ABSTRACT
The participants and documents of the American Revolution have long symbolized principles that Americans value, at least in theory, but of course as the new nation emerged and developed, basic standards of liberty and representative government did not extend to a large part of the population. The disenfranchised wanted full citizenship, and they struggled to be heard in a press that typically spoke “to and for the homogenous middle,” according to Lauren Kessler. 1 Many formed alliances and started their own publications to communicate, and to protest, calling for suffrage, freedom, and a chance at “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” with mixed success. This chapter examines how an alternative press used memory of the American Revolution to fuel arguments in the battles for freedom and equality that would, in part, defi ne the nineteenth century.
