[7] John Quincy Adams' commencement oration "On the Importance and Necessity of Public Faith to the Well-being of a Government," was inserted in the _Columbian Magazine_ (1787) by Jeremy Belknap.
A. J. Dallas reported for the _Herald_ and for the _Columbian_ the debates of the State Convention until the Federalists, annoyed by the publications, withdrew their subscriptions from the _Columbian_, which led Benjamin Rush to write to Noah Webster (February 13, 1788): "From the impudent conduct of Mr. Dallas in misrepresenting the proceedings and speeches in the Pennsylvania Convention, as well as from his deficiency of matter, the _Columbian Magazine_, of which he is editor, is in the decline."
Nevertheless the _Columbian_ continued to prosper. The circulation at times made necessary a second edition, which was reset at considerable expense, and often contained additional articles.
The final number appeared in December, 1792. The principal motive for the suspension, the editors declared, "is to be found in the present law respecting the establishment of the post-office, which totally prohibits the circulation of monthly publications through that channel on any other terms than that of paying the highest postage on private letters or packages." A futile attempt was made to continue the magazine in January, 1793, under the title, "_The Columbian Museum, or Universal Asylum_: John Parker, Phila." The only number that I have seen contains sixty pages.
In January, 1787, or one month after withdrawing from the management of _The Columbian Magazine_, Matthew Carey published the first number of _The American Museum, or Repository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces, etc., Prose and Poetical_, which proved to be the first really successful literary undertaking of the kind in America. General Washington said of it in a letter dated June 25, 1788: "No more useful literary plan has ever been undertaken in America." John Dickinson in the same year also commended it. Governor Wm. Livingstone wrote: "It far exceeds in my opinion every attempt of the kind which from any other American press ever came into my hands." Among others who swelled the chorus of praise were Governor Randolph of Virginia, Ezra Stiles of Yale, Timothy Dwight, Francis Hopkinson and Provost Ewing. "Citizen" Brissot, in his "New Travels in the United States" (1788), considered Carey's _Museum_ to be "equal to the best periodical published in Europe." The first number attracted great attention; Franklin furnished the first article, "Consolation for America;" Benjamin Rush followed with an "Address to the People of the United States",[8] the burden of which was that the "Revolution is not over;" already the cry was going up for civil service reform to deliver the country from the oppression of politics. The edition--one thousand copies--was soon exhausted. "I had not means," said Carey, "to reprint it. This was a very serious injury, many persons who intended to subscribe declining because I could not furnish them the whole of the numbers."