Frank B. Sanborn, most earnest where Freedom is in question, wrote from Concord:—
“I have to-day read for the second time your speech before the Worcester Convention, and I am renewedly glad that you made it then and there. I am sure that every passing day will but strengthen its positions, and that they must soon be accepted by the whole Northern people. Indeed, I believe that the people are of that mind now; it is the politicians, and those most timid of all created things, the Republican partisan leaders, who shiver at the thought of raising a real issue to displace their shams.… Happily, no great principle like this rests on the turn of a period or the position of a comma; and if Boston scribblers could show that Marius did not know a slave from a barrel of salt-fish, they would not weaken the argument of your speech.”
Hon. Adin Thayer, a strong Republican, wrote from Worcester:—
“I cannot refrain from expressing to you, even at this late day, my hearty thanks for your brave, earnest speech at the State Convention. Be assured that neither you nor the great truths you advocate will be at all harmed by the malignant attacks of the Hunker press.”
Rev. William Tyler wrote from Pawtucket:—
“Republicans self-styled Conservative do not like your Worcester speech; and yet I meet with some such who admit that the liberation of the slaves of the Rebels must yet be a war policy,—only that the time has not come for its adoption. Well, some must be pioneers, and others will follow at a carefully considered distance: editors and office-seekers will be farthest in the rear. I was not so much surprised at the dissent in yesterday’s Boston Journal as at the character of the assault on your speech and on you.”
Hollis Loring, a good Republican, wrote from Marlborough, Massachusetts:—
“Some of our public journals seem disposed to criticize your speech at Worcester on Tuesday, as not reflecting the sentiments of your State. For one, I will say that I listened to your speech with much pleasure. I believe you take the only correct view of the subject; and I know you reflect the sentiment of a large majority of the people in this town. Even some of the most Proslavery Democrats of the past are fully up to your ground to-day.”
James Means, a teacher, always against Slavery, wrote from Auburndale, Massachusetts:—