James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

The Jeffersonian was a good paper. It was published in a neat quarto form of eight pages. Its editorials, generally few and brief, were written to convince, not to inflame, to enlighten, not to blind. It published a great many of the best speeches of the day, some for, some against, its own principles. Each number contained a full and well-compiled digest of political intelligence, and one page, or more, of general intelligence. It was not, in the slightest degree, like what is generally understood by a “campaign paper.” Capital letters and points of admiration were as little used as in the sedate and courteous columns of the New Yorker; and there is scarcely anything to be found of the “Glorious-victory” sort except this:

‘Glorious Victory! “We have met the enemy, and they are ours!” Our whole ticket, with the exception of town clerk, one constable, three fence-viewers, a pound-master and two hog-reeves elected! There never was such a triumph!’

Stop, my friend. Have you elected the best men to the several offices to be filled? Have you chosen men who have hitherto evinced not only capacity but integrity?—men whom you would trust implicity in every relation and business of life? Above all, have you selected the very best person in the township for the important office of Justice of the Peace? If yea, we rejoice with you. If the men whose election will best subserve the cause of virtue and public order have been chosen, even your opponents will have little reason for regret. If it be otherwise, you have achieved but an empty and dubious triumph.

It would be gratifying to know what the Whig Central Committee thought of such unexampled “campaign ” language. In a word, the Jeffersonian was a better fifty cents worth of thought and fact than had previously, or has since, been afforded, in the form of a weekly paper.

The columns of the Jeffersonian afford little material for the purposes of this volume. There are scarcely any of those characteristic touches, those autobiographical allusions, that contribute so much to the interest of other papers with which our hero has been connected. This is one, however:

(Whosoever may have picked up the wallet of the editor of this paper—lost somewhere near State street, about the 20th ult., shall receive half the contents, all round, by returning the balance to this office.)