By free labor upon Southern soil we shall add to the annual product of the country a sum more than equal to the whole tax which will be required to pay interest and expenses, and to accumulate a sinking-fund which will pay the debt in less than twenty years; while to the North will come the immensely increased demand for manufactured articles required by a thrifty and prosperous middle class, instead of the small demand for coarse, cheap articles required by slaves, and the demand for foreign luxuries called for by the masters. The addition of $250,000,000 to the product of the country would be a gain to every branch of industry; and if the equable system of taxation by a stamp-tax on all sales were adopted, the burden would not be felt. The additional product being mostly from an improved system of agriculture at the South, a much larger demand would exist for the manufactures of the North, and a much larger body of distributors would be required. Let us glance for a moment at the alternative,--the restoration of the Union without the removal of Slavery. The system of slave-labor has been shaken to its foundation, and for years to come its aggregate product will be far less than it has been, thus throwing upon the North the whole burden of the taxes with no compensating gain in resources. Only the refuse of our army could remain in the Slave States, to become to us in the future an element of danger and not of security,--the industrious and respectable portion would come back to the North, to find their places filled and a return to the pursuits of peace difficult to accomplish. With Slavery removed, the best part of our army will remain upon the fertile soil and in the genial climate of the South, forming communities, retaining their arms, keeping peace and good order with no need of a standing army, and constituting the _nuclei_ around which the poor-white trash of the South would gather to be educated in the labor-system of the North, and thus, and thus only, to become loyal citizens. The mass of the white population of the South are ignorant and deluded; they need leaders, and will have them. We have allowed them to be led by slaveholders, and are reaping our reward. Remove Slavery, and their present leaders are crushed out forever. Give them new leaders from among the earnest and industrious portion of our army, and we increase our resources and render taxation no burden, and we restore the Union in fact and not simply in name. Leave Slavery in existence, and we decrease our resources, throw the whole tax upon the North, reinforce the Secession element with the refuse of our army, and bequeath to our children the shadow of a Union, a mockery and a derision to all honest men. THE POET TO HIS READERS. Nay, blame me not; I might have spared Your patience many a trivial verse, Yet these my earlier welcome shared, So let the better shield the worse.