“I am scattering through my county the great speech of your life: I mean your speech on the Barbarism of Slavery. It is just to the taste of Republicans here,—for the Republicans here are nearly all Abolitionists.”
Rev. John Pierpont, lifelong Abolitionist, and poet, wrote from the home of Gerrit Smith, whose guest he was:—
“I finished the reading of your great speech in the car on my way hither, and, permit me to say, thank you for it with my whole soul,—notwithstanding the qualified commendations of it that may have found their way into some of the Republican papers.”
Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, another lifelong Abolitionist, and able lawyer, wrote from Boston:—
“I rejoice that you have had the courage to exhibit in a systematic manner the essential barbarism of the institution. Everywhere I hear your speech spoken of in the highest terms of admiration. Even the most desperate conservatives are compelled to acknowledge your eloquence and ability. Nor do they deny the justice of your attack on the system of Slavery. But they say the time you chose for making this assault was inopportune and ill-judged, that it could only retard the admission of Kansas, that it is likely to have a bad effect on slaveholders, etc., etc., etc. It seems to me, however, that no occasion for denouncing an institution which is the ruin and disgrace of our nation can be inopportune.”
William Lloyd Garrison, who gave his name to a school of Abolitionists, and was himself a host in constancy and lofty principle, wrote from Boston:—
“Allow me warmly to congratulate you upon your complete restoration to health, and upon the successful delivery of your great speech in Congress, the potency of which is seen in the writhings and denunciations of the slaveholding oligarchy and their base Northern allies, quite as much as in the commendations and rejoicings of your numerous friends and admirers.”
Wendell Phillips, the orator of Freedom, and early friend, wrote:—
“I rejoice with a full heart, not only, not so much perhaps, in your glorious speech, as in what we so longed for and hoped, that you are again on your feet, again in harness,—it is so heart-stirring and cheering to hear your voice once more along the lines, and just now, too, when you and a very few others seem to embody all the real Antislavery there is in politics. Those were ‘four’ nobly used hours. ’Twas a blast of the old well-known bugle, and fell on welcoming ears, and thankful ones.”