Worthington G. Snethen, an Abolitionist, of Baltimore, wrote:—
“Thanks, thanks for your two great speeches. They will live and breathe and stir the heart of humanity, when the memory of A. Johnson and his Republican renegade sycophants will be forgotten, or brought to mind only to be execrated. Millions of black men bless you now, and hundreds of millions of God’s dusky skins will bless you in the ages to come, for these two grand and eloquent vindications of human liberty from the assaults of despotism, caste, and the white man’s meanness; and the white world, too, far down in the future, will bless your name. The spirit of prophecy pervades every line of these speeches, and lights up every step you take with the blaze of logic and truth.…
“Your resistance to the Trojan horse of the Apportionment Amendment I sincerely hope was crowned with success in to-day’s vote. That Amendment is the basest compromise that has yet bubbled to the surface of the cesspool of American politics.…
“You must all come to it, sooner or later. Congress must legislate impartial suffrage into all the States by direct statute. Strange that the States in Congress cannot do what the States separately out of Congress can do!”
Hon. R. Stockett Mathews, the orator and lawyer, wrote from Baltimore:—
“I thank you most profoundly for the seasonable courage which will admonish others of their duty, although I have but small hope of witnessing any immediate fruition of the good work you have done for us all.”
F. W. Alexander, of Maryland, who served patriotically in the war, wrote from New York:—
“I read your speech in the paper this morning, and I write to express my gratification that you have refused to accept any half-measures, but have sought to induce Congress to proceed in its work of Reconstruction on the only sure foundation, that of justice to all. Whether the measure is carried or not, your speech will not be lost, and it is a mere question of time.”
S. F. Chapman wrote from Alexandria, Virginia:—
“I thank you for your speech. I think it an honor to the age in which you live, and believe it will remain a monument to your genius and eloquence. I am proud of it, and that you sent it to me. I shall preserve it, and leave it to my children, as one of the noblest consecrations to Liberty and Man.”