A timid policy will be our ruin; a bold one wins friends and awes enemies.

I do think it excellent and well-timed, just what you ought to say, and no more,--but what no other man in the Senate would have dared to say.

Brutality, no less than vice, is a monster, and whoever paints it fair, or wishes others to, by the false character he gives betrays his own true character.

I have great faith in plain-spoken truth; and the railing and gnashing of teeth in anger by the Southern preservers of the Union, and what John Randolph denominated as the white slaves of the North, who second them, is a plain confession…

I have read your speech on the Barbarism of Slavery attentively, having devoted seven hours thereto yesterday, and I cannot refrain from offering you my humble thanks, although words cannot express my feelings on the subject.

For thirty years I have considered it the leading and most important subject before the nation.

Especially allow me to thank you for the discourse of the Barbarism of Slavery; for it shows you well again, and leading on the good fight.

I have looked over the newspaper reports, and have thanked God your life was spared to prepare such a masterly production, so full of facts, so happily arranged, so glowingly knit together, and that you were able in strength to stand up in…

Its amazing courage and justice will commend it yet more to the thinking men of this and all other countries.

Its unanswerable arguments will stand forever as monuments of manly effort in behalf of an oppressed race,--defending principles, too, which ought to be approved by every Christian man.

Thank God for one man whom no Barbarism frightens, whom no pusillanimous policy deters from uttering the truth!

Thank Heaven that in our modern Sodom one just man and fearless was found, who, in the face of despots, has dared to plead the cause of their victims, and to brand their tyranny with the titles it has won!

When I first read your speech, as I did immediately after its delivery, my blood boiled anew, as after the outrage which our country’s Barbarism inflicted on you four years ago.

Would to God that every man who entertains the sentiments contained in your speech, whether of the North or South, had the moral courage boldly to express them!

We should soon see an end of that accursed thing, Slavery.

There is not elsewhere in the English language so powerful an argument on the Barbarism of Slavery.

God be praised that you did not compromise, and that the prayers of the good have been answered!

Some Republicans may condemn, but hosts will rejoice that you regard the cause more than Republicanism.

If you would have such treaties, you must begin by an acknowledgment of independence.

If this be true,--and it is undeniable,--then obviously the objects now proposed can be most fitly and effectively accomplished only by diplomatic representatives.

The enemies of Freedom and Humanity will of course gnash their teeth upon you, and timid friends will question the expediency of such a speech; but when the passions and prejudices of the hour have passed away, it will be remembered and…

And since what is worth doing is worth well doing, I hope there will be no hesitation.

Boldly, manfully, faithfully you have ‘done the austere work,’ not letting, by your laches, ‘Freedom fling away any of her weapons.’ Oh, no!

Especially I wish to thank you for your speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, which I hope and suspect commences a new era in the history of our Congress, when questions of national importance have come to be considered from a broadly…

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