The Commonwealth (Pittsburgh)
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Founder(s) | Ephraim Pentland |
| Founded | 24 July 1805 (as The Commonwealth) |
| Language | English |
| Ceased publication | 24 February 1836 (as The Statesman) |
| City | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Country | United States |
The Commonwealth was a weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1805 to 1818, before continuing as The Statesman until 1836. It was the city's third newspaper, and one of several in the ancestral lineage of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The Commonwealth was born out of dissension in the ranks of the Democratic-Republican Party in Pennsylvania. The conflict pitted a moderate "Constitutionalist" faction (called "Quids" by opponents), supporting Governor Thomas McKean, against the "Friends of the People," who favored radical legal and judicial reform and sought to defeat the governor's re-election. Ephraim Pentland, a 20-year-old journalist who had been employed at the Aurora in Philadelphia, established the Commonwealth to give voice in Pittsburgh to the radical cause in opposition to the Quid-oriented Tree of Liberty and the Federalist-leaning Gazette. The paper first appeared on 24 July 1805 as a four-column folio sold at $3 per year. It adopted the Pennsylvania state motto — "Virtue, Liberty and Independence" — as its own.
Pentland's columns teemed with personal abuse, which grew especially bitter following McKean's victory over Simon Snyder in the 1805 gubernatorial election. An editorial on Christmas Day bashed Tarleton Bates and Henry Baldwin, associates of the Tree of Liberty's nominal publisher Walter Forward, as "despicable sycophants" and "two of the most abandoned political miscreants that ever disgraced the state." Bates struck back at his detractor on the street, with two or three lashes of a cowhide whip. Pentland some time later issued a challenge to a duel, which Bates declined. In publishing his account of the affair in the Tree of Liberty, Bates gave offense to Thomas Stewart, a merchant who had carried Pentland's challenge to Bates. Stewart, after failing to receive an apology, challenged Bates, who fatefully accepted. In the duel Bates was killed on the second exchange of fire.
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