Whitelaw Reid: “There was genuine reluctance to take the steps which recent circumstances and the national committals for half a century…”

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.

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

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.

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