The Tyranny of Printers by Jeffrey L. Palsey (University of Virginia Press, 2001) is a scholarly history of, as the subtitle says, Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic. With an abundance of research and a readable set of examples in each chapter that focus on specific newspaper printers and situations, the book opened my eyes to the influence that media had in the very early days of the American republic. Just as today, the press highly influenced opinions, elections, and political leaders, and the print media was especially essential for development and definition of political parties.
The book is a scholarly work, and I selected it as a recommended reading to go along with a Master’s Level PD class in American Democracy through the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History. I wouldn’t suggest it for every reader because it really is dense and detailed, written by a true historian for historians (and an historian want-to-be like me, I guess).
Early American Newspaper Politics
The first chapters in Palsey’s volume introduce early newspapers in the American colonies, particularly in the years leading up to and surrounding Revolutionary America. Even non-historians are familiar with Benjamin Franklin as a printer of the era, with his contribution to politics as a key part of the early printing culture, even as the creator of the first political cartoon. The well-educated English-transplant Thomas Paine was just the writer of Common Sense and other political tracts, but it was the willingness of printers to print his works that led to an open discussion of freedom and liberty. These opening chapters in Palsey’s book expand on this very basic understanding by explaining just who could afford to own and run a printing office and newspaper in the 1700s and early 1800s. Hint: the dirty job of using ink and the mechanics of printing were not often done by the well-respected gentlemen that gave their voice to political ideals!
Changing Newspaper Politics
A newspaper, run by a recent transplant to America, began criticizing the honored George Washington during his presidency, which was the very beginning of a shifting dynamic in American media. As John Adams took over the Presidency from the revered leader, criticism of presidential leaders and politics strikingly increased. There wasn’t a taboo about critiquing Adams’ decisions, as there had been about Washington’s choices during Washington’s presidency. Despite Washington’s closing address, which urged the avoidance of political parties, it was the new season of criticism that directly led to the developing political conflict in the form of political parties in the turn-of-the-century. Printers became the educated and yet low-class (and often derided) new voices that changed politics.
Subsequent chapters follow the next two-to-three decades of newspaper politics. Previously, I learned about the Alien and Sedition Acts during my high school U.S. History class, but I dismissed them, along with the rest of my class, as the ridiculous desperation of Adams to suppress free speech, despite the first Amendment’s guarantees. Such was essentially the case. The Sedition Act made it illegal to print anything “false” or “misleading” about the federal government (specifically, the President). The three various Alien Acts made it possible to restrain or even deport anyone of foreign birth, and extended the need for residence to 14 years in order to gain citizenship in the U.S.A.
The Federalist leaders feared that criticism of the government (such as had not happened to such an extent under George Washington’s presidency) would weaken the government as a whole. With revolution of a different sort in France and pseudo war with France and Britain already, the new nation, considered the need to stop this criticism as essential to the Federalist founders in building a strong nation. Republican-leaning leaders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (who, remember, had essential roles in the Adams’ administration), quietly contributed to the various printers’ criticisms of Adams, but did so behind the scenes. Thus, when the printers were imprisoned and fined under the Acts, only those printers were held responsible. It was a very unfair system, but the desire to speak out and declare freedom and liberty was such an essential part of America that dozens of such newspapers continued, despite impoverishment for the printers and constant attack from each other and political leaders.
Political Editors
As mentioned, many of these early printers were lower-class individuals and/or foreign born voices that came to America for greater liberty. Palsey’s book focuses on the 1798-1805 years, for the most part, in showing specific individuals that impacted the developing media landscape. Hearing the individual stories made it a more interesting read. It is astounding just how many newspapers there apparently were, both Federalist and Republican! Visitors to America from Europe were amazed by the number of printers and the involvement even regular farmers had in reading about political matters. These printers may have been local and had only about 1,000 subscribers on average (barely covering expenses), but the need to give voice to issues was essential to Americans.
Palsey’s later chapters address the changing face of printers’ role in politics. Obviously, which such a number of printers, it was political discussion (argument) that made newspapers unique from each other. Newspaper articles shifted from being written by the wealthy and elite, such as in the days of Jefferson and Madison’s sponsorship, to those written by the editors themselves. (In those days, newspapers printed each other’s articles, thus solidifying their own political thought with writings from other newspaper editors with similar opinions around the nation.) These editors/printers became increasingly more involved in politics, eventually, by the 1810s, working towards their own political appointments as they increasingly supported and propelled politicians to office thanks to their newspapers. The aristocracy began to lose strength to the ordinary American voices as the newspapers gained a stronger influences in local politics.
A Shift Jacksonian Political Newspapers
Finally, the last chapters of Palsey’s work briefly introduce the shift from the “era of good feelings” into the again politically diverse years of Jacksonian democracy. The “era of good feelings” (which I don’t remember studying too much before) was when the Federalists had faded away and mostly it was Republicans, in the strong years after the war years (1812-1815) that claimed political office and power. Ironically, this was not helpful for the newspaper editors, who depended on strife to have interesting articles. It was political parties and diversity of thought that made a good newspaper.
I guess it stays true today, as news is often full of exaggerated trouble or even “click bait” to get readers (or, rather, watchers).
Andrew Jackson was the last shift, then, that Palsey addresses. Suddenly there is a political star who is full of scandal and definitely lacks a gentrified aura such as all previous president had. Fittingly, it was now that newspaper editors and printers became so mainstream as to receive frequent political appointments. Rather than being a despised career, it was those who had worked in newspapers who were second in Congressional and Senatorial representation, second only lawyers.
The Relevance of Early Newspaper Politics Today
The relevance of this history is not lost on me. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, the saying goes. (Of course, the counter saying is that those who DO know history are doomed to watch it repeat itself!)
President-elect Trump declared before he was re-elected, that he would invoke the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, using the “Alien Acts” part of the controversial legislation to deport “aliens” living in the nation. Unbeknownst to me, although the Sedition Acts did expire, the Alien Acts did not! They were invoked during the War of 1812, during WWI and during WWII, specifically as an excuse to intern American citizens in camps along with possibly foreign-born family. I’m horrified to think that a president in this era will invoke such a horrific and antiquated piece of legislation to ruin lives. Does he really want to go down in history like that? Let’s just say, the infamous Executive Order 9066 is seen as a pretty low-part of FDR’s legacy.
Trump has also vowed retribution to news outlets and the fact that he recently sued ABC for “malice” and “disregard for truth” (fyi, Trump WAS found guilty of rape by a trial of his peers, this was TRUTH) and ABC paid up is horrifying in the extreme for the fate of freedom of speech in the nation. Now he’s suing an Iowa newspaper because he didn’t like their poll. The pettiness of this man can only be echoed by the pettiness of the universally disliked John Adams.
I’ve written before on how I see the parallels of Jackson’s rise to power and Trump’s rise to power. Both kicked the assumptions of presidential leadership to the curb. Ok, such it is.
Now, I see the president-elect echoing the stupidity of John Adams in trying to curb free speech and expel those he doesn’t like out of the nation. (Even if his focus is illegals, just as with FDR’s order, it will take families too.) If only Americans studied history, they would see how ridiculous these claims look in retrospect. The world shifts and changes, and no one era is definitive.I believe that history will not look at this in a kind light.
I can only trust that the Supreme Court justices actually support the First Amendment and stand up to bullying in a way that the early Court did not, in those years before judicial review was truly established. Unfortunately, my trust in the Supreme Court being partial is at a new low. Will they, like some of the early founders, believe that speaking opinion is dangerous to our national well-being? It is possible that they might. Censoring free speech: way to be “great” again.
