“Permit me, out of the fulness of my heart, to make to you my grateful acknowledgments for the most powerfully effective speech, in my humble opinion, against the ‘Barbarism of Slavery,’ ever made in this or any other country. Its _timeliness_, as well as its vital power, stirs within me the deepest emotions, which, indeed, are poorly expressed in subscribing myself as being your grateful and admiring friend and obedient servant.” H. O. Wagoner testifies to the sentiments of the colored people of Illinois, in a letter from Chicago:-- “For the great words you have spoken, and the ever-memorable services which you have just rendered in the Senate of the United States to the cause of my enslaved and down-trodden fellow-countrymen, I return you not only my own individual heartfelt thanks, but I venture to speak in the name and in the behalf of the seven or eight thousand colored people of the State of Illinois.… Could the poor slave but know the substance of that speech, the circumstances under which it was given, in the very face of the Slave Power,--I say could the slaves be made to comprehend fully all this, it would thrill their very souls with emotions of joy unspeakable.” * * * * * This collection, which might be extended, is concluded with a voice from the Land of Slavery. J. R. S. Van Vleet wrote from Richmond:-- “As a citizen of the ‘Old Dominion,’ and a hater of Slavery, I hereby send to you my unqualified approbation of your manly, bold, eloquent, and truthful exposition of the great crime of our common country; and let this come to you as from the slave-pens of Richmond, in the midst of which these lines are secretly written, and within which hundreds of human hearts this moment feel the crushing weight of the ‘Barbarism’ you have so faithfully illustrated. If these poor slaves were permitted to give you thanks, their dark and gloomy prisons for once would be made vocal with praise, and their tears of sorrowing and bitterness be changed to tears of joy. “If you knew the deep and secret interest which these people take in the great battle now waging, you would be stimulated in your efforts to hasten the day when we white men of Virginia could unite with the colored slave to celebrate our common emancipation.…