The response by letters showed that Senatorial protest and newspaper criticism did not prevent the acceptance of the Resolutions by earnest, thoughtful people, anxious for decisive measures and a true preparation for the future. Here was a plan of Reconstruction without Slavery, and this was a wide-spread longing of hearts.
Hon. John Jay, afterwards Minister at Vienna, wrote from New York:—
“There is no question about the fact that Slavery in the Rebel States has ceased to exist, within the meaning and under the protection of the Constitution.
“I have thought somewhat on the matter, and have just completed an argument on it, which I proposed to include in my lecture before the Washington Association. The Southern States have ceased to be States of the Union; their soil has become national territory; and the slaves, in the eyes of the Constitution, are freemen. I wish your resolutions had been referred to some committee from whom we could have had a careful report in their favor, even though it were a minority report, to get the argument before the country.”
Charles T. Rodgers, President of the Young Men’s Republican Union, wrote from New York:—
“I have just read the preamble and resolutions offered by you in the Senate, in which you define the position and status of the revolted States, and of persons held to service under the laws thereof.
“I cannot refrain from expressing to you, personally, my pleasure at the fact that the true doctrine on this subject has been so clearly laid down. I am sure that your theory is the true one, and, in fact, the only one this Government can consistently follow, and the only one which seems to offer a plain path out of the maze of conflicting legal and constitutional points in which so many of our public men seem to have become entangled. The States, by seceding, have committed suicide. The slaves therein are de facto free. Stick to that, and you will come out all right.”
Hon. Charles A. Dana, the accomplished journalist, afterwards Assistant Secretary of War, wrote:—
“I fully appreciate the difficulty of settling the South after it is conquered. I don’t see how your plan can be avoided; bon gré, mal gré, it is what we all must come to.”
Park Benjamin, writer and poet, who had not formerly sympathized with Mr. Sumner politically, wrote from New York:—