The message’s style drew mixed reviews. In Cambridge, Charles Eliot Norton called it “an immense move forward in the right direction” but asked rhetorically: “could anything be more feebly put, or more inefficiently written? His style is worse than ever; and though a bad style is not always a mark of bad thought,—it is at least a proof that thought is not as clear as it ought to be.” The National Anti-Slavery Standard agreed that the message was “very obscurely written.” Less unfavorable was Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, which deemed it “sturdy, clumsy, inelegant and characteristic, having none of the sophomoric touches of Mr. Seward” and lacking “the lowest level of platitude by Edward Bates.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃