Or shall the historian record that at this unexampled crisis they were controlled by timid ideas and short-sighted views, and so proved unequal to the duty and the opportunity which unforeseen circumstances brought to their doors?
Reid warns that history may judge the American people harshly if they fail to act decisively during a crisis.
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And it is both natural and right that colored Americans, entitled to the rights of citizens, should claim their exercise.
Our national experience has demonstrated that public order reposes most securely on the broad base of universal suffrage.
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.