You have undoubtedly read this Abe L. paper, my boy, in the reliable morning journals, making due allowance for the typographical outrages committed by printers of opposite politics; but there was one portion of it gotten up for the honest Abe by the Chaplain of the Mackerel Brigade, and this portion is so mutilated in the publishing, that I cannot refrain from giving you the true version. Speaking of the cost to the country of Emancipation with compensation, the Chaplain wrote:
"Certainly it is not so easy to pay something as it is to pay nothing; but it is easier to pay a small sum than it is to pay a large sum; and it is easier to pay any bill when we have the money, than it is to pay a smaller bill when we have no money. Compensated Emancipation requires no more money than would be necessary to the progress of Remunerated Enfranchisement, which would not close before the end of five hundred years. At that time, we shall undoubtedly have five hundred times as many people as we have now, provided that no one dies in the mean time; and supposing the premium on gold to increase in the same ratio as it has increased since our last census was taken, the premium on the specie belonging to five hundred times our present population will be amply sufficient to pay for all persons of African descent.
"I do not state this inconsiderately. At the same ratio of increase as we now realize, American gold will soon be worth more than all Europe. We have ten millions nine hundred and sixty-three thousand miles, while Europe has three millions eight hundred thousand, and yet the average premium on specie, in some of the States, is already above that of Europe. Taking the brokers in the aggregate, I find that if one gold dollar is worth $1.30 in one year,
| It will be worth | $2.60 | in two years, |
| " " " " | 3.90 | " 3 " |
| " " " " | 5.20 | " 4 " |
| " " " " | 6.50 | " 5 " |
"This shows a yearly increase. If a gold dollar is worth $6.50 in five years, it will, of course, be worth $3,250 or five hundred times as much in five hundred years. Thus, when our population is five hundred times as great as at present, supposing each man to have a single gold dollar, the premium of $3,250 on his gold dollar will enable such man to purchase thirty-two and a half persons of African descent from the loyal slaveholders of our border States at $100 a piece, though he would be virtually expending but one dollar himself.
"This scheme of emancipation would certainly make the war shorter than it now has a prospect of being. In a word, it shows that a dollar will be much harder to pay for the war than will be a dollar for emancipation on the proposed plan."
You will observe, my boy, that this same great mathematical idea is advanced in the Message as it is printed; but our Honest Abe has chosen to vary the terms somewhat. If you have a gold dollar, my boy, salt it down for five hundred years, and some future generation of offspring will call you blessed for leaving them $3,250 in postage-stamps.
On my last journey toward Paris, finding the Mackerel Brigade still halting before that ancient city, I rode straight to the tent of Captain Villiam Brown, whom I found making himself a fall overcoat from some old newspapers, while the Chaplain sat near by, making himself a pair of shoes from a remnant of calico.
"Well, paladin," says I to Villiam, "what is it that so long detains our noble army on the path of conquest?"
Villiam sighed as he used a little more paste to fasten the sleeves of the garment he was constructing, and says he: