Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1858-11-27
WASHINGTON NEWS AND GOSSIP

reoollected that in the progress Of the late Hi
nois campaign, Senator Douglas and more or |
less of the journals advocating his reelection,
laid great stress upon the alleged endorsement
BY various Southern Democratic statesmen of
his position of hostility to the doctrine Of the
Democratic party, with reference to the right
OF Territorial legislatures to refrain from Sc
curing to slave owners their slave property
in United States Territories, by positive and
efficient legislation TO that end. Or, indeed, -
for thus Mr.. Douglas states his platforms to
the right Of Territorial legislatures to exclude
slavery from United States Territories by posi-
tive legislation rendering the tenure Of such
property insecure. Upon their faith in the
truth of the bold declarations and garbled
quotations from the speeches and alleged say
ings Of various Southern Democratic statesmen
in that connection, uttered by Mr.. Douglas and
his newspaper cohort, it is clear that consid-
cradle portion Of the ofice-seeking wing Of the
Democratic party have of late been disposed
to cheat themselves into the belief that D.
must necessarily be the nominee Of the Charles
ton Convention.
The Richmond Enquirer, though welded to
his fortunes, apparently, was frst--after the
election-to repudiate the idea that the hope
that the Democratic party at large would ac-
cept his heresy; without the acceptance of
which, the idea of his acceptance as the Demo-
cratic-party's standard bearer is, of course, the
sheerest nonsense that ever entered into the
over-credulous brain Of the most nervously.ex.
cited seeker after place. Though the Enquirer
went to lengths in his behalf before the election
which have left it literally without friends
among the Virginia Democracy, it was too
shrewd to fail to repudiate-as, soon as possible
doctrine like that Of Douglas, as essentially
abolition In all its bearings and legitimate con-
sequences as the most ultraism Of Mr.. Stewards
Rochester speech. That course was evidently
necessary to preserve for it even the slightest
semblance conceivable, of Democratic organ
ship. The complete summersault which the
Enquirer "threw" in thus being the FIRST to
kick down the platform of Douglas, as a thing
utterly inadmissible, served somewhat to open
the eyes of the eager and over-credulous
Office seekers who we're making haste to secure
shady places under the capscous coat tail of
the Senator from Illinois.
Matters are now, however, rapidly taking the
turn We predicted long since The southern
statesmen quoted by Douglas and his presses
as countenancing his practical abolition YER
sion of the doctrines of the Cincinna pl atform,
are one and all repudiating his heresy, and de-
claring that they can hold no man protesting
it, as being entitled to their political fellowship
Thus, in the recent Jackson, Miss, speech
of Senator Davis-delivered as soon as he
learned the purpose for, and the manner in
hi nh lad - LII l.
ter part of his canvass-that gentleman not
only emphatically denies that he ever uttered
the sentiments Douglas attributed to him, but
Indignantly declares that Douglas himself, from
previous knowledge of his Senator Davis s.
views on the particular question, must have
known we'll that in thus perverting his Ian
guage he was incorporating him. In that
jackson speech, Senator Davis washes his
hands as emphatically Of the doctrine of Mr.
Douglas as Of that of Senator Seward, showing
that they are equally hostile to the faith of
the Democracy. and equally to be repudinted.
The approach of the period of the meeting of
Congress has already brought hither others of
the distinguished southern Democratic states
men so pertinaciOusly quoted of late to sustain
the position Of Douglas abolitionizing the doc.
trines Of the Cincinnati platform; and, with a
single exception, we hear, on authority upon
which all may rely, every one of them coincide
upon this subject with Senator Davis, utterly
repudiating the pretence of Douglas and his
allies that they endorse his doctrine or regard
one avowing it as being entitled to Democratic
party fellowship. Thus they intimate that while
they might have preferred his election to that
Of Giddings or Garrison, or Lincoln, il was only
as a choice between unsound men; not as the
election Of a gentleman entitled as a statesman
to the confidence of the Democratic party.
The exception to which We refer above, we will
wager our head, entertains similar sentiments.
though we have not yet heard whether be has
expressed himself on the subject. Thus the de-
fusion is rapidly being dispelled; and all in
Washington atleast-for these facts are already
patent to all here-are beginning to compre-
bend that Mr.. Douglas is really sustained in
his most dangerous of all the abolition heresies
of the times by not single southern Demo
cratic member ofeither House of Congress, and,
as a consequence, that the idea that he has even
the shadow Of q party among the southern De-
mocracy is the most arrant humbug Of this
humbugging era.
Res JUDIcArA.-No better illustration of
the progress of opposition politics on the road
to the utter abnegation of every thing like COM
mon sense and law is to DO found, than in the
recent grave effort of the Senate of Indiana.
by its own fat, to upset formal adjudication
Of the Senate Of the United States upon strictly
federal relations question. We allude to the
recent vote Of the Indiana Senate declaring
the seats in the Senate of the United States
from Indiana vacant.
This was, Of course, done by an accidental
majority Of Aboltionists and anti -Lecomp ton
pseudo Democratic disappointed office seekers,
none others would, even in these times, have
ventured to legislate upon the propriety of re-
versiDg the decision of the U. s. Senate, at its
last session, in passing the following resolution
by a vote Of 30 to %: