Seth Webb, Jr., appointed by President Lincoln Consul at Port-au-Prince, Hayti, a Republican of the best quality, and always Antislavery, wrote from his home in Scituate, Massachusetts:—
“I have read it with care. It is magnificent, and I am glad on every account that it was made. It was all needed,—needed now and from you. It not only expresses my own opinions fully, but in it you have written on the walls of Eternity the adamantine convictions of Massachusetts.
“That there are some timeserving and tremulous men and presses in our ranks who treat the speech coolly only shows that Republican leaders do not understand Republicanism, and that it is a mighty work to regenerate a nation.
“The strength of the Republican party lies in the fearless utterance of its opinions; its weakness, in the suppression of them. A timid policy will be our ruin; a bold one wins friends and awes enemies.”
Hon. Amasa Walker, afterwards Representative in Congress, writer on Currency and Political Economy, and enlisted against Slavery and War, wrote from his home at North Brookfield, Massachusetts:—
“I do think it excellent and well-timed, just what you ought to say, and no more,—but what no other man in the Senate would have dared to say.”
Hon. Willard Phillips, for many years Judge of Probate in Boston, and author of the excellent work on the Law of Insurance, wrote from Boston:—
“I was not a little chagrined and mortified by ——’s notice of it, as I expressed to him in a note the moment I had read his leader respecting it. Brutality, no less than vice, is a monster, and whoever paints it fair, or wishes others to, by the false character he gives betrays his own true character. I have great faith in plain-spoken truth; and the railing and gnashing of teeth in anger by the Southern preservers of the Union, and what John Randolph denominated as the white slaves of the North, who second them, is a plain confession of the truth as you have spoken it.”
Hon. Albert G. Browne, prominent in the politics of Massachusetts, and ever foe to Slavery, wrote from Boston:—
“No poor words of mine can convey to you my admiration and hearty approbation of your speech. I greatly err in judgment, if it is not by universal consent considered your best effort in this direction. To my mind it is exhaustive of the subject.”