many sheet, The New York Patriot, was started largely through
the instrumentality of John C. Calhoun. The American then
became a National Republican paper until February 16, 1845,
when it united with The Courier and Enquirer. During all this
time King was editor of The American and after the merger
took place became associated with James Watson Webb and
Henry J. Raymond in the editorial direction of The Courier and
Enquirer until he was called to the presidency of Columbia Col-
lege. King was an exceptionally able editorial writer, but he
failed to recognize the value of news something to which the
penny press was then devoting a great deal of attention. The
American felt quickly this competition with the one-cent papers
and on May 1, 1843, reduced its price from six to two cents per
copy. The change in price, however, failed to increase the circu-
lation and the paper united with The Courier and Enquirer, as
has already been mentioned. At one time, however, it exerted
great political influence among the more aristocratic circles of
New York on account of its able editorials.
EMBREE AND GARRISON
The first abolition paper did not appear in the North, but was started in Tennessee in 1820 ten years before William Lloyd Garrison brought out The Liberator in Boston. On April 30, 1820, Elihu Embree, a member of the religious Society of Friends, started in Jonesboro, Tennessee, The Emancipator, a radical exponent of the abolition cause. One of the cardinal principles of the Society of Friends was that no member in good standing could ever hold a person in bondage. Embree was the son of a Quaker preacher and lived in Pennsylvania, before he came to Tennessee to make his home in Washington County. Of him a leading Tennessee paper said at the close of the war: "He was the stuff of which martyrs are made." After teaching and preaching the doctrine of emancipation he started The Emancipator, which he continued for eight months when sick- ness and death finally overcame him. In every possible way he sought to increase the circulation of this paper. To the Gov- ernor of each of the States he sent a copy gratis. The Governors of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina returned their copies
