Three months after General Lee surrendered at Appomattox in 1865, the first issue of a new liberal weekly called The Nation appeared in Manhattan. Founder and editor was a shy, 33-year-old, Irish Presbyterian, Edwin Lawrence Godkin, who had emigrated to the U. S. nine years earlier. His associate editor, Wendell Phillips Garrison, was the son of Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. The Nation (named after a fiery Dublin weekly) announced that its purpose was to defend "free inquiry and free endeavor."
Last week The Nation celebrated its 75th birthday (five months prematurely) with a...
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