The future historian will trace the steps by which the subject of Slavery was forced on the reluctant attention of the citizens of the Free States, so that at last the most cautious conservative could not ignore its intrusive presence, could not banish its reality from his eyes, or its image from his mind. He will show why Slavery, disdaining its old argument from expediency, challenged discussion on its principles. He will explain the process by which it became discontented with toleration within its old limits, and demanded the championship or connivance of the National Government in a plan for its limitless extension. He will indicate the means by which it corrupted the Southern heart and Southern brain, so that at last the elemental principles of morals and religion were boldly denied, and the people came to "believe a lie." He will, not unnaturally, indulge in a little sarcasm, when he comes to consider the occupation of Southern professors of ethics, compelled by their position to scoff at the "rights" of man, and Southern professors of theology, compelled by their position to teach that Christ came into the world, not so much to save sinners, as to enslave negroes. He will be forced to class these among the meanest and most abject slaves that the planters owned. In treating of the subserviency of the North, he will be constrained to write many a page which will flush the cheeks of our descendants with indignation and shame. He will show the method by which Slavery, after vitiating the conscience and intelligence of the South, contrived to vitiate in part, and for a time, the conscience and intelligence of the North. It will be his ungrateful task to point to many instances of compliance and concession on the part of able Northern statesmen which will deeply affect their fame with posterity, though he will doubtless refuse to adopt to the full the contemporary clamor against their motives. He will understand, better than we, the amount of patriotism which entered into their "concessions," and the amount of fraternal good-will which prompted their fatal "compromises." But he will also declare that the object of the Slave Power was not attained. Vacillating statesmen and corrupt politicians it might address, the first through their fears, the second through their interests; but the intrepid and incorruptible "people" were but superficially affected. A few elections were gained, but the victories were barren of results. From political defeat the free people of the North came forth more earnest and more united than ever.