Peter Cooper / The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4

to two periods,-that of the war for the Union, and that of th

e. He advocated the purchase and liberation by the government of all the slaves in the United States; he promoted a "peace conference" on the very eve of the war. But when South Carolina had formally seceded and the gauntlet had been cast at the feet of national authority, his course was not uncertain. He was a representative

eceipt of this news, Peter Cooper, then seventy years old, was among the first to mount the platform. His familiar white hairs and kindly face were recognized by the crowd,

government devoted with all its power to maintain, extend, and perpetuate a system in itself revolting to all the

t to succeed. We should spend our lives, our property, and leave the land itself a desola

eans in our power, to arm and equip in the shortest possible t

yment over the counter of all the money he had been able to collect without business disaster. "In those days," says a friend, "whenever he had nothing else to do, he would

when in 1864, at the darkest hour of the struggle, there was danger of a fatal compromise, he actively promoted that great mass meeting in the hall

sabled soldiers of the nation; and the following paragraph quoted from his remarks o

tent to subjugate the North to their domination. Had they been successful, they would have gloried in making us pay for the loss of their slaves and the expenses of their war. I trust that the

n to question the wisdom of measures taken for that purpose. Two things are certain: first, that Mr. Cooper's motives in his later political course were thoroughly pure and unselfish; and secondly, that his utterances and publications in this connection show him to be dealing with subjects which he did not understand. This statement is made without regard to the merits of the controversy, or the strength of the arguments contributed to it by others. The simple truth is that Mr. Cooper was too old to make original investigation of such questions, intelligently weighing all the modern conditions of industry and commerce, in which he was no longer an active participant. He accepted in 1876 the nomination of the Greenback party for the presidency; but the issue was already practically dead, and he received but 81,740 votes out of a total of 8,412,833 cast. Undaunted by this defeat, he continued