Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1858-12-06

GEORGE D. Prentice we regard as one of tho
ablest, as he certainly is one of the most bril-
liant, political writer's in the country. He com-
bines solid attainments calm, dispassionatc
judgment, with proper amount of enthusiasm.
And this is saying good deal. He has recent
ly written an article in hisl Journal which is
attracting considerable attention from the oppo-
sition press, as is perfectly natural, it being
written with that intent The article is long,
steady and earnest appeal to all the elements of
what now make up the opposition to the Demo
cratic Party-such as Wings who have not
affiliated with the Democrats, Americans, Re-
Publicans, and such Anti-Lecompton Democrats
and other Democrats as are opposed to the long
course Of misrule of the party in power. 1t
calls the attention of such as these we have
enumerated, and who, as the late elections have
demonstrated, make up clear majority of the
voters of the conntry,.to stop now awhile from
NIL discussions and disputations among them
selves, and see how they stand towards the
common foe, and to discern if possible what are
their prospects, first, as disintegrated body,
and next as united body in 1860 The article
sets out by assuming that whatever may be the
dissensions Of the democracy now on Lccomp-
ton and Ant-Lecompton-whate may be the
personal jcalOusies of their leaders, and the
rivalries Of the factions and cliQucs into which
they have split in different States-yet for all
these the strong probabilities are that they will
all again come together under the flag that shall
be unfurled at the Charleston Convention It
always has been their policy thus to unite-and
it is thus they have from time to time over
whelmed the nearly always divided opposition
Prentice, in passing, pays high compliment
to the Republicans and i-Lecomptons, re-
garding their organizations under what has the
seeming of sectional banner as the legitimate
result of long course of sectionalisn in the
Democratic party, which party. year after year,
has violated all faith, all compacts and broken
through those adjustments of differences on the
slavery question, which the best statesmen of
the best days of our republic had established
The Democratic party have increasingly vexed
and agitated the Northern people with their con-
slant tendency to play into the hands of the
Southern nulifiers, and to direct the whole pow
er of their organization towards making niggcrs
the test of every good patriots orthodoxy
The Northern people have shown that they will
not stand this, that they will go as far as the
their own right to think and speak upon mat.
tiers of State policy, and that if the South, OF
any portion of it, want to go out of the Union
because the North will not bow the knee to their
Baal and worship niggerism, why, that they
can go just as soon as they arc ready. The Jour
mats article regards the question of slavery in
the territories as having been practically settled
The South precipitated the issue, challenged the
North to meet them upon it; the North met
them in every State, North, and routed them
hip and thigh; thus demonstrating that hereaf-
ter the issue shall not be test question and that
men who do not believe that negroes are the
end of all legislation, shall be just as much en-
titled to public station and public regard as
those who do. Those of our readers who heard
Casius NJ. Clay at Washington Hail. will remem-
Der that he touched elOqucntly upon the origin
of this test issue, first thrown into the political
arena by Mr.. Calhoun, and afterwards taken up
and adopted as one of the leges non scriptG of
the democratic party. This issue he traced up to
tho very latest election returns and showed that
always and at all times, the democratic party had
forced it upon the Northern people, and ignored
and discredited such of their public men as re.
fused to have their craftsmanship measured by
such standard. The northern people,
he went on to show, did not desire power
for the sake of controlling the government for
their section of the Uuion, but they did desire
it, and had obtained and used it to rebuIe the
domineering and proscriptvc spirit Of the sec.
tionalizcd democracy. Tho Journals article
thinks that this end has been attained in the
ate elections, that the opposition have brought
the government back towards balance again,
and that now, to keep it there, and insure har-
mony and fair dealing hereafter towards both di-
visions of the Union, all the elements of opposi-
ton must unite, If they do not unite, it argues
they will meet the fate that they did in sc:
and in order to unite they must pitch upon some
man of known conservative views. The article
referred to, We think, will have a general good
effect, and will call the attention of the press to
some very wholesome truths.
Washington correspondent ofthe Baltimore
American says that Mr.. Buchanan's recent letter
deprecating.: ''the employment ofmoney to carry
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