[Marshall] Texas Republican, September 15, 1860
From the Galveston News.
Dallas, August 18th, 1860.
Editor News:–It is very much to be regretted that exaggerated reports should have been circulated regarding the recent excitement in this section while the community has been deeply agitated, there has been very little confusion, and the sentences of the committees passed after long and patient investigation, have been carried out to the letter.
The most absurd rumors as to the state of affairs have gained credence; while there are among us more men of Northern birth than there are in South Eastern Texas, the community is sound on the subject of African Slavery. Those of our Northern fellow-citizens who came here at an early day are identified with us in feeling, sentiment, and interest. In most cases, they are owners of slaves and as vigilant in detecting and as severe in punishing abolitionists as any others. A large proportion of those who have come in recent years from Illinois and Indiana are natives of the South, and have come here on account of their preference for southern men and southern institutions. During the recent excitement the community seemed as one man in sentiment. If there were among us any more disposed to leniency than others, it was generally a Southern man who could not believe his own household servants could be guilty of complicity in a plot of murder and conflagration.
Most particularly is it to be regretted that such statements as were copied into your columns from the Gilmer Tribune should gain currency. I allude to the statements that the country between Grayson county and Upshur “not to be excelled for richness and beauty of scenery,” was “settled by a majority of abolitionists in some places.” I think this must be a mistake. During the past few years the people there have been very prompt in getting rid of such characters. In no part of Texas have they been more roughly handled. If any have been detected in complicity with the recent disturbances and caught, they have been emissaries recently arrived, and will hardly be seen again in Texas, unless some of them reach the low country after the next rise in the Trinity.
We presume the prairie counties lying North of the parallel of 32° may be considered in Northern Texas. We venture the assertion that there is not in the South as large a body of the richest land, out of the Mississippi bottom, nor a country where negro property is more secure. We have come nearer failure in crops this year than ever before, and yet we have both corn and oats to sell. Our soil and climate are suited to cotton, and as the railroads approach us the culture of the great staple is extending. The increase of our slave population has been very rapid. In 1850 by the U. S. Census the slaves in Northern Texas numbered 3559. By the assessors’ returns for 1859, there were 12,975; and as the assessor’s return for 1850 fell short of the U. S. Marshalls’, nearly 25 per cent, it is fair to presume that the number here now is much greater than that indicated. In conclusion we would say to Southern men, come and look at our fine country. You will find the richest land, excellent health, good water, and perhaps some day or other, a railroad both to Galveston, and through Shreveport to Vicksburg on the Mississippi. At present your down freight hence to the railroad would be $1,00 to $1,25 per hundred.
F. A. W. S.