Whitelaw Reid: “But, at the end, the man who marked out his own policy, and inflexibly pursued it, was found commanding a certain sort…”

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.

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

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

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.