Whitelaw Reid: “What Duty requires us to take, an enlightened regard for our own interests will require us to hold.”

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.

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

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.

It is my firm conviction, that suffrage is not only the best security for freedom, but the most potent agent of amelioration and civilization.