Newspapers As Party Weapons
By 1796, both parties had a national network of newspapers, which attacked each other vehemently. The Federalist and Republican newspapers of the 1790s traded vicious barbs against their enemies. An example is this doggerel from a Democratic-Republican paper:
- A SK—who lies here beneath this monument?
- L o!—’tis a self created MONSTER, who
- E mbraced all vice. His arrogance was like
- X erxes, who flogg’d the disobedient sea,
- A dultery his smallest crime; when he
- N obility affected. This privilege
- D ecreed by Monarchs, was to that annext.
- E nticing and entic’d to ev’ry fraud,
- R enounced virtue, liberty and God.
- H aunted by whores—he haunted them in turn
- A ristocratic was this noble Goat
- M onster of monsters, in pollution skill’d
- I mmers’d in mischief, brothels, funds & banks
- L ewd slave to lust,—afforded consolation;
- T o mourning whores, and tory-lamentation.
- O utdid all fools, tainted with royal name;
- N one but fools, their wickedness proclaim.
The most heated rhetoric came in debates over the French Revolution, especially the Jacobin Terror of 1793-94 when the guillotine was used daily. Nationalism was a high priority, and the editors fostered an intellectual nationalism typified by the Federalist effort to stimulate a national literary culture through their clubs and publications in New York and Philadelphia, and Noah Webster's efforts to simplify and Americanize the language.
Read more about this topic: First Party System
Famous quotes containing the words newspapers, party and/or weapons:
“To read a newspaper for the first time is like coming into a film that has been on for an hour. Newspapers are like serials. To understand them you have to take knowledge to them; the knowledge that serves best is the knowledge provided by the newspaper itself.”
—V.S. (Vidiadhar Surajprasad)
“No political party can ever make prohibition effective. A political party implies an adverse, an opposing, political party. To enforce criminal statutes implies substantial unanimity in the community. This is the result of the jury system. Hence the futility of party prohibition.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Boys should not play with weapons more dangerous than they understand.”
—E.T.A.W. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm)