I consider that very many of your Senatorial speeches will be quite as permanent as any of Burke’s productions; but this last seems to be as enduring as the Constitution of our country, whether as the foundation of a government or as a…

I wish that your oration might be in every school library in the Union.

I bless God for the firm and lofty stand you have taken, and the people will yet see, if they do not now see, that it is the only wise and sure one for Union- and Freedom-loving men to take.

Would that all loyal men, especially the great Union party, could see it to be their duty and their interest to meet boldly and grandly the issue which the President seems determined to force upon them!

Of course there are many who have always stood with you, and who must be sources of encouragement; but we are new recruits, who have had enough of ‘compromise,’ and who see no hope of permanent peace ahead except under a thorough adjusting…

I thank God that we have a man in the Senate bold enough and capable enough to point the nation the road back to the foundation principles of the Government.

Having read your truly noble plea for the ‘great guaranty’ of personal and political rights under the Constitution, in the Senate, I write to thank you with my whole heart.

It is the right word spoken at the right time and in the right place, and it will reach the hearts of the people and produce there a deep conviction, if it does not in Congress.… The positions in your speech are unanswerable.

You may, then, imagine my joy, when I saw you break loose from all considerations of policy and party, and place yourself immovably upon the elevated platform of a just and righteous statesmanship.

I have read nothing for a long while that has moved me so much as your speech in the Senate on the 5th and 6th inst.

You may be vilified and abused, and no doubt are, as all great benefactors of their race are in their day and generation.

But future ages will do you full justice, and your name will be illustrious when the names of your revilers will be consigned to the most ignoble oblivion.

In the joy of my heart I congratulate the people of this Government that the old ship of state has at its helm a statesman who, despite the storms, the howling tempests, the Cimmerian darkness which enshrouds us, stands boldly and…

But I will say that the courage that can face cold looks of friends, cruel animadversions of one’s own party press, and, what is easier, the unceasing abuse and bullyism of the enemies of all good, is so rare that it commands my admiration.

Suffice it to say, in my poor judgment it is the noblest, ablest effort of your life, and is just the document to send broadcast over the land.

A thousand thanks for your incomparable speech, expounding and defining the true theory of a republican government.

Congress, therefore, must of necessity guaranty to every State a republican form of government.

Johnson and his Republican renegade sycophants will be forgotten, or brought to mind only to be execrated.

I read your speech in the paper this morning, and I write to express my gratification that you have refused to accept any half-measures, but have sought to induce Congress to proceed in its work of Reconstruction on the only sure…

I shall preserve it, and leave it to my children, as one of the noblest consecrations to Liberty and Man.

That elaborate exposition will endure for ages as a monument of your noble patriotism and unparalleled eloquence.

I think that I may safely say that you have the gratitude of my entire race for your fearless and radical advocacy of the rights of all men, as I know you have their sincere and ardent love.

Please accept my thanks for your noble speech of the 5th and 6th of February, which I have read and re-read with great attention and deep gratitude and admiration.

This ‘testimony of the truth’ will add yet another bright page to the record of your undeviating fidelity to the cause of Justice and Humanity.

I presume you will receive a thousand letters expressive of the satisfaction and delight that your speech upon the Suffrage question has given; and yet I must add mine, for it is but rarely that one feels that a moral subject is exhausted…