David A. Wasson, the honest thinker and student of philosophy, wrote from Boston:—
“God bless you, and make you strong for the arduous and immense work that is immediately before you! The coming session of Congress will, I think, be preëminently the critical and cardinal day in all American legislation. I look forward to it with unspeakable anxiety. If only your counsels had been accepted, how clear, how easy, all would be! Now the situation is fearfully complicated.”
Rev. George C. Beckwith, Secretary of the American Peace Society, wrote from Boston:—
“Let me express the earnest hope that you will economize your strength for the great conflict soon to come during the approaching Congress. I never doubted the final success of our arms; but when the sword should be sheathed, I have always expected to see our worst crisis in our last grapple with slaveholders. We shall quite need all your prudence, forecast, energy, courage, and decision, to meet the dangers ahead from returning Rebels.”
Rev. Charles Brooks, eminent for his services to education, wrote from Medford:—
“I thank you, I thank you a thousand times, for your sound, comprehensive, and patriotic speech at Worcester. Shakespeare says, ‘Things by season seasoned are.’ Never was a word more fitly spoken. It is the best speech I have read for years, and will become historic.”
William I. Bowditch, the able conveyancer and Abolitionist, wrote from Boston:—
“I read your speech yesterday morning with great satisfaction, and yet with considerable misgiving as to whether its truths will be acted on. I doubt if the North has been punished enough to induce it to forego the attempt of trying again to circumvent God.”
P. R. Guiney, on the day the speech was delivered, wrote from Boston:—