Biography
Conrad Fahnestock was the co-editor, with Benjamin Mayer, of the Harrisburger Morgenrothe, a Democratic-Republican German-language weekly newspaper published in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His surname was also spelled Fahnstock. The Morgenrothe was one of several German-language Pennsylvania papers that played a major role in mobilizing the German-American Pennsylvania vote against the Federalist Adams administration; Pennsylvania's German-speaking communities were a key constituency in the 1800 election that brought Jefferson to power.
Fahnestock and Mayer were indicted under the Sedition Act in 1799 over Morgenrothe articles attacking the Federalists, with the prosecutions led by U.S. Attorney William Rawle in Philadelphia. Their cases were still pending when Jefferson took office in March 1801 and let the Sedition Act expire; the indictments against them were never tried. The Morgenrothe continued publication into the early 1810s.
The two editors were indicted at the October 1799 session of the U.S. Circuit Court for the Pennsylvania district under the Sedition Act of 1798, accused of intending to “vilify and defame the government of the United States and the administration of justice” over an article of May 21, 1799. The charges were ultimately dismissed — making them part of the minority of Sedition Act defendants who escaped conviction and punishment.
