“And speaking of Kansas, I may here say that a number of leading Kansas men have called on Mr. Sumner to assure him that the _Tribune’s_ idea, that his speech injured the prospect of the admission of their State, never found lodgement in their minds. They thank him for it, and assure him, that, of their own knowledge, the fate of the bill was decided before he took the floor.” The _New York Evening Post_, after observing that the speech was “elaborate, learned, eloquent, and exhaustive of every topic on which it touched,” said:-- “Though nominally relating to the bill for the admission of Kansas, his remarks took a wider range, and were a general arraignment of the system of Slavery, as it exists in the Southern States of this Union, in all its moral, political, and social aspects.… “No one, we presume, can fail to admire the ability and cogency of this address; but whether the peculiar line of argument was called for at this time, or whether it will aid in the passage of the Kansas Admission Bill, may admit of doubt.” The _New York Times_ was as little sympathetic as the _Tribune_. “From beginning to end it was a vehement denunciation of Slavery. The labor of four leisure years seems to have been devoted by Mr. Sumner to collecting every instance of cruelty, violence, passion, coarseness, and vulgarity recorded as having happened within the Slave States, or as having been committed by a slaveholder.… But, aside from its utter irrelevancy to the Kansas Question, what general good can be hoped for from such envenomed attacks upon the Slave States? Do they tend in any way to promote the public welfare? Do they aid in the least the solution of what every sensible man acknowledges to be the most delicate and difficult problem of this age?” Then, in another number, the _Times_ said:-- “Fortunately, it has commanded less attention than was anticipated, and has encountered silence in some quarters, and positive disapproval in others, usually disposed to judge speeches of this class with the utmost forbearance. Even the _Tribune_, while it has published the speech in its editions intended mainly for the country, has not deemed it judicious or wise to give it circulation among its city readers; and some of the most decided Republican papers in the country have protested against the injustice of holding the party responsible for its sentiments.” The _New York Herald_ took advantage of the speech to hold up the consequences of “Black Republicanism.” On the day after the delivery, it wrote thus:--