Des Arc citizen., 1859-01-15


 term of six years from the 4lh of March next, by vote of 54 to 46 over ABRAHAM LINCOLN, his competitor. We fully en- dorse the following from the .hemphis .doalanche in reference to Judge DOUGLAS:
 The time was when we could have an- nounced this as most gratifying inteli- gence-when we should have regarded such an event as national blessing and rejoiced over it as national triumph. But that was when Stephen A. Dougas was Democrat--wh he stood squarely and unequivocally upon the broad platform of the Constitution and the rights of the States-when he was trusted leader of the mighty Democracy of the nation, and the loved and honored champion of a cause in which, by his great talents, his unfaltering fidelity and his bold and fear less vindlcation of the right, he had won not only the unbounded confidence of his party, but had secured for himself place in the hearts of his countrymen second to no man in the Union From the day of his entree upon the theatre of national politics down to the fatal 18th of December, 1856, there was no time when our hearts would not have leaped with joy and our | lips given utterance to the emotions of our bosoms at any success which might have crowned the poical efforts of Stephen A.
 Douglas. During all that period he had shown himself firm, consistent and un- swervng Demoorat--a Democrat who seemed to love his principles with all the strength and ardor of his naiure--who appeared ever ready to fight the battles of his party, and always prepared to sacrifice his own to It's success and the success of the great doctrines Unconstitutional liberty. jastice and equality upon which it is founded.
 But, the Douglas of to-day--the Doug- las whose reelection to the Senate of the United States we announced in the beginning of this article, is not the Douglas of the period to which we have alluded, There is a wide and irrecon- cilable difference between the two--a difference which furnishes another sad evidence of the fearful effects of too yaulting ambition, and another melan- choly instance of the untrustworthiness of professional politicians. The man who, in 1854, stood forth in the Senate chamber and, in the face of abolition op- position and abliton denuncations, de- manded for the people of the South the right to an equal participation in the com mon property of the nation, was found in 1857 laboring inconoert with his old ene- mics to rob the South of the first fruits of the great measures for which he had so nobly contended two years before. The same man who, in 1850, had the nerve to proclaim the justice of the Fugitive Slave Law in the presence ot an aboli- ton mob, and the independence to de- fend the right regardless of their threats and their opposition, was found in 1858 endeavorng to soothe, conciliate, and win the support of these self-same abolitionists by advocating doctrine as odious and as clearly unconstitutional as the Wilmot Proviso itself, and which, If established, !, would just as effectually exclude the South, with her peculiar property from any participation in the Territories. Again, the man who during long political ca, reer was always found acting in con- cert with the great Democratic party advocating its principles, defending its administrations and laboring for its suc- cess--and who, for so doing had been crowned with its highest and richest re- wards, became, year ago, its worst enemy, its most effective foe and one among the bitterest, fiercest, and most inveterate opponents of an administration which, but a few months before, he had assisted to inaugurate and establish.
 This man has been reelected 10 the Senate of the United States-re elected as a Democrat, and that, too, over an open and avowed Republican, and a well known enemy to the South and her institutions. As we have said, there was time when we would have re- garded such an event as a national bless ing, and when we could have rejoiced over it with heartfelt pleasure and grat- ification; but we cannot do so now. His desertion from his party, and the calam.
 ties which that desertion brought upon it and threatened to bring upon the country; the odious sentiments which he holds and avows upon a question vital to the safety and independence of the South and her institutions, and the apprehen. sions with which his course in the last Illinois canvass has filled our minds - that he will return 10 the Senate, as he left it, an enemy to the administration and a fostering thorn in the side of the Democracy--all combine to prevent us, as Democrats and Southern men, from either feeling or expressing joy and exultation over his late triumph
 Judge Douglas, it is true, still claims to be a Democrat, and still insists that he has been and will remain faithful to the Democratic party and its principles So did White, Van Buren, Benton, Hous- ton, and every other man who is num- bered among its deserters. Judge Doug las may not pursue their example, but until he furnishes us some substantial evidences that he will not-unti he proves by his course in the Senate that he is something more than Democrat in name, and that he is not a worse enemy than an open foe, we must contin- ue 10 doubt the honesty of his declara- tinps of fdelity apJ to ,vitbbold arx, ax