whom the paper was a kind of political Bible. His words
struck home by their common sense, passion, and close sympathy with the
common people. A graduate of the farm and printing office, he was in
close touch with the free, plain, toiling, American people, and in no
man had they a better representative or a more effective advocate. There
was in him something of John Bright's sturdy manhood, direct speech and
devotion to human rights; something, too, of Franklin's homely
shrewdness,--though little of Franklin's large philosophy or serenity.
He was at first a Henry Clay Whig, and always a zealous protectionist;
then in alliance with the anti-slavery element in the party, and soon
the leading Republican editor. He was a lover of peace, in active
sympathy with social reforms, sometimes betrayed into extravagances, but
generally guarded by his common sense against extremists and
impracticables. His limitations were a want of large culture, a very
uncertain judgment in estimating men, and a temperament liable to such
sudden ebb and flow that he fell sometimes into rashness and sometimes
into panic. But he was disinterested and great-hearted. Other men
broadened the _Tribune's_ scope; its editorial tone was for its audience
persuasive and convincing; and the _Tribune_ was one of the great
educational influences of the country. Beside it stood the _New York
Times_, edited by Henry J. Raymond, an advocate of moderate anti-slavery
and Republican principles, with less of masterful leadership than the
_Tribune_, but sometimes better balanced; and the _Herald_, under the
elder