Rude Republic: Americans and their Politics
in the Nineteenth Century
Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin

Second-Order Document:
“A Journalist Reports Election Day In New York,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. New York: Nov 13, 1858.
Source: http://www.branch.org/Survey/docs/Political%20Participation.htm

Rationale: This print source is from one of the more prominent newspapers of the antebellum period, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. It describes an election day in New York in 1858, making reference to the “well-dressed, quiet and respectable citizens” who have shown up to vote, but will soon retire to their lives and leave politics to “professed politicians who make a living by that dirty trade.” This brief segment challenges the democratization of the period that de Tocqueville praises in his writings implying that to many people, whom the author of the article refers to as the more respectable citizens of American society, politics and political activity were not as important to them as de Tocqueville assumes in Democracy in America.