Whitelaw Reid: “Now that the Republic was beginning a new life, could it longer refuse them such rights as the Empire had accorded?”

It has proved, also, that universal suffrage is the surest guarantee and most powerful stimulus of individual, social and political progress.

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

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

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.