Page 117 - Dragon Flood

Northern secession papers suppressed by civil authority
Catholic Herald, Philadelphia, PA
Christian Observer, Philadelphia, PA

Northern secession papers died
Herald, Leavenworth, NJ
American, Trenton, NJ

Northern secession papers denied transportation in the mails
Journal of Commerce, NY
News, NY
Day Book, NY
Freeman’s Journal, NY

Secession papers changed to union
Eagle, Brooklyn, NY
Republican, St. Louis, MO
Democrat, Haverhill, MA
[End Quote]

Things were just getting started when this list was published in August 1861. So dependent
upon the nation’s newspapers was the new administration, to gain and maintain public
support for the war, that within the first month of Lincoln’s inauguration at least twenty
newspaper editors had received appointments in the government.

The ministers to Rome, Portugal, Turkey, commissioner of patents, and at least eight
postmaster positions were awarded as favors upon newspaper editors. Murat Halstead
of the Cincinnati Gazette printed all of the names and their positions, what he called a
“disgrace to journalism.”
[Source: Lincoln’s Wrath, Manber and Dahlstrom]

Violent and coercive measures similar to that witnessed during the American Revolution
were once again employed during the Civil War to silence all dissent. The Civil War was
never clearly demarcated between North and South as some have supposed. There were
many people living in northern states who were not in favor of armed warfare against their
brothers in the Southern states. Most newspapers at the time were aligned with political
parties. Lincoln was a Republican, and most Republican publications did well during the
Civil War years. However, the Democratic papers which were most prone to criticize
Lincoln’s policies, suffered greatly.

The Jeffersonian was a newspaper in West Chester, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia,
owned and run by a man named John Hodgson. In the book Lincoln’s Wrath, the authors
give a detailed account of Hodgson’s conflict with the Lincoln administration, the threats
he received, and the resulting mob violence when he continued to publish articles critical
of the government’s policies.

Guided by the moonlit sky, the lawless group of conspirators finally closed in on their