Whitelaw Reid: “Convince the natives of your irresistible power and your inexorable purpose, then of your desire to be absolutely just…”

Let me repeat, that I think it best for all men—white men, black men, and brown men, if you make that distinction, that all men of proper age and unconvicted of crime, should have the right of suffrage.

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.

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

In this way they will surely overcome unjust hostility, and convince even the most prejudiced that the denial to them of any right which citizens may properly exercise is equally unwise and wrong.