The Party Press

1
The Party Press

• Chapter 5

2
Introduction

• During the Revolution the Tory had disappeared as
  a political factor in America, but two other
  groups now struggled for control of the
  government.
• One element consisted, for the most part, of
  citizens engaged in commerce, banking,
  manufacturing, and property management.

3

• Generally, this group--the Federalists--was more
  interested in preserving and extending its
  economic advantages than in risking social
  experiments.

4

• The other element was largely made up of the
  agrarian, small-farmer class, increasingly
  strengthened by the city wage earners, or
  "mechanics," as they were called, but with a
  significant leavening of intellectuals and
  political philosophers interested in social
  reform.
• They came to be known as the Anti-Federalists.

5
1. The Bill of Rights and Press Freedom

• By the early 1780s, printers still were debating
  just what freedom of the press meant.
• Once again, they reached back to the familiar
  strains of Areopagitica.
• Regardless of their level of understanding, the
  talismanic value of "freedom of the press" was
  clearly being claimed by newspaper printers
  around the country.

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• Aside from the question of whether they practiced
  what they preached, printer-editors of the
  post-Revolutionary period showed some
  understanding that freedom of the press was most
  valuable as a protection for comments made about
  government.
• The Articles of Confederation, the nation's first
  constitution, provide no clues in the search for
  the meaning of freedom of the press, for they
  contained no mention of that particular right.
• Only when the new states began to draft their
  constitutions do we begin to see some mention of
  it.

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• In all, nine of the original thirteen states had
  constitutions containing free press or free
  speech clauses prior to or coincidental with the
  adoption of the Constitution and ratification of
  the Bill of Rights.

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2. The Federalist Series

• The 1780s marked a new era in American
  journalism, and many new printers and publishers
  appeared on the scene.
• Immediately after the American Revolution ended,
  however, most of them recognized that the
  Articles of Confederation were too weak, and they
  began to support efforts to establish a new form
  of federal government.
• Most newspapers supported the call for a
  Constitutional Convention to work out a more
  effective national government.

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• When the Convention met for the first time in
  1787, its members adopted guidelines for their
  proceedings that, among other things, closed
  discussions to the public and the press.
• When the Convention adjourned in September and
  represented its brief proposed constitution,
  every newspaper in the country printed a copy,
  and all immediately opened their columns for a
  discussion of it.
• All but twelve newspapers favored its adoption.

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• Of the hundreds of articles published in favor of
  adoption, the most widely republished was the
  series known as "The Federalist Papers."
• Written jointly by Alexander Hamilton, James
  Madison, and John Jay, each signing his
  contributions "Publius," the essays even today
  are recognized as perhaps the most insightful
  pieces ever written on America's constitutional
  form of government.
• They appeared in the New York Independent Journal
  from October 1787 to April 1788.

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3. Alexander Hamilton, Leader of the Federalists

• The leader of the Federalists was Alexander
  Hamilton, the brilliant Secretary of the Treasury
  under George Washington.
• Hamilton provided financial support for the
  establishment of several important Federalist
  newspapers, including the Gazette of the United
  States, the American Minerva, and the New York
  Evening Post.

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• During the early years of the new nation,
  Hamilton was one of the main contributors to John
  Fenno's Gazette of the United States.
• Established in 1789, the Gazette was soon
  recognized nationally as the leading Federalist
  organ.
• Hamilton and nine other Federalists (including
  James Watson, James Greenleaf, and John Jay) each
  contributed 150 to establish the American
  Minerva in 1793.

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• The Minerva, edited by Noah Webster, replaced the
  Gazette of the United States as the leading
  Federalist paper in New York when that paper
  moved to the new capital of Philadelphia.
• In 1801, Hamilton contributed a thousand dollars
  to help found the New York Evening Post.
• He wrote many editorials expressing the
  Federalist point of view until his untimely death
  in 1804, when Aaron Burr killed him in a duel.

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The Federalist Editors

• Fenno
• Webster
• Cobbett
• Russell

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Russell

• The Federalist organs first "administration"
  newspaper of the new Government was John Fenno's
  Gazette of the United States.
• Hamilton, John Adams, and other Federalist
  leaders contributed to the contents of the
  Gazette.
• The paper first appeared in New York in 1789,
  where the Federal government established its
  first capital.
• Fenno and the Gazette followed the leaders to
  Philadelphia in 1790 when the national capital
  moved.
• (To be continued in upcoming section, "Freneau
  vs. Fenno Vituperative Partisanship)

16
Webster

• In New York, the famous lexicographer Noah
  Webster began publishing his American Minerva in
  December of 1793, with the financial backing of
  Federalist supporters.
• Webster was another strong Federalist voice in
  the young nation - an avid supporter of George
  Washington and John Adams.
• His American Minerva provided New York with a
  leading Federalist newspaper after the Gazette of
  the United States moved to Philadelphia.

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• In his editorials, Webster attacked slavery, and
  he advocated city planning, the establishment of
  charities, and many other social improvements.
• He believed that one of the essential roles of
  the press was that of education of the people.

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• Webster wrote "newspapers are not only the
  vehicles of ... news. They are common instruments
  of social intercourse, by which the Citizens of
  this vast Republic constantly discourse and
  debate with each other on the subjects of public
  concern.
• Webster resigned his duties as editor of the
  paper in 1798, returned to Connecticut, and spent
  his time working on his famous dictionary.

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Cobbett

• Cobbett, originally from England, settled in
  Philadelphia and began publishing a newspaper in
  1797 called Porcupine's Gazette.
• His stance was Federalist in the extreme.
• His words were so strongly pro-British that even
  the Federalists would not claim him as one of
  their own.

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• Cobbett returned to England in 1800 to escape
  charges of libel in the United States.
• The English welcomed him warmly because of the
  work he had done to promote Great Britain in his
  writings in America.
• Cobbett soon recognized corruption in the British
  government as he had in the military, and he
  wielded his pen to expose frauds and promote
  reforms.
• He spent two years in jail after "libeling the
  crown" in his weekly Political Register by
  condemning the German mercenaries for their
  floggings of members of the British militia who
  served under them.

21
Benjamin Russell

• One of the great leaders of opinion during the
  early years of the nation was Benjamin Russell of
  Massachusetts, a staunch Federalist.
• His newspaper in Boston, the Massachusetts
  Centinel, became a leading national voice for the
  Federalist party in the young nation.
• Russell changed the paper's name to the Columbia
  Centinel and Massachusetts Federalist in 1790.
• The term "gerrymander," which he coined, became a
  part of American political language.

22
Thomas Jefferson, Anti-Federalist

• The hero of the Anti-Federalists was Thomas
  Jefferson, then Secretary of State in
  Washington's cabinet.

23
Philip Freneau, Jefferson's Editor

• When a leading Republican newspaper was needed to
  counter the Federalists' Gazette of the Untied
  States, Thomas Jefferson and his friend James
  Madison brought Philip Freneau from New York to
  Philadelphia to serve as editor.
• Jefferson offered Freneau an official position
  in the State Department as translator, but
  Freneau's principal job was in editing the
  National Gazette.
• Freneau had been a classmate of Madison's at
  Princeton.
• He was a poet of some reputation, and his
  skillful satires and the contributions of Madison
  made the National Gazette an influential
  Republican voice.

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8. Freneau vs. Fenno Vituperative Partisanship

• A native of Boston, Fenno had served as the
  secretary to Revolutionary War generals, and it
  was from this experience that his writing
  abilities were recognized by Federalist leaders.
• In addition to publishing the Gazette, Fenno also
  served as the government printer.
• In Philadelphia, Fenno's chief rivals were Philip
  Freneau, editor of the Republican National
  Gazette, and Aurora editor Benjamin Franklin
  Bache, Ben Franklin's grandson.

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• Freneau's paper was short-loved, but Fenno and
  Bache fought and insulted each other in print for
  almost a decade.
• Their hatred of one another and each other's
  party led to the exchange of harsh words and even
  physical blows on several occasions when they met
  on the streets of Philadelphia.

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9. Bache and the Aurora

• After two years in operation, Freneau's National
  Gazette failed financially and quit publishing.
• Another newspaper in Philadelphia, the Aurora,
  emerged as the new leader of the Republican
  party.
• Established in 1790, the Aurora was edited by
  Benjamin Franklin's 21-year-old grandson,
  Benjamin Franklin Bache.
• Young "Lightning Rod Junior," as he was called,
  was openly sympathetic to the French cause, and
  he was far bolder in his criticisms of George
  Washington than Freneau had ever been.

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• Bache suffered beatings at the hands of angry
  Federalists who considered his strong words
  against the great Washington something of a
  sacrilege.
• Bache published a famous and vicious editorial
  attacking George Washington in 1797, when the
  nation's first president retired to Mount Vernon.
  
• Bache and Fenno became great rivals.
• During the yellow fever epidemic that swept
  Philadelphia in 1798, the two editors stubbornly
  remained in the city to publish their papers.
• The both contracted the fever and died within
  weeks of one another.

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11. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, and
Sedition Act Prosecutions

• The Alien and Sedition Laws were passed in 1798
  under the guise that the peace and safety of the
  United States had to be protected.
• Actually the laws were meant to silence
  opposition editors.
• The Republican press had not been kind to John
  Adams when he was vice president under George
  Washington.
• When he became president and the opposition
  press continued to speak out against him, Adams
  looked to Congress to pass a law that would
  silence the opposition.
• Congress responded with an act that made it
  illegal to print or say anything "false,
  scandalous, and malicious" against the government
  of the United States, in the interest of national
  security during a crisis period with France.

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• Several people were arrested and indicted under
  the Sedition Act, but only ten convictions were
  obtained - eight of these were of editors, and
  all were Republicans.
• Throughout the ordeal, the Republicans opposed
  the laws and refused to cease their criticisms of
  Adams and the government.
• James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were outraged
  by the Alien and Sedition Laws.

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• They wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions,
  which were passed by the respective state
  legislatures, in an effort to overrule the
  federal sedition laws in those states.
• When Jefferson defeated Adams in the next
  presidential election, the Alien and Sedition
  Laws were allowed to expire quietly after he took
  office.
• Jefferson took measures to compensate editors who
  had been prosecuted under the laws.

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13. End of the Battle

• Once again, by 1800 the battle was over. Fenno
  and Bache both died in the terrible yellow fever
  epidemic that scourged Philadelphia in summer of
  1798, while Bache was still under indictment.
• The party battle in the House over the Sedition
  Act continued after the close 44-41 passage vote
  in 1798.
• Attempts were made to amend or repeal it in 1799
  and again in 1800.

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• The removal of the national capital from
  Philadelphia to Washington ended an epoch and
  began a new one, for with the move there had been
  a complete change in party administration
  control, too.
• In the election year of 1800, Federalists were
  dominant in the House, the Senate, the
  presidency, the cabinet, the courts, the
  churches, business, and education.
• Up to four-fifths of the newspapers opposed
  Jefferson and his party. Yet Jefferson won.