1850 and America is violently divided on the issue of slavery. When President Zachary Taylor dies, suddenly and under questionable circumstances, it is left to his Vice President, Millard Fillmore, a weaker man, to find ways to keep the North and the South apart. In New York, child of Irish immigrants, Matthew O'Hanlon is fired from his job as a newsman on the Herald but, surprisingly, finds work as Foreign Correspondent for the Associated Press in Panama City.