“Journalism is an immense power, that threatens soon to supersede sermons, lectures, and books.”

A circulating line on the press overtaking older forms of public speech; attribution is popular but unsourced · Commonly attributed; original source not firmly located

• Influence
• Journalism
• Power

“I have thanked God every waking hour since the Eighth of November. That day was the greatest in the history of the present generation.”

Treating Lincoln's re-election as a providential rescue of the Republic · Letter to Abraham Lincoln, 12 November 1864

• Gratitude
• Patriotism
• Providence

“I was opposed to Mr. Lincoln's nomination, but now it becomes the duty of all Unionists to present a united front.”

Setting private opposition aside once the Union cause was at stake · Letter to Anna E. Dickinson, 1864

• Duty
• Politics
• Unity

“If you were living in America, as I am, an eye-witness of the cruel despotism which here flourishes under the shadow of a free flag.”

Setting American slavery against the language of liberty that was meant to condemn it · Letter to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, about 1861

• America
• Freedom
• Injustice

“Mrs. Stowe, by Uncle Tom, helped the American Slave more than any one human being ever did before.”

Crediting fiction with a moral force no sermon had matched in the fight against slavery · Letter to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, about 1861

• Advocacy
• Freedom
• Literature