Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1859-09-14

THEN. y. Tribune has q searching article on
Douglas. We think its estimate Of his past,
present and future is in the main correct and
reliable. The article seems TO recognize in
Douglas the star of the Democratic party in
1850, and NO have no. doubt, that 1t is intend.
ID to serve as an eye-opener to people generally
80 view Of the extraordinary efforts which,
Douglas and bis friends are making TO compass
The Charleston nomination. The Tribune Ger.
tGinly does not err.insits estimate. of the exact
amount Of. credit that should attach to Douglas
stand against the Administration last winter.
That movement, We fancy, was transparent
enough to be generally nderstood-although5 il
served the purpose of Mr.. Douglas, by re-.
election to the Senate.
His senatorial term.was about expiring, and
il was too evident that he had but one alterna-
tive, He must choose between humoring the
anger and passion of the shareholders, by adj
herring to the anti. Free-Labor Kansas crusade
to its last spiteful but impotent end and ceasing
10 represent any longer the Free. Labor State Of
Illinois upon the floor of the Senate of the
United States. Acting upon the cautious and
judicLous principle that bird in the hand is
worth two in the bush, and considering, too,
that the chance of catching the bird in the
bush was quite dependent upon the lure of the
bird already caught and held in his hand, Mr..
Douglas left his Southern popularity, and that
slayeholding favor for which he had been ready
10 sacrifice Kansas and trample Free Labor
under foot to shift for itself Since there vas
no other possible way in which he could make
sure of his reelection to the Senate, be de>
serted his slayeholding friends ut the last
emergency, and refused to vote with them in
favor of forcing upon Kansas the Lecompton
sWindle, in the character of State Constitution.
Having thus secured q standing place in the
Senate, undscouraged by the disastrous failure
Of his Kansas experiment, Mr.. Douglas has set
to work again to reconstruct the machinery for
hosting himself into the Presidency. The
emergencies Of his position have compelled him;
however, to abandon the idea, which he had
been so unscrupulous in carrying out, of being
elevated TO the Presidency in the character Of
the chosen fayorite of the shareholders, whose
votes he had secured by services rendered.
However generous might have been Mr.. Doug
las wishes and intentions, he had quite failed
III the performance, and the shareholders are not
often satisfied IN the choice of their Presidential
candidates to take the will for the deed. Not
only had he failed in his liberal intention to
hand over Kansas TO slaveholding domination,
he had found hin self obliged at the last to
advocate the right of the Free-I4abor majority
in that Territory to have q shaie in framing the
laws and Constitution under which they
were to live. But what it is impossible any
longer to expect from the favor and good will Of
the shareholders, Mr.. Douglas still hopes to ex-
tort from their necessities and their fears. II
he can no longer expect to be nominated and
chosen President as the favorite, parasite, and
sycophant of the South, there is at least the
chance Of going into the Convention and the
canvass as the champion, not, indeed, of Free
Labor and the North, but, of the Northern Sec
ton Of the Democratic party. After having
L L. -. Il =
of their Southern lords and masters, Mr.. Doug-
las may fairly enough calculate on the pleasure
and gratitude with which the Northern Demos
Gratis will hear summons once more, we can
not say to stand upon their feet, but as substi.
tute for it, to lift, or to seem to lift their heads
from the dust which they have so long submits
sively kissed. Mr. Douglas tells them that he
and they have eaten Southern dirt enough al
ready, and that it is necessary at last to stop
short whore they are. 1t is his cue just now to
seem at the North to take upon himself posi-
ton of entire impartiality as between slayehold-
ing and Free Labor.