Hon. Asaph Churchill, lawyer and fellow-student, expressed his sympathy, and gave a reminiscence, in a letter from Boston.
“Allow me to congratulate you upon the grand success of our country’s movement, and no less upon your own career, which has been crowned with such splendid success, during the past season, in the new, important, and delicate questions which you have been called upon to speak and act upon. Certainly your highest ambition ought to be satisfied with that which insures to you your place in the immortality of history; and you have had the most abundant opportunity for accomplishing upon the grandest scale that aspiration which I so well remember you gave utterance to at our Law School, when, boy-like, we were all telling what we most ardently sought to do or to be, that you ‘wished to do that which would do the most good to mankind.’”
Wendell Phillips, after his return from a lecture-tour, wrote:--
“Be of good courage. We all say amen to you. And your diocese, _I_ can testify, extends to the Mississippi.”
Alfred E. Giles, lawyer, wrote from Boston:--
“During your Congressional career, I have so uniformly found my views and feelings on public affairs in accordance with those of your speeches, that I now feel myself obliged, for once at least (for I shall not often trouble you), to express my gratitude, and give a word of good cheer to you, who, amid so many discouragements, and under so much obloquy as has been attempted to be thrown upon you, have ever so faithfully and manfully stood up for the oppressed and for liberal principles.
“It appears to me, on reading your speeches, that I find my own views and principles announced, stated, and clothed with a richness and beauty of style and illustration that I admire, but cannot emulate.
“Again, I am much pleased that you always deal fairly with your opponents, not using misrepresentation and _ad captandum_ argument, but drawing your weapons from the armory of truth and right.”
Professor Ordronaux, of Columbia College, New York, wrote:--
“Last year, while in England, I had the honor of meeting many gentlemen of your acquaintance, and, amid the many bitter things I was compelled to listen to, it was a source of constant satisfaction and pride to hear them acknowledge the great confidence they reposed in you, and the earnest wish they expressed for the success of that _novus ordo sæclorum_ in the Senate, for which we are so much indebted to you. Reading over for the third time your famous Kansas speech, of May, 1856,[7] this morning, I was struck with the almost prophetic character of its language. The crime against Nature has indeed culminated. It struck you down, and then went dancing like a maniac, all the while approaching that bottomless abyss into which it is now descending. Can you doubt that Nemesis still wields her sword and flaming torch?”