“To me it seems bursting with new and most inspiring ideas. But even when you deal with ideas which are not new, but old and familiar, you present them in words so marvellously chosen that they are themselves giant forces.…
“No single man has ever so grandly struggled against the barbaric tendencies of a frightfully debauched generation. I cannot certainly foresee the future; you may be worsted in this encounter; but I know the world will be the better for it.”
Hon. Henry B. Anthony, Senator of the United States, wrote from Providence:—
“I suppose you are tired of compliments about your great speech. Everybody says it is one of the best things that even you have done. It must have a large and beneficial effect, not only here, but in Europe, where your reputation will secure for it the consideration of those who control public affairs and mould public opinion.”
Hon. Samuel S. Blair, a Representative in Congress from Pennsylvania, wrote:—
“I have just read your New York speech on our Foreign Relations, and most cordially thank you for a statement of our cause which ought to give us the verdict of the civilized world.”
Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, for so many years eminent as Antislavery champion in Congress, and then Consul-General at Montreal, wrote:—
“I have just read your lecture at Cooper Institute. That production excites in my heart the deepest gratitude and the highest pleasure.”
Hon. Simon Cameron, who had recently returned from Russia, where he had been Minister, wrote:—
“It is a masterly production of a master mind, and if you had never made a single mental effort before, or if you should cease from this moment to enjoy the power of speech, it would stand as a monument unrivalled among the many great productions of American and British statesmen. It is unanswerable. Its influence, like all great ideas founded on truth, may be comparatively slow, but it is already acting over the world, and in a brief period it will be so potent that men and nations will be ashamed to avow a belief in any other code of morals.”