"You must allow me to thank you for your reply to the assaults of Mr. Pettit and Mr. Clay. It is a personal matter with me, and all of us; for we have felt ourselves insulted, and we are satisfied. I have read all your speeches in the Senate with instruction and gratification; but this has warmed me so that I cannot withhold my thanks, though I trespass on your time. The whole community feels as I do. Men stop their business to ask each other if they have read Mr. Sumner's speech, and even men calling on me to visit their sick families forget their errand till they have put the universal question. We have hitherto admired your forbearance, but your reply is as dignified and noble as your forbearance, while it is strong, rich, and Saxon. We have had nothing like it since the Hülsemann letter. I will say no more, but I could say no less." Theophilus P. Chandler, Esq., of Boston, wrote:-- "I cannot express the pleasure your friends have enjoyed at the result of the late Senatorial conflict. Old Fogies read your speech with satisfaction, although some complain of the Jackson doctrine." Count Gurowski wrote from Newport:-- "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." Rev. William H. Furness, the distinguished divine and devoted Abolitionist, wrote:-- "I congratulate you upon having been blackguarded and denounced. It has redounded to your honor. It has proved a rare success. 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 like rabid dogs, with the intent to tear you in pieces. They have not done it, nor will they." Hiram Barney, Esq., of New York, wrote:-- "I congratulate you on that day's work. It was well and nobly done. I have seen something of your assailants, and know something of their habits and manners, and can appreciate your forbearance. It is a shame that you should be obliged to meet so much that is disgusting to the taste and shocking to the moral sense in the American Senate. But it is a matter of just pride that the friends of Freedom there are gentlemen, and always win upon the field of argument."