The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-10-17
evening State 9n,.rnaI.

Speech of Colonel Popham In Fredericksburg--
Tremendous Outpouring of the Whites TO
Hear Him-He Speaks Nearly two Hours
Before Colonel Withers Arrives.
To the Editor Of the State Journal:
Well may the excited telegraphc cores
pondents of the Dispatch and Enquirer call
the meeting in Fredericksburg last night a
rich, rare and racy occasion. See how
ridiculous it is in them to say that the Con-
servatives, on hearing of the joint discuss
sion, focked to the scene in large numbers,
when the fact is that Colonel Popham, who
did not commence until eight o'clock, had
spoken to the large crowd more than an
hour and half before it was even known
that Colonel Withers was on the ground.
When Withers arrived, Popham, with a
glove of velvet concealng his iron hand"
was beating the lifeless body of poor Mr..
Greeley, having reserved this as the dessert
of the feast. Indeed, when Withers ar
rived, he was about reading from Withers'
own journal, the Richmond Enquirer, that,
according to the belief of that paper, in
1869 Horace Greeley is an incompetent, q
visionary, a vagarist, lobbyist, an expe-
rrnentalist-an eccentric old philosopher
and phlanthropist, ready to run tilt on
behalf of woman's rights, spiritualism,
polygamy or any one of thousand whims
and isms, liable to be Matched in his throb-
bling, bursting, wavering brain.
AS this was believed to be the pro-
duction of either Colonel Withers or Mr..
Southall, of Albemarle, of course it be.
came the duty of the Colonel to ''rise and
explain" which he finally did, by denying
all personal responsibility for it. Again,
the Colonel's arrival was just in time to
hear the charges and proofs of Popham
that Horace Greeley is an i,acirable mono
maniac on great number of subjects. and
so regarded where he lives by distinguished
Democratic personages. like Hon. A. Oakley
Hall, Mayor of New York.
The whites who had turned out to hear
Popham had been struck aghast by the in
cisive, cutting poniard-lke assault on Mr..
Greeley, and when Colonel Withers came
to speak his halfhour, (only fifteen minutes
longer in alD he found himself the leader of
forlorn hope. He never touched the
subject under dissection, but in his despe-
ration went off'into the treatment of an
imaginary irrepressible conflict between
the whites and blacks, all based on the
evidence before him that the colored men
were against Old Imbecility las heretofore
named by the Democrats). 'He attempted
to draw blood from Popham by charging
him with. changing his spolitics, and
thus fell into his own pit by
enabling Popham to show that he
is the same Liberal Republican now that
he was in 1859, and that his change con-
sisted in refusing to follow the fraudulent
Walker movement into the slough of the
Democratic party, where he now finds it.
1t also gave him excuse to show up how
the Democratic candidate for Governor in
1869, standing on the platform of hostility
to the political rights of the negroes, of
hatred and antagonism to the Constitution,
was now convicted if not a converted
sinner, singing and praying with his colored
brethren, and berating them for not doing
in ~ what he declared he didn't want
them to do 1869, which was to vote for him
or his party.
AS to Popham's speech, to be apprecia-
ted it must have been heard. 1t was SIM
ply so fortified with facts and confessions
from their own leaders and newspapers as
to close the mouths of the opposition. 1t
was unanswerable, and so skilfully drawn
and impartially put as to cut its way
through the hardest prejudice. There is
death in it to the opposition. AS to the
skinning he received, all who know him
understand that to be an absurdity. Flashy
penny-a-liners and partisan scribblers may
gull an absent public with the belief that
sone other Republican speaker has been
skinned, but never Popham. He sleeps
too many packs up his sleeve" to be beaten
at that game. In a word he plays this
game in way that Col. Withers will have
cause for a long time to both remember
and despise. AN EYEWITNESS.