The Charter Oak

It was common practice when a newspaper started, or changed editors, for the editor to write about that change, and provide a sense of where the new journalistic venture would be headed. This one, written by William H. Burleigh, is noteworthy for its florid literary flair, his desire to disambiguate from a Universalist newspaper nearby, and its connection to the rich symbolism of Connecticut's famed "Charter Oak." It is also interesting that he ignores the newspaper that he and his brother Charles had edited - The Unionist - in proclaiming the First Series of the Charter Oak to have been the first anti-slavery paper in Connecticut!

From the first issue of the New Series of The Charter Oak,  New Series 1:1:2 (January 8, 1846)

ANOTHER — YET THE SAME.

            Our paper makes its appearance this week in a new dress, and—we were about to say, with a new name, but this would not be exactly true. We have, instead reassumed an old name—one which was always a favorite with us, and which we think peculiarly appropriate to a Liberty paper published in Hartford. The name is distinctive and significant. It is suggestive of bold deeds done for liberty. It is associated with one of the most interesting pages in the history of the Connecticut colony. It is peculiarly our own. No other state, no other town, has its Charter Oak. There are, in our broad land, whole forests of statelier trees, rising, cone-like, into the clouds—but this alone was made the depository of the Charter of our Freedom in the dark days of peril—and this alone, for such cause, shall be green forever in the affections of the people of Connecticut, unless the love of liberty which characterized the fathers of our Commonwealth, should become utterly extinct in the bosoms of their degenerate sons. As the old, storm-beaten, time-honored tree, whose name we have assumed, was made the depository of the Charter of our Freedom, thus preserved from the hands of the tyrant,—so shall this paper be the depository of those vital principles of Liberty which are destined noy only to work out the redemption of the Southern Slave from the bondage which crushes him, but ultimately to overthrow every despotism that degrades humanity, and to elevate the oppressed of every clime, to the enjoyment of those inalienable rights which Tyrant rudely tears away.

☙ . . . ❧

Our principal reason for reassuming the name of Charter Oak, is, that there is another paper, published within a few hours’ ride of this city, and circulating to a considerable extent in this State, that bears the name of “Christian Freeman.” This is also, though not exclusively, an Anti-Slavery paper. One of its objects is the dissemination of Universalism. It must necessarily be the case that, where two papers bearing the same name, and devoted, in part, to the same object, are published so near to each other, there will be some confusion in the public mind in reference to the paternity of articles quoted from their columns—and one editor may be often held responsible for the sentiments of the other, and be compromised by them, even when he disapproves of and repudiates them. This has already, to some extent, been the case. Now we have, as an abolitionist, no controversy with the Universalists; but as we do not receive their theological tenets, we are unwilling to be held responsible for them, because certain articles in advocacy of Universalism occasionally appear in other papers, credited to the Christian Freeman. We presume that the gentleman who conducts that paper is equally adverse to being held responsible for our opinions—and so it is better, on both sides, that each paper should have a distinctive title, instead of claiming, as heretofore, one name in common. And as out Massachusetts contemporary, has a prior right, to the appellation of “Christian Freeman,” we cheerfully surrender it, as we should long ago have done, had the matter been left to our sole decision.

There are other reasons which, though they might not have induced the change, tend to render us satisfied with it, now that it is made. We have now a name which cannot, by any possibility, be confounded with any other. Heretofore we have been frequently confounded not only with our former namesake, which was natural, but also with the large family of Freemans in the land, and sometimes with the Christian Citizen,—which latter fact was far more flattering to us than to our friend Burritt. This difficult will be avoided in future. The name we have chosen would lose its significancy if appropriated to any paper not published in this city; for of all the cities of the world, Hartford alone has its Charter Oak.

            We like it, too, because it was the name of the first Anti-Slavery paper ever published in Connecticut. On the 28^th of February, 1838, our State Anti-Slavery Society was organized and in the following month the first number of the Charter Oak was issued, as a monthly publication, under the control, and as the organ of the Society. For several years the paper was conducted by S.S. COWLES, Esq., the Secretary of the Society, who made it an efficient instrumentality for the dissemination of Anti-Slavery truth. It was several times enlarged, toll at length it was printed on a sheet of the size of this. In 1842, Rev. J. Brewer became the editor. It continued to be published by the Society till the summer of 1843, when it was merged in the Christian Freeman. Not it e-merges [sic] in a new series and with a new dress—to be welcomed, we trust, by most of its former friends, and to make a host of new ones. Long life to the Charter Oak! May it strike its roots deeper into the soil and throw out its branches wider over the land, and in its grateful shadow, may the tyrant grow pitiful, and the slave find repose. Let free breezes fan it—let free birds sing in its branches—let free children sport in the coolness of its shade—and from around its gnarled trunk let the songs of the free go up exultingly to heaven. It is our tree of Liberty. How greenly it unfolds its foliage to the kiss of the summer wind—how stoutly it battles with the blasts and storms of winter! Long life to the Charter Oak, and long life to our Charter Oak. May they both outlive slavery a thousand years!