for our enemies? Again, suppose we free a portion of our slaves and put them in the Army, we leave all the rest as a recruiting field for the enemy, from which we cannot get a single soldier, and thus we see one-half of our entire population of no avail to us, but on the contrary ready at every opportunity to join the ranks of our enemies.

Now, sir, Southern soldiers are the best that ever drew a blade in the cause of liberty, but there are some things which they cannot do; they cannot fight our battles against overwhelming numbers, and raise the necessary supplies for the Army and the women and children at home; and yet, sir, this is what they will be called upon to do if this war is protracted for two years longer. I asks, sir, then, in view of these facts, if the prompt abolition of slavery will not prove a remedy sufficient to arrest this tide of disaster? The Yankee Army will be diminished by it, our own Army can be increased by it, and our labor retained by it. Without it, if the war continues, we shall in the end be subjugated, our negroes emancipated, our lands parceled out amongst them, and if any of it be left to us, only an equal portion with our own negroes, and ourselves given only equal (if any) social and political rights and privileges. If we emancipate, our independence is secured, the white man only will have any and all political right, retain all his real and personal property, exclusive of his property in his slave; make the laws to control the freed negro, who, having no land, must labor for the landowner on terms about as economical as though owned by him. We cannot consent to reconstruction even if they repeal all their laws and withdraw all their proclamations in regard to us, our lands, and our negroes, because they now have, or at any session of their Congress can make, the necessary number of States to alter the Constitution in a constitutional manner, and thus abolish slavery and interfere in any other way they think proper. But even if the present Administration should pledge anything we may ask, it binds no one but themselves during their own term of service, which you of course understand better than I do; and suppose they should even promise, and stand by thpay us for our negroes, lost or to be emancipated, how will they pay us? They cannot by direct taxation, but only in levying and export duty on our products-cotton, tobacco, and naval stores; and this war has shown them and the world, if not us, how much they will bear, cotton commanding $1 per pound, tobacco $3, tar $200 per barrel, &c. To pay their war dept and free our negroes would make a debt of $6,000,000 or probably $8,000,000, the interest of which at 5 per cent. would take $4,000,000 of revenue to pay, and to raise something additional to extinguish the principal would require an additional $100,000,000. Thus you see an export duty to this extent would be levied and could easily be raised upon our own products; 20 cents upon cotton, which would pay, because they must have it an have bought it for much more, would bring an annual income of about $400,000,000 without counting the duty on tobacco and naval stores; but even with this most favorable view of the case, we should lose the whole of our own war debt, which is or will be, say, $2,000,000,000. Of course this would be repudiated, and justly, by our enemies if we consent to reconstruction; whereas if we emancipate we save the $2,000,000,000, and we can pay for the negroes $4,000,000,000 more, and the export duty on cotton alone (which we should have levied if we go back into the Union) will pay the interest upon this at 5 per