“God bless you for this noble speech which you have made against the Apportionment Amendment! I have this day read the part of it in yesterday’s New York Tribune. I long to read the whole of it.”
In another letter, Mr. Smith wrote:—
“You are the keystone of our arch. If you fail, all falls.”
Hon. N. Niles, formerly in the diplomatic service, wrote from New York:—
“I admire and applaud the tenacity with which you advocate the equal rights of all men of all races under one Constitution and Government.… I hope you will stand up for the Asiatics as well as for the negroes. They are now treated as brutes in some of our States.”
Cephas Brainerd, lawyer, and arbitrator under the last treaty with England against the Slave Trade, wrote from New York:—
“Nearly all the copies of your great speech that I obtained have been circulated, and I don’t find any one who dares deny the correctness of the doctrines you lay down. It has my hearty assent, and I have subjected it to the examination which the argument of an opposing counsel receives from me. I consider that very many of your Senatorial speeches will be quite as permanent as any of Burke’s productions; but this last seems to be as enduring as the Constitution of our country, whether as the foundation of a government or as a matter of mere study.”
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, always on the watch-tower, wrote from Brooklyn, New York:—
“Although I do not think with you on the specific change in the Amendment which you advocate, I cannot forbear expressing my thanks for your noble speech, which has the merit of rising far above the occasion and object for which it was uttered, and covering a ground which will abide after all temporary questions of special legislation have passed away.