C. B. M. Smith, another lawyer, wrote from Pittsburg:—
“Will you permit a private in the Republican ranks to thank you for your great speech on the Barbarism of Slavery? I do not believe that it was ill-timed, or too severe. It was just what the occasion and the times called for.”
Rev. N. Warren Everett wrote from Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania:—
“I have just been reading your masterly and unanswerable speech of the fourth instant with thrills of delight. Massachusetts can afford to let one of her Senatorial chairs remain vacant, if we can have such a speech as that once in four years. I feel like thanking God from the bottom of my heart that you have been restored to health, and have the nerve, or, as you once expressed yourself, the ‘backbone,’ to stand as one of God’s noblemen and give utterance to truth.”
Edward Corner wrote from Columbus, Ohio:—
“It is worth its bulk in gold. I honor the heart and give large credit to the head that combined to send forth such a document. If it could but reach the eyes and ears of the South generally, it would tell upon even that dark and ignorant people; but it cannot; a few may see it. There is not brass enough, nor yet iron, nor steel, in the Southern Senators to ward off such a blow. They will never forget it. There are some weak-kneed Republicans who wish the speech had been less severe. I believe in the entire speech. As you undertook to give the truth, why not tell the whole truth? It is time they were exposed; it is time to hold up Slavery’s mirror, not only to the South, but before the world.”
Alanson St. Clair wrote from Muskegon, Michigan:—
“And if my memory is not greatly at fault, you are the first Member of Congress who has entered the penetralia of the Pandemonium, and fully exposed the diabolical character of the system, and the true character of its supporters. Such efforts are telling.
“The efforts of many noble patriots have been manly, self-denying, and praiseworthy, and should not be disparaged; and yet I know of no one who has taken the high moral ground on this subject which you have from the first. This, during your whole Senatorial career, has made you the hope of the reliable Antislavery men in America; and your last effort will increase not a little their reliance on and their affection for you. It is a godlike effort, a stunning blow, a blow in the right direction and upon the right spot, which has inflicted a fearful, if not a deadly wound.… I pray God that you may live, and retain your place, to pronounce the funeral oration of Slavery, and to receive the exultant blessings of the millions to be set free.”