Bedford Inquirer

That Victory.

Our democratic friends in their tribulation are becoming exceedingly thankful for small favors. The Hon. F. P. Blair, Jr. was the only member of the present Congress, from Missouri, who had sufficient integrity and manhood enough to vote against that political iniquity called the Lecompton Constitution. He spoke and voted against forcing a slave constitution upon a free State, in defiance of the wishes of the people. His defeat, therefore, at the recent election in Missouri, is regarded by the minority democracy as a great triumph, and even the big chicken has to be paraded to give illustration and eclat to the victory. We regret Mr. Blair's defeat, because he was an able champion of the right, yet the victory is rather a questionable one, after all. Barrett, the man elected, is what is called a Douglas democrat, and, therefore, opposed to the present administration on the principal feature of its policy, and stands with Blair on the same mark, that three candidates ran in the district—Barrett, the Douglas democrat, Blair, a Republican, and Breckinridge, an American.—The vote, by this means, was split into three very nearly equal parts. Barrett was elected by a small majority of fraudulent votes, and his seat is to be contested. The candidate who gets the certificate of election may not, therefore, get his seat, and even if he should, he goes in by a minority of about 4,000 in his district. Our friends in Missouri are now playing the fool by running two tickets instead of one, like we have been doing in this State for several years past, and the result is defeat, as in our case. We have quit that nonsense, and got tired of electing locofocos, and united upon one ticket, and the result will be what it ought to have been, and would have been, years ago, if wise counsels had prevailed. We doubt not the defeat of our Missouri friends now will do them good, and teach them wisdom, and that in 1860 they will stand up with an undivided front, and sweep sham democracy from the State, as they ought to have done this time, and might have done, but for their divisions.

By the way, too, there is a set-off to Blair's defeat, which seems to have been overlooked. On the same day there was an election for Congress, in North Carolina, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the appointment of Clingman to the Senate, and Mr. B. Vance, the American candidate, was elected over one Avery, who aspired to be the Democratic successor of Clingman.

On the same day, too, there was a tremendous election in Kansas, on the Lecompton Constitution. It is said that the Washington Union, and other papers of that ilk, have not heard the returns, but we give them in another column, for the benefit of all concerned.