“I sincerely regret that you have received from the hand of an assassin so serious a blow. I pray you may be saved from pain, and soon be brought to your seat in the Senate, and be long spared to defend the right and tell the truth. In this great city of money-worshippers, thank God, there are none to defend this act of cowardice and meanness. Your sufferings may be great and even prolonged by this scoundrelism, _but the life of Slavery will be much shortened_.” Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, famous for his early and constant warfare with Slavery, afterwards Minister of the United States at Petersburg, wrote:-- “I think your speech is far the best one delivered this session, and will confer upon you immortality as a parliamentary debater,--not merely a ‘maker of addresses,’ as your enemies would have it. I think it will stand right alongside with Webster’s reply to Hayne on the Foot resolution, which was his greatest effort in my judgment, and will be considered equal to it in apt classical allusion, strength of argument, bitter irony, and lofty patriotism. Perhaps the only drawback in the comparison is the studied arrangement of your speech, which, although assisting the memory in the public mind, savors too much of the pulpit, and ‘smells too much of the lamp.’ My dear Sir, I have said thus much of your speech because I think every orator would like to hear a candid criticism from any source, however humble. “The effect of your speech will be tremendous,--all the more effective on account of the sequel.” George W. Curtis, of New York, the elegant writer and speaker, wrote to George Sumner:-- “While the whole free country is testifying its respect for the statesman, and its honor for the brave defender of the only great cause in human politics, it is a privilege upon which I congratulate myself, that I may send my love to your brother. “Tell him that those of us whose pursuits are not political postpone them to the commanding interest of the time, and stand ready to prove our sympathy.