Religious Newspapers and Presidential Politics, 1840–1848

Abstract

Although rampant newspaper partisanship characterized the antebellum era, the number of dedicated religious newspapers steadily increased between 1830 and 1850. Meanwhile, a dramatic interweaving of religious and political principles occurred in the Whig Party, which took cues from evangelical reform movements and promoted candidates as spiritual and religious symbols. This article explores the extent to which religious newspapers exhibited political partisanship during the national elections of the 1840s—bookended by the only two presidential elections that Whigs won—with the goal of enhancing understanding of the antebellum religious press. Despite religious editors' universal claims of neutrality and disdain for politics, when examined closely, some religious newspapers displayed the political bias that was characteristic of the era's secular press. Preference toward Whigs in religious newspapers extends ethnocultural voting theory that ties Christian laymen's political behavior to religious views, suggesting a disparity between clergymen who edited newspapers and those who did not.