Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-04-01
The Decadence of the Democratic

The Decadence of the Democratic
Party.
The law of retributive justice is certain.
Fortune generally lengthens the career of the
feIon till his evil example becomes terror,
and his life can be appropriately closed in in
fanny. As this is true in the moral, so IL is
about to be verified in the political world.
The democratic party is about TO become
striking and powerful illustration. To re-
count its sins separately and in detail would
be but the serted repetition of matters, familiar
as household words. We have spent many
years each containing distinct germs of dis
aster to the country-in honest but too often
unavailing endeavors to warn the patriotic peo-
pie against the evil tendencies of democracy,
as understood and practiced within these
years. We have neither the breath nor the
stomach to undertake so long and loathsome
q task this morning. Happily for us, but I'M
happily for the State, the snake is scotched,
and with its own fangs. 1t has been drawing
its constructing coils around the government
so long, that even its selfdestructiOn may not
bring relief to its weakened victim. A husky
voice comes from the very throat Of the great
Boa, Kissing the terrible doom and ascribing
it to corruption, foul and fostering self-cor-
ruption. Here are few sentences, as given
the Memphis 4 Ppeal, by Z" a distinguished
Senator in Congress, representing gallant
Southern State, and one who has always, in
sunshine and storm, been true to his constitu-
ents;" and, the Appeal might have added, true
to has party:
"a The Democratic party is on the uery eUe Of a
fatal and final disruption II has ruled for thirty
gears under its present substantial OrgdnizatiOn
Corruption foul and teserirsy corruption has tastea
ed itself on The Uery 0aaLs Of the party, and soon
must toLIoV lis WlstriOas predecessors to the tomb of
the CdpuLets. Then what-ah, there's the rub
then what? My impression is the
country will instantlydivide into sectional par
ties. How long the Union can stand beta1eea
such parties, | pretend not 10 say. Can it
survive such party organization four years?
IF so, then may we hope returning reason
may induce the people to break up these par
ties in their turn, and reform on some Nation
al basis. | am not hopeful for the future. |
feel a painful depressing conviction gathering
around my heart, that the days of the Rcpub-
Lie are numbered. L fear another decade will
not pass away before we shall see the sun go
down for the last time on the States united.
God grant that it may not be so. Oh God!
grant us some escape from this terrible dam
ger"
Its iniquities have infused themselves so
copiously through the party, that they exude
from its own pores and the substantial or
ganization" is dissolving in the midst of its
own corruption and self-deflement. The
pure, the incorruptible, the invincible democ-
racy, is indeed falling to pieces-worse, is
putrifying-of its urexamped impurity and
fathomless corruptionl
The country is interested in two respects,
in the dissolution and decomposition of the
democratic party. In the first place it may
well rejoice that it is being rid of the party
with its entire catalogue of bad designs, evil
tendencies and outrageous mal-practices. In
the next, it may well be apprehensive, that
the death of the party casts upon the country
foul legacy, which may prove its overthrow.
In pursuing its own lust for power, it has
seized the most infammable of all subjects, that
of slavery. Its leaders have, for self aggran-
disement, opened the wound between the
North and South, and have kept it open by
violence and wrong. When they have "gone
to the tomb of the Capulets," the wound
piCSuo 90 iCSh anu
faithful Senator apprehends that the disin-
tegration of the democracy will result in the
immediate formation of sectional parties; and
as if something startling and unlocked for
had befallen him, he semi-tragically exclaims,
"there's the rub" Well, that has been the
rub which many of the leaders of the democ-
racy, playing into the hands of abolition ex-
tremists of the North have been working
for. The people, North and South, We're fore
warned, but not forearmed They have chosen
to follow the counsels of these leaders, till
the rub has turned into shock, which threat
ems to shiver the constitution, the cornerstone
and fraternity, the keystone of our Union.
In this aspect, the condition of the country is
painfully interesting either with or without
the disintegration of the democratic party.
Its condition certainly cannot be bettered by
the continuance of an organization which has
brought it into these desperate straits; and
this organization out of the way, there is Il
possible hope for II party to grow up and
flourish, composed of American patriots, who
love their country more than its gold, and its
constitution and laws more than its own sue
cess, wnen one is inconsistent with the other.
----~o-----