“Allow me, though a stranger, to thank you in the name of
Humanity for the noble speech on the ‘Barbarism of Slavery’
just delivered by you in the Senate, so just, so truthful,
and so _timely_. I bless God that he has so far restored you,
and brought you to ‘this hour.’ Thousands of hearts thrill
with intense hatred of Slavery, as they read your startling
disclosures of its workings; and the prayers of these same
thousands, nay, millions, ascend to the Father of us all, that
you may be long spared to show up the wickedness and inhumanity
of the institution. I rejoice that not alone on political
grounds do you attack the system.”
Rev. Daniel Foster, pastor, Abolitionist, and pioneer in Kansas, wrote
from the town of Sumner there:--
“I rise from the perusal of your speech on the ‘Barbarism of
Slavery’ with such feelings of affection and reverence for you
that I must give my feelings and emotion vent by a word of
thanks to you. I was grievously disappointed in ----’s speech.
Yours fully satisfies me, it is so thorough, exhaustive,
forcible, and withal so lofty and noble and patriotic in its
spirit.”
T. Dwight Thacher, journalist, and Kansas pioneer, wrote from
Lawrence:--
“Allow me, though an entire stranger, to express my thanks for
the delivery of your recent great speech in the Senate of the
United States. You may rest assured that the true, radical,
Free State men of Kansas have no kind of sympathy with those
who are so solicitous lest that speech should have injured our
prospects for admission. We have learned the Slave Power well
enough to know that its schemes of injustice toward us are not
the offspring of sudden and transient excitements, but are the
deep and well-settled purpose of years. And for one I would
rather that we should remain out of the Union forever than that
a single utterance in favor of Freedom should be suppressed in
the Senate.”
H. R. Helper, of North Carolina, afterwards Consul at Buenos Ayres,
author of the work entitled “The Impending Crisis,” wrote from New
York:--
“I am in ecstasies with your speech of yesterday. Every word is
put just where it was most needed. One such speech at intervals
of even four years is worth incomparably more than a _Globe_ of
ordinary debate every day.”
Theodore Tilton, the eloquent lecturer and journalist, sent this good
word from New York:--
“I hasten to offer you my congratulations, not merely as a
personal friend, but as a citizen, for your vindication of
Liberty. Since the Senate began its sessions, no speech has
been made on the floor which has satisfied me except this. I
am glad that you have been neither intimidated to silence nor
hallucinated by ‘expediency’ into speaking only half the truth.”
Francis H. Upton, lawyer, and author of the work on “The Law of Nations
affecting Commerce during War,” wrote from New York:--
“Thank God that you are yet stanch and strong, and in all
things fit for the fight that is before us. I have no sympathy
with those who prate of the _impolicy_ of your present
utterance, and also suggest the possibility of its influencing
Senators to obstruct or postpone the admission of Kansas. It
seems to me that he is but an ill observer of the signs of the
times, and has not his finger upon the nation’s pulse, who
fails to perceive that the day of soft words and bated breath
and candy-tongued conciliation is gone, and gone forever.
Slavery has seen its last triumph, and henceforth should
receive no quarter.”
Hon. William Curtis Noyes, the eminent lawyer and exemplary citizen,
wrote from New York:--
“I thank you cordially for your speech on the ‘Barbarism of
Slavery’; and I thank you still more for having delivered it
in the Senate, where you had a right to speak, and were bound
to speak upon that subject first of all upon your restoration
to health. Allow me also to congratulate you on that event, so
auspicious to yourself and your country.”
Hon. John Bigelow, the able journalist, and afterwards Minister to
France, wrote from New York:--
“I have not found an opportunity until to-day of reading your
speech about the Barbarism of Slavery. It is the best arranged
and by far the most complete exposure of the horrid rite of
Slavery to be found within the same compass in any language, so
far as known.”
Hon. Hiram Barney, for many years an Abolitionist, Collector of the
Port of New York under President Lincoln, wrote from New York:--
“I was mortified to see in some of our Republican papers unkind
criticisms on the expediency of such a speech at this time. In
my judgment it is the best speech you have ever made. It was
made at the best moment practicable to make it, and it would
have been a wrong to the country and the cause to have withheld
it. Moreover, it was made by the right man in the right place.
It is the most valuable Antislavery document that I have ever
seen.”