Theodore Parker himself could have been. When the South seceded Greeley
said that we must "let the erring sisters go." He thought that the North
could do without the South quite as well as the South could do without
the North; that is no true marriage that binds husband and wife together
with chains when love has fled away. He urged that if any six States
would send their representatives to Washington and say: "We wish to
withdraw from the Union," the North had better let those States depart.
It was not that Greeley felt it was best to dissolve the Union, but that
he loathed the idea of compelling States by force to remain in it.

For a long time he carried the head-lines "On to Richmond" and roused
the North into such a frenzy of feeling that he goaded the President,
the Cabinet and General Winfield Scott into action before they were
ready. Scott was at the head of the army. He was a Virginian, and loved
the Old Dominion State with every drop of blood in his veins. The great
men of the South on their knees begged Scott to join the South and lead
the host of rebellion. Scott answered that he had sworn a solemn oath to
defend the Constitution and the country, and made himself an outcast
that he might be true to God and the Union. But the cry "On to Richmond"
became the cry of an unreasoning multitude of editors and their readers.
All unprepared, the advance was ordered and Bull Run was the result.
Greeley, being the leading editor of the land, was made the
scapegoat--the target of universal criticism. The barbed arrows found
his brain, and becoming excited, sleepless and overwrought, Greeley went
into an attack of brain fever, from which he recovered only after long
time, to register a vow that he would never again discuss the management
of the army. Then came his editorials urging emancipation, illustrated
by "The prayer of twenty millions," and Lincoln's wonderful reply,
written to Greeley, "in deference to an old friend whose heart I have
always found to be right." It is honour enough for any editor to have