"Let me say seriously, frankly, your reputation as a fearless, brave, and true man is firmly established,—confidence also in your discretion and good judgment, as shown in this last debate and in the management of this whole affair. There is a settled conviction that you know how to withstand the entreaties or coolness of friends, when your thoughts are not their thoughts,—that you have shown great moral and physical courage, united with admirable ability, in meeting and discomfiting the foes of Freedom, when, in your opinion, the right time had come."
Professor Edward T. Channing, of Harvard University, whose memory is dear to a large circle of pupils, wrote to a friend:—
"Sumner has done nobly. He is erect and a man of authority among the slave holders, dealers, and hunters. He has made an historical era for the North; for at least one among us has dared to confront the insolent. He makes cowards of them, or rather shows what cowards they are at the South. So will it ever be, when the Truth is bold; though it is rare for a young or old hero in politics to produce effect so rapidly. Still, and notwithstanding, and nevertheless, our Whigs would send Apollyon to the Senate as soon as Sumner, if his term should expire when they are uppermost."
T.C. Connolly, Esq., under date of August 21, reported from Washington the opinion of Mr. Gales, the very able editor of the National Intelligencer.
"I rejoice in the assurance universally felt here, that your position in the Senate will be far more pleasant in the future than it has been in the past. I enjoyed the pleasure of a conversation with Mr. Gales on this subject a few days since. He introduced your name, and remarked that the absence of sympathy in your views could not influence his fair judgment of your worth. He was an attentive reader of the debates of the Senate, and he had seen that every step you had taken was a step upward, and that they who had affected to contemn were at length driven into a tacit acknowledgment of their very great error. He spoke in particular of the reproofs you had found it necessary to administer to Senators around you, and said, that, while they were exceedingly severe and effective, they were equally just, and unaccompanied by a single word that could be regarded as incompatible with the place and presence in which you stood."
Men particularly interested in the Peace Cause united in the prevailing sentiment.
Of these, Hon. Amasa Walker, afterwards a Representative in Congress from Massachusetts, wrote:—
"Your reply to the slaveholders is capital, and receives universal admiration in this quarter. It was just such a flagellation as the slavocrats deserved, and such a one as they never received before in the Senate. I think, from what I can observe, that your course is universally popular, always excepting the mercenary minions of the Government."
J.P. Blanchard, Esq., devoted to Peace, wrote:—