Whitelaw Reid: “If we dawdle, and hesitate, and lead them to think we fear them and fear trouble, our trouble will be great.”

It is my firm conviction, that suffrage is not only the best security for freedom, but the most potent agent of amelioration and civilization.

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.

May it not prove, moreover, in that work of reorganization, which now engages the thoughts of all patriotic men, that universal suffrage is the best reconciler of the most comprehensive lenity with the most perfect public security and the…

And it is both natural and right that colored Americans, entitled to the rights of citizens, should claim their exercise.