I wasn't sure exactly when I would run up against out and out racism as I read through the NH Patriot. With the February 1st, 1814 edition I came across a whisper of the characteristic denigration of African-Americans which would become so extraordinarily pronounced and relentless in the following decades.
Following the American Revolution there was an enormous momentum toward the extension of rights to all citizens. Slavery was peacefully extinguished throughout the North. In the South a huge wave of emancipations led some to believe that slavery there would naturally go the same way, eventually worn away by the salutary influences of the new Republic. Women were even granted the right to vote in New Jersey.
As Democracy really took hold in America, and the polite maneuverings of Jefferson and Hamilton gave way to a real party system dominated by printers and professional political machines competing for the votes of white men, women and minorities were shoved to the side. Piece by piece, the right to vote fell apart where it had daringly been extended, and became the exclusive property of European men.
In previous posts I've outlined how the Democratic-Republicans held, as a central belief, the idea that Federalist elites were pro-British and anti-Democratic aristocrats who were more than a little friendly to the idea of breaking up the American union - then the only republican nation in a world of kings. The Hartford Convention did nothing to dissuade them. In an uncertain and intense political conflict with the Federalist Party at the state level, NH Democrats were locked in a recurrent defense of southern, slave-holding Democratic Presidents against their New England detractors. The conviction that abolition was a wedge issue cynically employed by their political enemies to exalt aristocrats, weaken the Democratic Party and break up the union of the states remained firmly in place until well after the Civil War.
And so the routine and unrelenting denigration of African-Americans as unworthy of freedom and political participation became for the editors of the NH Patriot synonymous with their advocacy of liberty and democracy.
In this piece the editors of the NH Patriot take on the supporters of the Federalist governor John Gilman, who was elected amid the backlash against the regionally unpopular War of 1812.
Following the American Revolution there was an enormous momentum toward the extension of rights to all citizens. Slavery was peacefully extinguished throughout the North. In the South a huge wave of emancipations led some to believe that slavery there would naturally go the same way, eventually worn away by the salutary influences of the new Republic. Women were even granted the right to vote in New Jersey.
As Democracy really took hold in America, and the polite maneuverings of Jefferson and Hamilton gave way to a real party system dominated by printers and professional political machines competing for the votes of white men, women and minorities were shoved to the side. Piece by piece, the right to vote fell apart where it had daringly been extended, and became the exclusive property of European men.
In previous posts I've outlined how the Democratic-Republicans held, as a central belief, the idea that Federalist elites were pro-British and anti-Democratic aristocrats who were more than a little friendly to the idea of breaking up the American union - then the only republican nation in a world of kings. The Hartford Convention did nothing to dissuade them. In an uncertain and intense political conflict with the Federalist Party at the state level, NH Democrats were locked in a recurrent defense of southern, slave-holding Democratic Presidents against their New England detractors. The conviction that abolition was a wedge issue cynically employed by their political enemies to exalt aristocrats, weaken the Democratic Party and break up the union of the states remained firmly in place until well after the Civil War.
And so the routine and unrelenting denigration of African-Americans as unworthy of freedom and political participation became for the editors of the NH Patriot synonymous with their advocacy of liberty and democracy.
In this piece the editors of the NH Patriot take on the supporters of the Federalist governor John Gilman, who was elected amid the backlash against the regionally unpopular War of 1812.
A puny federal paper says, the character of Governor Gilman ‘has been established more than a score of years, and has gathered brightness with every year.’ It is the nature of things valuable, as well as those good for nothing, to rust when out of use. The finest gold, the most inestimable diamond, before it has received its polish, appears of no more value than the bar of lead or the insignificant pebble. We shall by and by see whether the political character of Governor Gilman can bear a decent scouring – whether the outside rust does not give place to inside blackness and corruption, more disgraceful than the dark tinge of an Ethiopean skin – whether he who was worth the “plumage of a swan” is anything more than a “pampered goose?
The Examiner is bringing into view the former conduct of Gov. Gilman; if it will bear the test of examination – if it has been such as the people approve – let him enjoy their further confidence. For themselves, we had thought that his conduct the past year had been sufficient to ‘damn his name to everlasting infamy we had thought that his sanctioning a palpable violation of the Constitution, and his making of himself the complete dupe to a ‘dominant faction’ – that the weakness, the lack of intellect the complete destitution of talents, as illustrated in his two speeches – would be enough to sicken his most strenuous partisans; that these would forever deprive him again of the public confidence – and we had ascribed this conduct rather to weakness and imbecility of age than to a settled malignancy of disposition. But it should seem that his first state has been no better than his last - that his former conduct has been no less exceptionable than his last years administration – that he ever has been actuated by motives other than the public good- that his great purpose always has been to build up his own and the interest of a few of his Junto, to put money into his own and their pockets, rather the lessen the burdens of the people or promote their happiness and prosperity. We cannot believe the People of New Hampshire to be so infatuated, so blinded by party prejudice, as against to place John T. Gilman in the Chair.