"A month ago I thought your popularity had reached a wonderfully
high pitch, that you had at a leap overcome prejudices and
misconceptions that seemed likely to be surmounted only by the
gradual toil of years. But the last week has wrought even greater
wonders. Multitudes, formerly your enemies and revilers, are
not merely willing to tolerate you, not merely willing to be
satisfied with you, but have become actually proud of you, as their
representative, and the champion of Massachusetts and the North. I
hear on all sides nothing but commendations and exultations."