“Thank God that you are yet stanch and strong, and in all things fit for the fight that is before us. I have no sympathy with those who prate of the impolicy of your present utterance, and also suggest the possibility of its influencing Senators to obstruct or postpone the admission of Kansas. It seems to me that he is but an ill observer of the signs of the times, and has not his finger upon the nation’s pulse, who fails to perceive that the day of soft words and bated breath and candy-tongued conciliation is gone, and gone forever. Slavery has seen its last triumph, and henceforth should receive no quarter.”
Hon. William Curtis Noyes, the eminent lawyer and exemplary citizen, wrote from New York:—
“I thank you cordially for your speech on the ‘Barbarism of Slavery’; and I thank you still more for having delivered it in the Senate, where you had a right to speak, and were bound to speak upon that subject first of all upon your restoration to health. Allow me also to congratulate you on that event, so auspicious to yourself and your country.”
Hon. John Bigelow, the able journalist, and afterwards Minister to France, wrote from New York:—
“I have not found an opportunity until to-day of reading your speech about the Barbarism of Slavery. It is the best arranged and by far the most complete exposure of the horrid rite of Slavery to be found within the same compass in any language, so far as known.”
Hon. Hiram Barney, for many years an Abolitionist, Collector of the Port of New York under President Lincoln, wrote from New York:—
“I was mortified to see in some of our Republican papers unkind criticisms on the expediency of such a speech at this time. In my judgment it is the best speech you have ever made. It was made at the best moment practicable to make it, and it would have been a wrong to the country and the cause to have withheld it. Moreover, it was made by the right man in the right place. It is the most valuable Antislavery document that I have ever seen.”
Thomas Hicks, the artist, wrote from New York:—
“I have just read your speech. It is solid with fact, eloquence, and courage,—right in matter, place, and time.”