“Your course is fully approved here by a majority of the Republicans, and by all who have opinions. Besides all this, you will be historically right, now that the Amendment is defeated.… It is the greatest work of your life, unless your opposition to Lincoln’s Louisiana scheme may prove such, if you even succeed in keeping out the mongrel States.”
Augustine G. Stimson, desiring to express his sympathies as a constituent, wrote from Boston:—
“Last evening I read your speech from beginning to end, with an interest that awakened admiration and gratitude. The Equal Rights of All is the only sure guaranty for the present and future of mankind.”
William E. Chase, formerly a private in the national army, wrote from North Uxbridge:—
“Please accept the thanks of a poor private for your noble, courageous, and Christian efforts in the great cause of Right, Justice, and Liberty, when Justice is unpopular, and you are obliged by duty to meet both friend and foe in this conflict.”
F. W. Pelton wrote from Boston:—
“I desire to thank you for your late noble speech in favor of legal equality in this country. I read it with deep interest. Your propositions are sound, and the great lights of history you marshal up to sustain them impressed me forcibly.”
William Plumer wrote from Lexington:—
“Please accept my thanks for the copies of your very able and learned speech on the right of universal suffrage. Whatever may be the practicability of this principle at the present time, and however the country or Congress may settle the question in the future, your arguments are certainly unanswerable, and will ever remain an enduring monument of your earnest labors in behalf of the Freedman.”