Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-06-15
The Condition and Prospects of Par.
tfes-The Recommendation.


Tin 1856, three parties entered the cam
paign fol- the Presidency-each on its dis
tinctive platform. The result developed
the fact that neither was in a majority, that a
majority of the people of the Union was then
not willing to place either of them in power.
There was, however. a majority of the elec
toral college in favor of one of the candidates.
and he was placed in the Executive chair of
the government. Since that period, change
has been wrought, which will render it impos-
sible for the successful party to maintain its
nominal supremacy beyond the term of the
present administration. To be sure, this is a
matter Of conjecture ct the present moment,
but it is based upon such facts and manifesto
tons of popular sentiment, as that it amounts
to moral certainty. The recent dismember-
ment of that party into Northern aud South
ern factions was necessary result OF their
duplicity and the antagonistic constructions
which they placed on the Kansas-Nebraska
Bill and which were fully exposed on tsvery
first application, as principle in the admis-
sion of States. The ensuing Congressional
elections st the North, will effectually deprive
nationality. The leaders of the Southern de-
mocracy have for several years heen drifting
into extremisrn, and are now on the verge Of
pure sectionalism. They cannot continue
their course and preserve their alliance with
the members of their party North. They will
have to moderate tleir views, to suit the
North, or be content to glide into avowed Sec
tionalsm. If the former, they will inevitably
lose the entire strength of the hre-eaters of
the South in which event, and in any event,
they will stand powerless before the country.
1t il possible and perhaps not improbable,
that they may attempt to bring forward some
new and comparatively obscure man from the
North, and make the canvass, as in 1852, by
holding him up as the right man for the
North, at the North, and ditto for the South
at the South. But this is difficult from the
fact that there are powerful and ambitious as
pirants in the party North and South, who
will not tamely allow their claims to be indie
fnitely postponed Besides, if this were pos
sible, the political sins of the party, of omis-
sion and commission, are so many SO fragrant
and SO utterly and deeply scorned and con-
demned by the masses, that all hope of their
future success would seem extinct, even in the
breasts of the most sanguine and hopeful. So
well satisfied of the correctness of these views
we, that we do not believe they could be
materially modified by any contingency that
could possibly arise between this and 1860,
even a war with England, to say nothing of
Brigham Young OF course, this reading of
the signs of the times will never be assented
to by the democratic leaders, until what is
now conjecture shall become history. But let
it be pondered by the cool and rejecting por-
ton of that party, and they will, in the course
of couple of years. be ready to admit that |
it is neither fanciful, nor the offspring of par
tiZan feeling.
On the other hand the Republican party is |
sectional in body, soul and spirit. While it |
claims nationality, it never has obtained
foot-hold in the South; did not have au cleo
toral ticket in any Southern State in 1856,
and will not in 1860, except in Missouri,
which is being overrun with a northern and
foreign population hostile to her institutions.
1t is absurd for that party, as at present or
ganized and controlled, ever to think for a
jects or actions. 1t is the natural enemy of
nationality, as well as of the equality of the
States and people, contemplated by the FEEDER
al constitution. 1t finds its only opposing |
counterpart in the spirit of sectionalism
that pervades the democratic party Of the |
South. 1t had its birth in unholy and unpa-
triotic agitation, and can perpetuate its exist
tence by no other means.
If then, then democratic party of the South |
shall follow the lead of such men as DAVIS, of |
Miss, and KErrT, of S. c. and such organs as
the New Orleans Delta and the Richmond
South, the first secessionists, and the last hot
disunionists, they ut once furnish fuel to the
black republican fire; and so far as these par
ties are concerned, inevitably bring on a con-
test between the sections such. To oil those
who believe that the time for disruption of
the Union is at hand. North and South, these
parties afford a chance for enlistment. To all
who believe that the chief business of the
government, is to extend the area of slavery,
or to contract the area of slavery, by Con-
offered to try it. That such contest
would prove disastrous to the South, which is
numerically the weaker party, there are none
who will question and that the success of
the North, on the platform that the South
shall be deprived equal rights in the occupa-
ton and enjoyment of the common property
OF the Union, by written law, would lead in
evitably to dissolution, is hardly less ques-
tionable.
1t remains then to ascertain who are for the
Union, and the equal ard just rights Of the
States and the people, in the occupation, use
and enjoyment of the territories This in
quiry is of the profoundcst significance and
most pressing Importance just now, because it
is indispensable that it should be answered be-
and then again at the ballot-box, in the voice
Of a majority sufficient to preserve the Union
and crush its enemies The American party
, as occupied this ground from the beginning,
and all those who have stood by it, North and
South, though spurned by the black republic
cans of the North, and misrepresented by the
democracy of the South, are ready still to
and the equal rights OF all the States under
the provisions and guarantees of the Consti-
tuition. They have been, from the outset, the
open and avowed enemies of slavery agitation,
and hence of sectionalism. Whatever recon-
struction may take place, or whatever name
any new party may assume, 1t must, thus far
at least, occupy this identical ground 1t
must also adopt such measures as will pro-
mote the best interests Of the Union aud good
government aud frown upon whatever is mimi
cal TO it. That foreign immigration. and the