Duff Green, the United States' Telegraph, and the election of 1828

Before reaching the age of thirty-five. Duff Green was. a soldier, merchant, lawyer, land speculator, government mail contractor, stagecoach line operator, and newspaper editor. He served Missouri as a brigadier-general in its militia, as a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1820, and as a member of both houses of the state legislature. He moved to Washington in 1826, purchased the United States' Telegraph, and promoted the election of Andrew Jackson during the presidential campaign of 1828. Green sought to advance the Jacksonian cause by attacking the administration of John Quincy Adams. The Telegraph portrayed President Adams as an "aristocrat," described Secretary of State Henry Clay as a corrupt politician, and publicized the charge that Adams had reached the presidency through an underhanded agreement with Clay. The Telegraph's vigorous assaults upon Adams, Clay, and many of their partisans may have helped to diminish their popularity, but they also antagonized administration editors who attacked Green's character and charged that Jacksonian congressmen owned and controlled the Telegraph. [...]