“It is beyond question the greatest effort of our most
distinguished New England statesman, and will make his name
dear to every friend of freedom and equal rights in all
coming time. It is throughout the language of the calm,
conscientious statesman. Avoiding all mere expedients and
controversies concerning details, it fixes the attention
upon the great principles of a free republican government;
and never in our history have those principles been so
clearly and forcibly elucidated.”