“I have just risen from reading in the telegraphic
despatch of the noble stand made by you in the Senate last
night, by which the admission of Louisiana is staved off
for the present. I have often fervently thanked God that
you were in your present position, and enabled to do so
much to prevent evil and accomplish good,--but never more
earnestly than now. I know it must be hard to withstand
so many of the supporters of the Administration, but the
battle _must_ be fought on the very question involved in
this measure. It will not only be wicked and infamous,
but suicidal, for us to let the greater part of the rank
and file of the Rebels come back and be voters, while we
exclude our colored countrymen. I hope strength will be
given to you, according to your day; as to your zeal,
courage, ability, and prudence, nothing is wanting.”
Rev. George C. Beckwith, Secretary of the American Peace
Society, wrote from Boston:--
“I have just been reading, with my wife, some account of
your course on the Louisiana question; and we can’t help
sending you our thanks for your persistent efforts to
avert the very possible evils likely to come from a wrong
decision in this case. God grant you success in preventing
here a precedent that _may_ lead to irretrievable mischief!”
Rev. George B. Cheever, the constant Abolitionist, wrote from
New York:--
“Permit me the pleasure of congratulating you on the firm
and noble stand you are maintaining in the Senate for
the rights of loyal men in Louisiana, irrespective of
color, and for the prerogative of Congress, as well as its
obligation, to settle the government of that State as a
republican government. Your efforts are so much the more
admirable and important as they are opposed by mistaken
Senators, such as Trumbull and Doolittle, and by some of
our editors, as of the _Times_. The heart of the country
goes with you, not with your opponents. It would be a
terrible disaster to have the precedent set of a State
readmitted to the Union with the sacrifice of the rights of
the blacks. Your resolutions of Saturday, as well as the
amendment you proposed, were admirable. The victory will be
worth everything, if you can carry something of that kind.”