Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/170

144 sent a receipt. Washington himself directed that he be paid:

"This must not be," said Washington, on learning the fact. "When Mr. Russell offered to publish the laws without pay, we were poor. It was a generous offer. We are now able to pay our debts. This is a debt of honor, and must be discharged."

Shortly afterward a check for seven thousand dollars was sent to Major Russell.

It was such ardent advocacy of the Federal constitution, ably backed up by Hamilton in the "Federalist," that brought to the Federal party its main support. While the Federalists were the party in favor of the Constitution the opposition could not stand against them. Once, however, that issue was dead, and the issue became popular control, with the Federalists opposed to popular rights, they lost influence. Party consistency, however, led men like Russell to remain Federalists, and this he did even up to the administration of Madison, when he bitterly opposed the war with England—the last stand of the Federalist party, which practically passed away with the Hartford convention. The election of Monroe marked its complete eclipse, and then followed the "era of good feeling," an expression said to have been originally uttered by Russell.

Although Philadelphia had no such distinctive character as Russell to take up the fight for journalism after the war, it was in this period that Philadelphia offered the country its first daily paper. On September 21, 1784, the Pennsylvania Packet or General Advertiser of Dunlap and Claypoole appeared as a daily, evidently in response to a large increase in the advertisements, for in the first issue of this new daily there were plenty of advertise-