Biography:

Following the Independent Gazetteer of Philadelphia, the National Intelligencer was founded in 1800, when the federal government moved from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. It was first owned by Samuel Harrison Smith, who was soon replaced by Joseph Gales and William Winston Seaton. Under Seaton and Gales, the Intelligencer became a stenographic paper, recording and publishing debates taking place on the floor of Congress and the House of Representatives. The paper remained popular through the Madison administration, but its offices were partially destroyed during the British occupation of Washington in the War of 1812; however, this only spurred the paper on to more patriotic popularity.
 The Intelligencer operated as the organ of all of the federal administrations until Andrew Jackson’s election in 1828, when it sided with the Whig party, and featured essays and columns written by the strongest voices of the opposition: Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and even John Calhoun, Jackson’s Vice President.  However, as a partisan paper, the Intelligencer steadily declined in popularity; it was debt-ridden by the end of the Civil War, and was bought by Alexander del Mar in 1869. He then merged it with the Washington Express.