Vallandigham's fate mobilized Lincoln's critics, including some Republicans. Railroad executive Erastus Corning convened a political meeting in Albany, where participants drafted a letter to Lincoln denouncing the actions as unconstitutional. Politically, Lincoln felt he should respond, as he did in his famous Corning letter. As with his July 4, 1861, speech, the rhetoric surpassed the reasoning. "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts," he wrote, "while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?" By choosing to respond when and as he did, Lincoln erred, for he would up defending one of the most egregious infringements of civil rights rather than the many more that were less controversial.