The Southern Press (Washington [D.C.])
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
658 issues from 1850 to 1852, published in Washington, District Of Columbia, digitised for Chronicling America.
On Monday, June 17, 1850, the Southern Press first appeared on the streets of Washington, D.C. Its establishment represented an extension of the Southern unity movement of 1847-52, a group of leaders seeking to resist Northern political, economic, and cultural influence. Concerned that Washington lacked a pro-South newspaper, a group of Southern congressmen appointed a committee to oversee the formation of such a publication.
Editors of the Southern Press were Ellwood Fisher and Edwin De Leon. Fisher was the senior editor and controlling power of the publication. De Leon had been editor of the Savannah (Georgia) Daily Republican. Issued daily its first year, the Southern Press was later published on a semiweekly and tri-weekly basis before returning to a daily schedule its third and final year.
According to a prospectus appearing in the June 18, 1850 issue, the Press was “devoted to the exposition and defense of southern rights and institutions, the dissemination of correct information as to northern policy, and the course of political affairs generally.” In the first issue, Fisher and De Leon accused Northerners of having (1) disturbed the peace, (2) violated the fugitive slave law, (3) sought to monopolize the common territory, (4) slandered Southern domestic institutions, and (5) assumed a “sectional, unconstitutional, and anti-American” position. Fisher and De Leon also upheld Southern views on slavery, claiming that “wherever two races exist in the same community, or…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Washington, District Of Columbia, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress