We do not
attach much importance to the fact that Abraham Lincoln, the late
lamented President of the United States, thought it worth while,
during the dark days of the summer of 1864, to buy its support at the
price of the offer of the French mission. He was mistaken in supposing
that this paper had any considerable power to change votes; which was
shown by the result of the Presidential election in the city of New
York, where General McClellan had the great majority of thirty-seven
thousand. Influence over opinion no paper can have which has itself no
opinion, and cares for none. It is not as a vehicle of opinion that
the Herald has importance, but solely as a vehicle of news. It is for
its excellence, real or supposed, in this particular, that eighty
thousand people buy it every morning. Mr. Lincoln committed, as we
cannot help thinking, a most egregious error and fault in his purchase
of the editor of this paper, though he is in some degree excused by
the fact that several leading Republicans, who were in a position to
know better, advised or sanctioned the bargain, and leading
journalists agreed not to censure it.
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