Glasgow weekly times. (Glasgow, Mo.) 1848-1861, 1858-01-14
From the N. Y. Herald.
The Crisis with the Democatic Party
The Prospect for 1880.

The Crisis with the Democatic Party
The Prospect for 1850.
The great and searching political revolu-
ton, which was commenced with the ad.
mlnistration Of Ioor Pierce, has at length
reduced the democratic party to the verv
verge Of dissolution. The once powerful !
whig party was wrecked and broken TO
pieces among the shoals aud reefs Of the
slavery question; and the formidable Amer.
can party, which grew up into an overshad-
owing national organization as in the course
OF single night, peri,hed under the blaze
Of the slavery excitement as Suddenly as Jo-
neh's gourd under the beams Of the noon
day 'un. The democratic party in its turn,
is now reduced TO the same ordeal, and from
all the signs of the times, it must suffer the
same fate of radical and decisive disrup-
tion.
The test, indeed, between the pro-slavery
ideas Of the South and the anti slavery SEN
timents Of the North, was very severely ap.
piled in the election Of 1856; and neither the
personal popularity, nor the conservative
antecedents Of Mr.. Buchanan nor the accom-
modating concessions Of the Cincinnati plat.
form would have saved him from a crushing
defeat but for the intervention Of Millard
Fillmore as an outside opposition candidate.
Thus Mr.. Buchanan was elected as General
Taylor was elected, and as Mr.. Polk was
elected, by the balance Of power which the
other side threw away upon third candid
ate; but, notwithstanding The respectable
vote polled in the North by Mr.. Fillmore, so
narrowly did Mr.. Buchanan escape a de-
feat, and so overwhelming was,he combined
vote ofthe opposition forces, in almost every
Northern State, that the general rts suit could
not fail TO convince every Northern Demo-
cratic politician that, from another such con-
test upon slavery. not vestige oi his party
would be left standing north of Maryland
and the Ohio river.
This view Of the subject throws flood oil
light upon the late Kansas coup d'ttat OF Mr..
Senator Douglas. We cannot satisfactorily
account for it upon mere personal disap-
pointments in reference TO the Admnlstra-
lion, nor in reference TO the ingratitude of
the fire-eaters of the Cincinnati Convention.
Self-preservation is the first law of nature,
and the main plank in the platform of every
politician; and with every aspirant for pu.
litical honors, charity begins a. home. Las,
autumn, in Illinois, the Democracy, upon
their State ticket, with Mr.. Richardson
House Chairman on the Kansas Nebraska
Bill, as their candidate for Governor were
signally defeated; and Mr.. Buchanan would
have shared in this defeat, but that the op
position, which was united upon the Cover
nor, was divided upon the President. The
Fillmore party were under the delnsiCn that
they could carry the Presidential election in
to Congress, il they could prevent the elec.
tion of Fremont by the people; and hence
the Know Nothing managers cheerluly as
sisted in making an opening for Mr.. Buc-
hanan in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indi.
ana and Illinois. The united opposition
could have carried all these States, under
the tremendous pressure of the Kansas ex.
citement; and OF this fact Mr.. Douglas and
his Northern Democratic supporters and or.
gans are fully aware.
For good or evil, North and South. We
are closing up the last chapter in the history
of that great national party which was or.
gonized under Gen. Jackson. Its prestige
of invinclbilty, its unity, its harmony, it:
discipline and its strength are gone. The
reconstruction Of its broken bat,alions de-
pends upon sectional issues raised by twc
little filibuters by the name OF Walker. VIZ
await the closing scenes Of the drama.