"The storm of letters of congratulation is perhaps lulled a little
by this time, and you'll have a moment's leisure to receive the
admiring thanks of an old friend. Amid so much that was sad and
dark at home, it has been delightful to sun one's self now and then
in the glad noon of hope at Washington. The whole State is very
proud of you just now. If your six years were out this next winter,
I think you'd be run in again without a competitor, and by a vote
of all parties.
"All your late efforts have been grand: see the benefit of being
insulted. Your last richly merited the claim you made of being
_thorough_. I liked and entirely approved the self-respect with
which you put your own opinion side by side with the Virginian's
and left it. You claimed not a tittle too much, and he deserved
just that sort of treatment.
"If, amid such universal congratulation, it be any joy to you to
hear my amen, be assured it is most heartily shouted."
Rev. Joshua Leavitt, the lifelong Abolitionist, wrote from New
York:--
"I have just read the full report of your speech with intense
satisfaction. It is a glorious work. The report, the echo, the
effect in the other fleet, shows that it was such a broadside as
they never had before."
John Jay wrote from Bedford, New York, the country home of his
grandfather, the Chief Justice:--
"I have read your speech of the 28th June with, I think, more
thorough satisfaction and delight than any other in my life,
not excepting even your first speech on the Fugitive Bill, for
which I waited so impatiently, as your first great blow in the
Senate against American Slavery. Your last is a glorious, a most
triumphant effort, and has given you a proud and commanding
position before the country, as the long hoped-for Champion of
the North, before whose fearless front and avenging arm Southern
insolence at length shall quail. How the Free States will receive
your words is already clear, if doubt could have been entertained
of it, by the tone generally of the public press, and the delight
manifested, both in the town and country, by almost all who speak
of it. In our quiet neighborhood I find people talking of it
enthusiastically whom I never before heard express the slightest
feeling on the Slavery question."
Rev. Convers Francis, the eminent professor of Harvard University,
wrote:--
"When I came to that answer of yours, 'Is thy servant a dog, that
he should do this thing?' I could not but cry out, 'That is just
the thing! Mr. Sumner could not have found in all literature or
history elsewhere so fitting words for reply, when he was asked
whether he would send back a slave.' And your admirable application
of Jefferson's description of the manners produced by Slavery
did my very heart good. I have heard but one opinion of these
speeches from every side: indeed, there can be but one,--that which
expresses unmingled admiration and delight."