Hawley, now United States Senator from Connecticut, was Warner’s senior by a few years.  He had preceded him as a student at the Oneida Conference Seminary and at Hamilton College.  Practicing law in Hartford, he had started in 1857, in conjunction with other leading citizens, a paper called the Evening Press.  It was devoted to the advocacy of the principles of the Republican party, which was at that time still in what may be called the formative state of its existence.  This was a period in which for some years the dissolution had been going on of the two old parties which had divided the country.  Men were changing sides and were aligning themselves anew according to their views on questions which were every day assuming greater prominence in the minds of all.  There was really but one great subject talked about or thought about.  It split into opposing sections the whole land over which was lowering the grim, though as yet unrecognizable, shadow of civil war.  The Republican party had been in existence but a very few years, but in that short time it had attracted to its ranks the young and enthusiastic spirits of the North, just as to the other side were impelled the members of the same class in the South.  The intellectual contest which preceded the physical was stirring the hearts of all men.  Hawley, who was well aware of Warner’s peculiar ability, was anxious to secure his co-operation and assistance.  He urged him to come East and join him in the conduct of the new enterprise he had undertaken.

Warner always considered that he derived great benefit from his comparatively limited study and practice of law; and that the little time he had given up to it had been far from being misspent.  But the opening which now presented itself introduced him to a field of activity much more suited to his talents and his tastes.  He liked the study of law better than its practice; for his early training had not been of a kind to reconcile him to standing up strongly for clients and causes that he honestly believed to be in the wrong.  Furthermore, his heart, as has been said, had always been in literature; and though journalism could hardly be called much more than a half-sister, the one could provide the support which the other could never promise with certainty.  So in 1860 Warner removed to Hartford and joined his friend as associate editor of the newspaper he had founded.  The next year the war broke out.  Hawley at once entered the army and took part in the four years’ struggle.  His departure left Warner in editorial charge of the paper, into the conduct of which he threw himself with all the earnestness and energy of his nature, and the ability, both political and literary, displayed in its columns gave it at once a high position which it never lost.