Hon. S. P. Chase, afterwards Chief Justice of the United States, wrote from Columbus, Ohio:—
“Your great speech came to me, under your frank, this morning. I had read it all—in the Bulletin of Philadelphia, in the Times of New York, and in the Globe—before I received the pamphlet copy. It is gratifying to know that the New York Herald also prints it, and that, through various channels of publication, it will reach every corner of the land, ‘cogens omnes ante thronum.’ ‘C’est presqu’un discours antique,’ said a French gentleman to me last Saturday. I say, ‘C’est bien plus.’”
Hon. Francis Gillette, an Abolitionist, and formerly Senator of the United States from Connecticut, wrote from Hartford:—
“I cannot tell you how pleased I am with your late speech on the ‘Barbarism of Slavery.’ It makes a lustrum in the Senate, and an era in the history of the Antislavery cause. But I am afraid the bloodthirsty barbarians are intent on assassinating you. Look out for them, and when they apologize to you with the pretension of drunkenness, understand them to mean they are drunk with rage. Do not believe them.”
Hon. Carl Schurz, the German orator, afterwards Senator of the United States from Missouri, wrote from Milwaukee, Wisconsin:—
“Allow me to congratulate you on the success of your great speech. It did me good to hear again the true ring of the moral Antislavery sentiment. If we want to demolish the Slave Power, we must educate the hearts of the people no less than their heads.”
Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, so long a champion of Freedom in Congress, wrote from his home at Jefferson, Ohio:—
“Permit me to congratulate you. My heart swells with gratitude to God that you are again permitted to stand in the Senate and maintain the honor of a nation and of mankind. I dared not say to you how much I feared the effect of that excitement which I knew must attend you while speaking in the Senate. But now you have passed the most trying point, I hope no evil effects will result to your health; but, however health or life may be affected, you have again spoken.”
Then again the veteran champion wrote:—
“Of all the subjects before you, no one was so well adapted to the occasion as the ‘Barbarism of Slavery.’ And no man was so well adapted to the subject as yourself. I was profoundly grateful that you succeeded in pronouncing the speech,—and still more so, when I read it. It is worthy of yourself. Thus far my desires and prayers in regard to you have been fully met. May your services to your country and mankind continue so long as life continues!”