NEW YORK HERALD, May 14, 1803  Most of the first column is text concerning Thomas Paine & his relationship with Thomas Jefferson, which includes a letter signed by the President: Thomas Jefferson, followed by a note from Thomas Paine. Then another front page article begins: "Tom Paine seems still the idol of Democracy. He is the golden calf which our philosophic President has set up, and whose followers have joined in the unchristian worship...".
Page 2 begins with an Act of Congress, specifically: "...An Act fixing the Military Peace Establishment of the U. States" signed in type by the President: Th. Jefferson.
Also on page 2: "Constitution Of the American Company of Booksellers".
Four pages, a few stains, good condition.

Background: This rare, complete four-page issue of the New York Herald from May 14, 1803, serves as a remarkable primary source that encapsulates the fierce ideological and structural growing pains of the early American republic. The front-page broadside against Thomas Paine—contemptuously framing him as a "golden calf" set up for "unchristian worship" by Thomas Jefferson—perfectly illustrates the weaponization of religion by the Federalist press, who routinely used Paine's deist views to brand the Jeffersonian Democrats as dangerous radicals. This partisan vitriol stands in stark, ironic contrast to Page 2, which documents the highly practical, foundational work of the young nation: the printing of the "Military Peace Establishment" act, a cornerstone piece of legislation that downsized the standing army while officially establishing the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, alongside the "Constitution of the American Company of Booksellers," one of the country's earliest trade associations formed to standardize the volatile early American printing industry and promote domestic literature. Because four-page newspapers from the dawn of the nineteenth century are highly susceptible to decay, finding a complete issue containing this precise trifecta—high-stakes partisan warfare involving two Founding Fathers, a foundational military act signed in print by the President, and a rare glimpse into early American economic organization—makes this publication an exceptionally scarce and historically significant artifact for collectors and archivists alike.