Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1872-05-01
Letter From Gen. j. ID. ImbOden DIVA.

The following telegraph dispatch from Gin
ciunati is published in the New York Tribune
of yesterday. Wepubish it to show the senti-
ments of the writer of the letter, and Of the
course desired by some ofthose who areof his way
of thinking, in relation to them ovements now
Oh foot:
C1NcNNAL1, April 29-Virginia has
strong delegation present; the question OF can
didates. has not come up before the delegation
as body, although Mr.. Stearns announces the
majority in favor of acting with the delegation
from New York. Mr.. Stea.ns brings with
him letter from Gen. j. d. Imboden, which
in Virginia. After an introduction defining
bis own position, the General calls attention to
the Cincinnati movement as an absorption by
the new Republican party of the old Wings OF
the South; with this the majority OF the negro
population will join to overthrow the corrupt
carpet -baggers He continued:
| understand your aim at Cincinnati Will be,
first, to reform the gross abuses that ten or
twelve years Of absolute control of the Federal
Government has engendered in the Republican
party; and secondly to inaugurate new era
of good will and harmony between the lately
discordant sections, by embodying forgetiul.
ness and forgiveness of past differences in gene
raj amnesty for political offences. You and |
xnow Southern character we'll enough to feel
assured that such policy, frankly and mantul-
ly proclaimed, will bring to the party which
adopts it the warm, earnest, and constant sup
port of the intelligent and thinking men OF the
South, and that its success In the coming
Presidential election would lay the foundations
of party that would for long years to come
control the South, in spite of carpet-bag Radi-
calism, on the one hand, and fossil Democracy,
on the other. My opinion is that party, any to be
| permanently useful in the South must embrace
large proportion of both races.
! The Democratic party can never succeeds
| in winning to its support the great body. or,
| indeed, any considerable numbers OF the negro
population, for reasons that are founded upon
the history of the past ten years, and for equal
ly strong reasons, the Radical Republican party
can make no decided impression on the general
white population Of the South therefore, we
see that party lines here are almost synony-
nous with race-lines of domarkation. This
state Of things is productive OF much mischief
and tends to perpetuate struggle between the
races that, in the end, will force the weaker
race to their own destruction. 1t is lmposs-
BILE for the Democratic party to win the negro,
and DO movement it may put on foot will DO SOL
| therefore l esteem it most fortunate clrcum-
stance that this new movement originated 10
the Republican party, and is managed by dis
tinguished men Of that party.
The ticket to be put forward must be he.
publican or it will fail. You know the negro
character well enough to agree with me that
the mere subteties Of a platform will make no
impression on him unless that platform Is en-
bodied in the life and public career Of the can
didates representing it. They must be no new
men, but names familiar to the negro, even
when, with bated breath in the quarters cabin,
years ago, be discussed the possibilities of
emancipation. Through the agency OF these
early friends of his freedom, of whom he then
heard something, perhaps from the angry de-
dates Of contending parties on the stump,
which he would listen to, you must nominate
men whose names are associated with emancl-
patton before you approach the negro and ask
him to abandon the party to which he feels in
debted for his freedom.