An editor of uncommon judgment and skill, Hezekiah Niles developed his Weekly Register into the most authoritative political journal of the first half of the nineteenth century. Subtitled Containing Political, Historical, Geographical, Scientifical, Statistical, Economical, and Biographical Documents, Essays and Facts: Together with Notices of the Arts and Manufactures, and a Record of the Events of the Times, the Weekly Register has become as invaluable to historians in the present as it was to political figures of its own day. Through his careful, balanced selections and interpretations, Niles gained the respect of contemporary politicians of many persuasions and convincingly achieved his personal goal--to be known as "an honest chronicler." The Weekly Register is particularly useful to historians because it is indexed. Niles had an index compiled and published in 1823, after the first twelve volumes had appeared; thereafter, he issued an index with the binding of each yearly volume...