Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-11-30
The Drift Of Events-Southern DEM
oeratfc Opposition to Douglas.

Unquestionably Judge DOUGLAS is one OF
the Ablest politicians, in the contracted sense
Of that term, in the country. From the day
Of his entry into the Senate, he has devoted
himself with an ardcr and energy to his own
advancement, which have never been equal
lsd!sHe has mounted every hobby that prom
Used promotion, and rode it with fierceness
and a singleness of purpose that have enabled
him to outstrip all his competitors He hal
but one political eye and that is fixed stead
tasty and glaringly on the Presidency. If
his pathway to that glittering goal leads him
cross his party friends or even himself it is
all the same-he marches right on. There
appear to be put two contingencies that can
possibly prevent the ultimate consummstion
Of his hd es and lsbors. The first is the over
throw Of hslemocratic party-of which he
IL, to all reasonable intents, faithful mem
bnr. The otheris. complete and hopeless
decentralization of parties. If the first shall
occur, it will be no fault of his. He has
over and over again avowed his fealty to
denocracy-and he has been sustained by his
party, over the head of the President, in his
own. State and in other States of the North.
II the democracy of the country desire to
perpetuate its pretended nationality, it is
absurd for his quondam friends of the South
TO continue longer the bitter personal war
they have been sedulously making upon him
for the last twelve months. We can tell
them, II they cannot see it for themselves, he is
quite. as able to do them injury as they can pos
sibly be to injure him. II this war is keptup
to the point of driving DOUGLAS from the pale
Of the party, and his friends from the Charles
ton Convention, in going he will carry the
pillars of the temple with him, and leave des-
truction behind him. We have no such
romantic faith in the patriotism of Judge
DoUGLAs as would lead us to believe he
would relinquish all hope of individual pre-
ferment. for the harmony of the party. His
entire career contradicts such supposition.
Surely it is dangerous to hold on to him, but
infinitely more SO to let him go.
But il the Southern democratic leaders de-
sire to bring to pass the other contingency,
that Of sectionalizing the country hopelessly,
let them by all means drive DOUGLAS from
their ranks. So far as they are concerned,
this will be the direct, immediate and inevita-
BILE effect of his ostracism and election from
the party. Do they desire this? If they do
will they avow it? Let this question be an
swered. We put it directly 10 all the anti
Douglas organs of the South, great and small.
We make no defence of DOUGLAS. As pol
itcian we despise him, and have always done
-. But we can say, with equal truth and
propriety, that we as warmly contemE those,
who, desiring at heart a dissolution Of the
Union, seek to kick him from the party to
which he has always belonged and to which
he still avows undivided allegiance, as the
speediest probable means of concentrating
their reasonable designs. Granting, so far
as the purposes of this argument is concerned
aud the guilt of the disunionists is involved,
that the American party is and will continue
powerless, what else but the election of a
black republican could result from detection
OF DOUGLAS and his associates and friends
from the nominee of the Charleston Conven-
tion. JEFFERSON DAVIS has recently pro-
claimed that such an event would be ample
Q iuse for dissolution of the Union. Is it in
this indirect way that the fire-eaters and dis
uniOnists South, are seeking to disrupt and
destroy the UniOnf If so, we repeat, let
them avow it. 1t is as well to make the issue
between sectioDalism and nationalism, union
and disunion, now as at any other time-as
well that it should be made on the course of
DOUGLAS as on any other subject. There are
myriads Of honest, conservative, patriotic
democrats in the South, who want to know
whittier they are drifting, in this anti-Douglas
crusade. Let the motive be explained, and
Let the contest be open and direct.