Whitelaw Reid: “You need not feel much anxiety about what people say of you.”

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

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

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…

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.