Harriet Beecher Stowe pressured Abraham Lincoln on emancipation

Although Stowe had condemned Lincoln for what she perceived to be his slow progress toward emancipation and readiness to seek a compromise in order to stop the secession of southern states, Stowe visited the president at the White House in 1862, at the start of the Civil War. Lincoln reportedly welcomed her by saying, "So this is the small woman who brought on this enormous Civil War," although several academics have discounted the statement as Stowe family lore.

Their different notebooks only provide general notes about their talk. While Stowe questioned him, Lincoln may have joked with her about his fondness of open fireplaces ("I always had one at home," he reportedly quipped). "Mr. Lincoln, I would like to know what you think about emancipation," she began. Harriet Beecher Stowe meets with President Lincoln in Washington, D.C., and later describes the visit as "funny." Stowe's 1852 book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, became the second best-selling book of the 19th century, behind only the Holy Bible, and it helped galvanize the abolitionist movement and provided a continuing moral impetus for the North during the Civil War.