Page 116 - Dragon Flood

States. Perceiving the need to influence the opinion of this large segment of the population,
Lincoln purchased the German language newspaper Illinois Staatsanzeiger, press and all,
in May of 1859. Lincoln manifested an awareness of the power of the press that was
remarkable. He was not the backwood’s rail splitter that he is often characterized to be. He
was a cunning trial lawyer who understood the nature of the political system.

Lincoln enlisted the aid of newspaper editors across the country to get his speeches,
biography, and portrait published. There were some truly deceptive maneuvers used by
Lincoln’s campaign managers to obtain the Republican nomination. Two men working for
the Lincoln campaign, Ward Hill Lamon and Jesse Fell, ordered a local printer to create a
large number of extra tickets for the Republican Convention. They distributed these
counterfeit tickets among Lincoln’s supporters and told them to arrive early at the
convention. When many of William H. Seward’s (the leading candidate’s) supporters
arrived with legitimate tickets, they were turned away because the hall was already full.

With Lincoln’s perception of the power of the press, it is little wonder that after being
elected he carried out a systematic attack on the opposition press. The actual events of this
attack on the free press, and other unconstitutional acts of the Lincoln administration, are
detailed in the book Lincoln’s Wrath: Fierce Mobs, Brilliant Scoundrels and a President’s
Mission to Destroy the Press by Jeffrey Manber and Neil Dahlstrom. The New York Herald
on August 28, 1861 gave an accounting of the opposition newspapers that had experienced
the consequences of being on the wrong side of the government’s policy.

Northern Papers destroyed by mob
Jeffersonian, West Chester, PA
Sentinel, Easton, PA
Farmer, Bridgeport, CT
Democrat, Canton, OH
Standard, Concord, NH
Democrat, Bangor, ME
Clinton Journal, KS