The political advance now made by slavery will appear from the following facts:-- In 1797 the slave power asked for only life; it did not wish to extend itself; it united with the North in prohibiting its own extension into the Northwest Territory. In 1820 it did wish to extend itself; it refused to be shut out of Missouri, but was willing that the rest of the Territory should be always free. In 1845 it insisted on extending itself by annexing Texas, but it admitted that it had no right to go into any Territory as far north as Missouri. In 1850 it refused to be shut out of any of the new territory, and resisted the Wilmot Proviso; but still confessed that it had no right to go into Kansas or Nebraska. Five years after, by the efforts of Stephen A. Douglas and Franklin Pierce, it refused to be shut out of Kansas, and repealed the part of the Missouri Compromise which excluded it from that region. But, in order to accomplish this repeal, it took the plausible name of "popular sovereignty," and claimed that the people should themselves decide whether they would have a slave State or a free State. One additional step came. The people decided or were about to decide for freedom; and then the slave power set aside its own doctrine of popular sovereignty and invaded the Territory with an army of Missourians, chose a legislature for the people of Kansas composed of Missourians, who passed laws establishing slavery and punishing with fine and imprisonment any who should even speak against it. The people of Kansas refused to obey these laws. They would have been slaves already if they had obeyed them. Then their own governor, appointed by our President, led an army of Missourians to destroy their towns and plunder and murder their people. Nothing was left them but to resist. They did resist manfully but prudently, and by a remarkable combination of courage and caution the people of the little Free-State town of Lawrence succeeded in saving themselves from this danger without shedding a drop of blood. Men, women, and children were animated by the same heroic spirit. The women worked by the side of the men. The men were placed on the outposts as sentinels and ordered by their general not to fire as long as they could possibly avoid it. And these men stood on their posts, and allowed themselves to be shot at by the invaders, and did not return the fire. One man received two bullets through his hat, and was ready to fire if the enemy came nearer, but neither fired nor quitted his post. The men were brave and obedient to orders; the women were resolute, sagacious, and prudent. So they escaped their first great danger.