Lincoln's Censor

Book excerpt: "Lincoln's Censor examines the effect of government suppression on the Democratic press in Indiana during the spring of 1863. Indiana's Democratic newspaper editors were subject to Milo S. Hascall's General Order Number Nine, which proclaimed that all newspaper editors and public speakers that encouraged resistance to the draft or any other war measure would be treated as traitors. Brigadier General Hascall, commander of the District of Indiana, was amplifying General Order Number Thirty-eight of Major General Ambrose Everts Burnside, the commander of the Department of the Ohio. Burnside's order declared that criticism of the president and the war effort was tantamount to "declaring sympathies with the enemy." Eleven Democratic newspapers in Indiana faced suspension." "The author found that Democratic newspapers in majority Republican counties were more likely to face suppression, even if constraints on the Democratic press were more necessary in majority Democratic counties. The study concludes that while a temporary chilling effect occurred in Indiana, the free-press tradition survived in the long run."--BOOK JACKET.