“Eloquent, exhaustive, unanswerable.”
Hon. George B. Loring, afterwards Chairman of the State Committee of the Republican party in Massachusetts, and President of the Massachusetts Senate, wrote from Salem:—
“Your masterly speech will one day be reached by Congress and the people,—I trust, in your day and mine. The best minds believe in it; the best hearts take courage from it.”
Hon. E. L. Pierce, afterwards Secretary of the Board of Charities in Massachusetts, wrote from Boston:—
“I read last evening, at one session, your last speech in the Senate. It is a noble one, and right in all respects. One passage near the close reminds me of the famous passages of Curran and Brougham about Freedom. I agree with you about the proposed Amendment.”
Thomas Sherwin, head master of the Boston High School, father of General Sherwin, and a tutor of Mr. Sumner at Harvard College, wrote from Dedham:—
“Allow me, as an old friend, to congratulate you and to thank you for your noble speech in the Senate on the 5th. I obtained it last evening, and read the whole before I slept. In humanity of sentiment, in true patriotism, in completeness of argument, in fulness of illustration, you have left nothing to be desired.
“This Reconstruction is, indeed, a momentous affair, and I feel a greater doubt of its just determination than I felt for that of arms while the war raged.”
Rev. John T. Sargent, always swift to sympathize with Mr. Sumner, wrote from Boston:—