Horace Greeley

Greeley, Horace (1811–72), U.S. journalist and reformer, founder and editor of the New York Tribune (1841). One of the most influential figures of the pre-Civil War period, he endorsed abolitionism, helped found the Republican Party, and was instrumental in the candidature and election of Lincoln. However, his popularity was diminished during and after the Civil War by his confused attitude toward the South, and by his pleas for total amnesty for the Confederacy. He was defeated for the presidency in 1872.