Whitelaw Reid: “Some exclaim that Americans are incapable of colonizing or of managing colonies; that there is something in our national…”

I asked the old man what he wanted to learn to read for.

We are all washed under, and the most of us only live peaceable lives by the sufferance of our Rebel neighbors.

But, in the main, they are surprisingly orderly, and cases of serious violence among them are quite rare.

Our national experience has demonstrated that public order reposes most securely on the broad base of universal suffrage.