It’s ne’ssary to take a good confident tone
  With the public; but here, jest amongst us, I own
  Things looks blacker ‘n thunder.  Ther’ ‘s no use denyin’
  We’re clean out o’ money, an’ ‘most out o’ lyin’,—­
  Two things a young nation can’t mennage without,
  Ef she wants to look wal at her fust comin’ out;
  For the fust supplies physickle strength, while the second
  Gives a morril edvantage thet’s hard to be reckoned: 
  For this latter I’m willin’ to du wut I can;
  For the former you’ll hev to consult on a plan,—­
  Though our fust want (an’ this pint I want your best views on)
  Is plausible paper to print I.O.U.s on. 
  Some gennlemen think it would cure all our cankers
  In the way o’ finance, ef we jes’ hanged the bankers;
  An’ I own the proposle ’ud square with my views,
  Ef their lives wuzn’t all thet we’d left ’em to lose. 
  Some say thet more confidence might be inspired,
  Ef we voted our cities an’ towns to be fired,—­
  A plan thet ’ud suttenly tax our endurance,
  Coz ‘t would be our own bills we should git for th’ insurance;
  But cinders, no metter how sacred we think ’em,
  Mightn’t strike furrin minds ez good sources of income,
  Nor the people, perhaps, wouldn’t like the eclaw
  O’ bein’ all turned into paytriots by law. 
  Some want we should buy all the cotton an’ burn it,
  On a pledge, when we’ve gut thru the war, to return it,—­
  Then to take the proceeds an’ hold them ez security
  For an issue o’ bonds to be met at maturity
  With an issue o’ notes to be paid in hard cash
  On the fus’ Monday follerin’ the ’tarnal Allsmash: 
  This hez a safe air, an’, once hold o’ the gold,
  ’Ud leave our vile plunderers out in the cold,
  An’ might temp’ John Bull, ef it warn’t for the dip he
  Once gut from the banks o’ my own Massissippi. 
  Some think we could make, by arrangin’ the figgers,
  A hendy home-currency out of our niggers;
  But it wun’t du to lean much on ary sech staff,
  For they’re gittin’ tu current a’ready, by half. 
  One gennleman says, ef we lef’ our loan out
  Where Floyd could git hold on ’t, he’d take it, no doubt;
  But ‘t ain’t jes’ the takin’, though ’t hez a good look,
  We mus’ git sunthin’ out on it arter it’s took,
  An’ we need now more ’n ever, with sorrer I own,
  Thet some one another should let us a loan,
  Sence a soger wun’t fight, on’y jes’ while he draws his
  Pay down on the nail, for the best of all causes,
  ‘Thout askin’ to know wut the quarrel’s about,—­
  An’ once come to thet, why, our game is played out. 
  It’s ez true ez though I shouldn’t never hev said it
  Thet a hitch hez took place in our system o’ credit;
  I swear it’s all right in my speeches an’ messiges,
  But ther’ ‘s idees afloat, ez ther’ is about sessiges: 
  Folks wun’t take a bond ez a basis