Born in Moyne, Ireland, E. L. Godkin was perhaps the foremost editorial voice of post-Civil War America. He abandoned the study of law at the Middle Temple, London, to work in a publishing house, and his interest in the struggles of the people of Hungary led to the publication of his first book, The History of Hungary and the Magyars (1853). In 1856 he immigrated to New York, hoping to fulfill his long dream of starting a journal of his own. Two years later he married an American woman.

The Nation.

In 1865 Philadelphia philanthropist and abolitionist James McKim helped Godkin to amass $100,000 from forty stockholders to capitalize his magazine, The Nation. Godkin wanted to write about politics and economics more accurately than the daily press and to advocate "whatever in legislation or manners seems likely to promote a more equal distribution of the fruits of...