“I think you have got hold of a heavy sledge, and hit between the horns at every lick. The style of treatment will do as much towards bringing the beast upon his knees as any other, and the duty is peculiarly appropriate at your hands. I am very sure you are right, and feel prompted to say so.”
Hon. John Appleton, the learned jurist, and Chief Justice of Maine, wrote from Bangor:—
“I owe you thanks for your able and unanswerable speech, which came in my absence. More truth was never condensed in one speech. But woe to those by whom it so becomes the truth!”
Hon. Moses Emery, an eminent citizen, wrote from Saco, Maine:—
“Permit me to say I have read it through twice, and parts of it many times, and that I consider it the most glorious and most needed speech ever made in the United States. I rejoice that you have been spared to make it. But be on your guard. The Demon of Slavery will be revenged, if possible.”
Thomas H. Talbot, a lawyer, who argued well against the Fugitive Slave Act, wrote from Portland, Maine:—
“I rejoice at your determination to tell the whole truth, so much needed now, when many acting with you either do not perceive it or are willing to withhold it, for reasons of false, fleeting policy. So far you seem not seriously to have been molested; and yet that you have really achieved freedom of speech in Washington upon that subject, and to the extent of your speech, seems almost too much to hope for at present.”
Hon. Woodbury Davis, an earnest Republican, afterwards Justice of the Supreme Court of Maine, wrote from Portland:—
“Your friends here were alarmed on Sunday evening by a rumor that you had been attacked again by Southern ruffians. I felt thankful yesterday morning, when the despatches were published, to learn that it was no worse. I do not believe there is another man in the world for whose personal safety so much real prayer ascends to Heaven.…