Louis F. Schade as a law student at the University of Berlin took part in the failed revolution of 1848. Sentenced to death for helping to erect barriers, he escaped from the Kingdom of Prussia

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

. Immigrating to the US in 1851, he became a prominent Forty-Eighter, very active in American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

.

He was the final defense attorney for commandant Henry Wirz

Henry Wirz

Heinrich Hartmann Wirz better known as Henry Wirz was a Confederate officer in the American Civil War...

 to cease his representation in protest against the way the Andersonville Trial was conducted.

A big supporter of Stephen A. Douglas

Stephen A. Douglas

Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician from the western state of Illinois, and was the Northern Democratic Party nominee for President in 1860. He lost to the Republican Party's candidate, Abraham Lincoln, whom he had defeated two years earlier in a Senate contest following a famed...

 he took part in the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

In 1878 he purchased the Petersen House

Petersen House

The Petersen House is a 19th-century federal style rowhouse located at 516 10th Street NW in Washington, D.C. On April 15, 1865, United States President Abraham Lincoln died there after being shot the previous evening at Ford's Theater, which was located across the street. The house was built in...

 where Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

 died. He served as vice-president of the Washington based American Anti-Imperialist League

American Anti-Imperialist League

The American Anti-Imperialist League was an organization established in the United States on June 15, 1898 to battle the American annexation of the Philippines as an insular area...

 and edited a newspaper called the Washington Sentinel.