Whitelaw Reid: “And when war came, there came also the idea, gradually growing into settled conviction in the hearts of the people, that…”

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

They should persist in this claim respectfully, but firmly, taking care to bring no discredit upon it by their own action.

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.

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.