William Safire’s book Scandalmonger profiles this writer, who exposed a leading politician’s affair with Maria Reynolds. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this journalist who purportedly died by drowning in the James River because he was too drunk to save himself. He was prosecuted under the Sedition Act for writing The Prospect Before Us.
ANSWER: James Thomson Callender
[10e] After getting out of jail, Callender asked this president to appoint him postmaster of Richmond, Virginia. When Callender didn’t get the job, he exposed this president’s affair with the enslaved woman Sally Hemings.
ANSWER: Thomas Jefferson
[10m] Callender was in desperate financial straits because his wife died of this disease in 1798. Five years earlier, Benjamin Rush helped treat a major outbreak of this disease.
ANSWER: yellow fever (Rush helped treat the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic.)
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