Harold Holzer Quotes

The mid-19th century was noted for a partisan, rather than a consensus press, but this partisanship was able to turn out voters consistently.

A writer at the time said, "Lincoln means to sink the man in the public officer.

No greater mistake can be made than to assume that newspapers are correct indices of public opinion.

Samuel FB Morse's SECOND question over the telegraph was, "Have you any news?

Horace Greeley's conversation inevitably becomes a speech.

A rival editor in Philadelphia said that the spreading railroad network carried "New York everywhere" in terms of the city's predominant influence.

One writer may speak of something more lasting than Horace Greeley when he writes of that editor that his secular philanthropy drifted into autocratic ambition.

The infant New York Times boasted that no newspaper printing what was really worth reading ever perished for lack of readers.

The author observers that better technology actually increased division because rival outlets funded by rival parties could get their slant to the partisans

The press-savy Lincoln looked not to the future, but to the past.

Stephen Douglas's oratory was designed for the galleries, Lincoln's for his peers

President-elect Lincoln to his confidants: "The people of the South do not know us. They are not allowed to receive Republican papers down there.

James Gordon Bennett said he aimed to be, "serious in my aims but full of frolic in my means.

Lincoln on a desire to hear Horace Greeley speak: "In print, every one of his words seems to weigh about a ton.

John Hay calls the telegraph reporter, "the natural enemy of the scribe.

One editor during the Civil War got a grievous message to meet his brothers corpse, only to find out that the telegraph operator had garbled the message to meet his living brother's CORPS.

Feeling its power, one Civil War paper trumpeted that Milton and Homer were for another age but for this one was the New York Herald.

The Bible and newspapers, to both Lincoln and Greeley, they represented equally compelling gospel.

The author says that though the Mexican War wound down, the interpretation of it was just beginning.

One paper boasted that its subscription and advertising numbers proved that America did not need the social change it rival paper advocated.

Superficial and emotional subject might sway undecided voters.

Public sentiment is everything, said Lincoln. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.

Any journalist who holds the office writes in a straitjacket.

I'm the only English thing they can vent their anger on.

The author said Frederick Douglass described himself as a "graduate" of slavery with the marks of his diploma on his back.

His targets had little in common, other than that they had somehow aroused his enmity.

Horace Greeley pursues temperance to extravagance." Lord Acton

I have not done enough for effect." Horace Greeley

The author describes Lincoln's attitude in making a deal with a newspaper publisher as, "almost defiant transparency.

Looking to advance in journalism, one future editor displayed skilled as varied as economic analysis and humorous commentary.

One of Lincoln's intimates as a presidential candidate urged him to make no promises and not to part with those kind words which could be interpreted as promises.

Lincoln bought a German language newspaper.

A female war correspondent so popular that she had some credibility in saying she controlled half of her newspaper's circulation approached General Winfield Scott during the Mexican War with information that could help him. He was unwilling to get help from someone in petticoats.

The letter is too belligerent. If I were you, I would state the facts as they were, without the pepper and salt. Abraham Lincoln

General literature without the humbug," was the New Yorker's original mission.

We need to know not only what is done but what is purposed and said by those who shape the destines of states and realms." Horace Greeley

Lincoln jibed that a general INVADED Canada without resistance and out-vaded it without pursuit.

At times, said the founder of the Chicago Tribune, Lincoln seemed to reach into the clouds and take out the thunderbolts.

Lincoln had an almost childlike habit of regaling visitors with any sharp saying he'd uttered during the day, taking simple-hearted pleasure in some of his best hits.

Only a writer "with Bennett's craft and brass could manage to praise and insult his readers at the same time.

Lincoln said his spiky hair had "a way of getting up in the world".