Count Gurowski wrote from Newport:—
"You showed what is the real backbone of a gentleman, considered in the higher moral or philosophical point of view, by far superior to what your assailers conceive or are able to imagine in their vulgar or low conceptions."
Rev. William H. Furness, the distinguished divine and devoted Abolitionist, wrote:—
"I congratulate you upon having been blackguarded and denounced. It has redounded to your honor. It has proved a rare success. I think you should thank God for placing you, in his wise Providence, in a position which, utterly hateful as it must be to you (fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus), proves to furnish occasion for the heroic element. I can dimly surmise how much it costs you to stand there; but I doubt not the experience you are having testifies that it will pay the cost, and a great deal more. I may be mistaken, but, from all I have learned of your position in the Senate, things look as if those Southern men, after trying to steal your sting away by all sorts of courtliness and courtesy, and trying in vain, have turned upon you like rabid dogs, with the intent to tear you in pieces. They have not done it, nor will they."
Hiram Barney, Esq., of New York, wrote:—
"I congratulate you on that day's work. It was well and nobly done. I have seen something of your assailants, and know something of their habits and manners, and can appreciate your forbearance. It is a shame that you should be obliged to meet so much that is disgusting to the taste and shocking to the moral sense in the American Senate. But it is a matter of just pride that the friends of Freedom there are gentlemen, and always win upon the field of argument."
William C. Russell, Esq., of New York, afterwards professor at Cornell University, wrote:—
"I am delighted beyond measure by your reply to the Southern chivalry. It is grand, gentlemanly, cool, pointed, well aimed, and true metal. I do not wonder that Mr. Butler did not want to play vampire to Massachusetts. The fact is, it is getting to be rather serious work to interfere with the old Commonwealth; and I shall be surprised, if the Southern bull-dogs do not bay in some other quarter."
Hon. Charles P. Huntington, of Northampton, afterwards Judge of the Superior Court of the County of Suffolk, wrote:—