Newspapers were extremely important in antebellum America. They were a form of mobilizing citizens and particularly the middle and upper classes. They were a form of spectacle. They were the major means of communication. They were also the ways in which Americans discovered what was happening politically. It was important for Americans to form political alignment. And newspapers essentially set the tone for that. And, although we tend to think of newspapers in this period as regional in terms of their opinions, often times newspapers in northern cities represented various opinions. Not necessarily the kinds of opinions one would think were reflective of northern attitudes. So that you would have a newspaper like the New York Tribune whose editor, Horace Greeley, leaned toward antislavery, being able to discuss the antislavery movement, the women's rights movement, interviewing individuals on the progressive side of American society in the North.

And then you would have editors of newspapers such as the New York Herald who would do just the opposite. They would focus on the more conservative aspects of American politics. They would interview the more conservative American politicians. They would often times give in to caricatures of African Americans and other non-northern Europeans. That would include people who were Catholic and Irish.

So Americans in their newspapers often had their public opinions formed. In addition to the northern newspapers, of course, the southern newspapers did the same thing. Now it is important to understand that the South was a close society. And newspapers did not take a progressive position on reform issues. The Charleston Mercury for instance, even if there were someone on the staff who was reform minded or sympathetic to any issue of a progressive nature would never publish any such thing.

So, at the same time that the Charleston Mercury wouldn't publish anything progressive that was related to the reform issues of the day, the northern newspapers would publish what the Charleston Mercury printed. So that there was this network of communication across regions in which the newspapers that were sympathetic to the particular political proclivity of a southern newspaper would publish that in the northern newspaper and publish it as it was printed. That is the way the Herald would respond to what was printed in the Charleston Mercury. On the other hand, someone like Greeley might publish something in the Charleston Mercury, some caricature of African Americans or some antislavery diatribe or pro-slavery diatribe against the antislavery presses. But the Tribune would also qualify that, criticize that. So there was partisanship in the newspapers, is the point. Newspapers were not neutral. Newspapers were the political vehicle of a particular group and sometimes they were the cultural vehicle as well. It is also important to keep in mind that some of the newspaper editors were very friendly with not only political leaders, but with individuals who had a particular position on certain issues. Greeley was very close to the head of the American Antislavery Society, William Lloyd Garrison. The editor of the Charleston Mercury was very close to southern, South Carolina senators. So there was partisanship in the newspapers, that was how they operated.