aper was always achieved
by the co-operation of wiser managers than himself. His personal
appearance was peculiar, and he very soon became a well-known figure in
the public life of New York. He usually wore a broad-brimmed, soft white
hat and a light-colored overcoat, and his appearance, although always
spotlessly neat, was characterized by a certain disorderliness which
instantly attracted attention. He had a shrill, high-keyed voice; he was
irascible in temper, and was never the "philosopher" which those who
least knew him credited him with being. In an angry letter published in
his own newspaper he referred to the editor of _The Daily Times_ as
"that little villain, Raymond;" and replying to an offensive charge
against him by _The Evening Post_, he began with, "You lie, villain,
wilfully, wickedly, basely lie." Other passages at arms like these
occasionally enlivened, if they did not disfigure, the editorial columns
of _The Tribune_, over which Greeley exercised a personal censorship
which, in later years, he found it necessary to relax. He was sincerely
and ardently devoted to the cause of Protection, to the interests of the
farmer and the laboring man, to sound money, and to all the ennobling
and refining activities of social life. In spite of a careless personal
manner, and a voice not at all agreeable to the ear, he became a popular
and greatly sought public speaker. As a lecturer in the lyceums of towns
and villages, then greatly in vogue, he was always an acceptable and
greatly admired figure.

In 1848 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives to
fill a vacancy for three months. With great vigor he charged upon
several of the most prominent abuses of the time, and selecting the
practice of paying mileage to Congressmen, he assaulted that with a
vehemence which ultimately destroyed it. As a member of Congress he also
introduced the first bill to give free homesteads to actual settlers on
the public lands. He was a candidate in 1861 for United States Senator,
but was defeated by Ira Harris, of Albany. In 1864 he was one of the
Republican Presidential Electors, and in 1870 was nominated for Congress
in a hopelessly Democratic district, and was defeated. He had always
been an intense opponent of human slavery, and in 1848 his hostility to
the war with Mexico was doubtless inspired by his dread of the extension
of the slave system. He was an enthusiastic supporter of John C.
Fremont, who was nomin