American Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Returns. The Suppressed History of Our Nation’s Beginnings and the Heroic Newspaper That Tried to Report It

Richard Rosenfeld’s dramatic epic traces the incendiary history of the young American nation in the 1790s, and chronicles the birth and near-death of civil liberties in that turbulent decade via the story of a Philadelphia newspaper, the Aurora. The story of this newspaper, Rosenfeld argues, is the story of young America.

Rosenfeld has chosen as his heroes its two young editors, Benjamin Bache, Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, and William Duane, who fearlessly waged a decade-long campaign to keep America’s Founding Fathers true to their original mission.

They claimed that George Washington was not the true “father of his country,” but a completely incompetent commander-in-chief, and that John Adams, his presidential successor, wanted a monarchy and was plotting to be king. As a result of their inflammatory articles, both editors were arrested. Bache died awaiting trial, and the paper was briefly silenced.

Nonetheless, the Aurora was eventually successful in persuading the nation to oust Adams and to usher in a Jeffersonian democracy, of which Benjamin Franklin, the true father of our country, could only dream.

“A magnificent achievement, American Aurora is both an original work of history and a rousing good story. The stirring emotions, the fiery arguments, and the mundane concerns of the people who lived through the early days of the Republic will be much better understood by the publication of this remarkable book.”
— Doris Kearns Goodwin

“No book has ever depicted more vividly America’s crisis of freedom of the 1790s, the struggle that gave meaning for the first time to America’s commitment to freedom of expression. American Aurora is essential reading for all who care about freedom in America.”
— Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.