With ten daily newspapers, New York City's public life in the 1840s revolved around fiercely competitive, politically intense journalism that helped shape public opinion. James Gordon Bennett, Scotsman and passionate Democrat, launched the sensationalist Herald in 1835 and achieved the nation's largest daily circulation by the 1850s with 70,000. Along with many other editors and writers, Bennett believed that blacks were naturally inferior to whites.
"Though blacks are among us, they are not of us. Laws may declare a black man to be free; but they cannot make him white."
— Harmanus Bleecker, 1831
"We believe that the institution of slavery in the South is no evil — that it is a positive good. It is the natural and proper condition of a black race living in the midst of a white race."
— New-York Herald , 1835
"Can a black race, inferior in every respect to a white race, enjoy equality in the same country with the latter?"
— New-York Herald , 1835
"There is a pretty considerable black confederacy of thieves in town, endeavoring to corrupt all the colored servants in the hotels."
