In any event, the Government would be apt to realize very little from the effort, and it would lose far more in a wasted opportunity for diffusing good feeling and promoting the revival of industry than it would gain in cotton.
Reid argues that the government's efforts to seize cotton would ultimately be counterproductive to rebuilding the South's economy.
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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.
It is my firm conviction, that suffrage is not only the best security for freedom, but the most potent agent of amelioration and civilization.
It has proved, also, that universal suffrage is the surest guarantee and most powerful stimulus of individual, social and political progress.
And it is both natural and right that colored Americans, entitled to the rights of citizens, should claim their exercise.