ABSTRACT
Davis was seen almost solely in terms of April’s events, especially the assassination of Lincoln. Reporters and editors at the Courant and other newspapers refused to believe that Lincoln’s death was not plotted by Davis and promised time and again to provide evidence to that effect. Papers throughout the country covered the Lincoln assassination as their political proclivities dictated. Often they blamed the South, slavery, and/or Davis for the murder at the same time they canonized Lincoln. New York Times editors, before the assassination, argued that the “toad-spotted traitor” Jefferson Davis had to be hanged for his participation in the war, and the assassination only strengthened that belief. History has the perspective that journalism lacks, but it often comes from the same human sources. And human witness is affected by all the selective processes that theorists say makes people unique or that contributes to social construction of reality.
