Whitelaw Reid: “It is a golden opening—but the free laborers decline to step into it.”

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.

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.

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

They should persist in this claim respectfully, but firmly, taking care to bring no discredit upon it by their own action.