In the troubled years leading up to the Civil War, newspapers in the North and South presented the arguments for and against slavery, debated the right to secede, and disputed the Dred Scott decision, denouncing opposing viewpoints with imagination and vigor. Although it is impossible to determine the precise effect of the newspapers on their readers, there is no question that they took the temperature of their communities and recorded the rising local agitations, unifying opinions, raising alarms, and cementing prejudices. Lorman A. Ratner and Dwight Teeter's Fanatics and Fire-Eaters ably demonstrates the power of a fast-growing media to influence both perception and the course of events.
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In the troubled years leading up to the Civil War, newspapers in the North and South presented the arguments for and against slavery, debated the right to secede, and in general denounced opposing viewpoints with imagination and vigor. At the same time, new technologies like railroads and the telegraph lent the debates an immediacy that both enflamed emotions and brought the slavery issue into every home. Lorman A. Ratner and Dwight L. Teeter Jr. look at the power of America's fast-growing media to influence perception and the course of events prior to the Civil War. Drawing on newspaper accounts from across the United States, the authors look at how the media covered'and the public reacted to'major events like the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and the election of 1860. They find not only North-South disputes about the institution of slavery but differing visions of the republic itself'and which region was the true heir to the legacy of the American Revolution.
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