Politics:  Southern Sentinel Newspaper, 1860, Winn Parish, LA.
Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483
**********************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
**********************************************


 


From:  August 5, 1946 Winn Parish Enterprise

Winnfield Paper Dated 1860 Comments On Pre-Civil War Split In Demo Party


An 88 year old issue of a Winnfield newspaper, the Southern Sentinel,
discovered recently in her attic by Miss Nettie Bernstein, describes the
presidential campaign of 1860 in which Lincoln, Douglas, and Breckinridge
engaged in a race similar in many respects to the current campaign.

Nomination of Stephen A. Douglas on the Democratic ticket in 1860 split the
Southern and Northern Democrats, eventually resulting in election of Abraham
Lincoln, the Republican candidate.  The Sentinel editor, J. L. Walker,
editorializing in his news columns, supported Douglas and scolded the
"seceders", who had nominated Breckinridge.

In a front page story headlined "Democratic Nominees," he wrote:  "The
following letter from Hon. N. D. Coleman, to the 'Madison Democrat', is such a
clear exposition of the manner in which the seceders have imposed upon the
people by distracting the Democratic Party, and thereby trying to defeat
Douglas, that we publish it entire, and ask our Breckinridge friends to read
it carefully, and see if they are not acting in direct conflict with the old
established principles of the Democratic Party."

Then, as now, the major issue splitting the Democratic Party hinged on the
right of States to determine their own home domestic problems.