The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1859-04-22
The Late Elections.

We copy the following extract from the
ablest Administration paper of the North,
to show how the drift of affairs is regard
ed by rejecting minds in that direction.
After referring TO the late elections in Con-
necticut and other States, the articles
continues
Upon the platform of the great peace
measures of Henry Clay of 1850, the dem
ocracy in 1852 carried the Presidential
election by an electoral majority without
a precedent since the time of Monroe
The great whig party was thus literally
extinguished, and the democracy held un-
disputed occupation of the country. But
that desperate Presidential electioneering
experiment, the Kansas-N ebraska bill. in
the second year of Pierce's administra-
ton, resulted in the election of an OPP
position House of Representatives. 1t
revived with tenfold bitterness, the North
ern slavery agitation. 1t substantially re-
duced the democratic party toaSouthern
sectional organization, and created an
overshadowing Northern sectional oppo-
sition party. With this division of parties
upon the Kansas issue in 1856, the South
ern democracy would have been over
whelmed but for their conservative ma
tional candidate, Mr. Buchanan, and the
saving interposition of Millard Fillmore.
But the impressive lesson involved in
this election was lost upon the selfish,
reckless and unscrupulous leaders of the
democracy. They would rule the admin
istration of Mr.. Buchanan, or ruin it, at
all hazards. In various shapes, and upon
various pretexts, comprehending every
prominent measure, foreign and domestic,
of Mr.. Buchanan's administrative policy,
these disorganizing leaders, aspirants and
managers of the party, in Congress and
out of Congress, since the day of his in
aug,ira.tion. have been playing this suicidal
game against the President. lie has not
been vanquished-his administration has
not been shaken from its course-but the
party has been broken to pieces. From
the experiences of the last Congress, Mr..
Buchanan may feel perfectly easy regard
ing the next. Under the control of q
positive opposition majority he cannot
possibly meet with more vindictive and
tactious resistance to his recommenda-
tions than that of the late democratic
House of Representatives. On the con-
trary, responsible opposition majority
will have every incentive to avoid fac
tious course of hostility to the wise and
seasonable measures of the administra-
ton
Thus, in any event, the administration
is secure; but, alas! we fear it is all over
with the late invincible democratic party.
Shorn of half its strength, and with the
remnant of its forces demoralzed and
broken up into wranglng cliques and
factions, and under the general control of
an impracticable Southern ultra pro-sla-
very corps of managers, the wreck of this
once all powerful party is drifting into a
purely sectional position. That it will
take the field in 1860, reduced to an in
tensely sectional faction, there can hardly
be doubt. That it will thus be routed,
horse, foot and dragons, by the republi-
can anti-slavery party of the North, is
certain, unless the saving intervention of
a third party shall change the issue of the
fight.