The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1859-09-30
wise and Douglas.

tProm the New York Herald
The impression is gaining ground that
Mr.. Douglas must inevitably be an indie
pendent or stump candidate for the next
Presidency. He has laid down his ulti-
matum to the Charleston Convention. He
will not accept the nomination of that
body without his platform, nor can it be
supposed that no will consent to support
any other nomination upon any other
platform. He has taken his ground. He
has committed his friends. He cannot
recede. He cannot surrender The issue
is thus reduced to the submission or re-
sistance of the Convention. Nor do we
think that 1t requires any gift of prophecy
to predict the result. The South will be
infiexibly opposed to both the man and
his hobby; and the Convention will be
compelled to repudiate both in order to
preserve semblance of the nationality OF
the party.
Thus we may safely assume that Mr..
Douglas and his platform will be thrown
out of the Charleston Convention. And
what then! He cannot submit without
falling back from the position of a leader
TO private in the ranks. He will not do
this. 1t is no part of his programme
He will become an Independent Northern
democratic candidate. We believe that
all his magazine essays, pamphlets and
stump speeches of the last six or eight
months, have been directed to the end,
and in view of the chances on his part of
carrying the Presidential election into
Congress as one Of the three highest can
didates from the Electoral Colleges. 1t is
impossible to give any other rational con-
struction than this to the extensive and
expensive electioneering system in which
Mr.. Douglas is now so actively engaged
He is mastering, recruiting and organic
ing his forces-first, for vigorous fight in
the Convention, and secondly, for an ac-
tive campaign against the Convention
And SO, after the fashion of Martin Van
Buren's rebellion of 1913, we may set
down Mr. Douglas as an independent
Northern democratic candidate for the
next Presidency.
Gov. Wise, as a Southern aspirant, upon
an impractcable Southern ultra platform,
is in a similar position. He, too, has fore
warned the Charleston Convention that
his peculiar platform, tantamount to a
Congressional slave code for the Terrific
ries, must be adopted, or that there will
be Southern rebellion against the ''time-
honored usages of the party" But as the
Convention can no more venture to sub
nit to the dictation of Wise than to the
instructions of Douglas, the former will be
left in the same condition as the latter
We apprehend, too, from the dashing in
trepidity and fearless independence of the
Virginia Governor, that he would like
nothing better than plausible excuse to
take the stump as an independent South
ern democrat against Douglas and his
Northern supporters fsquatter sovereign
ty, and in the teeth of any halfway or
two faced contrivances of the Charleston
Convention.
Thus, apprehending that the labors of
the Convention to reunite and harmonic
and control the democratic party, and the
spoils and plumber of the federal govern;
ment, will result in dissolution of the
party and a scrub race for the next Presi-
dency, we may begin to congratulate the
country upon the fact that we are in real-
ty upon the threshold of great and glo-
rious revolution. We see that this Con-
vention system of President-making has
had its days falling to pieces, and must
come to the ground. Granted that the
motives of Wise and Douglas in this con-
nection are entirely selfish, they are yet
entitled to the credit of revealing the rot
tenness and the weakness of the party
despotism of these National Conventions.
1t is to their experience, and their knowl-
edge of the despicable jugglery and trick
cry of these Conventions, that we are in
debted for the stand which each has taken
in regard to the succession.