“I admire and applaud the tenacity with which you advocate the equal rights of all men of all races under one Constitution and Government.… I hope you will stand up for the Asiatics as well as for the negroes. They are now treated as brutes in some of our States.” Cephas Brainerd, lawyer, and arbitrator under the last treaty with England against the Slave Trade, wrote from New York:-- “Nearly all the copies of your great speech that I obtained have been circulated, and I don’t find any one who dares deny the correctness of the doctrines you lay down. It has my hearty assent, and I have subjected it to the examination which the argument of an opposing counsel receives from me. I consider that very many of your Senatorial speeches will be quite as permanent as any of Burke’s productions; but this last seems to be as enduring as the Constitution of our country, whether as the foundation of a government or as a matter of mere study.” Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, always on the watch-tower, wrote from Brooklyn, New York:-- “Although I do not think with you on the specific change in the Amendment which you advocate, I cannot forbear expressing my thanks for your noble speech, which has the merit of rising far above the occasion and object for which it was uttered, and covering a ground which will abide after all temporary questions of special legislation have passed away. “I wish that your oration might be in every school library in the Union. May your life be prolonged, and every year add some new jewel to the crown of fame, that, when you go to a higher sphere, men will place upon your name!” Rev. A. P. Putnam, Unitarian clergyman, also wrote from Brooklyn, New York:-- “I bless God for the firm and lofty stand you have taken, and the people will yet see, if they do not now see, that it is the only wise and sure one for Union- and Freedom-loving men to take. Would that all loyal men, especially the great Union party, could see it to be their duty and their interest to meet boldly and grandly the issue which the President seems determined to force upon them!” Rev. F. C. Ewer, anxious against compromise, wrote from New York:--