The National Era Archive

The Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society established The National Era as a weekly Washington, DC newspaper, according to the January 2, 1847 article "Anti-Slavery-Reporter, extra" in The Daily Union. First publishedon January 7, 1847 the anti-slavery The National Era was published by L.P. Noble and edited by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, with corresponding editors Amos A. Phelps, a known scholar and logician, and John G. Whittier, a political contributor. Phelps previously served as the secretary of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and he died within the first year of the paper's publication, as noted by The Sun on August 5, 1847.While the paper was a proponent of the Liberty party and abolitionism, it was not a party organ, and it never called for unconstitutional or unlawful means to the erasure of slavery, especially in reference to state's rights. In the discussion on slavery, the National Era defended the right to free speech. The National Era published condensed reports of the proceedings of Congress and explained its proceedings to a common audience. The paper took a position to "keep a constant watch upon the action of the Federal Government in relation to all questions at issue between Liberty and Slavery," according to an August 5, 1854 article. The publishers of The National Era also experimented with creating a daily paper called the Daily National Era. It recorded the activities of Congress, to be published, shipped, and sent out by the next morning. It ran from January 2 to August 5, 1854. Ending with that session of Congress, the paper did not gain enough subscribers for the following year's sessions.

The senior editor, Bailey, previously edited newspapers in Ohio including the Cincinnati Weekly Herald and Philanthropist, which was destroyed by mob, re-established, and destroyed again, as noted in a letter Dr. Gamaliel Bailey to Joshua R. Giddings, published in the Indiana Magazine of History, volume 26, number 1 (March 1920). As an Anti-Slavery paper, the National Era also suffered at the hands of a pro-slavery mob that stoned itsoffice and held staff hostage for three days in April 1848. These events, as well as general controversy surrounding the paper, put it at the center of discussions about freedom of the presses. The National Era's anti-slavery stance achieved national attention when it published Uncle Tom's Cabin in forty installments beginning June 5, 1851, thought to be one of the single-most important publishing events of the anti-slavery movement. Bailey continued to edit The National Era until his death in 1859. The National Era continued under the editorial management of Mrs. Margaret L. Bailey, Dr. Bailey's widow, though she was not named as the editor in the paper until the first issue of 1860. The paper suffered from low subscription numbers and ceased publication on March 22, 1860.