Essay 16-B: Ben Franklin, Newspapers, and an Informed Citizenry

Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner

As the movie, The Great Awakening, makes clear, Ben Franklin’s newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, played a role in helping the Reverend George Whitefield publish and distribute his sermons, thus making a significant contribution to America’s first great revival. But newspapers made other contributions as well.

Americans were a very literate people and were voracious readers—John Adams once remarked that finding a citizen who could not read and write was exceedingly rare—so newspapers naturally flourished. America’s largest towns had the most newspapers: Philadelphia had 11 newspapers; New York City had 9 newspapers; and Boston had 7 newspapers.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) learned the printer’s trade during an apprenticeship in his older brother’s Boston print shop, from which he famously fled to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, and during a brief stint in London, Franklin worked for several different newspapers before returning to the colonies and purchasing the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729. It grew to become one of the leading newspapers in the colonies. He also published Poor Richard’s Almanack annually with many sayings about civic virtue. Franklin wrote numerous essays commenting on current events for readers to keep them informed.

While Benjamin Franklin gets much notice for his newspaper endeavors, it is less widely known that Sam Adams (with the help of some friends) published The Independent Advertiser in Boston from January 1748 to December 1749. Nearly every issue carried one of Adams’s essays on politics or one ridiculing the latest excesses of the British government.

James Madison’s classmate at Princeton, Philip Freneau, founded the Philadelphia newspaper, The National Gazette, in which appeared Madison’s famous 1792 essay, “On Property.” The following year, Alexander Hamilton turned to John Fenno’s newspaper, The Gazette of the United States, to carry on his famous Pacificus–Helvidius Debates with Madison.

Newspapers had played a critical role in the years leading up to independence. First, they gave a voice to leaders like Sam Adams, John Dickinson, and Thomas Paine. Second, they kept the people informed of the latest laws passed by the Parliament. Notice of the repeal of the Stamp Act was met with wild celebrations across the Cclonies.

When the Constitution was released to the public and sent to the states for ratification, many newspaper editors took sides, exclusively publishing the essays of Federalists or Anti-Federalists. Newspapers published the Federalist Papers to persuade the people and their representatives to support the Constitution. The first essay was published on October 27, 1787, in the Independent Journal, which continued publishing the essays through the spring of 1788.

Still later, after George Washington had retired from the presidency and presidential elections became competitive, newspapers usually announced their favored candidate. At times they became highly partisan. John Adams followed Washington as President in 1796 and ran for re-election in 1800. But Thomas Jefferson, who had been Adams’ vice president also stood for election. The election of 1800 is famous for the open viciousness of essays denouncing one or the other man. In Federalist newspapers, Jefferson was called a “Jacobin,” an “atheist,” and “a threat to the nation” for his French leanings. In Democratic-Republican-leaning newspapers, President John Adams was called a “despot” and a “threat to liberty” due to his support for the notorious Alien and Sedition Laws.

America’s “Road to Independence” would have looked very different without newspapers, and even though today other forms of media are becoming primary sources of news, newspapers continue to provide important services to communities across the nation. They are essential to having an informed citizenry that gives its consent in a republic.

Gary Porter is the founder and former Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.  In 2023, Gary served as chair of the Virginia Delegation in a simulated Article V Convention of the States held in Williamsburg, Virginia. Gary can be reached at constitutionlead@gmail.com.

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