The Anticipated Schism in the Democratic Party

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THE ANTICIPATED SCHISM IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

Every day fresh evidence is accumulating that Judge Douglas did not make his coup d’etat against the Lecompton Constitution¹ without first feeling the ground he stood on. Already the democracy of the Northwest has pronounced with one voice in favor of his position; the Chicago Times, his own organ, the Detroit Free Press, the organ of Gen. Cass, the Columbus O., Statesman, Col. Medary’s paper—the three leading democratic papers of their respective States, are out in his favor. The Free Press reports a mass meeting of the Democracy of Detroit, at which Judge Douglas’s speech was formally endorsed. The Statesman gives a list of nearly all the Democratic papers in Ohio, as having expressed approval of Douglas’s course. Mayor Wentworth, of Chicago, reports that none but office holders in that city, and not all of them, are displeased with the Senator’s course.

In the South, too, the second sober thought will very likely convince all but disunionists and fire-eaters, that the course taken by Mr. Douglas is the only one which can save the Democratic party from defeat in every Northern state. The Richmond Enquirer pertinently asks—

“Is there any Southern man who desires to drive Senator Douglas from us by precipitate denunciation? Are we of the South so strong that we can bow-string the great representative men of the North, with as few of the forms of justice, and with as little investigation, as a Turkish Pasha exhibits when at a sign the head of some offending satrap is sent spinning from his shoulders?”

The mass meeting in New York last night, intended as a rebuke to Douglas and support of the President, was in that intent a failure.

But the President does not stand alone, by any means, even in the North. As long as he has appointments to make and spoils to dispense, there will be both “organs” and adherents to endorse every word he utters, and approve every step he takes. We are not therefore surprised to find that the N.Y. News, the Brooklyn Eagle, and the Jersey Telegraph, rally to his support, considering the Lecompton Constitution a marvellously proper bantling. The only trouble is, however, that the people of Kansas evidently think differently.

The General Democratic Committee of the County of Kings have called a mass meeting to be held the week after next, to ratify the measures of the Administration, including the sentiments of the Message on the Kansas Constitution. We advise the committee on resolution to “draw it mild” on Senator Douglas—or inconvenience may hereafter result. Least said, soonest mended.

It has been hinted, however, that the aim of the office holding Democrats in this State is to place Dickenson on the track for 1860, instead of Douglas; that the adhesion of Mayor Wood has been secured, by setting him down for United States Senator when Seward’s term expires. But by the time Dickenson can get a Presidential, and Wood a Senatorial nomination, there will be no party left to sustain them. That’s all.

The New York Herald, supposed to be the administration organ, fears that—

With the democratic party, as a national organization, the sun has gone down. The Rubicon has been crossed by Mr. Douglas, and whatever may be the solution of the Kansas squabble, we may look for the disruption of the democracy, North and South, and the reconstruction of all parties for the succession upon sectional platforms and sectional candidates. Kansas, as the case now stands, from all the lights before us, admitted as a free State or as a slave State, upon any terms, will be sufficient for the dissolution of the democratic party, North and South.

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