Whitelaw Reid: “Cotton was no longer king, but the cotton-maker was.”

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.

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

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.