The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-10-29
Nveniua State yonraal.
LETTER OF HON. JUHN H. GILMER.
RICHMOND, October %, 1872.

RICHMOND, october 70, 1917.
10 tie Merchants. Hantyacturers, Mechanics oat
Working Men Of Richmond and Manchester.
respectfully but earn estly solicit YOU
c~onsiderate reflection on the few thoughts
to which / propose to direct your atten.
ton. On tomorrow week each of you
will declare by your ballot your individual
will on the great issues that day to be
decided. That ballot, when deposited,
will be your irrevocable will, and forever
beyond your reach or control. The results
Of that election will through all time di-
reetly influence your business and indus
trial interests-hence, the vital impor-
lance to each and all Of you of the moral
and political effect Of your vote. Not one
Of you, in any business transaction or
engagement, would wish to accomplish 1T
when in a passion, with your best judy
ment ~unhinged. How much more impor-
tant is it, in the aggregate, that on the occa-
sion referred to your decision should be rs
free from passion as it should be above all
prejudice, and the result of calm reflection
and well ascertained convictions.
In the speech recently made in this city
by Hon. r. M. I. Hunter, a direct, power
full and eloquent appeal was made to your
sectional pre~judices-local (politicaD antip-
athies-as a portion of the Southern people.
This was all not only wrong, but it was, if
responded to by your votes, fatally injudi-
cious. The time to fire the Southern
heart" has long since passed. 1t culmi-
mated in 1850, and was ended, l hope for
ever, in 1865. Reason, not defamation /;
judgment, not burning philppics, should
now claim your attention.
1t was just such wild defamation ON
the election Of Mr.. Lincoln, which sspre-
cipitated the revolution by bringing on
the late civil wal /; and those wild declama.
tons were, all over the country, uttered
by the very men and the very party which
now repeat them, among whom Mr.. Hun
ter was and is a distinguished leader.
The result of the first experiment is but
too well known to us all to allow any
judicious, rejecting business man to permit
his (s'Southern) heart to be again fred"
As l warned you then. so | warn you
now.
The Richmond Enquirer, in the issue
containing the reported speech of Mr.. Hun
ter, concluded its editorial in language as
infiammatory as it was painfully indiscreet.
What was meant by making (" the last
ditch a bloody chasm ?" Those words.
connected with the spirit of Mr.. Hunters
language, to my mind, awakened tn oughts
and recalled feelings which should not
be entertained or expressed anywhere
on the American continent. Is it pa
%triotic, is it judicious, is it proper
or express such sentiments? Shall not the
American people elect to the Presidency
their own chosen man, whether Republican,
4 ihoro1 Ronnhlrrop pr nap,oact r:tIo.k
being again threatened, in advance, with
another "bloody chasm 2" 1t has been
indiscreetly asserted by some of the SUD.
porters Of Mr.. Greeley, that if he was
elected General Grant would, by force,
hold over and make himself Emperor. No
more foolish u%tterance could ever fall from
the lips of a sane man.
No sane man, with a knowledge of the
spirit and genius of the American people,
could, even in secret, cherish such q
thought; and should some foreign Red Re-
publican, fresh from the teachings of Eu-
ropean Jacobnism, succeed in poisoning
the party or sectional hatred of any por-
ton of the American people to SO fatal an
extent, as is indicated in the spirit Of Mr..
Hunters speech, and disclosed in the Lam
guage of the Enquirer alluded to, and
such an attempt be made, they would be
crushed out and forever exterminated by
the American people. But not more speed
lily and surely than would be President
Grant were he under any circumstances to
attempt such a thing.
There is one fixed, irrevocable, ~inyinci.
BILE determination abiding with the Ameri-
can people, North, and South, East, and
West, and that is, that the Union shall not
be destroyed nor the government crushed
by factions, combinations, or revolutions.
Let all men keep this one fact always pres
emit and uppermost in their minds. and we
shall hear no more threats about " bloody
chasms." Men may fall into "chasms" -
there is not a :. chasm - in the wide world
broad enough or deep enough to swallow up
the United States. Parties may change,
men may change, issues may change, but
the Union is perpetual, as it rests on the
majesty of the people, and the perpstuity
Of the States. The man or party which
seeks to crush the States, or overthrow the
Union, may dig a bloody chasm for him
self and co-operators, but neither General
Grant or Mr.. Greeley, united in the effort,
with an army of 300, 900 men, could ever
overthrow the Union, and of course they
could not overthrow the States. There can
be no Union without the States, nor can
there be States without q Union. Let us
have peace"
From what / have said, allow me, with
the same sincerity and zeal, with which /
protested against firing the Southern
heart" in 1860, now advise you all, to
keep cool, to be tirm, to be stable in your
purposes, to be enlightened in your bust
ness polity, and put yourselves in proper
party relations with the Grant party, as
the truest, safest way to restore peace,
cultivate harmony, extend and employ
commerce, build up trade, and restore
every branch Of industrial occupation.
Away forever with these sectional discon-
tents. Put out Of sight for all future time
these distorted and untimely efforts to
arouse local prejudices and sectional pas
Mons.
When Mr.. Hunter seeks to build up the
fortunes of Mr.. Greeley, he strikes with
every word the party honor of Democrats,
and stabs with every proposition the man.
hood Of every true Virginian. 1t will be
much easier for Mr.. Hunter to indict and
convict Mr.. Greeley of the intention to be-
tray the South and pollute the Democratic
party than it will be for him to induce q
single informed and candid voter to believe
that General Grant, individually or as
President, was ever or ever will be an en-