Whitelaw Reid: “The sugar-planters had all ostentatiously proclaimed that the Emancipation Proclamation had demoralized their labor and…”

Ordinarily the simple performance of duty is so blessed of God, that men who live in the doing of it, are the best off, in all respects, even in this world.

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.

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

Our national experience has demonstrated that public order reposes most securely on the broad base of universal suffrage.