The Ranchero [Corpus Christi, TX], August 4, 1860
In another column we publish a letter written by Col. Chas. R. Pryor, editor of the Dallas Herald, which makes some startling developments. Facts have been elicited by actual testimony, that goes to substantiate the fact that this State is infested with an organized band of abolitionists, whose sole object is to war upon the institution of slavery. Plots have been discovered in different portions of the State, which go to show that an actual conspiracy is on foot to inaugurate a second Harper’s Ferry affair in our very midst. On the same day that Dallas was destroyed, an attempt was made to fire Austin, and twice since; fires at Denton, Jefferson, and many other places occurred at the same time; an abolitionist was detected at Fort Worth who had just distributed fifty guns and fifty six-shooters among the negroes, and another one engaged in a similar act in Parker county was caught. Both were hung by the citizens. A correspondent of the Brenham Ranger writes from Chapel Hill that three suspicious persons were brought before a meeting in that place, and after a fair and impartial investigation, it was proven that they were abolitionists, had said that they sympathised with the negroes, and had made their boasts that there were three thousand abolitionists in the State, and also that in three years the Black Republicans would rule the State. One of them had been seen to take negroes in his room, and, with closed doors, to converse with them. They were ordered to leave the State, which they did.
The existence of abolitionists in the Cherokee Nation has already been chronicled. The State Gazette says it appears that an active warfare is going on there against the institution of slavery, and that the party engaged in it is of a religious denomination (Methodist Church North); thus infusing religious fanaticism in their hostility to the property of Southern men.
We append the remarks of the Gazette, which we heartily endorse:
We give these facts to our readers with no idea of desiring to create any false impression. We think any one who could thus trifle with the feelings of the people, would be amenable to the severest censure. We only do so desiring to know if there is an actual conspiracy on foot to treat our State with one of those horrible tragedies which it is proposed to enact in slave States for the purpose of creating the impression that powerful enemies to the institution live here among us, and who are willing to see and aid the conflagration of the incendiary, the bloody knife of the assassin, and deluge with blood the dwellings of all who in any way countenance the slave institution: rejoicing over our attack and the perhaps wide spread famine following in its wake.
Let the citizens of Texas everywhere be on their guard, and we hope that should a well attested case of incendiarism be discovered, the severest penalty will be quickly inflicted. The abolitionists have grown insolent from our own laxity and indifference.