rk, Texas, when
cultivated by free labor, can produce cotton enough to clothe the people
of the world, and supply all Europe with wheat also. The rapid
colonization of Texas by freemen ought to add to our wealth, in this
decade, a sum equal to the present debt of the United States, and
terminate in our favor the effort to supplant us in the supply of cotton
for the world.

The isothermals of the great Humboldt (differing so widely from
parallels), which trace the lines of temperature on the earth's
surface, prove, as to heat, the climate of the South (running a line
from Charleston to Vicksburg) to be substantially the same as that of
Greece and Italy--each, in its turn, the mistress of the world. I know,
when, the term _isothermal_ was used in my inaugural as Governor of
Kansas, it was represented by some of our present rebel leaders, to the
masses of the South, as some terrible monster, perhaps the Yankee sea
serpent; but I now use the term again in no offence, from its important
application to the present case, and knowing that what I now advise
would produce incalculable benefits to the whole country, but especially
to the South. Indeed, if Texas, with her 274,356 square miles of area,
with her salubrious climate, and fertile soil, already worked to a great
extent by free labor, were a free State, she would, in time, contain a
larger population than any State of the Union. Texas has much more than
five times the area of England proper, and, with the same population to
the square mile, would contain more than one hundred millions of people.
Having, in 1837, offered in the Senate of the United States, and
carried, the resolution, recognizing the independence of Texas, first
proposing in my letter of the 8th January, 1844, the mode, by _compact_
(alone practicable), by which, on my motion, Texas was admitted into the
Union, distinctly advocating, in this letter, the reannexation of Texas,
with, a view to secure the ultimate disappearance of slavery and
negroism from the whole country, in opposition to the object officially
avowed by Mr. Calhoun, to annex Texas for the purpose of perpetuating
slavery, I shall, in a future letter, discuss this subject, involving
not only our furnishing a certain abundant supply of cheap cotton, but
securing the real monopoly of this great product, due to our _peculiar_
soil and climate, and thus ultimately increasing our products and
manufactures thousands of millions of dollars, and giv