Unlike other papers, the Sun also offered detailed coverage of New York's slave trade, including stories of captured runaways (despite having abolished slavery in 1827, New York still honored the property rights of slave state residents) and of the misery of slave marriages sundered by the auction block. Though otherwise apolitical and nonpartisan, the New York Sun, mainly owing to Wisner, took a consistent principled stand in favor of abolition. "We believe the day is not far distant," the Sun said, "when the clanking of slavery's chains will be heard no more—and Americans stand before the world practicing, as well as preaching, the glorious doctrine that all men are created free and equal."

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 39