The Origin of Gerrymandering.

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The remainder of the inscription is very long, and gives an elaborate epitome of the political history of the United States for the previous twelve years, showing how much good the Federalists accomplished for the country. It ends by saying

The "Sun of Federalism is set for ever."

"Oh shame, where is thy blush ?"

The Centinel opposed all the measures of Jefferson and Madison, and strongly denounced the war with England. With Russell originated, during Madison's administration, that famous political term. "Gerrymandering." The incident is thus related by Buckingham:

In 1811, when Mr. Gerry was governor of the commonwealth, the Legislature made a new division of the districts for the election of representatives to Congress. Both branches had then a democratic majority. For the purpose of securing a democratic representative, an absurd and singular arrangement of towns in the county of Essex was made to compose a district. Russell took a map of the county, and designated by a particular coloring the towns thus selected. He then hung the map on the wall of his editorial closet. One day, Gilbert Stuart, the celebrated painter, looked at the map, and said the towns, which Russell had thus distinguished, formed a picture resembling some monstrous animal. He took a pencil, and, with a few touches, added what might be supposed to represent claws. "There," said Stuart, "that will do for a salamander." Russell, who was busy with his pen, looked up at the hideous figure, and exclaimed," Salamander! call it Gerrymander.' The word became a proverb, and, for many years, was in popular use among the Federalists as a term of reproach to the democratic Legislature, which had distinguished itself by this act of political turpitude. An engraving of the "Gerrymander" was made, and hawked about the State, which had some effect in annoying the democratic party.

De Witt Clinton was the Federal candidate, in opposition to Madison, for the presidency in 1812. The Centinel gave him a very weak support. On the election of Monroe in 1816-17, the "era of good feelings," a phrase which also originated with Russell, commenced, and the Federalists were no longer known as a party. The Centinel began then to lose its hold upon the public. It had changed its name by adding "American Federalist" to the principal title. It advocated the election of John Quincy Adams in 1824, and his reelection in 1828. With the incoming of the Democratic Party again under the lead of Andrew Jackson, the influence of the Centinel became still less potential. In November, 1828, Russell sold the establishment to Adams and Hudson, and, with a farewell banquet given him at the Exchange Coffee-house by the editors and printers. of Boston, he retired to private life.

In 1830 the New England Palladium, and in 1836 the Boston Gazette, were merged with the Centinel. In 1840 the Centinel disappeared in the embrace of the Boston Daily Advertiser.

That Methuselah of newspapers, the New Hampshire Gazette, started in the last, lives through this, and runs through all our epochs. After the death of Daniel Fowle the establishment passed into the hands of two of his apprentices, John Melcher and George Jerry Os

borne, in 1785. Shortly after Osborne retired, and Melcher carried it on till February 9, 1802, when he sold the establishment to Nathaniel S. and Washington Pierce. The Pierces began to print the Gazette February 9, 1802, when they changed its politics from Federal to Republican, or Democratic, as it would now be called. They, in connection with Benjamin Hill and Samuel Gardner, published it till May 21, 1805, when they sold it to William Weeks. Up to this time little or no editorial writing had appeared in the paper, except a little political matter at certain seasons. The scissors did most of the work. The news and selected matter were all that was expected. Mr. Weeks wrote more than his predecessors, and remained editor more than four years of a stormy period, and until December 14, 1813, when he was succeeded by Beck and Foster. This firm continued the publication till it was dissolved by the death of David C. Foster, which occurred in 1823. From that time to 1834 Gideon Beck was the publisher. He then admitted Albert Greenleaf as a partner, and published it with him till July 14, 1835, when Mr. Beck finally left the business.

In conducting their paper and managing their business, Beck and Foster were industrious and successful. Both of them were members of the Legislature of the state, and the decease of Mr. Foster was felt to be a public loss. On the 14th of July, 1835, the imprint bore the names of Thomas B. Laighton and Abner Greenleaf, Jr.; from 1836 to 1841 the name of A. Greenleaf, Jr. On the 15th of June, 1841, it was changed to Virgin and Moses, who published it to 1843, when Virgin left, and S. W. Moses appears as publisher. In 1844 Abner Greenleaf is named as editor; then A. Greenleaf and Son, editors. The year closed without any imprint whatever, and the paper was published without any during the year 1845-6. Abner Greenleaf died in September, 1869, aged eighty-three. In 1847 the N. H. Gazette and Republican Union was published by William P. Hill, who began in March, and remained till August 13, 1850, when he was succeeded by Gideon Rundlett. The present publisher, Edward N. Fuller, commenced in March, 1852. Several of these numerous editors were men of talent and energy; but the sudden and frequent changes of conductors and printers have operated against the profit of the proprietors.

The Connecticut Courant, which became the property of Hudson and Goodwin in 1779, was printed by them till November 21, 1815, when George Goodwin and Sons appeared as printers. That interval of excitement and anxiety between the peace with Great Britain of 1783 and the practical operation of the new Constitution in 1789 is vividly outlined in the files of the Courant, and the beneficent influence of Washington's administrations clearly traced through its

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columns. It was a supporter of Washington and Adams. The paper remained in the hands of the Goodwin family until September 12, 1836. When the last Goodwin retired in that year he was eighty years of age, and had been in the establishment, as apprentice, journeyman, and owner, for seventy years! In 1836 the concern passed into the hands of John L. Boswell, and was published by him until January 1, 1850, when William Faxon was associated, and the paper appeared in the name of Boswell and Faxon until the 1st of January, 1855, when it passed into the hands of Thomas M. Day. It appeared in the sole name of Mr. Day until the 1st of January, 1857, when A. N. Clark was taken in, and the paper appeared in the names of Day and Clark. In 1865 the firm was again changed, and the paper published by A. N. Clark and Company.

CHAPTER XI.

THE NEWSPAPERS ON THE PENDING QUESTIONS.

THE RESTORATION OF THE TORIES TO CITIZENSHIP.-SOCIETY OF CINCINNATI. THE ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS.-PROSECUTIONS OF NEWSPAPERS. -LAW OF LIBEL IN MASSACHUSETTS.-THE COMMON LAW OF ENGLAND "THE BIRTHRIGHT OF EVERY AMERICAN. ASSASSINATION OF CHARLES AUSTIN. THE MASSACHUSETTS STAMP ACT.-TAX ON ADVERTISEMENTS. -AMERICAN TITLES. THE RISE AND FALL OF NEWSPAPERS. THE FIRST EXPRESS.-JUDGE STORY ON NEWSPAPER PERSONALITIES.

On the conclusion of the Revolution the Independent Chronicle of Boston became the property of Adams and Nourse. This journal was the strong opponent of two measures which came up for the action and indorsement of the people. In the Chronicle of May 22d, 1783, the following article appeared, which, in view of recent events, is interesting. It was inspired by the efforts in the Massachusetts Legislature to restore the Tories, who had left the country, to their original rights. It is an illustration of the spirit of the times in New England after the war:

As Hannibal swore never to be at peace with the Romans, so let every Whig swear-by the abhorrence of Slavery-by liberty and religion-by the shades of those departed friends who have fallen in battle-by the ghosts of those of our brethren who have been destroyed on board of prison-ships and in loathsome dungeons-by the names of a Hayne and other virtuous citizens whose lives have been wantonly destroyed-by every thing that a freeman holds dear,—never to be at peace with those fiends the Refugees, whose thefts, murders, and treasons have filled the cup of wo; but show the world that we prefer war, with all its direful calamities, to giving those fell destroyers of the human species a residence among us. We have crimsoned the earth with our blood to purchase peace,therefore are determined to enjoy harmony, uninterrupted with the contaminating breath of a Tory.

The Society of Cincinnati, which was then being formed, was bitterly denounced. While the armies of the North, engaged in the late rebellion, are repeating, but on a grander scale, the action of the soldiers of the Revolution in 1783, the fears of the Chronicle in 1784, which represented a large class, will be noticed with interest and curiosity:

The institution of Cincinnati is concerted to establish a complete and perpetual personal distinction between the numerous military dignitaries of their corporation and the whole remaining body of the people, who will be styled Plebeians through the community. ****** If the Order of Cincinnati should appear to be fraught with danger to the exalted rights of human nature, tending rapidly to the introduction of an American nobility, as has been publicly affirmed, and not gainsaid,—such a military nobility, as plagued and domineered over Europe for

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centuries, or if it tends to introduce even the mildest nobility, since nobility itself is reprobated by these confederated republican states, is it not the duty of legislators, governors, and magistrates, and their ELECTORS, by all judicious and proper means in their power, to prevent such an institution from acquiring any degree of strength or influence in this free commonwealth?

Cambridge, by a formal vote at a town meeting in 1784, indorsed these remarks of the Chronicle by instructing their representative in General Court to use his endeavors to have the Society of Cincinnati suppressed. Those few venerable gentlemen, with Hamilton Fish at their head, who meet once a year in the City of New York, on each fourth of July, to elect officers of the Society of Cincinnati, will wipe their glasses and read the above paragraph with a sigh for the ribbons and orders of this much-feared "American Nobility." Where are the ribbons of the Veterans of 1812, a handful of men, poor enough in pocket, who yearly parade the streets of New York? Are they the tape that tie up their annual petitions to the Legislature for relief?

ures.

The Chronicle and the country bravely survived these two measAfter 1783, and in the interval to 1789, the people were in a state of transmutation, and shaping themselves and their views for the political divisions subsequent to that period. The Chronicle was an organ of the Republican Party, fiery against England, and strongly in favor of France. In 1793 the paper was issued twice a week. The Alien and Sedition laws of 1798 created a prodigious excitement throughout the states. The Sedition Law, restricting the liberty of press and of speech especially, aroused the opposition party, and caused great indignation in all newspaper offices. There were about two hundred papers published in the country at that time. It was calculated that of these twenty or twenty-five were not only opposed to the leading measures of the administration of John Adams, but were edited and controlled by aliens. These laws affected them. It was asserted that Jefferson and Madison, but especially the former, sustained these writers. In Virginia and Kentucky the Legislatures declared these laws to be gross infractions of the Con'stitution, and appealed to the other states to unite in opposition to them.

The Chronicle powerfully opposed these obnoxious laws, and was prosecuted under the provisions of the Sedition Act, in the Federal Circuit Court. When the resolutions of the Legislature of Virginia, denying the constitutionality of these laws, were adopted, they were transmitted to Massachusetts as to other states. The Legislature of Massachusetts, in reply, affirmed the constitutionality of the acts and disapproved of the Virginia resolutions. On this point the irrepressible conflict arose between the North and South which culminated with the surrender of Lee under the apple-tree at Appomattox