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
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