Partisanship in the Antislavery Press during the 1844 Run of an Abolition Candidate for President.

Historians label the 1844 presidential election as pivotal, heightening political and sectional tensions. Abolitionist third-party candidate James Birney was a viable alternative for antislavery voters in a campaign that featured two slaveholders. This study of antislavery newspapers during that campaign concludes that although the antislavery press claimed to be singularly focused on abolition, its editors were distracted by the election and mirrored the partisan press of that era in their treatment of the various candidates. Furthermore, Liberty Party editors and their Garrisonian counterparts addressed each other with the same level of disdain that they directed at the Whigs and Democrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]