“God bless you! Your Worcester speech of the 1st inst. is invaluable. It states the cause, the issue, and the remedy of the war.”
Rev. W. H. Cudworth, chaplain in the army, in a letter from Hooker’s Brigade, Camp Union, wrote:—
“If I bore you, pardon me,—but, sympathizing most heartily in your uncompromising hostility to Slavery, and yet placed by the laws in an embarrassing, if not helpless position, what can I do, in the way of preventing the rendition of fugitives? For instance, one was hidden in our regimental barn. I knew and encouraged it, intending to trot him off, if a favorable chance offered. The owner came, but could not accomplish anything. He came next day with a United States warrant and the Provost Marshal. It wrung my heart, but what could I do?… Meantime let me thank you, as a servant of God and in the name of my brother man, for your Worcester speech, which I have just read, for your magnificent broadside called the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ and for all your efforts to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free.”
Hon. Charles W. Slack, connected with the press, and always Antislavery Republican, wrote from Boston:—
“Whether speaking for others or myself individually, I only express a general acknowledgment among all Liberty-loving men, when I say that to you preëminently is assigned the responsible, yet honorable, task of indicating the advance of public sentiment upon the living, overtopping, gigantic question of the day. I thank God daily that we have so earnest, steadfast, and persistent an exponent in the Senate Chamber. May you, then, be delivered and preserved from all harm for even greater achievements!”
John P. Jewett, bookseller, original publisher of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, wrote from Boston:—
“I am more than provoked with the unmitigated flunkeyism of the Boston —— and —— in their criticisms of your manly and excellent speech at Worcester. Posterity will do you justice, even if the sneaking toadyism of the day refuse it to you. I cannot refrain from writing you a word of sympathy, although perhaps you do not feel the need of it. Rest assured, my noble friend, that God and all truly great and good men are with you, therefore you have nothing to fear from the malice of cowardly time-servers.”
William Kenrick, the horticulturist, wrote from Newton, Massachusetts:—
“I must thank you for your most timely, outspoken speech at the Convention at Worcester. It exactly meets my views,—the views I have long entertained. Yes, here are our natural allies, amongst the slaves.”