Authentic Arkansas is a series written by
the staff of the Arkansas State Archives that explores the state’s cultural
heritage through unique documents and artifacts.
In this
election year, candidates for public office constantly vie for voter support by
communicating through various media channels. However, in the days before
radio, television and the internet, newspapers played a key role in providing
campaign information to the public. As a result, fierce political rivalries
developed between newspapers during the nineteenth century. The Little Rock True
Democrat’s involvement in the election of 1860 serves as a prime example.
First
published in 1852 by Richard H. Johnson and Reuben S. Yerkes, the True Democrat
was a continuation of the Arkansas Democratic Banner. Like its predecessor, and
most other antebellum newspapers in Arkansas, the True Democrat focused on
politics. The True Democrat continued the Banner’s tradition of fighting—at
least literarily—with other newspapers. The Arkansas Democratic Banner’s editor
was known for brawling and dueling with the personnel of the Arkansas State
Gazette. The True Democrat’s name offended other Democrat-supporting newspapers
since it implied it was the only genuinely Democratic newspaper, and the Arkansas
Democrat went so far as to call it
the “Un-True Democrat.”
During the
1860 election, political disagreements between the True Democrat and The
Old-Line Democrat became vicious. In the race to become Arkansas’s governor,
Johnson, of the True Democrat, ran against Henry Rector. Assistant Editor Elias
C. Boudinot of the True Democrat supported Johnson, while Editor Thomas C. Peek
of The Old-Line Democrat supported Rector. Political disagreements eventually
devolved into personal attacks. According to Allsopp’s History of the Arkansas
Press, Boudinot confronted Peek, and Peek left without fighting him. Boudinot
accused Peek of acting cowardly, so Peek retaliated with this statement on July
20, 1860: “Boudinot has a spite against us for having come out ‘first best’ in
that affair, and . . . he has been ever since venting his spleen against us. He
now thinks to taunt us with the reproach of cowardice, because we have not
descended to notice his dirty blackguardism, otherwise than by the expression
of disgust and contempt. He wants to make the impression that we have acted
cowardly in not challenging him to mortal combat. What absurdity!”
Fortunately,
hostilities between the papers simmered down when Peek was replaced as editor
of The Old-Line Democrat later in 1860. Henry Rector won the election and
became the state’s sixth governor.
With the
nation embroiled in the Civil War, in the summer of 1862 Johnson estimated that
the number of Arkansas newspapers had decreased from approximately thirty to forty
to less than ten, due to a paper shortage and newspaper personnel enlisting in
the military. During that great conflict, many of the newspapers dropped their
enmities and showed support for one another. When publication of the Arkansas
State Gazette was suspended in May 1862 because of a paper shortage, the True
Democrat wrote that “the course of the Gazette during the war has been
unselfish and patriotic in the highest degree.” The True Democrat also later
succumbed to the paper shortage and published its last issue on July 8, 1863.
