- Title
- North Carolina historical review [1929 : October]
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-
- Date
- October 1929
-
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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North Carolina historical review [1929 : October]
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The North Carolina
Historical Review
Volume YT
October, 1929
Number 4
DEMOCRATIC NEWSPAPERS AND CAMPAIGN
LITERATURE IN NORTH CAROLINA
1835-1861
By Clarence Clifford Norton
Strength of Democratic Newspapers in North Carolina
In a period when approximately thirty per cent of the adult
white population of North Carolina was illiterate and the State was
characterized by a considerable degree of economic lethargy, social
stagnation, and political apathy, too much must not be expected of
journalists within the State. While North Carolina had several
forceful newspapers between 1835 and 1861, most of the papers
were under the editorship of men of mediocre ability who divided
their attention between the inconsistencies of the “opposition press”
and the ineonsidcratcness of the delinquent subscribers who made
the calling of journalism a perilous economic undertaking.
But if it be acknowledged that newspapers in ante-bellum North
Carolina were generally weak, it must be admitted that; the Demo¬
cratic press was relatively weaker. Of the twenty-three political
newspapers in the State in 1830, only six supported the Van Buren
and Johnson ticket.1 By 1840 the number of papers had increased
to thirty-one, of which number twenty-five were political papers.
Seventeen of those newspapers were Whig in polities and eight were
Democratic.2*4 Tn 1844 the Whigs had twenty papers and the Demo¬
crats had seven.2 Four years later the Whig newspapers had in¬
creased to twenty-one, and the Democrats were in control of ten.1
1 The North Carolina Standard. March 3, 1336. Hereafter this newspaper will be cited as Standard.
T Hamilton, J. G. deR., Party Politics in North Carolina, 1835-1860, (Durham, 1916). Cited here¬
after, Party Politics.
* The Democratic Signal, September
С,
1844.
4 Standard, January 19, 1848.
C 345 ]
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