ecting and leading popular sentiment during the decade of 1850 to
1860, the newspapers of the Northern States were potent. I own that many
times one needs no further index to public sentiment than our frequent
elections, but in 1854 conditions were peculiar. The repeal of the
Missouri Compromise had outraged the North and indicated that a new
party must be formed to resist the extension of slavery. In the
disorganization of the Democratic party, and the effacement of the Whig,
nowhere may the new movement so well be traced as in the news and
editorial columns of the newspapers, and in the speeches of the
Northern leaders, many of these indeed being printed nowhere else than
in the press. What journals and what journalists there were in those
days! Greeley and Dana of the _New York Tribune_; Bryant and Bigelow of
the _Evening Post_; Raymond of the _Times_; Webb of the _Courier_ and
_Enquirer_; Bowles of the _Springfield Republican_; Thurlow Weed of the
_Albany Journal_; Schouler of the _Cincinnati Gazette_,--all inspired by
their opposition to the spread of slavery, wrote with vigor and
enthusiasm, representing the ideas of men who had burning thoughts
without power of expression, and guiding others who needed the constant
iteration of positive opinions to determine their political action.

The main and cross currents which resulted in the formation of the
compact Republican party of 1856 have their principal record in the
press, and from it, directly or indirectly, must the story be told.
Unquestionably the newspapers had greater influence than in an ordinary
time, because the question was a moral one and could be concretely put.
Was slavery right or wrong? If wrong, should not its extension be
stopped? That was the issue, and all the arguments, constitutional and
social, turned on that point.

The greatest single journalistic influence was the _New York Weekly
Tribune_ which had in 1854 a circulation of 112,000, and many times that
number of readers. These readers were of the thorough kind, reading all
the news, all the printed speeches and addresses, and all the
editorials, and pondering as they read. The questions were discussed in
their family circles and with their neighbors, and, as differences
arose, the _Tribune_, always at hand, was consulted and re-read. There
being few popular magazines during this decade, the weekly newspaper, in
some degree, took their place; and, through this medium, Greeley and
his able