“You will be glad to know that among all thoughtful men of our side your speech is commended without a qualification. There is no sympathy with the cowardice of the mere politicians, in the fear that it may excite the bad passions of the South, and provoke them to do some dreadful thing. I think the general wish is that _the whole truth_ should be boldly spoken, and that the crisis, whatever it may be, may come soon. The indications now are that the South will have an opportunity to make up its mind what it will do about it.” John Neal, the veteran of American literature, wrote from the same city:-- “I have just finished the reading of your great and conclusive speech upon the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ and I have only to say that I go with you heart and soul, and that I concur entirely in the opinion expressed by the venerable Josiah Quincy of your argument. “Your manliness, your Christian forbearance, your plainness of speech, and your unexaggerating truthfulness are all of a piece, and I desire to thank you in the name of this whole generation for what you have done and suffered and said.” Hon. James S. Pike, also of Maine, for many years a journalist, afterwards Minister of the United States at The Hague, wrote from Cape May:-- “I think you have got hold of a heavy sledge, and hit between the horns at every lick. The style of treatment will do as much towards bringing the beast upon his knees as any other, and the duty is peculiarly appropriate at your hands. I am very sure you are right, and feel prompted to say so.” Hon. John Appleton, the learned jurist, and Chief Justice of Maine, wrote from Bangor:-- “I owe you thanks for your able and unanswerable speech, which came in my absence. More truth was never condensed in one speech. But woe to those by whom it so becomes the truth!” Hon. Moses Emery, an eminent citizen, wrote from Saco, Maine:-- “Permit me to say I have read it through twice, and parts of it many times, and that I consider it the most glorious and most needed speech ever made in the United States. I rejoice that you have been spared to make it. But be on your guard. The Demon of Slavery will be revenged, if possible.” Thomas H. Talbot, a lawyer, who argued well against the Fugitive Slave Act, wrote from Portland, Maine:-- “I rejoice at your determination to tell the whole truth, so much needed now, when many acting with you either do not perceive it or are willing to withhold it, for reasons of false, fleeting policy. So far you seem not seriously to have been molested; and yet that you have really achieved freedom of speech in Washington upon that subject, and to the extent of your speech, seems almost too much to hope for at present.” Hon. Woodbury Davis, an earnest Republican, afterwards Justice of the Supreme Court of Maine, wrote from Portland:--