Thomas Ritchie of Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

 was a leading American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 journalist. He read law and medicine, but set up a bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

 in 1803 instead of practicing either. He bought out the Republican newspaper the Richmond Enquirer in 1804, and made it a financial and political success, as editor and publisher for 41 years. The paper appeared three times a week and was a complete success. Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

 said of the Enquirer, "I read but a single newspaper, Ritchie's Enquirer, the best that is published or ever has been published in America." Ritchie wrote the stirring partisan editorials, clipped the news from Washington and New York papers, and did most of the local reporting himself. For 25 years he was state printer, a method by which his political friends subsidized their most articulate voice.

Ritchie was a leader of the "Richmond Junto," (with Spencer Roane

Spencer Roane

Spencer Roane was a Virginia lawyer and politician who served in the Virginia House of Delegates and as a judge of the state's highest court.Roane was born in Essex County, Virginia, on April 4, 1762...

 and Dr. John Brockenbrough

John Brockenbrough

John Brockenbrough was a business man and civic leader in Richmond, Virginia. He was president of the Bank of Virginia. His home in Richmond's Court End District later served as the "White House" for the Confederate States of America.-History:...

 of the Virginia State Bank). He controlled the Republican state committee. Committed to democratic reform in representation of the western counties and full manhood suffrage (for whites), he promoted the 1829 Virginia state constitutional convention. A modernizer, he promoted public schools and extensive state internal improvements

Internal improvements

Internal improvements is the term used historically in the United States for public works from the end of the American Revolution through much of the 19th century, mainly for the creation of a transportation infrastructure: roads, turnpikes, canals, harbors and navigation improvements...

.

In national politics Ritchie's influence rested first on an alliance with Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States . Before his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State, under Andrew Jackson ....

. They both promoted William H. Crawford

William H. Crawford

William Harris Crawford was an American politician and judge during the early 19th century. He served as United States Secretary of War from 1815 to 1816 and United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1816 to 1825, and was a candidate for President of the United States in 1824.-Political...

's presidential candidacy, and next that of Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...

. He favored the "Old Republican" "principles of '98, '99" against what he considered the corrupting influence of Henry Clay

Henry Clay

Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...

 and the divisive tactics of John C. Calhoun

John C. Calhoun

John Caldwell Calhoun was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent...

, whose nullification and Southern-party policies Ritchie detested. He denounced abolitionists but supported gradual emancipation.

In 1844 Ritchie supported James K. Polk

James K. Polk

James Knox Polk was the 11th President of the United States . Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives and the 12th Governor of Tennessee...

 because of Polk's support for the annexation of Texas

Texas Annexation

In 1845, United States of America annexed the Republic of Texas and admitted it to the Union as the 28th state. The U.S. thus inherited Texas's border dispute with Mexico; this quickly led to the Mexican-American War, during which the U.S. captured additional territory , extending the nation's...

. Polk brought him to Washington

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 to edit the national paper The Union

The Union (newspaper)

The Union is a daily newspaper serving Grass Valley, California and Nevada County, California. The Union provides full news coverage from the local to international level. Sections include news, sports, opinion, entertainment, and more. It has a daily print circulation of over 17,000 copies. As a...

(1845 to 1851). He supported the Compromise of 1850

Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five bills, passed in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War...

, but the new paper never was as influential as the Enquirer and meanwhile Ritchie had lost his Virginia base.