The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-12-04
LKrrEa rRou COLONEL r.. w. nueHEs
AB1xepoS, Va, Mou. 29th, 1872.

ABINGDON, Va, Nov. 29th, 1872.
Col. JoHS w. JKvxlNs, Elector at Large !:
Dear Sir I'll have received your letter,
but fear shall no. be in Richmond on
the 4th of December. should be very
glad to exchange congratulations with the
electors on tie signal result we have
achieved in Virginia.
That result, 80 confidently expected by
you and me, but go astounding to our pc.
litical opponents, does not admit of doubt
ful interpretation.
The Conservative leaders conducted the
.nvs,s with unusual energy and talent.
They brought to bear all the persuasive
and coercive appliances which they possess
ia such affuent abundance. And having
failed. they must ascribe their defeat to
something else than popular indifference !;
which can be mono other than a plea Of
Standardization.
Almost the entire press of the State was
in their service--a press of extraordinary
ability bold, confident, intoerant, and
abusive Boosting, and convincing its read
ers, of certain and overwhelming success.
Almost every State and county Office
holder, and every expectant candidate tor
State and county Office, was conspicuously
active for them. The almost unanimous
bar, and nearly all the practiced public
speakers, were industriously in the field in
their behalf. The great body of the wealth
and education of the State gave them aid
and comfort, countenance and encourage
ment, pecuniary help, and monopoly of
that commodity of the wealthy class called
s'respectability. Finally, they had abso-
lutte command of the county judges, who
appoint all registering officers and judges
Of elections; and these formed a working
staff three thousand strong, and constituted
q machinery itself worth ten to twenty
thousand votes. The accustomed appli-
ances for coercing the poor, and intimida-
ting the yielding into terms, were in stern
and vigorous activity everywhere. And
vet. marvellous to themselves, they failed
They polled only about 10000 OF the $780,
600 votes which they claimed to possess.
1t will not do to pretend that thirty thou
sand voters were indifferent to the result.
The canvass had been too active and en-
Uttered to allow OF indifference. The 81
lence of these voters, under the sharp goad.
ing applied to them was, on the contrary,
pointed Reputation of the party leaders
who had arrogated their support 1t was
popular protest against the candidate,
the politics, and the conduct of those lead
ers and declaration of independence
of them by the thirty thousand. Still
more, it was a virtual announcement by
these Conservatives, that although Gen.
Grant was the chief of party which
they had been taught to hate, and were not
fully ready to join, they yet desired his
election, and would do nothing to prevent
it,
The perfectly absurd choice which the
Conservative leaders had made of q presi
DENTAL candidate, rendered it party me-
cessity with them to blacken the character
of Gen. Grant; they labored in that task
with sc,upnlous zeal but the silence of
thirty thousand men who had always been
with them in politics, was notable testi-
monisl of respect for the President, and
crushing rebuke of his Virginia revilers.
In truth, the judgment of our people was
on the side of the Republican policy and
it was only the tyranny and terrorism OF
party, that forced as many as 10000 only
FAR enough away from it, to vote for a
'qiberar' Republican. Last spring vari
GUS influential Conservatives said to me,
that they saw no objection to Gen. Grant,
and expected to support him and to can
vass for him. was surprised to find af-
forwards, that these men were smitten
with the midsummer madness !" and
still later 10 hear their voices loudest above
the rest among the defamers of the Presi
dent. Their FIRST and better purpose was
in accord with the spirit of the people.
Under the spell of the party whip, they
changed but the people refused to change
with them.
believe that the thoughtful and consci-
entious masses of this Commonwealth are
in sympathy with the national Republican
party, in its loyalty to the Union, in its
sanction of the principles of reconstruc.
ton, and in its approval of Gen. Grants
administration. Even as early as 1862 the
originators of the Walker movement"
felt it necessary in their call, to declare
that large majority of the people were
DESTROYS OF adopting the great principles
snunciated by The Republican party -
and does any one suppose that they could
have secured 49, 900 votes in that election
upon any other platform? You and |, and
the other native men who have advocated
Republican principles since the war, could
not have withstood the ordeal of obloquy
through which we have passed, but for the
sustaining conviction that the latent con.
science of the Virginia people was with us.
Men whom we saw joining in the popular
clamor against US in public, would assure
Us in private of their approval.
The natural condition of Virginia is to
be in cordial allegiance to the Union. Her
early statesmen were the most active agents
in assembling the national convention which
framed the national constitution Of 1887,
and inyprocuring the adoption of that in
strument by the States. They had mag
unanimously silenced the objection that Vir-
ginia's large western territory would give
her perpetual ascendancy in the Union, by
donating it all--153 ,0o0, 900 of acres--as a
free gift, and common domain, to the
Union. She subscribed to the sentiments
Of Wasbington's Farewell Address, and
cherished them with filial devotion long
after they were bequeathed to the country.
She endorsed the notable declaration OF
Andrew Jackson-the Union, ii must and
shall bepreserrel and upheld Gen. Jack
son in bis assertion of the supremacy Of
the Union over the States, and in his de-
terminal on to, put down the instruction
of a Safe with the strong hand. This at
tachment of Virginia to the Union was
not merely an Inherited sentiment, but q
profound policy. Her location is centra
upon the Atlantic seaboard, and she pos.
~. T.