Whitelaw Reid: “Marriage was unknown among them; breeding was enjoined as the first of duties; purity, delicacy and education were alike…”

They should strive for distinction by economy, by industry, by sobriety, by patient perseverance in well-doing, by constant improvement of religious instruction, and by the constant practice of Christian virtues.

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

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.