“One Great People”: John Fenno’s Public Crusade for an American National Identity

In New York City, at nine o’clock in the morning on Thursday, April 30, 1789, Americans of diverse Christian denominations filed into their churches in and around Broad Street. Once settled, their respective clergymen led them in prayer, asking for “the blessing of Heaven upon the new government.” These well-wishers also pleaded for divine “protection to the President” and “success and acceptance to his administration.” By noon, a procession of officers, grenadiers, infantry, artillerymen, committees from both the Senate and House, and “several gentlemen of distinction,” made its way to the executive mansion on Cherry Street to escort the president-elect to the Federal State House. Upon arriving at their destination, soldiers fell into formation as Gen. George Washington made his way into the building where both houses of Congress greeted him warmly. Finally, Washington progressed to the gallery of the Senate chamber facing Broad Street and, “in the presence of an immense concourse of citizens,” Chancellor Robert Livingston administered the first presidential oath of office. After Washington recited this solemn utterance, Livingston introduced the Virginian to the world as the president of the United States. Artillerymen immediately discharged thirteen cannons as the growing crowd cheered its approval.[1] Washington, always dignified and mindful of the theatrical dimension of politics, bowed to the crowd before slipping back into the Senate chamber to make his maiden speech as commander in chief of the new federal republic.[2]

This rich description comes from the pages of editor John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States. Couriers delivered this news to eager readers in multiple states, inviting citizens from all over the nation to witness the president’s inauguration and partake in the celebratory atmosphere that enveloped New York.[3] Americans learned that supporters pleaded for providential assistance for the president and young government, drawing readers into a grand national drama and encouraging (inspiring even) their support.[4] Fenno, a Boston transplant, attended the inauguration, recorded its sequence of events and reported the pomp and pageantry of the occasion within the busy pages of his newspaper.[5] He had designed his gazette to proselytize the reading republic into supporting the Constitution and its administrations.[6] A deep nationalist thinker and passionate supporter of the proposed new government, Fenno desired his paper to create the socio-political sinews that would attach Americans firmly to the emerging constitutional nation.[7] In the process, he expected his public crusade to create a single, national identity for the federal republic while establishing him as public philosopher and director of political order. To accomplish this, John Fenno’s publication pushed three major objectives: It (1) promoted the wisdom and benefits of the federal Constitution, (2) supplicated private deference to national statesmen and legislation and (3) aimed to secure and strengthen the union in perpetuity. Taken together, Fenno hoped Americans from Massachusetts to Georgia would come to appreciate the stability and prosperity ushered in by the Constitution and respect unconditionally federal leaders and laws. He reasoned that, through his effort, disconnected citizens with local loyalties and little in common would amalgamate into a national people.

John Fenno secured a sizable loan from some of the most ardent nationalists in Massachusetts to start a national newspaper he hoped would endear Americans to the new federal architecture.[8] In Fenno’s carefully crafted mission statement composed to secure that loan, he revealed his private commitment to the crusade. “The Art of Printing,” he mused, “is justly considered as bearing the most propitious aspect upon the best interests of society.” Fenno considered “a well conducted press” a vital requisite “to the federal Cause” and he remained “deeply impressed with a sense of the necessity of an efficient government.” He then laid out his vision, determining that his paper would vindicate and support the Constitution, promote federal patriots and all “enlightened, upright Statesmen,” counter any conspiracies or vile rumors dangerous to the constitutional order and report pertinent public progress under the nascent government.[9] The first edition of Fenno’s Gazette of the United States revealed his public objectives: they were identical to his private aspirations.

John Fenno declared his gazette “A National Paper,” and advertised his intention to make the semiweekly publication available each Wednesday and Saturday for an annual three-dollar subscription. He proclaimed he would faithfully report all laws and debates of the federal legislature, every species of intelligence related to the public good and any pressing foreign news in its pages. He next reminded the public of the gravity of the moment. “At this important Crisis,” he warned, Americans faced a multitude of existential threats. The political nation had to strengthen its union, protect its commerce, rein in the national debt and establish federal credit, “All under the auspices of an untried System of Government.” These combined challenges, he cautioned, required “the Energies of the patriots and Sages of our Country—hence the propriety of encreasing the Mediums of Knowledge and Information” – in this case, Fenno’s gazette – available to the American public.[10]

Advertisement

Fenno also recognized the subtle relationship between polities and temporal time.[11] Americans had learned the “wisdom and folly—the misery and prosperity of the Empires, States, and Kingdoms,” each of which had its “day upon the great Theatre of Time, and are now no more.” Enlightened citizens, according to Fenno, drafted and adopted the federal Constitution and “all good men are agreed” in the merits of the system.[12] This penetrating analysis reflects Fenno’s recognition of what kept seventeenth-and eighteenth-century political philosophers up at night: how to prevent the decline, decay and death of the state.[13] Since all commonwealths experienced a birth, adolescence, maturity and expiration, disinterested statesmen sought ways in which to institutionalize maturity and avoid the final stages. And according to John Fenno, the federal Constitution represented America’s unique solution to state failure. His publication, the editor expected, would educate the public on this crucial civic matter.

Fenno carefully assessed the health and condition of the nation and reported it to the public in his “Epitome of the Present State of the Union.” His discerning survey provided Americans an analysis of the geography, local economies and populations of the thirteen states. He also evaluated how the eleven that had already ratified the Constitution stood to benefit from the new order. Fenno contemptibly described outsiders Rhode Island and North Carolina as “Foreign States.” He predicted that, unless the gentry seized control of Rhode Island or its citizens awoke from their conspiratorial delusion, inhabitants of Providence, Newport and any other major cities would sue to be annexed by Massachusetts or Connecticut. The United States would then treat the remaining towns and villages as estranged sisters. Fenno described North Carolinians as suffering from an “anti-national spirit” due to a “deficiency in political knowledge.” But since that state depended so heavily on commerce through and with Virginia, he reasoned, the Old North State would likely soon recognize the error of her ways.

Fenno next reported that “the voice of the Whole Continent” had again summoned “our Fabius Maximus [George Washington] to rescue our country from ruin.”[14] By declaring Rhode Island and North Carolina foreigners and castigating them for their dangerous delusions or “anti-national” attitudes, he brought into focus the supposed clear-eyed, pro-national bona fides of the “sister states.”[15] All good and wise men, according to the editor, supported the Constitution; by this logic only deceitful and/or uneducated men did not. And the “Whole Continent” had called forth Washington to rescue the nation from collapsing. This likely put tremendous pressure on Rhode Island and North Carolina, as they existed outside the national framework and thus beyond the constitutional reach of Washington’s protection. Fenno hoped to create a national people, and the first string drawing this political community together, for the editor, became a unanimous reverence for the federal Constitution.

One contributor to the Gazette of the United States (possibly his close friend Joseph Ward) lamented that Americans adhered to local laws, manners, opinions and fashions and had not yet “formed a distinct national character.” This situation, he declared, resulted not from violent party spirit but rather a lack of a “common standard, to which the jarring prejudices could be referred.” Governance under the Constitution, however, was sure to “form a national character” and bring the disparate views “of the different parts of the Union to a common center.” This writer optimistically predicted that the “frivolous disputes in the several States respecting superiority in legislative knowledge, in propriety of etiquette, in elegance of taste and refinement of manners, will gradually wear away.”[16] In other words, the Constitution would erode parochial biases and suspicions inherent in the geographically – and demographically – diverse federal republic. Once localism had been washed away, this writer anticipated, Americans would realize a national character. No doubt John Fenno imagined his publication as a vital medium in initiating and guiding this necessary process.

Advertisement

The Constitution, lauded Fenno, created an environment where “every man of every rank” who possessed “Virtue and Abilities” could achieve upward social mobility “in the great American Republick.”[17] In the United States, Fenno boasted, every honest and capable citizen enjoyed equality of opportunity, a community that allowed men to realize their potential regardless of pedigree or economic background. Pseudonymous writer “Americanus” offered the reading citizenry a brief history lesson to draw out the uniqueness of the Constitution. During the critical 1780s, he lectured, an anarchic spirit had nearly consumed the nation. But the public called forth the wisest men of the realm to create a new government designed to protect and stabilize the country. The Constitution, he continued, did not result from rash thinking or bloody upheaval, but rather “calm and mature deliberation.” And thus far, assessed Americanus, it had met its “great national objectives.”[18] In another essay, Fenno recounted how virtuous and patriotic Americans had vanquished that “Demon of Anarchy” and established a government designed “to preserve life, liberty, and property.” The federal Constitution, according to the editor, represented “the pillars of National Justice, National Happiness, and National Security.” It had also laid the foundation, he reasoned, for “national habits, manners and sentiments.”[19] In fact, Fenno theorized that routine political contact between the several states would “assimilate our minds, our habits, our manners, our objects, till we become one great People, cemented by national ideas, national spirit, and national glory.”[20] Fenno’s paper heralded the Constitution as savior of the revolution and leveler of provincial discord. He likewise presented national thinkers and federal officers as shepherds of political stability and exemplars of public virtue, men worthy of emulation.

Concealed writer “The Apologizer” offered a telling example of a nationalist thinker marginalizing state and local figures while exalting federal minds. He explained that most Federalists rooted antifederalism to “a small degree of roguery” and, while The Apologizer did not entirely disagree with this assessment, he added a sympathetic nuance. He conducted what he described as a methodical investigation into the antifederal mind while conversing with an honest individual from “this class of people.” The Apologizer observed nothing unusual or dishonest about the man, reporting his mind worked fine when confronted with small things. Alarmingly, however, his brain “was utterly incapable of extending [its] views to the policy of the nation.” The man could not fathom any advantage in creating and maintaining a federal union composed of strangers, likening it to “building a bridge to the moon,” which would only connect “lunatics and other dangerous enemies.” This caused The Apologizer to craft a scale of minds he ranked from dullest to brightest: “Parish intellects, County intellects, State intellects [and] Federal intellects.” In keeping with the vertical integration of society Federalists desperately wished to resurrect, The Apologizer ordered his hierarchical community by mental capacity. He expected old party names like Whig, Tory, Republican and Democrat to, in time, be replaced by his political taxonomy. He likewise expected future observers to categorize political intelligence by the scope of each citizen’s civic imagination and capacity to calculate beyond their localities.

When Virginia statesman Theodorick Bland died in 1790, Fenno weaved together a sort of political olive branch to potential nationalist converts. “The Honorable Congress of the United States and the society of the Cincinnati,” Fenno reported, attended Bland’s funeral at Trinity Church and James Madison (among others) “supported the pall.” Bland, according to Fenno’s account, came from an “ancient and respectable family,” had been educated “in very liberal principles” and served as an officer during the Revolutionary War. By 1780 he had resigned his commission to serve in the Continental Congress. He continued his public service in the Virginia state legislature where he emerged as a vocal opponent of the new Constitution, which he considered “repugnant to the interests of his country.” Yet upon the Constitution’s ratification, Bland, “acting in the character of a good citizen, submitted to the voice of the majority.” His district elected him to the federal House of Representatives where he “bore a universal good character in his intercourse with mankind.”[21] Sadly, at forty-nine, he became the first member of the federal House to die in office.[22]

There were several important developments that warrant attention here. The presence of the Federal Congress, society of Cincinnati, and other respectable men at Bland’s interment simply related to contemporary readers the appropriateness of mourning a federal officer. Yet Fenno afforded Bland’s funeral proceedings considerable space in his paper. It seems likely that the editor considered Bland’s death newsworthy due to the latter’s national stature. And Bland’s career, fit with a refined pedigree, progressive education and military and public service reflect the appropriate qualities of someone worthy of imitation. What really stands out is that Fenno recounted Bland’s initial opposition to the Constitution’s ratification. But, like all decent men, according to the editor, Bland was brought to his senses by the wisdom of the people and became a servant of the very government he initially opposed. His character and reputation remained intact and he died with the warmest esteem of his countrymen. So much so, in fact, that some of the most important national characters gathered to pay their respects as his coffin was lowered into the ground. It may also be the case that John Fenno was reaching across the aisle to other antifederalists, inviting them into the Federalist fold. Had Bland not served honorably in the House, it is unlikely Fenno would have even bothered reporting the Virginian’s death. And even if he had, he probably would have ridiculed or chastised Bland. Instead, Bland submitted to the new Constitution and Fenno recognized and advertised his political conversion. According to Federalists, the government remained weak and vulnerable at its inception and needed popular deference and submission at that critical moment. Nationalists, of course, welcomed all converts, even those slow to constitutional baptism.

Fenno published a letter in the June 12, 1790 edition of his paper that urged Americans to “Honor your rulers” and despise all “evil insinuations against the Representatives of our nation” since federal officials knew the intrinsic importance of national unity. “There is undoubtedly a particular deference and homage due to civil magistrates,” he counseled, who labored to construct “a sure foundation for national happiness.”[23] National statemen deserved unconditional respect and trust from Americans citizens, Fenno reasoned, since their objectives served the whole political community. In another article, Fenno warned that antifederal men remained suspicious and envious of power due to their inferior character. Should the United States, guided by the Constitution, fail to achieve prosperity at home and respect abroad, Fenno fumed, men of narrow thinking would likely be to blame. “No government can be respectable and prosperous,” he apprised, “in which eminent men do not take the lead.”[24]

John Fenno also made certain to provide space for nationalist poetry, a literary nod to the cosmopolitan audience he expected to cultivate and grow. One federal enthusiast wrote “Ode, On the Establishment of the Constitution, And the Election of George our President,” which describes in gripping detail the perceived chaos and misery that followed the War for Independence. The poet recalled how heaven blessed Americans with the Constitution, which the framers designed to “becalm the raging seas” and “diffuse the swelling breeze.” And with Washington at the helm, the writer predicted, Americans would persevere over “Whatever rocks oppose, whatever tempest blows.”[25] This hagiographic hyperbole connects an unknowable divinity to the Constitution’s implementation and presents Washington as a cosmic instrument guiding heaven’s perfect design. For a relatively religious political community, this verse likely resonated in receptive ears throughout the nation. After all, according to this lyricist, Americans had just survived two crises: the American Revolution and the unbridled democratic spirit of the 1780s. For many, this was proof enough of providential favor.

In “An Ode Sung on the Arrival of the President of the United States,” the composer gushed, “Illustrious Warrior hail!/Oft’ did thy sword prevail/Oe’r hosts of foes/Come and fresh laurels claim/Still dearer make thy name/Long as Immortal Fame/Her trumpet blows,” before closing with “Unsully’d by a throne/Our much lov’d Washington.”[26] Washington, immortalized for both his martial glory and disdain for royal majesty, versified this poet, enjoyed the trust and esteem of the nation. And this form of lyrical lauding stretched beyond just the first magistrate; Vice President John Adams also enjoyed public laurels for his purported selfless political efforts. In a composition entitled simply “The Vice President,” the versifier recited “When Heaven resolv’d Columbia should be free/And Independence, spake the great decree/Lo, Adams rose! a giant in debate/And turn’d that vote which fix’d our empire’s fate/When Washington commanded ‘wars to cease’/He [Adams] crown’d our triumphs, by a glorious Peace.”[27] Not unlike the “Ode to the Constitution,” these lines placed Adams in a theological effort to secure an ordained independence for the United States. Washington’s martial potency and Adams’s diplomatic fidelity, according to the writer, combined to create and guide the new ship of state.

The editor felt popular deference to the federal order, its servants and laws were absolutely critical for the nation. Thus the Gazette of the United States reported national statesmen with all of the grandeur necessary to inspire private men to revere public men and their measures. John Fenno also aimed to tie the states together into a single national unit robust enough to survive the dangers and unpredictability of a world dominated by haughty princes, ruthless tyrants and everything in between. Fenno considered the federal union, then, to be the final component in his crucible of national identity.

Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton expected to draw together the union and strengthen the federal government by assuming all state debts accrued during the American Revolution and funding the combined national financial obligation. The secretary also expected to create a national bank and provide businesses with government assistance to incentivize large-scale manufacturing, all in an attempt to modernize the republic.[28] John Fenno and other Federalists immediately began defending these initiatives, explaining to the public how modernizing the nation would guarantee its long term survival. They also expressed the ways in which national policy might bind together more tightly the fragile federal union. “Americanus” advised statesmen to remember the “splendor of the ancient states of Greece and Rome, and the modern one of Great Britain” when addressing public affairs. Britain in particular excited Americanus, as its advanced methods of public finance enabled it to wage a series of wars that, he pointed out, would have absolutely bankrupted every other European kingdom. In order to put the United States on a path to classical greatness and modern fiscal responsibility, he predicted, a national funding system would have to assume “all the state debts of the Union.” Handling the debt and credit and broadcasting strength and stability, he continued, “is intimately connected with the general prosperity and welfare of the American Empire.”[29] Americanus was not alone in connecting the nation’s future and political consolidation with the national debt.

A New York correspondent declared the establishment of public credit vital for the safety and security of the republic. “Every national and patriotic motive,” he proclaimed, must be dedicated to assuming the state debts. “This will prove a most important link in the chain of our Federal Union,” he instructed. If this measure is not taken, he advised, it would reflect as nothing short of dereliction of duty from the most distinguished class of men in the nation. Local politics and small minds, he reminded, represented the disgrace of the nation during the 1780s. Fortunately, “the members of our present enlightened National Legislature,” he lauded, “discover minds superior to all selfish, State attachments.” These men would no doubt solve the great questions before them, he expected, “especially those relating to Finance.” And once this pressing issue found resolution, the New Yorker theorized, “how glorious the prospect of our country!”[30] Here again a nationalist thinker belittled the perceived limited concerns of local and state figures. Only enlightened national thinkers, he reasoned, appreciated the importance of a strong union. And an essential element in creating one, for this writer, involved the nation assuming the state debts.

For another contributor, federal assumption of state debts “rivets the chain of Union—and blackens with despair the enemies of our National Constitution.” He hoped assumption would kill “this monster with thirteen heads,” after which the several states, once deceived by faction, would find protection from a single national head. Only then, he suspected, would Americans discover “the blessings which flow from union” and expose “the machinations of State demagogues.”[31] The allusion to a thirteen-headed monster is an assessment that thirteen state governments and political identities only weakened the nation and emboldened its foes. But joined in union, a single national head would ostensibly legislate and govern with the wisdom and energy necessary to benefit the sum rather than parts of the republic. And political union, this writer expected, would incubate a national identity dedicated to union and liberty.

“A Friend of the Union” sounded the alarm over the precarious political environment the United States faced at the outset of the Washington administration. Treasonous men “in the very bosom of this country” still harbored anger over American independence, he brewed, while British soldiers had yet to evacuate military fortifications and Georgia remained embroiled in a violent frontier conflict with the Creeks. “At a time when a host of surrounding dangers should press the States [into] the most compact union,” he pleaded, Americans must elect men to the national government who considered “all the circumstances and interests of the whole body.” He then beseeched voters to avoid electing small-minded demagogues too ill-informed to make a national judgment. Men fit for federal office, he concluded, not only brought local information to Congress, they acquired national knowledge before calculating federal interests.[32] Brig. Gen. Louis Lébegue Duportail, a French officer who served in the Continental Army, offered his own sobering analysis on the state of American affairs in the pages of Fenno’s gazette.[33] American stability, sustainability and happiness, he cautioned, indeed the nation’s “very existence, seems to depend on their union.” Without it, he warned, the young nation would fail. Therefore, “it is absolutely necessary to maintain the Union.”[34]

The above examples are hardly comprehensive. In edition after edition, John Fenno pushed his three main objectives to, from his perspective, rescue the republic. And many Federalists, typically men who served in some capacity during the war and witnessed firsthand the paralysis of fractured government, gravitated toward the vision propagated in Fenno’s Gazette of the United States.[35] John Fenno, public philosopher and steward of republican order, selflessly committed to his public crusade at tremendous personal cost.[36] And his short-lived position as unopposed medium of federal intelligence started the new republic off with a moment (albeit brief) of national optimism.[37]

John Fenno hoped his paper would combine diverse communities throughout the federal republic into a single political nation. His open defense of the Constitution, advocacy of national statesmen and support of the federal union all reflect a consistent and connected political agenda aimed at securing the future of the republic. Yet he equally did not conceive his gazette as a partisan instrument. The political arena had yet to develop organized political parties in the modern sense, thus Fenno imagined his paper more of a public transmitter designed to inform Americans. He also recognized that citizens would likely receive any official government publication as dangerous state-sanctioned propaganda. “It would be unpopular for Government to establish a State Paper or give a Printer a Salary,” Fenno reasonably concluded.[38] British prime minister Sir Robert Walpole’s propagandistic use of the press during the first quarter of the eighteenth century may have informed Fenno’s reservations.[39] After all, government papers publish only what the state wishes to divulge and repress all it does not. But Fenno did see actual societal value in what printing might offer transparent political communities. He ran an ongoing series of essays under the title “The Tablet,” where he or one of his known (or unknown) contributors offered moral, political and/or social advice.[40] In one of these essays, Fenno (or a writer whose thoughts remained very much in line with the editor’s) explained the connection between the public utility of knowledge and happiness. “Few, if any situations in life afford a more extensive field for diffusing good to the community and mankind, than that in which an ingenious and judicious Editor of a Newspaper is placed,” the writer exposited. “Knowledge being the seed of political, domestic, and moral happiness, his labors instruct millions and descend to future generations—he culls from all authors and ages, from the living and the dead, [the] wisdom of the world.” In short, “Newspapers are the book of experience, they contain the most useful and important information for all ranks of men.”[41] If Fenno did not personally write these lines, he found validation for his public crusade within them.

John Fenno expected his editorial services to provide the reading republic access to information essential for guarding its liberties. Editors, he declared, informed the political community with the knowledge necessary for a people to remain both free and protective of the American Revolution’s egalitarian rewards. Fenno, with his sharp intellect and deep education, synthesized information from a range of ancient and modern sources, an effort that sometimes required days of intense physical and intellectual labor. His readers, for a modest cost, had at their fingertips his profound erudition, a service he hoped would enlighten the people while salvaging the republic. Little did Fenno and his supporters realize that statesmen of a different political persuasion were engaged in some machinations (emanating from the highest offices of the first presidential cabinet) to challenge what they considered the dangerous doctrines of despotic monarchy peddled in John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States.

[1] Gazette of the United States, May 2, 1789.

[2] Shawn David McGhee, “Reframing George Washington’s Clothing at the Second Continental Congress,” Journal of the American Revolution (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2024): 68-77; John Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009); Joseph Ellis, His Excellency: George Washington (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004); For Washington reentering the Senate chamber, see Gazette of the United States, May 2, 1789.

[3] For newspaper delivery see Jeffrey Pasley, The Tyranny of Printers: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2001).

[4] Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, NY: MIT Press, 1991); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983); Michael Warner, The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century America (Cambridge, NY: Harvard University Press, 1990).

[5] Gazette of the United States, May 2, 1789.

[6] John Fenno, January 1, 1789, in John B. Hench, ed., “Letters of John Fenno and John Fenno Ward, 1779-1800, Part 1: 1779-1790,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 89, no. 2 (1979), 1:311; Christopher Gore to Rufus King, January 18, 1789, in Charles R. King, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King: Comprising of His Letters, Private and Official, His Public Documents, and His Speeches, 6 vols. (New York, NY: G.P Putnam’s Sons: The Knickerbocker Press, 1894-1900), 1:357-58; Marcus Daniel, Scandal and Civility: Journalism and the Birth of American Democracy (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009).

[7] John Fenno, An Address, January 1, 1789, in Hench, “Letters of Fenno,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 89, 1:312-14; Christopher Gore to Rufus King, January 18, 1789, in Charles R. King, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King: Comprising of His Letters, Private and Official, His Public Documents, and His Speeches, 6 vols. (New York, NY: G.P Putnam’s Sons: The Knickerbocker Press, 1894-1900), 1:357-58.

[8] Loan Terms, John Fenno, January 1, 1789, in Hench, “Letters of Fenno,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 89, 1:311.

[9] John Fenno, An Address, January 1, 1789, in Ibid., 1:312-14.

[10] Gazette of the United States, April 15, 1789.

[11] For two surveys of temporal time and the concerns of the state, see J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975); Drew McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1980).

[12] Gazette of the United States, April 15, 1789.

[13] Pocock, Machiavellian Moment; McCoy, Elusive Republic.

[14] Gazette of the United States, April 15, 1789.

[15] Ibid.

[16] For Joseph Ward’s as a regular contributor to Fenno’s papers, see Hench, “Letters of Fenno”; “The Tablet,” in Gazette of the United States, April 25, 1789.

[17] “Address,” in Gazette of the United States, April 22, 1789.

[18] “Americanus,” in Gazette of the United States, April 25, 1789.

[19] “C” in Gazette of the United States, May 2, 17898.

[20] Gazette of the United States, April 18, 1789.

[21] “A Short Account of the Hon. Theordorick Bland, Esq.,” in Gazette of the United States, June 5, 1790.

[22] James Grant Wilson, The Memorial History of the City of New York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892 (New York: New York History Company, 1893), 70.

[23] Gazette of the United States, June 12, 1790.

[24] Gazette of the United States, February 17, 1790.

[25] “Ode, On the Establishment of the Constitution, And the Election of George our President,” in Gazette of the United States, April 15, 1789.

[26] “An Ode Sung on the Arrival of the President of the United States,” in Gazette of the United States, April 25, 1789.

[27] “The Vice President,” in Gazette of the United States, April 22, 1789.

[28] Andrew Shankman, Crucible of American Democracy: The Struggle to Fuse Egalitarianism and Capitalism in Jeffersonian Pennsylvania (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004); Andrew Shankman, “‘A New Thing on Earth’: Alexander Hamilton, Pro-Manufacturing Republicans, and the Democratization of American Political Economy,” Journal of the Early Republic 23 (2003): 323-52; See also Lance Banning, The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978).

[29] “Americanus,” in Gazette of the United States, February 10, 1790.

[30] “From Correspondents,” in Gazette of the United States, March 3, 1790.

[31] Gazette of the United States, July 28, 1790.

[32] “A Friend of the Union,” in Gazette of the United States, February 17, 1790.

[33] Elizabeth Sarah Kite, Brigadier-General Louis Lebégue Duportail, Commandant of Engineers in the Continental Army, 1777-1783 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1933).

[34] Gazette of the United States, December 1, 1790.

[35] E. Wayne Carp, To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775-1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984); Lawrence Delbert Cress, Citizens in Arms: The Army and Militia in American Society to the War of 1812 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1982).

[36] Shawn David McGhee, “‘What Magic There is in Some Words!”: John Fenno’s Private Crusade for an American National Identity,” Journal of the American Revolution, allthingsliberty.com/2025/01/what-magic-there-is-in-some-words-john-fennos-private-crusade-for-an-american-national-identity/.

[37] Marcus Daniel, Scandal and Civility: Journalism and the Birth of American Democracy (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009).

[38] John Fenno to Joseph Ward, August 5, 1789, in Hench, “Letters of Fenno,” 1:334.

[39] Simon Targett, “Government and Ideology during the Age of Whig Supremacy: The Political Argument of Sir Robert Walpole’s Newspaper Propagandists,” Historical Journal 37, no. 2 (1994): 289-317.

[40] “The Tablet,” in Gazette of the United States, April 3, 1790.

[41] John Fenno, January 1, 1789, in Hench, “Letters of Fenno,” 1:312-14.