“The ’Vention did in Boston meet”

In 1782 Eleazer Oswald founded the Independent Gazetteer newspaper in Philadelphia with the help of a local printer named Daniel Humphreys.

A couple of years later Humphreys left and relaunched the Pennsylvania Mercury, and Universal Advertiser. 

Oswald was able to publish daily while Humphreys put out issues three times a week. Either way, that was a big jump over the weekly newspapers both men had worked on before the war.

While Oswald opposed the new U.S. Constitution of 1787, Humphreys became one of many Federalist printers supporting that reform.

On 19 Feb 1788, Oswald poked fun at the parade the Boston Federalists organized after Massachusetts ratified the new Constitution, as I quoted yesterday. Three days later Humphreys ran this response:

Mr. Humphreys,
The Independent Gazetteer has been long famous for its Attic salt; and it now lays a claim to Parnassian wit. I am sorry, however, that an Hibernian muse should be invoked to give an account of the proceedings at Boston; for, however meritorious Dean Swift’s “O my kitten, my kitten, my deary,” may be, yet Yankee doodle seems best adapted to this country, and you know we ought to encourage our own spiritu as well as manu factures. So please to accept the following from
A YANKEE.

The ’Vention did in Boston meet,
But State-house could not hold ’em,
So then they went to Fed’ral-street,
And there the truth was told ’em–

Yankee doodle, keep it up!
Yankee doodle, dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.

They ev’ry morning went to prayer,
And then began disputing,
’Till opposition silenc’d were,
By arguments refuting.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

Then ’squire Hancock like a man,
Who dearly loves the nation,
By a concil’atry plan,
Prevented much vexation.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

He made a woundy fed’ral speech,
With sense and elocution;
And then the ’Vention did beseech
T’ adopt the Constitution.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

The question being outright put,
(Each voter independent)
The Fed’ralists agreed t’ adopt,
And then propose amendment.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

The other party seeing then
The people were against ’em,
Agreed like honest, faithful men,
To mix in peace amongst ’em.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

The Boston folks are deucid lads,
And always full of notions;
The boys, the girls, their mams and dads,
Were fill’d with joy’s commotions.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

So straightway they procession made,
Lord! how nation fine, Sir!
For ev’ry man of ev’ry trade
Went with his tools——to dine, Sir.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

John Foster Williams in a ship,
Join’d in the social band, Sir,
And made the lasses dance and skip,
To see him sail on land, Sir.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

Oh then a whapping feast begun,
And all hands went to eating;
They drank their toasts, shook hands and sung,
Huzza! for ’Vention meeting.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

Now Politicians of all kinds,
Who are not yet decided;
May see how Yankees speak their minds;
And yet are not divided.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

Then from this ’sample let ’em cease,
Inflammatory writing,
For FREEDOM, HAPPINESS, and PEACE,
Is better far than fighting.

Yankee doodle, keep it up! &c.

So here I end my fed’ral song,
Compos’d of thirteen verses,
May agriculture flourish long,
And commerce fill our purses!

Yankee doodle, keep it up!
Yankee doodle, dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.

While the Independent Gazetteer implied the Boston Federalists’ parade deserved questionable Irish praise, this song parodied common Yankee speech—a stereotype carrying the aura of Patriotism.

Pennsylvania’s Federalists didn’t like how their Anti-Federalist neighbors kept arguing their case weeks after they had lost decisively at the state ratification convention. That’s why this song emphasized not being “divided” by “fighting.” Federalist newspapers approvingly quoted the Massachusetts delegates who had voted against the Constitution but then pledged fidelity to the new government.

Of course, the voices of those reconciled Anti-Federalists reached Philadelphia mostly through the Federalist press. I doubt Massachusetts politics looked so peaceful and unified close-up.

“Poop for Boston towny!”

Pennsylvania had its convention to ratify the new U.S. Constitution from 21 November to 12 December 1787.

It was the first large state to approve of the new federal government. The vote was one-sided: 46 to 23.

The Anti-Federalist side didn’t simply accept that vote and shut up, however. Those politicians continued to promulgate their arguments, hoping to affect the votes in other states. The Pennsylvania Federalists doubled their efforts to talk up the new Constitution locally and elsewhere.

Pennsylvanians therefore had a surprising amount to say about the Massachusetts ratifying convention, which met 9 January to 5 February 1788.

In Philadelphia, the Continental Army veteran Eleazer Oswald (1755–1795, shown here) made the Independent Gazetteer a daily Anti-Federalist voice—one of only a dozen American newspapers to publish essays against ratification.

The 19 February issue of the Independent Gazetteer ran a pro-ratification report based on Benjamin Edes’s Boston Gazette from eight days earlier, giving it the ironic headline “The Grand Federal Edifice.”:

WITH the highest satisfaction we announce to the public, that the Convention of this commonwealth, on Wednesday at five o’clock, P. M. assented to, and on Thursday ratified the Constitution proposed by the last Federal Convention.

On this pleasing event, we beg leave to congratulate the public, and to express our sincere wishes, that the general joy which it has diffused through all ranks of citizens, may be an auspicious omen of the superior advantages which shall result from the establishment of such a Federal Government, as this Constitution provides.

Oswald added, “The motion for ratifying was declared in the affirmative, by a majority of nineteen.” The vote in Massachusetts was 187-168, a much closer outcome than in Pennsylvania. Massachusetts’s convention also started a trend of calling for specific amendments, putting implied conditions on its vote.

The Boston Gazette report continued with a detailed description of the Federalist procession that followed ratification. The Independent Gazetteer printed this:

In consequence of which the Boston folks had a GRAND Procession–

There they went up, up, up,
And there they went down, down, downy,
There they went backwards and forwards,
And poop for Boston towny!

This grand intelligence reached Philadelphia, on Saturday evening last, when the bells of Christ Church were rung–

Here they rung, rung, rung,
And here they bobb’d about, abouty.
Here were doubles and majors and bobs,
And heigh for ’delphia city!

These verses parodied a traditional Scottish song published as “The Nurses’ Song” or “Hey my kitten my kitten,” lyrics attributed to Jonathan Swift.

Pennsylvania Federalists felt that Oswald wasn’t treating the Massachusetts ratification with the respect it deserved.

TOMORROW: Two responses.

Finding the Printer “E. Oswald”

I flagged this essay by Michelle Orihel at the Age of Revolutions blog for sharing just shy of two years ago, but here’s an extract at last:

In May 1793, the Democratic Society of Pennsylvania published its constitution as a pamphlet entitled, Principles, Articles, and Regulations, Agreed upon, Drawn, and Adopted by the Members of the Democratic Society in Philadelphia. The title page listed E. Oswald as the printer. I initially assumed that Eleazer Oswald [shown here] printed the pamphlet. A well-known Philadelphia printer, he edited the newspaper The Independent Gazeteer, and later joined the Democratic Societies in both Pennsylvania and New York. However, when researching his life, I learned that Oswald had sailed for England in the summer of 1792. He did not return to the United States until November 1793. He could not have printed the constitution. His wife did—E. for Elizabeth Oswald.

In her husband’s absence, Elizabeth took charge of the family’s newspaper and printing business. A common practice in the eighteenth century, wives and daughters often worked in print shops. For example, Benjamin Franklin recounted in his Autobiography that his wife Deborah “cheerfully attended me in my business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen rags for the paper makers, etc. etc.” (It is worth noting that by relegating the rest of his wife’s work to the “etc., etc.” category, Franklin rendered women’s work paradoxically invaluable and invisible in a text that famously celebrated his own work ethic and path to success.) . . .

Elizabeth Oswald came from a family of printers. Her father was John Holt, the well-known patriot printer in New York, and her mother, Elizabeth Holt, ran the New York Journal for two years after her husband died in 1785. Less than a decade later, while Eleazer was away, his wife advertised in the Independent Gazetteer on several occasions that she had received a new and complete assortment of printing types that her husband had sent from England. Elizabeth specifically noted that she specialized in printing “blank checks, circular letters, &c. executed upon a new and beautiful Scripts.” After Eleazer died in 1796, Elizabeth carried on publishing the newspaper for a short period, just like her mother had done after her father’s death. She eventually sold the newspaper to Joseph Gales, but maintained the printing business. One year later, she died of “the prevailing disease” of yellow fever. Her obituary described her as an “amiable lady,” “a valuable member [of society],” and “a tender and affectionate mother.”

Prof. Orihel studies the politics of the 1790s and explores new teaching techniques for the benefit of her students at Southern Utah University.