fool friends who insist it is only in a comatose state and will recover, but I tell them it is dead—still, I dare not yet in New York announce the demise of the party and call for the organization of a new one. But do you go ahead on the Western reserve and commence the work. I like the name for it (Republican). I was opposed to J. Watson Webb when he changed the name Democrat-Republican to Whig, but at that time he had the public ear. If you can get the name Republican started in the West it will grow in the East. I fully agree to the new name and the new christening."
James Watson Webb and Thurlow Weed, to whom he also wrote, scolded him for such a suggestion, but William H. Seward suggested that the idea was worth trying out. Finally, one night in March, 1854, a meeting was called in the office of the Cleveland Leader, and there was born the National Republican party, the platform of which was "No more slave states; no more slave territory; resistance to pro-slavery aggression; slavery is sectional; liberty is national."
The following year an opportunity came and Medill went to Chicago to take an interest in the Chicago Tribune. From 1855 until the time of his death in 1888 he was, in the public mind, the editor and controller of the Tribune, though during several periods, notably the time that he served as mayor of Chicago, he was not in editorial control.
