WENDELL PHILLIPS, Esq.:

MY DEAR SIR: That you have so much of good in your opinion of me is a source of exquisite gratification. I am indeed misunderstood, taking your report as a basis. I foresaw, or thought I did, that this war before it is done is to be pushed to the bitterest extremity; that another draft would be necessary, which must be a reality; that some means must be taken to bring the country up to severe measures; that confiscation in fee must be resorted to in order to relieve ourselves from the burden of bounties, which are frightfully exhausting our towns and counties and therefore the country. A taxation burden-some is not less so because it is local. A debt that is crushing is not lightened by the fact that every man's property may be taken on execution to pay it, as our county and town debts may be collected. Indeed, I look upon this immense accumulation of local debt as one of the most alarming facts in our future, to be met by direct taxation, borrowed at a rate of interest which cannot be diminished, as can a national debt, by sinking funds and consolidations, as the credit of the Nation grows stronger, because these sums raised by cities and towns were borrowed when their credit was undoubted. The future will show a struggle (the next great one on this continent) to get rid of the burden. You will say the debt is held by men of wealth as an investment, and that the whole community will be interested in maintaining it. But look around you. The men of wealth owned the turnpike roads and toll bridges. The whole wealth of the State was interested in keeping the system up, as it was one of the favorite investments of fifty years ago, but as soon s the voter found it more profitable to vote himself a free bridge, or to build a common road as good as the turnpike, free bridges were the order of the day and turnpikes were discontinued. Millions were lost or sunk-another form of repudiation. Mark, I am too radical by far to complain of this. I only accept the fact, and profit by it. Again, as soon as your local taxation upon the income to pay the interest of these debts (and the voter, if he does not repudiate, will take care that the taxation to meet the interest of the debt shall come on the incomes) approximates to a respectable portion of the income derivable from them, then the men of wealth will not hold them, or at a depreciated value only which would be of itself the fruitful parent of repudiation. Further, the vote by which the Government has been sustained can be easily changed, and would have been if the leaders of the Democracy had as much brains as could be put in a filbert, and can and will be now before your constitutional amendment can be acted on by the people, if you do not take care. Still more, the necessary harsh measures toward the South must be justified by the judgments of the minority, as well as to the rest of mankind, if they are to be carried out without overwhelming the Government. Let us see what is proposed to be done: There are at the South but two kinds of property-lands and slaves. We have taken the last, and propose to take the first. Now, then, to justify ourselves to the world; to take away all causes of complaint by the patriotic men-and there are such in the minority; to secure the very object you and your radical friends are desiring, the confiscation of slave property; to relieve ourselves from burdens too grievous to be borne; to fill up our armies by a volunteer process, with bounties which would only be payable in the lands of the South when the soldier had earned them; to prevent the very evil that you think