“It is the very best discussion of the whole subject that I
have seen.”
Hon. Francis Brockholst Cutting, former Representative in
Congress from New York, and a leader of the bar, wrote from New
York:--
“Your speech on Maritime Rights has given me very great
satisfaction. It was worthy of your reputation, and equal
to the occasion. The argument was particularly gratifying
to me, because, from the outset, I had looked at the case
from the American point of view, and had expressed myself
accordingly.”
Hon. R. J. Meigs, of Tennessee, for a long time eminent at the
bar and in juridical study, wrote from New York:--
“One word more. I thank you for your speech upon the
Trent affair. It vindicates the honor of our baited and
abused country. It will be a well-remembered document in
the diplomacy of the world, settling as it does forever
the immunity of neutrals from the insulting pretension of
the right to seize persons on their ships merely upon the
ground that they owe allegiance to the belligerent. It
effectually extracts that poisonous fang from the jaws of
Leviathan.”
Hon. David Roberts, lawyer, and author of a “Treatise on
Admiralty and Prize,” wrote from Salem:--
“I deem it your best effort, settling, what to me was
from the first _the_ embarrassing element in the Wilkes
question, _a true American_ definition of ‘despatches.’
“I therefore thank you for the speech sincerely; and
though differing _toto cœlo_ from you politically in other
respects, I shall not withhold my commendation from your
present effort, deeming it, as I do, the paramount duty of
all to inculcate the lesson of loyalty everywhere, until
this Government is vindicated, and the existing Rebellion
suppressed.”