In 1837, he was the co-owner and editor of the Lancaster
Intelligencer, and in 1840 he purchased the
Journal and combined the two papers under the name of the
Intelligencer and Journal. In 1845
President James K. Polk appointed him deputy surveyor of the
port of Philadelphia. In 1856 he was the chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Committee. He was instrumental in securing the nomination of Pennsylvania's candidate,
James Buchanan. He conducted Buchanan's successful campaign for the presidency, and Buchanan would have given him a cabinet office but he was not seen as sufficiently pro-slavery by politicians from Southern states. In January 1857, Buchanan's influence was not strong enough to win Forney a seat in the
United States Senate, which went instead to
Simon Cameron. In August 1857, Forney established
The Philadelphia Press, an independent Democratic newspaper. At first a
Douglas Democrat and a supporter of Buchanan, he broke with Buchanan over his pro-slavery stance Among the events of his secretariat may be remembered that he was the first to read aloud, in a joint session of Congress, George Washington's Farewell Address, a reading that became traditional after 1888. 'In January 1862, with the Constitution endangered by civil war, a thousand citizens of Philadelphia petitioned Congress to commemorate the forthcoming 130th anniversary of George Washington's birth by providing that “the Farewell Address of Washington be read aloud on the morning of that day in one or the other of the Houses of Congress.” Both houses agreed and assembled in the House of Representatives’ chamber on February 22, 1862, where Secretary of the Senate John W. Forney “rendered ‘The Farewell Address’ very effectively,” as one observer recalled.' On the death of Lincoln, Forney supported
Andrew Johnson for a short time, but afterward became one of the foremost in the struggle which resulted in the president's impeachment. In 1868, no longer Secretary of the Senate, he disposed of his interest in the
Chronicle and returned to
Philadelphia where in 1871 he was made collector of the port by President
Ulysses S. Grant. In 1880 he left the Republican Party to rejoin the Democratic Party and was interred in
West Laurel Hill Cemetery, in
Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. ==Personal life==