You showed what is the real backbone of a gentleman, considered in the higher moral or philosophical point of view, by far superior to what your assailers conceive or are able to imagine in their vulgar or low conceptions.

I think you should thank God for placing you, in his wise Providence, in a position which, utterly hateful as it must be to you (fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus), proves to furnish occasion for the heroic element.

I can dimly surmise how much it costs you to stand there; but I doubt not the experience you are having testifies that it will pay the cost, and a great deal more.

I may be mistaken, but, from all I have learned of your position in the Senate, things look as if those Southern men, after trying to steal your sting away by all sorts of courtliness and courtesy, and trying in vain, have turned upon you…

But it is a matter of just pride that the friends of Freedom there are gentlemen, and always win upon the field of argument.

I am delighted beyond measure by your reply to the Southern chivalry.

It is grand, gentlemanly, cool, pointed, well aimed, and true metal.

You have punished them in a most exemplary manner, without descending to their vulgar level.

In a word, you have taught these orators how much more effective is a caustic civility of reply than coarse, intemperate reviling.

But the mere suggestion of such an outrage roused many men who had never been your political friends; for everybody felt that to attempt such an act would be an indignity to the State not to be tolerated.

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…

I rejoice that Massachusetts has found a defender who will, without fear or favor, tell the whole truth, when she is assailed.

Let me say seriously, frankly, your reputation as a fearless, brave, and true man is firmly established,--confidence also in your discretion and good judgment, as shown in this last debate and in the management of this whole affair.

He has made an historical era for the North; for at least one among us has dared to confront the insolent.

So will it ever be, when the Truth is bold; though it is rare for a young or old hero in politics to produce effect so rapidly.

He was an attentive reader of the debates of the Senate, and he had seen that every step you had taken was a step upward, and that they who had affected to contemn were at length driven into a tacit acknowledgment of their very great error.

It was just such a flagellation as the slavocrats deserved, and such a one as they never received before in the Senate.

And now I want to thank you with my whole heart for your grand and brave rejoinder to Butler and Mason.

It was the best, bravest thing done in the Senate this many a year.

I think more hearts in the Free States will glory in your courageous and overwhelming reply to these plantation Senators than in any public effort of your life.

Pleasure would take me home among congenial souls, but duty keeps me here.

The approaching anniversary of Independence in Boston should be something more than a show and expense.

It ought to be the occasion of a practical vow to those primal principles of Freedom which have been assailed.

Our municipal history should be carefully read, and, unless we are prepared to disown our fathers, the conduct of Boston at memorable times should be set forward anew, as an example which her children must never forget.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.