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In December of 1837, a twenty-¤ve year-old John Forsyth Jr. published his ¤rst editorial as co-owner of the Mobile Daily Commercial Register. The young Forsyth, perhaps with (at least in this early stage of his career) an exaggerated sense of his own importance, assured his readers that “the great concerns which demand the advocacy, and should inspire the pens of Southern editors, will not be neglected.” During the next four decades, Forsyth wrote about, and often played an active role in, many of the most important “concerns ” of the emotionally and, later, politically divided nation. Described, after his death in 1877, by the New York Times as “the leading Democratic editor of the South,” Forsyth commanded an important platform. As the brash Georgia native and long-time Mobilian embarked on his journalistic career, he conceded that one could not “make proselytes by ¤re and the sword.” Nonetheless, personifying the old adage that held “the pen is mightier than the sword,” Forsyth, through the Register, set out to “steadily pursue the maxim so strongly recommended , and so admirably adapted to wordly intercourse.” This initial offering began what would be a remarkable career in the world of both newspapers and politics. From 1837 through 1877, during what one historian referred to as the “age of personal journalism,” John Forsyth used his pen as his personal sword for the Democracy.1 Investigating the career of John Forsyth sheds light on many of the most important issues and events concerning nineteenth-century Alabama and national history. During Forsyth’s earliest (and often ignored) stint at the Register, his major writings dealt with the emergence of a viable two-party system in Alabama as well as in Mobile. The competition between the Whigs and the Democrats provided reams of material. His twelve-year return to Georgia provides a ¤rsthand account of a soldier’s life in the Mexican War and later reveals the battles in a political war—the move to form a Southern Rights party. During the early 1850s, the Southern reaction to the passage of the KansasIntroduction “The Pen Makes a Good Sword” Nebraska Act took center stage. His brief tenure as United States’ Minister to Mexico demonstrates the delicate nature of foreign relations as well as internal political party relations. Forsyth’s support of Stephen A. Douglas in the crucial presidential election of 1860 may have been his most controversial (at least among his fellow Alabamians) stance. After four years of loyal service to the Confederacy, Forsyth assumed the role he is perhaps best remembered for— that of vocal Reconstruction critic. In each of these cases, a study of Forsyth’s writings and actions proves the validity of J. Mills Thornton’s assertion that Alabama state politics consistently re®ected larger national issues.2 During Forsyth’s long journalistic tenure, several major themes emerged— all of which will be examined in this book. The ¤rst theme involves his role as a Southern editor and just what such a role encompassed. John Forsyth Jr. was a key ¤gure in the golden age of partisan newspapers—a time when the journals were devoted to “politics and quarrels, not necessarily in that order.” As historian Avery Craven noted, “The best product of the Southern press was always the newspaper. Its editor, more than any other person, spoke to and for the people of the section. Only the clergyman rivaled him in in®uence.” It is dif¤cult today in the age of twenty-four hour electronic media to grasp the importance of the nineteenth-century newspaper and its spokesman. For example, a small community, such as Vicksburg, Mississippi (population 4,500), had six independent newspapers in 1861. As an editor during this period, John Forsyth was a “leader of men and . . . as prominent in shaping the politics of the South as either Toombs, or Wise, or Rhett.” It is also dif¤cult for modern students to understand the partisan nature of the mid nineteenth-century newspaper. During the presidential election of 2004, national television news ¤gure Dan Rather had criticism heaped on him for just the suggestion that he favored one side over the other. In the nineteenth century, just the opposite was true. As one historian has noted, during those days, “no southern editor rose to the top of his profession by being non-committed.” Editors could be attacked for not taking a strong stand for their chosen and professed party. To support such partisanship, editors often had to “manufacture facts...

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