Hon. George W. Julian, another champion in Congress, wrote from his home at Centreville, Indiana:—
“I am exceedingly rejoiced that you have made your great speech, and said just what I understand you have said about the whole question of Slavery. But I grow sick, indignant, and nervous, on reading the cowardly notices of the speech by windy Republican journals.”
Hon. John Jay, afterwards Minister to Austria, wrote from New York:—
“I wrote you hastily my congratulations and thanks on your last powerful effort, the effect of which I think will be stupendous and permanent, giving a vigor to the cause, and a definiteness to the opinion of the North, and an example of pluck more powerful in its persuasive influence than a thousand essays.”
Hon. Gerrit Smith, always champion of the slave, wrote from his home at Peterborough, New York:—
“I have this day read your speech as it appeared in the New York Times of the 5th. God be praised for the proof it affords that you are yourself again,—ay, more than yourself! I say more,—for, though the ‘Crime against Kansas’ was the speech of your life, this is the speech of your life. This eclipses that. It is far more instructive, and will be far more useful, and it is not at all inferior to the other in vigor or rhetoric.
“The slaveholders will all read this speech, and will all be profited by its clear, certain, and convincing truths. The candid among them will not dislike you for it; not a few of them will, at least in their hearts, thank and honor you for it. Would that they all might see that there is no wrong, no malice whatever, in your heart! Would that they all might see that you do not hate the slaveholder, but pity him as the victim of a false education!…
“I have read the editorial of the Times on your speech. It is more than unjust, it is wicked. Nor has the Tribune, so far as I have seen, any praises for you. But this is their way, or rather one of their ways, for promoting the interests of your Republican party.”
Mr. Smith added in a subsequent letter:—