Horace Greeley Letter To Lincoln And His Response

Horace Greeley's Letter to Lincoln and His Response

Horace Greeley's Letter, and the fact that it warranted a response, speaks greatly to the American Public Sphere, facilitated by the freedom of speech and the press.

In the letter itself, Horace Greely expresses his concern for what was happening in the

Country. At this time, the Civil War was in full swing. There had been passed confiscation acts, which allowed generals to keep runaway slaves and confiscate others that they had encountered, but what awaited them was not the freedom they had hoped for. Contraband camps, camps of freed slaves that were sent to work building infrastructure for the Union army, were formed because the slaves were still seen as property. “Contraband” as

“I do not intrude to tell you - for you must know already -” he begins, “that a great proportion of those who triumphed in your election, and of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the rebellion now desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of rebels.” The way Horace Greeley writes his indictment, one would think he was writing a strongly worded letter to a close friend in an argument, not the president of the United States. Addressing Lincoln as “you” and openly criticizing his administration, Greeley pens a perfect example of the public debate in the public sphere so essential to American Politics. In response, Abraham Lincoln wrote another public letter, stating, “I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be ‘the Union as it was.’" In response to Greeley’s ostentatious critique of his administration, Lincoln responded by signing not a death warrant, but a rebuttal. In times past, this language towards someone in power would mean imprisonment, but not now, because debate, and the public sphere, had become essential aspects of American

In 1733, long before the First Amendment, a german immigrant by the name of John Peter Zenger published an indictment, very similar to the one Horace Greeley published, exposing the acting governor of New York as corrupt. Unlike Greeley, however, Zenger was arrested by the aforementioned governor, and put on trial for Libel. Andrew Hamilton was Zenger’s lawyer in this trial, and he spoke the words of liberty, and freedom of the press to deliver Zenger to a not guilty verdict. Americans had to be able to express opinions, and voice truths about the government that it did not want the public to hear. An important stepping stone to the public sphere that is so associated with American life had been crossed. There were problems after the constitution’s passing as well. In 1798, the Adams administration passed the Alien and Sedition acts, a group of laws that essentially allowed the Federalist powers at the time to deport immigrants (who usually voted Democratic-Republican) and “friends of aliens” who were essentially anyone who disagreed with the federalist’s views. The response to these acts was overwhelmingly negative, and played a big part in kickstarting the revolution of 1800, a peaceful transition from a federalist administration to a democratic-republican one (and another great example of the American public sphere and debate in itself). The fact that these laws were despised by so many shows the attachment that