The Sunday Dispatch's sixth issue arrives at three cents per copy, featuring Frances S. Osgood's haunting poem "Slander"—a cautionary tale about how whispered rumors, soft as they may seem, can wound like a thunderclap to the heart of an innocent person. The piece uses a fragile hummingbird metaphor to show how a gentle soul can be destroyed by idle gossip. More provocatively, Horace Walpole's serialized column "Reminiscences of the Tyler Administration" tears into the presidency of John Tyler with surgical precision. Walpole describes a January 1843 "Tyler meeting" at Delmonico's restaurant that supposedly drew massive crowds—but was actually just six men getting drunk on whisky punch and brandy. The kicker: not one word about Tyler or his policies was spoken all night, yet a fictitious glowing report was sent to Washington to deceive the President into thinking he had genuine public support. The column exposes how Tyler's own inner circle secretly despised him while enjoying his patronage. The issue also prints Tyler's own defensive letter from December 1845, in which the former president justifies allowing dancing at the White House after the tragic 1844 USS Princeton explosion that killed numerous dignitaries.

This newspaper captures a fractured moment in American politics. John Tyler, who became president after William Henry Harrison's sudden death in 1841, was perpetually isolated and unpopular. He lacked a true political base, infuriated his own Whig party, and was frequently mocked in the press. By 1846, Tyler's presidency was effectively over—he would leave office in March with virtually no hope of reelection. This page documents the machinery of deception that kept him operating in a fantasy of support, a stark reminder that political theater and manufactured enthusiasm are not inventions of the modern age. The poem "Slander" resonates against this backdrop: in a pre-telegraph, pre-mass-media world, reputation and rumor traveled by whisper and newspaper, and they could destroy careers and hearts with equal force.

• Delmonico's restaurant appears here as a political venue in 1843—this was already one of New York's most elite dining establishments. The restaurant would become a legendary institution, but in 1846 it was already where the powerful gathered to pretend they were more powerful than they were.
• The poem references the USS Princeton disaster obliquely ('the gun's report')—this was a real, catastrophic naval accident in February 1844 that killed Secretary of State Abel Upshur, Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer, and several others. Tyler himself narrowly escaped death. The tragedy explains why he felt compelled to justify allowing dancing at the White House over a year later.
• John Smith Jr.'s letter namedrops Pocahontas as his ancestor and claims he read Madame D'Arblay's 'Evelina' for two days straight in a log cabin—this is either elaborate genealogical fantasy or remarkable family pride, but either way reveals how Americans in 1846 constructed narratives of historical importance around themselves.
• The Sunday Dispatch charged three cents per week for city subscribers or one dollar per year by mail—making the annual subscription cheaper than a single year of weekly purchases, a pricing strategy modern publications still use.
• Walpole specifically praises Edward Curtis, the Collector of the Port of New York, as the one honest man in Tyler's circle. Port collectors were among the most lucrative federal positions, and praising one's integrity in print was a form of currency in 19th-century journalism.

• Frances S. Osgood, who wrote the featured poem 'Slander,' was a genuinely celebrated American poet and a fixture in New York literary circles in the 1840s. She was also involved in a famous literary scandal with Edgar Allan Poe, who became obsessed with her; their flirtation caused a domestic crisis with Poe's wife Virginia. By 1846, Osgood was at the height of her fame, making her appearance on this new newspaper's front page a genuine coup for the Sunday Dispatch.
• Horace Walpole's column—written from New York but discussing 'reminiscences'—claims to be by the 18th-century British author Horace Walpole, obviously a pseudonym. This was common practice in 1846 newspapers, where anonymity and assumed identities were standard. The real author hides behind literary gravitas to critique a sitting former president with impunity.
• Tyler's letter mentions the 'Chief Magistrate is decreed a larger salary than appertains to any office'—in 1845, the presidential salary was $25,000 annually, making it roughly equivalent to $700,000 today. Tyler was defending why he could afford to host fancy balls; the implication was that the salary justified social expenditures.
• The page advertises the paper's rates: one dollar per square (16 lines) for the first ad insertion, 50 cents for repeats. This pricing structure shows advertising was already a competitive marketplace in 1846, with discounts for bulk placements—modern media strategy appearing 175 years ago.
• John Smith Jr.'s letter references both canonical figures (Macaulay, Mrs. Siddons) and contemporary performers like Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt, an actress-playwright whose work was still being debated. The mixing of classical and contemporary suggests a culture hungry to canonize its own present-day artists before they'd proven themselves.