“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.
“I wish that your oration might be in every school library
in the Union. May your life be prolonged, and every year
add some new jewel to the crown of fame, that, when you go
to a higher sphere, men will place upon your name!”
Rev. A. P. Putnam, Unitarian clergyman, also wrote from
Brooklyn, New York:--
“I bless God for the firm and lofty stand you have taken,
and the people will yet see, if they do not now see,
that it is the only wise and sure one for Union- and
Freedom-loving men to take. Would that all loyal men,
especially the great Union party, could see it to be their
duty and their interest to meet boldly and grandly the
issue which the President seems determined to force upon
them!”
Rev. F. C. Ewer, anxious against compromise, wrote from New
York:--
“I am but one of thousands whom you little think of as
watching you with anxiety, and to whom your present firm
position has given great cheer and comfort. Of course there
are many who have always stood with you, and who must be
sources of encouragement; but we are new recruits, who
have had enough of ‘compromise,’ and who see no hope of
permanent peace ahead except under a thorough adjusting of
the Constitution to the principles of the Declaration of
Independence.”
James P. Lee and fourteen others united in a letter from
Herkimer, New York:--
“In this centre of the Empire State there are not a few
who would express their thanks to you personally, if
they could, but more especially to God, our Heavenly
Father, for having endowed you, as Joshua of old, with the
determination to lead His oppressed people to the promised
land, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ (not with
disgrace), after their Moses had been taken from them.”