Whitelaw Reid: “But would a wise man kick the stepping-stone away?”

Public sentiment was against the sale of lands to the Yankees; “Get white laborers,” they urged, “and in a year you’ll make enough to be able to hold on to your lands.

Isn’t it better to have the laws in some way take the matter out of their hands and make them work?

They have covered many phases of the subject, but have preserved a singular uniformity of purpose and consistency of ideas throughout.

They appeared at times when public men often seemed to be groping in the dark on an unknown road, but it is now evident that the road which has been taken is substantially the road they marked out.