Whitelaw Reid: “They cannot fare any worse, and they have a chance that inheres in all things sublunary, of possible improvement.”

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.

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.

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.