Whitelaw Reid: “The more I see of them, the more I am convinced that they are a totally different class of people, and can never…”

Ordinarily the simple performance of duty is so blessed of God, that men who live in the doing of it, are the best off, in all respects, even in this world.

It has proved, also, that universal suffrage is the surest guarantee and most powerful stimulus of individual, social and political progress.

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.

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.