The eagle turns

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.