The Antebellum Press: Setting the Stage for Civil War reveals the critical role of journalism in the years leading up to America’s deadliest conflict by exploring the events that foreshadowed and, in some ways, contributed directly to the outbreak of war.
This collection of scholarly essays traces how the national press influenced and shaped America’s path towards warfare. Major challenges faced by American newspapers prior to secession and war are explored, including: the economic development of the press; technology and its influence on the press; major editors and reporters (North and South) and the role of partisanship; and the central debate over slavery in the future of an expanding nation. A clear narrative of institutional, political, and cultural tensions between 1820 and 1861 is presented through the contributors’ use of primary sources. In this way, the reader is offered contemporary perspectives that provide unique insights into which local or national issues were pivotal to the writers whose words informed and influenced the people of the time.
As a scholarly work written by educators, this volume is an essential text for both upper-level undergraduates and postgraduates who study the American Civil War, journalism, print and media culture, and mass communication history.
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viii | |
| Preface |
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xi | |
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| Introduction |
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1 | (13) |
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1 Newspapers, Agenda Setting, and a Nation Under Stress |
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14 | (9) |
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2 The "Irrepressible Conflict" and the Press in the Late Antebellum Period |
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23 | (14) |
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PART I Nullification, Abolition, and Division |
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37 | (102) |
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3 Nat Turner's Revolt Spurs Southern Fears and Sparks Public Debate over Slavery |
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39 | (10) |
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4 Disunion or Submission? Southern Editors and the Nullification Crisis, 1830--1833 |
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49 | (12) |
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5 Abolitionist Editors: Pushing the Boundaries of Freedom's Forum |
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61 | (9) |
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6 When the Pen Gives Way to the Sword: Editorial Violence in the Nineteenth Century |
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70 | (7) |
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7 An Editorial House Divided: The Texas Press Response to the Compromise of 1850 |
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77 | (14) |
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8 "The Good Old Cause": The Fugitive Slave Law and Revolutionary Rhetoric in The Boston Daily Commonwealth |
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91 | (10) |
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9 Franklin Pierce and the Failure of Compromise: Newspaper Coverage of the Compromise Candidate, the "Nebraska Act," and the Midterm Elections of 1854 |
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101 | (13) |
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10 Abolitionism, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the End of Compromise |
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114 | (11) |
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11 "Like so many black skeletons": The Slave Trade through American and British Newspapers, 1808-1865 |
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125 | (14) |
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PART II The Election of 1856, Dred Scott, and the Lincoln-Douglas Debates |
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139 | (60) |
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12 1856: A Year of Volatile Political Reckoning |
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141 | (14) |
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13 Doughface Democrats, James Buchanan, and Manliness in Northern Print and Political Culture |
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155 | (12) |
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14 "Free Men, Free Speech, Free Press, Free Territory, and Fremont" |
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167 | (12) |
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15 Newspaper Coverage of Dred Scott Inflames a Divided Nation |
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179 | (9) |
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16 "More than a Skirmish": Press Coverage of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates |
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188 | (11) |
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PART III The Election of 1860 and the Crisis of Secession |
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199 | (58) |
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17 The Democrats Divide: Newspaper Coverage of the 1860 Presidential Conventions |
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201 | (11) |
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18 Fanning the Flames: Extremist Rhetoric in the Antebellum Press |
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212 | (11) |
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19 The Fire-Eating Charleston Mercury: Stoking the Flames of Secession and Civil War |
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223 | (11) |
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20 "Our all is at stake": The Anti-Secession Newspapers of Mississippi |
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234 | (11) |
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21 Exchange Articles Carried by the New York Evening Post, December 13--31, 1860 |
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245 | (6) |
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22 War of Words: Border State Editorials During the Secession Period |
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251 | (6) |
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| About the Editors |
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257 | (3) |
| Contributors |
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260 | (5) |
| Index |
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265 | |
David B. Sachsman holds the West Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs. He came to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga from California State University, Fullerton, where he served as dean and professor of the School of Communications. Previously, he was chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Media at Rutgers University. Dr. Sachsman is the director of the annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression. His previous works include The Civil War and the Press (2000), Sensationalism (2013), A Press Divided (2014), and After the War (Routledge, 2017).
Gregory A. Borchard, a professor in the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has written numerous works on journalism history, including A Narrative History of the American Press (Routledge, 2019). Together with David W. Bulla, he is the author of Lincoln Mediated (2015), and Journalism in the Civil War Era (2010). He is also the author of Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley (2011) and editor of Journalism History, a quarterly journal published by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications History Division.
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