Henry Jarvis Raymond (American National Biography)

The [New York] Times printed six days a week until the exigencies of war pushed Raymond into starting a Sunday edition, which he did the week after the Fort Sumter attack. By this time, the Times was one of only three (with the [New York] Herald and [New York]Tribune) eight-page dailies in the country, a remarkable feat for a paper less than a decade old. The Times also was among the leading papers in circulation and news gathering and was widely clipped throughout the era.

Meanwhile, Raymond's political activities continued. Raymond helped to draft the charter of the new Republican party in 1856, and the Times was strongly Republican for the rest of Raymond's life and beyond. In a series of open letters to W. L. Yancey of Alabama right after Lincoln was elected president, Raymond attacked secession and the growing southern belligerency. These letters, along with the debate with Greeley on Fourierism, reflect both Raymond's persistence and his cool, analytical bent. The Times was strongly pro-Union before and during the war; its view on slavery was antiexpansion before the war but shifted to abolitionist after the fighting began. The paper's support for Lincoln was much more consistent than the Tribune's, and the Times became the administration's leading supporter. Raymond's biography of Lincoln, published during the 1864 election year, was widely read.