Whitelaw Reid: “Suppose it to be merely a war in defense of our own just rights and interests.”

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.

In this way they will surely overcome unjust hostility, and convince even the most prejudiced that the denial to them of any right which citizens may properly exercise is equally unwise and wrong.

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