For Free Press and Equal Rights: Republican Newspapers in the Reconstruction South.

For Free Press and Equal Rights: Republican Newspapers in the Reconstruction South. By Richard H. Abbott. Edited by John W. Quist. (Athens, Ga., and London: University of Georgia Press, c. 2004. Pp xii, 266. $39.95, ISBN 0-8203-2527-9.)

After the Civil War, Republicans faced many obstacles in establishing a viable party structure in the former Confederacy. Not the least of their problems was the difficulty of establishing a press to reflect Republican orthodoxy, to "solidify party organization and loyalty," and to establish their political legitimacy (p. 1). In a series of chapters that more or less follow the trajectory of Reconstruction, Richard H. Abbott accounts for the founding of a Republican press in the South and for its inevitable decline.

The heart of this posthumously published monograph is three chapters dealing with the ideological positions of Republican editors. Abbott points out that the Republican press took its cues from the Republican platform and that editorial positions reflected those taken by Republican politicians. They presented themselves as the progressive party and argued for civility in political debate and for the free exchange of ideas. They also put forward a strong class argument in their effort to solidify whites and blacks against the old white elites.

As their ideology reflected the party' s, so too did their divisions. Using a familiar radical-moderate fulcrum for analysis, Abbott sees the editors' fault lines running along race. Like their politician counterparts, radical editors stressed civil and political rights for freedpeople while the moderate editors wished to de-emphasize the race issue and draw southern white elites into the party. This division proved to be too tough a nut for either editors or politicians to crack.

All of this is an old story, playing out in newspaper editorials. Perhaps a more valuable part of this monograph is the attention Abbott pays to the role of Republican printing patronage. Here again we see the fortunes of the Republican press attached to those of the party. As Democrats redeemed their states, printing patronage to Republican papers dried up naturally.

Abbott has done his homework. He seems to have read every southern Republican newspaper extant and includes a valuable appendix of Republican newspapers arranged by state. He also seems to have read every dissertation and thesis on this arcane subject and has delved into the papers of government officials who dealt with the press and of those few editors who left papers. The title of the book is a bit misleading. Although Abbott does state as a thesis that the southern Republican press had of necessity to "make a case for freedom of press, speech, and expression," he does not sustain that thesis thematically and rarely refers to it until the end of the book (p. 3). No matter. The subtitle clearly describes the book's content, and to that extent this is a valuable and comprehensive survey of the Republican press in the Reconstruction South. More to the point, Abbott reminds us that a partisan press is a key component of a democratic society. Perhaps this is a lesson we have forgotten.

CHARLES F. RITTER 

College of Notre Dame of Maryland