Meaning of “The cause of America is in a great…”

The Subjection of Women (1869), Chapter II, printed page 79, Project Gutenberg #27083. Mill contrasts command-and-obedience relations with equal association and states that society in equality is the normal state toward which improving social relations should move.

Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows Uplifted, represented by Project Gutenberg #12352. Iola says this while declining Dr. Gresham’s marriage proposal and explaining her commitment to serve the Black community after emancipation. It is fictional character speech embedded in Harper’s Reconstruction-era racial and social argument.

A Christmas Sermon, section III, Project Gutenberg #14535. In the discussion of intervention, revenge and defending a neighbour, Stevenson says one person’s happiness is as sacred as another’s and argues for defending the injured party when both cannot be protected. The inherited section-II note is corrected here after direct source review; “sacred” is moral rhetoric, not modern legal doctrine.

The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Chapter IV; Constance Garnett translation, Project Gutenberg #43302. In Tolstoy’s threefold account of animal, social and divine conceptions of life, the divine conception is governed by love and directed toward God rather than personal enjoyment or social glory.

Unto This Last, fourth essay; Project Gutenberg #36541. The line follows Ruskin’s distinction between production and consumption and retains the nineteenth-century political-economy setting.

A Christmas Sermon, section III, first published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1888; Project Gutenberg #14535. Stevenson writes that although a person may not know exactly what goodness is or what will make another person happy, he must still try to be good and try to give happiness to others. The inherited section-II note is corrected here after direct source review. This is historical ethical / Christian-sermon argument rather than a guarantee of emotional outcomes.