“Something must be done in Boston. Some of your admiring friends here, who at first, in the midst of the muddle of telegraphic despatches, had some misgivings in regard to your action on ‘Reconstruction’ questions before the Senate, have had their eyes opened, and now feel that you have rendered a great service to the country in battling manfully for the rights of humanity,—that you have done right, and saved us from a new disaster. Of course we must have a great meeting at the Music Hall, and give you an ovation: nothing less will satisfy us.”
F. B. Sanborn wrote from Concord, Massachusetts:—
“Allow me to add my congratulations to those of your other friends on your successful opposition to the Louisiana scheme of Reconstruction. I look upon you as the real destroyer of that fine web of intrigue and absurdity so carefully spun.”
Henry O. Stone wrote from Framingham, Massachusetts:—
“Although an humble and obscure individual, I cannot refrain from thanking you for your persistent resistance to the admission into Congress of the Louisiana claimants. I feel as if you ought to have personal acknowledgment from every one in Massachusetts who can appreciate your just and patriotic motives and wise statesmanship. I know you will be accused of factious opposition to the Administration and the President; but there are those who believe your opposition comes from a desire to do justice, not only to the blacks, but to the poor whites, and to establish the Government upon the only permanent and safe foundation on true democratic principles.”
Hon. Adin Thayer wrote from Worcester:—
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your heroic and successful opposition to the Louisiana fraud. Nothing you have ever done better deserves the gratitude of the country and of mankind.”
Elizur Wright, one of our earliest Abolitionists, wrote from Boston:—
“Your keeping out the sham State of Louisiana is worth, in my estimation, any three average military victories. I would give the United States Treasury half I am worth to have Congress, the next thing it does on the subject, decide black suffrage as the ‘inexorable condition’ of readmission.”