“Treason!” “Disunion!” “Civil War!”1 The newspapers of Washington, D.C. showed no decorum during the winter of nullification. The capital city anxiously awaited news traveling north from the state of South Carolina, but an individual’s understanding of the crisis depended upon his or her source of information. Party newspapers chose their article very carefully and printed precious little that did not square with party beliefs.
     What did the public know about the crisis that gripped the United States during the winter of 1832-33? Because South Carolina nullified the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 instead of succumbing to what they considered oppressive national policies, the state’s behavior posed a threat to the existence of the Union. As political leaders from around the country searched for resolutions to the situation, the newspapers in the nation’s capital waged a consistent and open debate on the various constitutional, sectional, and partisan issues. Traditionally, historians of the era portrayed the press as obsequious to their respective parties responding with frequently vitriolic rhetoric to any politician, organization or publication in disagreement with party tenets. The major newspapers in Washington were the Jacksonian Globe, the opposition United States Telegraph, and the unaffiliated National Intelligencer. The differing perspectives and agendas of the papers led, not surprisingly, to a wide variety in reporting on particularly divisive issues. South Carolina’s Ordinance of Nullification, Andrew Jackson’s Annual Message, and his Nullification Proclamation represent significantly contentious issues and present an opportunity to study the positions of these prominent newspapers. By exploring the available evidence this paper seeks to ascertain what information the newspapers presented to the public and what they withheld. Furthermore, in a city where all sides of the nullification issue found support, this study will show that he cumulative rhetoric of papers sought to bring about consensus and resolution rather than division and war.
      As part of a network of papers that reprinted and thus spread the national news around the country, the Washington press held an important role in the nation’s communication system. In an effort to dominate public opinion, the Jacksonians tried to control the content of
information put out and then disperse it as widely as possible. Using newspapers to reach voters, these Jackson partisans endeavored to lower the campaign “down to the level of the average citizen.”2 Charged with the duty of spreading Andrew Jackson’s message around the country, Duff Green, a Missouri-born friend of Vice President John C. Calhoun, made the United States Telegraph the mouthpiece of the administration. The Telegraph displaced the National Intelligencer, which had held the honored position as the presidential press throughout the Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe administration.3 Joseph Gales and William W. Seaton, the National Intelligencer’s editors, did not regain the patronage of the presidency until the William Henry Harrison administration in 1841.4 Duff Green also acquired both the House and Senate printing contracts and left the Intelligencer free of party affiliation, allowing it to remain relatively neutral during the Nullification Crisis.
      Government patronage served as a method to both reward past loyalty and ensure future support. In the 1830s, the three Washington paper vied for lucrative government printing jobs, and in such a small city the absence of public funding could doom a paper to bankruptcy. Therefore, the revocation of patronage constituted an effective means of punishing dissenters “who refused to support the party’s principles or nominees.”5 Duff Green received the presidential patronage in 1828 as a reward for his unending and influential efforts to unseat President John Quincy Adams. During the first Jackson administration, Green lost favor with the president partly due to his close personal ties to Jackson’s Vice President, Calhoun, with whom the president had become increasingly disenchanted. Also, a series of soured business ventures forced Green to borrow large sums of money from the Second Bank of the United States. Green’s indebtedness to the Bank, Jackson’s bête noire, suggested a conflict of interest and cinched his removal as Jackson party editor.6 By revoking the patronage from the Telegraph, Jackson not only had the opportunity to punish Green but to reward another supporter at the same time. The administration awarded the newly available patronage to Francis P. Blair of Kentucky. Blair’s efforts to swing Kentucky in favor of Jackson during the 1828 election attracted the Old Hero’s attention and ultimately led to an invitation to move to Washington and set up the Washington Globe.7 Blair quickly endeared himself to the administration by championing the president’s favorite issues.8

      1 United States Telegraph, Nov. 23, 1832.
      2 Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York: Noonday Press, 1990), 90.
      3 Ibid., 89; William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836 (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 142.
      4 Culver Smith, The Press, Politics and Patronage: The American Government’s Use of Newspapers, 1789-1875 (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1977), 249.
      5 Watson, 174; Culver Smith, passim.
      6 Kenneth Laurence Smith, “Duff Green and the ‘United States’ Telegraph,’ 1826-1837” (Ph.D. diss., The College of William and Mary, 1981), 134-137.
      7 Culver Smith, 128.
      8 For more on this topic see Steven Saltzgiver, “Consensus and Public Debate: The Washington Press During the Nullification Crisis, 1832-1833.” In The Civil War and the Press (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2000): 21-36.

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