“When I obtained Wilson’s bill, which prohibited the denial by the States of _civil_ rights to persons on account of color or race, I wrote him to inquire why he had not said also _political_. The authority is certainly as clear for the latter as for the former. So, when, last evening, I read your resolution and speech, I was strengthened and rejoiced. Your positions are impregnable, and your speech, I think, the greatest of your life. We must stand there, or not at all.” In another letter, Mr. Washburn wrote:-- “When men as patriotic and sincere as I am, and a great deal wiser, sustain the Blaine Amendment, I am confounded, and don’t know what to make of it. To my mind it is most abhorrent, and I hope it will not receive the assent of Congress.” Rev. Rufus P. Stebbins, a Unitarian clergyman, wrote from Portland, Maine:-- “You have fought a good fight. The Amendment proposed was defeated. _Laus Deo!_ It was a blot too dark and foul to be permitted to stain the Constitution. To speak of ‘race and color’ in that instrument would be an insult to the men who framed it.” Rev. A. Battles wrote from Bangor, Maine:-- “As a native of Massachusetts, and more than that, as a lover of my race, I want to thank you for your timely and eloquent words in behalf of universal and impartial justice. I thank you also for voting against the Blaine Amendment. Though it might accomplish one desirable object, it was a concession to prejudice against color. The black man could hope for nothing through it. We want no more compromise.” Hon. William Greene, an enlightened citizen, who has held various public offices in Rhode Island, wrote from East Greenwich:-- “I beg to congratulate you as a friend, and to thank you as an American citizen, for the great speech recently delivered by you in the Senate. You have opened a new field of thought to American statesmen, and furnished a new book of elementary political lessons to the American people. It would seem almost impossible that such an effort should not tell grandly upon both.” Hon. Gerrit Smith, the devoted Abolitionist, formerly a Representative in Congress, wrote from Peterboro, New York:-- “God bless you for this noble speech which you have made against the Apportionment Amendment! I have this day read the part of it in yesterday’s New York _Tribune_. I long to read the whole of it.” In another letter, Mr. Smith wrote:-- “You are the keystone of our arch. If you fail, all falls.” Hon. N. Niles, formerly in the diplomatic service, wrote from New York:--