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.
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