On three plantations, where I had the opportunity of watching their performance critically at various periods during a couple of months, I was convinced that when they were employed in gangs, under the supervision of an overseer who had the judgment to handle them to advantage, they did as well as any laborers.
Reid observes that with proper supervision, formerly enslaved individuals could perform labor comparably to other workers.
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It is my firm conviction, that suffrage is not only the best security for freedom, but the most potent agent of amelioration and civilization.
Our national experience has demonstrated that public order reposes most securely on the broad base of universal suffrage.
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…
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.