“I have read your last speech in the Senate on ‘The Barbarism of Slavery’ with admiration and gratitude. As a citizen, a constituent, I thank you from my heart’s core. It was a glorious triumph, such as no Roman consul or general ever won, to stand in your place, after such a long absence, for such a cause, and through four long hours proclaim such holy truth in such distinct language as was never before heard on that floor. It is glory enough for one life.”
Rev. William C. Whitcomb, an earnest clergyman and Abolitionist, wrote from Lynnfield Centre, Massachusetts:—
“A thousand thanks to you for your speech in Congress this week. ’Tis the most thorough, satisfactory, and powerful speech I have ever read on the subject of Slavery, or any subject. ’Twill secure millions of readers, and I trust open the eyes of the nation to the ‘Barbarism of Slavery.’ Ever think of me, and the people to whom I preach, as among your warmest admirers, lovers, and sympathizers.”
Rev. David Root, retired clergyman and Abolitionist, wrote from Cheshire, Connecticut:—
“Though approaching seventy, such is my heartfelt interest in the cause you advocate, that I could cry with joy over the thought that there is at least one member in Congress who is able, and who has the moral courage, to do justice to that great enormity, that atrocious wickedness, that deep and damning crime of Slaveholding. You seem to have embraced in your speech the whole subject, in all its important departments, and with a plainness, directness, pith, force, and pungency worthy of the highest commendation. It should be a permanent and standard document on that subject, and be perpetuated through all coming time, that other generations may look at it and learn to hate Slavery and love Liberty.… Mind not what some timid croakers may say about being ill-timed or calculated to injure our Republican campaign. It is not so. You have given us just the document we needed, going down to the foundation.”
Rev. Edgar Buckingham, an early schoolmate of Mr. Sumner, wrote from his parish at Troy, New York:—
“I congratulate you upon the fidelity and the courage which you have manifested; and though I do not rejoice in all severity, I rejoice always in the severity of truth, and I trust that the leaders of the Republican party will unanimously decide, that, not their expediencies, but God’s opportunity, is always the test of the time in which truth is to be spoken.”
Rev. J. S. Berry wrote from New York:—
“Allow me, though a stranger, to thank you in the name of Humanity for the noble speech on the ‘Barbarism of Slavery’ just delivered by you in the Senate, so just, so truthful, and so timely. I bless God that he has so far restored you, and brought you to ‘this hour.’ Thousands of hearts thrill with intense hatred of Slavery, as they read your startling disclosures of its workings; and the prayers of these same thousands, nay, millions, ascend to the Father of us all, that you may be long spared to show up the wickedness and inhumanity of the institution. I rejoice that not alone on political grounds do you attack the system.”