page_689 < previous page page_689 next page > Page 689 "Second War for Independence" with a new measure of unity and self-confidence. Madison thus enjoyed tremendous popularity during his last years as president and his nineteen years in retirement, when he was widely revered for his role both in founding and in securing the first great modern republic. Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy (1989); Robert A. Rutland, James Madison: The Founding Father (1987). DREW R. MCCOY See also Bill of Rights; Conservatism; Constitution; Elections: 1808, 1812; Federalist Papers; Philadelphia Convention; Ratification of the Constitution; Revolution. For events during Madison's administration, see Fletcher v. Peck; Hartford Convention of 1814; Impressment Controversy; Tecumseh; War Hawks; War of 1812. Magazines and Newspapers American printers had been circulating news for a century when George Washington took office as president, but the new nation's provincial press faced an uncertain future. "The expectation of failure is connected with the very name of a Magazine," Noah Webster said in the first days of the Republic. Of the more than two hundred papers in 1800, only about a dozen had published during the American Revolution, and not one of the twenty-four dailies was that old. The weekly newspaper was the first form of journalism to adapt to an expanding democratic society. The flatbed press, not much changed since Gutenberg's time, was ideal for the frontier. Loaded onto a wagon or boat, set up in a tent or under a tree, the press became one of the earliest marks of community, both purveying news and boosting the town. Cincinnati got its first newspaper in 1793 when it had fewer than five hundred citizens. The first newspaper west of the Mississippi came to St. Louis in 1808 when the population was less than fifteen hundred. Leavenworth, Kansas, had a newspaper in 1854 when the town consisted of four tents. These papers relied on government subsidies through printing contracts and special postal rates. Editors received exchange papers, the source of most news, for free. Local papers could be sent free by post in the publisher's home territory throughout most of the nineteenth century. The pattern of settlement and government subsidies created the most decentralized press in the world. These diverse papers, with names such as Porcupine's Gazette, Huntress, and Live Giraffe, were charged with many sins, but never dullness. The drama of politics was the center of almost every newspaper, but readers expected to be informed about wonders and horrors, too. In 1843, the Illinois Statesman tried to avoid this, saying "If our readers will for the present just have the goodness to imagine a certain due proportion of fires, tornadoes, murders, thefts, robberies and bully fights, from week to week, it will do just as well, for we can assure them they actually take place." The paper lasted less than a year, a lesson ignored by later publishers at their peril. Mass circulation did not become the key to political influence until the middle of the nineteenth century. In the age of Andrew Jackson, powerful editors such as Amos Kendall, Thurlow Weed, and Thomas Ritchie owed their power to their parties, not their subscription lists. It was local editors who inspired voters and made electoral politics work. The main-line press was not the pioneer of mass circulation. Evangelicals and social movements stemming from the religious impulse led the way in providing news for all. In the 1830s the American Tract Society alone produced five pages of religious information each year for every adult and child in America. Reform movements such as abolitionism broadened the audience for journalism to include women, children, and blacks. In the middle of the 1830s, for example, the American Antislavery Society flooded the mails with its publications. Some commercial dailies in the largest cities, however, were becoming masters of mass circulation. They commanded capital just as the technological changes in printing demanded large investments. In the 1840s, big-city publications began to take advantage of the railroad and telegraph, and journalists reached an audience undreamed of earlier. Â < previous page page_689 next page >