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Setting the Agenda in the Antebellum Era

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Setting the Agenda in the Antebellum Era Gale Primary Sources Start at the source. Setting the Agenda in the Antebellum Era David A. Copeland Elon University Various source media, Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers EMPOWER™ RESEARCH During the tumultuous 1790s, printer Philip Freneau Numbers are important to this phenomenon. In 1820, declared that “public opinion sets the bounds to every 512 newspapers were published regularly in America government, and is the real sovereign of every free with a circulation of slightly less than 300,000. By 1860, one.” 1 Looking back a generation in 1815, John Adams about 3,000 newspapers were regularly published with reminded his one-time opponent from Virginia, Thomas circulation reaching nearly 1.5 million. Magazines grew Jefferson, that America’s revolution from Britain was at an even more phenomenal rate. A dozen magazines not fought with gunpowder and musket balls, but with were published in 1800. By 1860 that number grew to “the pamphlets [and] newspapers in all the colonies . 1,000. 4 Visitors to the United States observed the power by which the public opinion was enlightened and of the press. Alexis de Tocqueville explained its power informed concerning the authority of Parliament over when he wrote following his early 1831-1832 tour of the the colonies.” 2 Five years earlier, in 1810, Isaiah nation that the press “rallies the interests of the Thomas published America’s first history of journalism. community round certain principles and draws up the In it, he said that newspapers “have become the creed of every party.” 5 And what were the interests of vehicles of discussion, in which the principles of the nation? Slavery, moral and social reform, women’s government, the interest of nations, the spirit and rights, burgeoning immigration, religion, economic tendency of public measures . are all arraigned, depression, urbanization, public education, westward tried, and decided.” 3 expansion, the desire to hold onto a more agrarian lifestyle, and what might happen to a republic that was becoming increasingly polarized because of the issues Though all three were looking at a time before the that dominated the lines of newspapers and the period we refer to as the antebellum era, each conversations of many. accurately described the growing power of the press in America. If three dozen papers could incite a revolution against the world’s strongest empire, image what Newspaper growth had other effects on antebellum thousands of papers could do to inform a nation in a America. Prior to the Revolution, voting rates were low, time when the bottom line of the ledger mattered, but with only 10 to 15 percent of eligible white males doing causes, issues, and ideals meant more. If you can, then so in 1775. 6 But, newspapers continued to grow, you can understand how the press of the antebellum prosper, and discuss the issues that affected the period set the agenda for the nation. direction of the nation. By the 1820s, people in various levels of society turned to papers to voice opinions. By 1 National Gazette (Philadelphia, Pa.), 19 December 1791. Humphrey, The Press of the Young Republic, 1783-1833 (Westport, Conn.: 2 John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 1815, quoted in Bernard Bailyn, The Greenwood Press, 1996); Wm. David Sloan and James D. Startt, The Media Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 1. in America: A History, 4th ed. (North Port, Ala.: Vision Press), 250; and 3 Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America (1810; reprint, New York, William E. Huntzicker, The Popular Press, 1833-1865 (Westport, Conn.: 1970), 18-19. Thomas quoted directly from Samuel Miller, A Brief Greenwood Press, 1999), 170. Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1803), II:251-255. 5 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 2 vols. (New York: Alfred A. 4 Numbers are based on Alfred McClung Lee, The Daily Newspaper in Knopf, 1946), 1:187-88. America (New York: Macmillan, 1937); Edward Connery Lathem, comp., 6 Michael Shudson, “Was There Ever a Public Sphere? If So, When? Chronological Tables of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Barre, Mass.: Reflections on the American Case,” in Habermas and the Public Sphere, American Antiquarian Society & Barre Publishers, 1972); Carol Sue Craig Calhoun, ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 149. the time of Andrew Jackson’s presidency in 1829, more hang our harps on the willows.” 10 Van Buren meant that than 50 percent of American households subscribed to unless those in political power or who desire it had a a newspaper; and approximately 44 percent of eligible venue to address the people, all their efforts would be voters participated in the 1832 election. 7 Involvement in futile. public debate by Americans through an expanding press and the rise in people voting cannot be coincidence. Jackson acknowledged this when elected The rapid growth of newspapers, of course, did not president. occur in a vacuum. It coincided with the mercuric rise in America’s population. The antebellum period began with twenty-two states. By 1860 there were thirty-three. In 1824, Jackson won the majority of popular votes in Even more dramatic was the growth of the nation’s America but failed to capture enough votes in the population, which increased by more than 210 percent. Electoral College to claim the White House. Deals In 1820, America’s population was slightly more than 10 between candidates gave John Quincy Adams the million. By 1860, the population surpassed 31 million. election in the House of Representatives. Many editors, Despite efforts to limit slavery through the Missouri especially those outside New England, felt political Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas- corruption had taken the election of president away Nebraska Act of 1854, and other legislation, the from the people. One even said that “public opinion will number of slaves grew, too. In 1820, census figures eventually be respected by the election of the General.”8 placed the slave population at more than 1.5 million. By As a response to what they viewed as a Shanghaied 1860 it had swelled to nearly 4 million, an increase of presidency, editors mounted a campaign for change. more than 158 percent. Free African Americans by Jackson noted the backlash to the election in the 1860, however, numbered less than 500,000. 11 papers and followed the lead of America’s press. He Immigration in part fuelled America’s population allowed editors to set the agenda. “The recent explosion after 1840. More than 1.7 million people demonstration of public sentiment inscribes on the list entered America in the 1840s, and in the 1850s, that of Executive duties, in characters too legible to be number jumped to more than 2.5 million. 12 overlooked, the task of reform,” Jackson said in his 1829 inaugural address. 9 Jackson’s press secretary Martin Van Buren, who succeeded “Old Hickory” as Three thousand newspapers and one thousand president in 1837, added, “Without a paper, we may magazines for a population of 31 million people do not 7 William J. Gilmore, Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life: Material and 11 Study 00003: “Historical Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: U.S., Cultural Life in Rural New Britain, 1780-1835 (Knoxville, 1989), 193-94; 1790-1970.” Anne Arbor: Inter- University Consortium for Political and Walter Dean Burnham, The Current Crisis in American Politics (New York, Social Research. You may access the census records at an number of on- 1982), 129. line sources including http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ and http:// 8 Aurora (Philadelphia), 2 February 1825. fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/. 9 Andrew Jackson, The Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, John Spencer 12 John M. Blum, et. al., The National Experience, 6th ed., 2 vols. (San Diego: Bassett, ed., 7 vols. (Washington, D. C., 1926-35), 4:19. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), I:310. 10 Quoted in Culver H. Smith, The Press, Politics, and Patronage: The American Government’s Use of Newspapers 1789-1875 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1977), 56. seem adequate, nor does a 1.5 million daily circulation, States “drop the same thought into a thousand minds at but the numbers are misleading. They omit weekly the same moment.” 15 papers and their reach; the population contained a huge component of young people. According to census figures, 50 percent of all white Pennsylvanians in 1860 Understanding newspaper penetration in society only were 19 or younger, a ratio reflected in most states. 13 explains part of the reason why the press set the agenda during the antebellum era. The press of the first half of the nineteenth century would blossom to If during the antebellum period, more than half of all create a venue for dialogue for nearly every segment of homes received papers as William Gilmore maintains in society, save those who were enslaved and perhaps a Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life, and those few others. First, the press entered the antebellum newspapers were read aloud in the home, their impact period as a medium of partisanship and patronage. would have been great. People who subscribed to American newspapers developed their partisan nature papers shared their newspapers with others, often before the Revolution, and even though the “Era of ending up twenty to twenty-five miles from the Good Feelings” following the War of 1812 ended the subscriber’s home. If every paper were shared with just Federalist party, political disputes did not disappear, one home, according to Gilmore’s calculation, then the especially on local levels. The political system of the potential existed for 100 percent saturation of day ensured that the party in power could reward its newspapers, something that would occur in circulation loyal editors by granting them government printing figures early in the twentieth century.
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