speaks scornfully of people
who if their "own front door is shut will swear the world is warm." They
are relations in the full blood of Horace Greeley.

In July, when the breach between the President and the Vindictives was
just beginning to be evident, Greeley was pursuing an adventure of his
own. Among the least sensible minor incidents of the war were a number
of fantastic attempts of private persons to negotiate peace. With
one exception they had no historic importance. The exception is a
negotiation carried on by Greeley, which seems to have been the ultimate
cause of his alliance with the Vindictives.

In the middle of July, 1864, gold was selling in New York at 285.
There was distress and discontent throughout the country. The horrible
slaughter of the Wilderness, still fresh in everybody's mind, had put
the whole Union Party into mourning. The impressionable Greeley became
frantic for peace peace at any price. At the psychological moment word
was conveyed to him that two persons in Canada held authority from
the Confederacy to enter into negotiations for peace. Greeley wrote to
Lincoln demanding negotiations because "our bleeding, bankrupt, almost
dying country longs for peace, shudders at the prospect of fresh
conscriptions, of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of
human blood."

Lincoln consented to a negotiation but stipulated that Greeley himself
should become responsible for its conduct. Though this was not what
Greeley wanted for his type always prefers to tell others what to
do--he sullenly accepted. He proceeded to Niagara to meet the reputed
commissioners of the Confederacy. The details of the futile conference
do not concern us. The Confederate agents were not empowered to treat
for peace--at least not on any terms that would be considered at
Washington. Their real purpose was far subtler. Appreciating the
delicate balance in Northern politics, they aimed at making it appear
that Lincoln was begging for terms. Lincoln, who foresaw this possible
turn of events, had expressly limited Greeley to negotiations for "the
integrity of the whole Union and the abandonment of slavery." Greeley
chose to believe that these instructions, and not the subtlety of the
Confederate agents and his own impulsiveness, were the cause of the
false position in which the agents now placed him. They published an
account of the episode, thus effecting an exposure which led to sharp
attacks upon Greeley by the No