To his son Wendell he wrote:2
I was much gratified to receive a letter from Harry3 yesterday, warmly commending my rejoinder to Mr. Blaine in the Tribune. Indeed, I am equally pleased and surprised to see how favorably it is regarded by the press generally. I am receiving on all hands the strongest expressions of satisfaction in regard to it.4 I need not say that your cordial approval was fully appreciated.
1 Mr. Garrison tried to prod the Massachusetts Legislature to similar action, but without success.
2 Ms. Mar. 4, 1879.
4 The Chinese Minister at Washington was one of the first to send his thanks. Among the many letters received by Mr. Garrison was one from Wong Ar Chong, an intelligent Chinaman (Ms. Feb. 28), closely dissecting and answering Blaine's charges, and another from W. H. Besse, a New Bedford sea-captain, who testified warmly in favor of the Chinese, from thirty years knowledge of them (Ms. Feb. 27). From San Francisco came an unexpected letter from John A. Collins (ante, 2: 277), from whom Mr. Garrison had heard nothing directly or indirectly for many years, and a pleasant correspondence and interchange of photographs followed. To his friend A. J. Grover of Chicago, Mr. Garrison wrote (Ms. March 7): ‘It is essentially the old anti-slavery issue in another form—whether one portion of mankind may rightfully claim superiority over another on account of birth, descent, or nativity, or for any other reason, and deny to them those rights and interests which pertain to our common humanity. After the successful struggle to emancipate the Southern bondmen from their chattelized condition and to elevate them to the plane of American citizenship, I did not imagine that any occasion could arise on our soil for the persecution of any other class, because “not to the manner born.” . . . The paradoxes of human nature are as grotesque as they are inscrutable.’ The colored people of New York protested, in public meeting, against the proscription of the Chinese, having known themselves ‘what it was to belong to a despised and persecuted race.’
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