Whitelaw Reid: “We are all washed under, and the most of us only live peaceable lives by the sufferance of our Rebel neighbors.”

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

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

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.

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