The election had been so long in suspense, and had so much occupied the public mind, that the final result was received with much feeling. As the news spread, some were dejected and angry, others were joyous and satisfied. Mr. Sumner heard of it while at the house of Hon. Charles F. Adams, in Boston, and there received the first congratulations. A proposition for a public demonstration at his own house in the evening he discountenanced, saying, according to the published report, that, while feeling grateful to friends for their kindness, he was unwilling to do or say anything that could be construed by any one as evidence of personal triumph,--that it was the triumph of the cause, but that his heart dictated silence. In the evening there was a meeting for congratulation in State Street, where speeches were made by Hon. Henry Wilson, Joseph Lyman, and Thomas Russell. Similar meetings were held in other towns of Massachusetts, on receiving the news. The crowd in State Street moved to the house of Mr. Sumner, but he had left the city; then to the house of Mr. Adams, who said that he "was glad of the opportunity to be able to congratulate his friends upon the glorious triumph of Liberty in the election of Mr. Sumner"; then to the house of Richard H. Dana, Jr., who, being out of town, was represented by his venerable father, who said that he had "kept his bed until noon through illness, but, on learning the news of the election of Mr. Sumner, he suddenly became better." The language of leading journals attests the prevailing interest, and the deep sense of the issue that had been tried. A few of these will be mentioned, beginning with the Free-Soil organ in Boston, which thus announced the result: "In congratulating the world on this event, we congratulate the defeated themselves: for, if they did but know it, there is no firm basis for property except the equal rights of man; there can be no durable Union contrary to our immortal Declaration of Independence and the solemn preamble of our Constitution.... Those very men have the greatest reason to rejoice in our victory, for their _children_, if not for themselves."[67] [67] Daily Commonwealth, April 25, 1851.