At a single blow it shatters the platform of the Republican party — and takes from the Democratic party every advantage of its popular-sovereignty doctrine. It leaves both great parties all abroad, without a single plank of their late platforms to rest on.
Original passage & context
"At a single blow it shatters and destroys the platform of the Republican party. It annihilates the issue which was made paramount in the recent Presidential election, and takes away from the Democratic party all the advantages of its advocacy of popular sovereignty in the Territories. It leaves both of these great parties all abroad, without a single plank of their late platforms upon which to rest."
George D. Prentice's Journal was the leading Whig-then-American paper of the border South, and the only voice in this feed to see at once that the decision wrecked both parties rather than one. It was right: the Democratic split it predicts arrived in 1860 and put Lincoln in the White House.
Read it in the original — Louisville Journal, Mar 16, 1857 ↗