The Lecompton cheat having been defeated in the House after it had received the indorsement of the Senate, the two coordinates were at issue, and it seemed for a brief time to have met with the fate it merited. But cunning and treachery combined to put it into the hands of a Committee of Conference to be manipulated afresh, and, if possible, moulded into a shape that might give Democratic recusants an excuse for treason to the North and submission to the Power that demanded it. And the invention was worthy of the diabolical sagacity and ingenuity which have always marked the politics of Slavery. The maxim, that every man has his price, was assumed to apply as well to men when collected into bodies corporate as to individuals; and the hook, with which the souls of the men of Kansas are to be fished for, was baited with a bribe the most tempting to their hungry needs. And to make their capture the more sure, an answering menace threatens them on the other hand, to force them to swallow the barbed treachery. They are offered no opportunity of expressing their assent or dissent as to the Constitution held over their heads. Their enemies know too well what its fate would be, if offered, pure and simple, to their acceptance or refusal. They are only to say whether or not they will accept five million acres of land that Congress munificently offers them for the construction of their railways. If they say, "Yes, thank you," to this simple question, the Chief Conjurer of the nation, the great Medicine Man of our tribe, the Head Magician of our Egypt, will only have to say, "Presto pass," and they will find themselves a Slave State in the glorious Union, under a solemn contract, struck by this same act, to endure Slavery for six years to come. If they say, "No, we won't," the door of the Union is shut in their faces, and they are told to wait without in all the bleakness of Territorial dependency, subject to the laws now afflicting them, with a satrap sent down from Washington to rule over them, and with Lecomptes and Catos to decree justice for them, until swindling tools of the Administration shall be instructed to allow the presence of a sufficient population to entitle a State to a Representative.