Whitelaw Reid: “No negroes were going to work steadily and successfully without the aid of Anglo-Saxon organization and direction.”

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

He who has that right will usually respect himself more, be more respected, perform more, and more productive work, and do more to increase the wealth and welfare of the community, than he who has it not.

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…