By 1800, the state of Massachusetts was split politically between Jefferson’s party and the Federalists. Roughly 20,000 voters were Democratic-Republican. About 25,000 voters were Federalists.[1]
Following the election of 1800, Democratic-Republicans set their sights on augmenting their gains in New England. Levi Lincoln from Massachusetts and Gideon Granger from Connecticut, both members of Jefferson’s cabinet, worked for the cause. They advised Jefferson to get rid of Federalists holding offices in New England. More important, Lincoln and Granger persuaded editors to begin publishing Democratic-Republican newspapers throughout the region. They theorized that yeoman farmers were not staunch Federalists. Given a new point of view, farmers who were not part of the “Standing Order” could be persuaded to vote Democratic-Republican. They were correct. Madison continued Jefferson’s policies. He set an important precedent by transferring printing contracts to his party’s editors.[2]
By 1803, an observer noted so many Democratic-Republican newspapers were emerging that he could no longer keep track of them all.[3]
The Democratic-Republican newspapers affected party allegiance. Earlier generations of New Englanders relied on sea captains and clergy for news and information. Newspapers supplanted them. The newspaper a New Englander read correlated with the party he joined.[4]
Next: How the French Influenced Federalist Defections to the Democratic-Republicans
Look for it Monday, September 23
[1] Henry Adams, History of the United States during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Literary Classics, 1986) 54.
[2] Jeffrey L. Pasley, Tyranny of Printers: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic, (Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2001) 203-5.
[3] Pasley, Tyranny of Printers, 211.
[4] James M. Banner, To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts 1789-1815 (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1986) 175.
