In the turbulent decade preceding America's Civil War, rapidly changing political alliances, greatly expanding railroad networks, and the country's westward migration converged to place Illinois in the center of national attention. Illinois political leaders, including Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, became national figures. Chicago rapidly became a major center of commerce. These changes catapulted Chicago to a position of leadership among cities garnering the attention of citizens across the nation.1 The decade produced great change and great political conflict that encouraged highly partisan journalism as newspapers strove to direct public conversations and shape public opinion. Journalists in Chicago drew energy from these turbulent times and Chicago newspapers rapidly assumed an important role in the political and economic life of the city, the state, and even the nation. This was the era in which James Washington Sheahan moved to Chicago as a fledgling newspaper editor. Under the tempering influences of the give and take in of nineteenth century America's greatest cities, he grew and developed into an outstanding journalist. At the close of his career the New York Times called him, one of the best known and most highly respected journalists in this country.2 In 1854 United States Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois sponsored legislation to serve as the basis for admitting the territories of Nebraska and Kansas as states. Douglas's controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the historic Missouri Compromise of 1820. In its place the legislation allowed the new states to join the Union as free or slave states based on the concept of popular sovereignty. This change led to a serious rift in the Douglas's Democrat Rarty, especially in Illinois, which split between those advocating no expansion of slavery - the free-soilers, and those who favored Douglas's principle of popular sovereignty. With this split, Senator Douglas lost the support of the Chicago Democrat, edited by Dartmouth graduate John Wentworth, who previously espoused the senator's views, and a second Chicago newspaper, the Demoaat Press, edited by William Bross. As the 1854 fall campaign approached, Douglas desperately sought another Chicago newspaper to effectively champion his political views. That summer a Douglas supporter bought a small Chicago newspaper and Douglas enticed a rising journalist from the nation's capital to become its editor.3 Douglas's choice, James Washington Sheahan, was a thirty year old reporter who covered the United States Senate for the New York Associated Press and Republic* (Figure 1) Sheahan was a native of Maryland whose parents had emigrated from Ireland Growing up primarily in Washington, D.C., James was educated in Catholic schools and, after studying law at a Jesuit school in Fredrick, Maryland, was admitted to the bar in 1845. Choosing not to practice law except for an occasional pro bono case, he became a journalist, using his law education primarily in compiling the legal code of Washington's city council. While reporting on the United States Senate, Sheahan came to admire Senator Douglas's political views and his ability to express those views in his widelyacclaimed Senatorial orations, while Douglas liked the young reporter's writing ability and found his political views compatible.5 (Figure 2) Accepting the offer from Senator Douglas of a three-month engagement as editor of the Chicago Times, Sheahan left his wife of six years, Elizabeth Drury, two children, his parents, and his many friends in Washington and in the summer of 1854 took the train to Chicago.6 There he would become a significant participant in of the most noteworthy periods in Chicago history. Senator Douglas seemed unaware of the extent to which the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the 'popular sovereignty7 provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act had been rejected by the public even in Illinois. To persuade his fellow Chicagoans of the lightness of his views, Douglas scheduled a speech on the public square on September 1, two weeks after Sheahan's arrival. …