SOURCE: “A Democratic Society, 1794-1795,” in Benjamin Franklin Bache and the Philadelphia Aurora, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991, pp. 205-38.

In the following essay, Tagg considers Bache's discussion of civic, social and domestic issues in his newspaper and how his activities in Democratic Societies influenced this content. Tagg argues that Bache saw the societies as another way to shape pubic opinion.

If a law is obnoxious to any part of the country, let the citizens there petition for its repeal, expose its defects, or injustice through the medium of the press; let them change their representation, put into their legislature men whom they know will be active to procure its repeal.

(General Advertiser, July 26, 1794)

Bache's naive advocacy of closer relations with revolutionary France could not have struck a responsive chord even among those most infatuated with the French cause. But in 1794 and early 1795 Bache happened on issues that rescued...