Historian Robert C. Williams has penned the first full-length biography of 19th-century editor and presidential contender Horace Greeley in decades. Horace Greeley: Champion of American Freedom is a fair, readable account of Greeley's life and career, based around Williams' central thesis that Greeley worked tirelessly to promote the cause of "freedom" (defined here as "the opportunity to improve oneself and society through social and economic labor and reform").
An interesting character (comparisons could be drawn with that other famous 19th-century American whose biography I reviewed last month, Henry Ward Beecher), Greeley's opinions reached the kitchen tables and parlors of millions of Americans through his editorials and other writings in the New York Tribune, as well as his several books and speeches. A reformer, sometimes pragmatic and sometimes decidedly otherwise, Greeley believed (against all evidence) that if left alone, men would function for the good of themselves and of society.
Greeley's long-standing and petty grudge against William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed (for not paying enough attention to him and then refusing to offer him Seward's seat in the Senate in 1861) has always left a bitter taste in my mouth about Greeley, as have his inexplicable political contortions during the 1864 presidential campaign and his decision to accept the Democratic nomination for president in 1872 (he had already been nominated by the breakaway Liberal Republicans) even in the face of his strong opposition to Democratic policies. It is not to be regretted (Grant's second term notwithstanding) that Greeley failed to win the election that fall. As an editor, his words mattered - as a politician, his actions indicated that ambition overrode principle.
Williams' prose is at times clunky and repetitive (I maintain it is rarely necessary to say the same thing more than once or maybe twice), and it is impossible to get away from the near-constant reminders of his thesis. However, for anyone interested in the life of Mr. Greeley, this book will serve well.
