Whitelaw Reid: “No public duty is more urgent at this moment than to resist from the very outset the concession of such a possibility.”

It has proved, also, that universal suffrage is the surest guarantee and most powerful stimulus of individual, social and political progress.

They should strive for distinction by economy, by industry, by sobriety, by patient perseverance in well-doing, by constant improvement of religious instruction, and by the constant practice of Christian virtues.

Never was there a problem more serious or difficult than that which is now before the Nation, as to this race, whose destiny has been confided to the wisdom and honor of our Government.

And it is both natural and right that colored Americans, entitled to the rights of citizens, should claim their exercise.