MILO HASCALL AND THE SUPPRESSION OF DEMOCRATIC NEWSPAPERS IN CIVIL WAR INDIANA By DAVID WILLIAMS BULLA A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2004 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank several people for pushing me through my graduate years toward completion of this project, which began when I saw Ken Burns’ film “The Civil War” in the early 1990s and picked up speed a few years later with my reading of David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln. I will start my acknowledgements with Mark L’Esperance, education professor at East Carolina University who encouraged me to chase the goal of pursuing a doctoral degree in 1991 when we served as assistant basketball coaches at James B. Dudley High School in Greensboro, North Carolina. Sometime after that, my cousin Maggie Shimon, a resident of New Orleans, Louisiana, provided a major dose of inspiration, insisting I would succeed in my graduate school endeavors. Another person who encouraged me in my graduate studies was Dr. Kay Phillips of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I would also like to thank three of my former editors for their contributions to my career: Irwin Smallwood, Wilt Browning, and Allen H. Johnson. At Indiana University, where I received my master’s degree in journalism, I would like to thank David Weaver for turning me in the right direction on this project. Dr. Weaver pointed me toward two writers whose scholarship would prove so valuable to this study, Fredrick Seaton Siebert and Jeffrey A. Smith. Also at Indiana, I was fortunate enough to come under the influence of several professors, including Jack Dvorak, Carol Polsgrove, Edward Gubar, Michael Evans, Andy Rojecki (now at the University of Illinois at Chicago), and Cleve Wilhoit. Three scholars whose work originated at IU also ii have been critical to the development of this study: Jon Paul Dilts, Craig D. Tenney, and Stephen E. Towne. They provided the backbone for my historical analysis and interpretation of press suppression in the Hoosier State during the Civil War. Towne’s continued exhaustive research on the press in Civil War Indiana has made my interpretation far less tenuous than it would have been otherwise. I want to also mention the work of John W. Miller, whose 1982 bibliography of Indiana newspapers provided a wealth of details for my study. Emma Lou Thornbrough’s cultural study of Indiana from 1850-1880 and Gilbert R. Tredway’s examination of Democratic opposition to Lincoln in Indiana were also essential to my study. I would also like to thank Brian Hartz and Ivan Eikenberry of Bloomington for housing me while I did research in Indiana. At the University of Florida, I was very fortunate to have my first class with Leonard Tipton, who stimulated my interest in communication ideas and theory. I would also like to thank my teaching mentor, Julie E. Dodd, who, along with Dr. Wilhoit at Indiana, helped me sharpen my teaching skills. I would also like to thank Gregory A. Borchard, journalism professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Dr. Borchard and I served under Dr. Dodd as teaching assistants at UF, and we have shared our thoughts about Civil War journalism history and teaching with many long conversations. He has also been a careful reader of my research. Thanks also to Rob Marino, Jody Hedge, and the UF Editorial Office for all of their help. This paper would not be possible without the invaluable assistance of my committee, led by Bernell Tripp, who has helped shape it on every step of its journey toward completion. Dr. Tripp insisted all along that this be a paper that based on what I was seeing and reading as a researcher, not on preconceived notions from secondary iii sources. I have been a very lucky novice scholar to be afforded that level of freedom. Dr. Bertram Wyatt-Brown has been a most exacting editor and has constantly reminded me of the war’s enormous social, political, and military complexity. The mind and work of Wyatt-Brown is a treasure not only for the University of Florida but also for U.S. historical scholarship. Dr. Meg Lamme has been a sounding board for a wide range of ideas on this topic, especially where this paper fits into nineteenth-century mass communication history, what it ultimately means to the world of communications history scholarship, and what it means to the vein of study for my career. She has constantly challenged me to make connections to the larger body of U.S. journalism history scholarship. Dr. Marilyn Roberts recruited me to the University of Florida, and I am indebted to her for my career at UF. I appreciate all he guidance she has given me. The best part of this research has been the reading of primary documents. I would like to thank the staffs at the following libraries and archives: Indiana State Library in Indianapolis; Indiana Commission on Public Records, Indiana State Archives in Indianapolis; Allen County Library in Fort Wayne; Smathers Library at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida; Library of Congress; Elkhart County, Indiana, Historical Society; Goshen, Indiana, Public Library; Marshall County, Indiana, Historical Society; Dayton, Ohio, Public Library; Chicago Historical Society; Indiana University at Bloomington Main Library, the Lilly Library, and the School of Journalism Library; the Roux Library at Florida Southern College; the Center for Archival Collections at Jerome Library, Bowling Green State University; Main Library, University of Central Florida in Orlando; and the Lincoln Bookstore in Chicago. iv I want to thank my mother, Rebecca Williams Bulla, for providing me with the love to see this project through to its completion; my sister Catherine Bulla Rachide, for constantly reminding me that I would see this project to the end and become a college professor one day; my friend Joseph D. Pearlman for helping keep things in perspective; and my wife, Kalpana Ramgopal, for keeping me on track and focused when I wanted to branch out and study other communication phenomena. Kalpana is a thorough editor, and she constantly has encouraged me to “Cut, cut, cut” and to tell her what a journalist today can learn from Civil War press suppression. She also refused to let me procrastinate. v TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. ii LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................. ix ABSTRACT.........................................................................................................................x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................1 Statement of Purpose ..................................................................................................13 Significance of Historical Study.................................................................................15 Literature Review .......................................................................................................20 Methodology...............................................................................................................38 Structure of Dissertation.............................................................................................44 Implications ................................................................................................................45 Notes...........................................................................................................................48 2 MILO HASCALL’S WORLD: INDIANA IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA ...................58 Goshen Attorney.........................................................................................................60 Indiana Society at Mid-Century..................................................................................64 “One Country, One Constitution, One Destiny” ........................................................67 Slavery and Temperance.............................................................................................70 Religious Life in the 1850s and 1860s .......................................................................74 Indiana’s Politics in the 1850s and 1860s...................................................................76 Indiana’s Democrats Prefer to Compromise with the South ......................................78 Attitudes Toward Slavery...........................................................................................86 The Election of 1860 ..................................................................................................91 Hascall: A Morton Man..............................................................................................96 Notes.........................................................................................................................100 3 LEGAL, THEORETIC CONTEXT OF FREE PRESS IN CIVIL WAR INDIANA .................................................................................................................109 Borrowing From the British......................................................................................111 Adams’ Sedition Act.................................................................................................114 The Sedition Act.......................................................................................................116