 | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Publisher | James Watson Webb |
| Founded | June 1829 |
| Political alignment | Whig Party |
| Ceased publication | June 1861 |
| Headquarters | New York |
| OCLC number | 9348981 |
TheNew York Courier and Enquirer, properly called theMorning Courier and New-York Enquirer, was a daily broadsheetnewspaper published inNew York City from June 1829 until June 1861, when it was merged into theNew York World. Throughout its existence it was edited by newspaper publisherJames Watson Webb. It was closely connected with the rise and fall of the United StatesWhig Party, and was noted for its careful coverage of New York Harbor shipping news and its close attention to speeches and events in theUnited States Congress.[1][2]
TheCourier and Enquirer was based upon the merger of two pre-existing newspapers, Webb'sNew York Morning Courier (1827) andMordecai Noah'sNew-York Enquirer. After Webb purchased theEnquirer in 1829, he merged the two Manhattan-based news sheets to form theMorning Courier and New-York Enquirer, usually called simply theCourier and Enquirer. At that time a partisan supporter of newly elected PresidentAndrew Jackson, Webb ran his newspaper in the interest of what was becoming theDemocratic Party. He hired young journalistJames Gordon Bennett, Sr. to be his associate editor.[1][2]
By the 1830s, Bennett's and Webb'sCourier and Enquirer had developed a crack reportorial system for gathering news from New York-based ships and from Washington, D.C. The paper was able to compile the resources necessary to set up a pioneeringpony express system to carry dispatches from the U.S. Capitol. In one 1830 coup, theCourier and Enquirer obtained the text of Jackson'sannual message to Congress in only 27.5 hours.[1]
However, New York's growingbusiness community felt increasing dislike for Jackson'spopulism. As a member of this class and social network, Webb was pulled away from his old ties—and attracted towards the political circle around Webb's new friend, federal senatorHenry Clay. Clay, although he was fromKentucky, was taking the lead in defense of New York's growingbanking sector against attacks fromJacksonians.
Newspaper competition played a role in the accelerating movement of theCourier and Enquirer away from Jacksonianism. One of its chief rival papers, theNew York Evening Post, was edited by Webb's rivalWilliam Leggett. Leggett, who was allied with Jackson's New York political lieutenantMartin Van Buren, edited theEvening Post to be hostile to banks and the New York financial sector. Webb and theCourier and Enquirer sensed an opportunity to create an anti-Jackson newspaper with a national reach. In a key sign of this split, in 1832 associate editor Bennett left theCourier and Enquirer to start his own Democratic paper, theNew York Herald.[2]
By 1834 Webb, Clay, and the East Coast financial industry had joined hands to form a new, nationwide political party. While its party machinery was based on Clay'sNational Republican Party, the new name for the political gathering, theWhig Party, was coined by Webb, who became the young party's chiefmedia proprietor. TheCourier and Enquirer thus became a key element in the United States'sSecond Party System, in which the Democratic Party and the Whig Party confronted each other during the decades prior to theAmerican Civil War. A standard history of New York states that during the 1830s, theCourier and Enquirer was "the largest and most powerful paper in the United States."[1]
Democrats considered Webb to be a disloyal traitor to their side, and responded to theCourier and Enquirer's news coverage with great bitterness. In 1837–1838, Democrats inCongress made floor speeches that attacked theCourier and Enquirer with such ferocity that one of Clay's Kentucky allies, congressmanWilliam J. Graves, challenged a critic of theCourier and Enquirer, Maine Democratic lawmakerJonathan Cilley, to aduel. Their personal combat, which began with editorials in theCourier and Enquirer and speeches on theU.S. House floor, ended with Cilley's death.
Like other United States newspapers of the era, theCourier and Enquirer was not founded as a provider of up-to-the-minute information. Its pages tended to be filled with the texts of letters written on paper and physically delivered to the editor from distant locations (from where we get our word for a newspaper reporter, "correspondent"), and partisan editorials.
The successful operation of an Americanelectrical telegraph in 1844 created aparadigm shift in American newspapering. Soon theMorse lines reached New York City, and Webb's competitors, headed by rival Whig editorHorace Greeley, proved to be more adept in adapting to the new technology and publishingdaily newspapers filled with fresh news. Webb grew increasingly uninterested in his journalistic duties, and began, starting in 1849, to trawl for appointment as a United Statesambassador or to some other post that would grant him the social status he wanted.[2]
As theCourier and Enquirer ceased to be a cutting-edge newspaper, the Whig Party also declined. In line with the ties of many New York merchants to the U.S. South and its slaveholding community, theCourier and Enquirer had always supportedAmerican slavery. The paper's coverage ofAfrican-Americans was extremely hostile, marked by prejudice andbigotry. While this kind of coverage was little problem for the newspaper in the 1830s and 1840s, the growth offree soil and evenabolitionist sentiment throughout the Northern states in the 1850s made theCourier and Enquirer look archaic. Meanwhile, the Whigs, torn apart by the growing slavery crisis, could not field a candidate for the U.S. presidency in 1856. Many New York Whigs joined the newRepublican Party.[2]
In 1861, Webb's fellow former Whig,Abraham Lincoln, became U.S. President; but the new chief executive had little use for the aging newspaper. Lincoln appointed Webb first to be U.S. minister toTurkey, which he declined, and then minister toBrazil, an appointment that he accepted. Both countries were far away from New York City. The newly named diplomat consolidated theCourier and Enquirer into the new, rival newspaper, theNew York World, which carried on theCourier and Enquirer'sracist coverage. As theWorld was a Democratic paper, the partisan history of theCourier and Enquirer had revolved through a full circle. As former editor Webb sailed southward in 1861 to take on his new job, theCourier and Enquirer ceased publication forever.[2]
TheCourier and Enquirer's close coverage of three U.S. Senate opponents of Andrew Jackson, namely Henry Clay,John C. Calhoun, andDaniel Webster, is credited with enlarging the reputation of these three men into key figures of the Second Party System orantebellum period of U.S. history, and eventually to their reputation as members of theGreat Triumvirate.
A microfilm file of theNew York Courier and Enquirer from its June 16, 1829 startup until its June 29, 1861 dissolution can be found on the shelves of theNew York State Library under the titleMorning Courier and New-York Enquirer.[3]
A similar file, marked "incomplete", can be found in theNew York Public Library under the titleMorning Courier and New York Enquirer.[4]
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