Ther’ are critters so base thet they want it explained Jes’ wut is the totle amount thet we’ve gained, 40 Ez ef we could maysure stupenjious events By the low Yankee stan’ard o’ dollars an’ cents:  They seem to forgit, thet, sence last year revolved, We’ve succeeded in gittin’ seceshed an’ dissolved, An’ thet no one can’t hope to git thru dissolootion ‘thout some kin’ o’ strain on the best Constitootion.  Who asks for a prospec’ more flettrin’ an’ bright, When from here clean to Texas it’s all one free fight?  Hain’t we rescued from Seward the gret leadin’ featurs Thet makes it wuth while to be reasonin’ creators? 50 Hain’t we saved Habus Coppers, improved it in fact, By suspendin’ the Unionists ‘stid o’ the Act?  Ain’t the laws free to all?  Where on airth else d’ ye see Every freeman improvin’ his own rope an’ tree?  Ain’t our piety sech (in our speeches an’ messiges) Ez t’ astonish ourselves in the bes’-composed pessiges,
An’ to make folks thet knowed us in th’ ole state o’ things
Think convarsion ez easy ez drinkin’ gin-slings? 
It’s ne’ssary to take a good confident tone
With the public; but here, jest amongst us, I own 60
Things look 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 advantage 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. 70
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 ‘twould be our own bills we should git for th’ insurance;
But cinders, no matter how sacred we think ’em, Mightn’t strike furrin minds ez good sources of income, 80 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, 90 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.