[Marshall] Texas Republican, November 17, 1860
Gen. George Bickley and Col. Groner of the K. G. C.’s, have been in Marshall for several days. The former, who is quite a fluent, easy, graceful, and forcible speaker, addressed the citizens at the Courthouse on Friday night, and Saturday evening, explaining the character and objects of the organization to which he belonged.
- Its original object, it appears, was the colonization of Mexico, peaceably and under invitation from the liberal party of that country.
- It was not a political organization; that is, it was not connected, directly or indirectly with either of the political parties of the day.
- It was not in a reprehensible point of view a secret organization, inasmuch as it published its principles to the world, and every thing connected with it, except the forms that bound members of the order together.
Gen. Bickley claimed to be a Southern man and the individuals connected with him were Southern men. His organization presented a nucleus around which Southern men could rally. The “wide awakes” of the North were organized as was apparent to enforce Black Republican misrule upon the South—to subjugate resisting Southern States. We require a counteracting organization in the South. The K. G. C.’s numbered upwards of 115,000 men, 50,000 of whom could be concentrated at ten day’s notice to protect any Southern State struggling for its rights. He presented the necessity of military organizations all over the South, so as to keep down insurrections and to repel invasions.
We present the foregoing as a brief outline of Gen. Bickley’s views and purposes, without endorsing or being understood as endorsing them. His speech was very well received. What success he met with, in adding to the number of K. G. C.’s we are not advised. We have understood the order was quite numerous in this county already.
We believe in Southern organizations, but that whatever is done, shall be done openly and with the knowledge of our entire people. In other words, we do not believe in secret organizations, and particularly secret military and political organizations. We regard them as dangerous in a republic. Whenever the day of resistance comes, if come it must, there is not a Southern State that cannot send forth, armed and equipped, ten thousand men, who have been accustomed to the use of arms from their youth. These men will scarcely be missed from among us, and yet they will constitute an army of 150,000 men, who, in point of efficiency, intelligence, discipline, determined valor, intrepidity, and all the elements that constitute a valuable army, will be superior to any force that has ever been sent to the field since the world began. We have the strength to maintain ourselves. What we need is prudent counsels to avert a collision, which if once commenced will be terrible in its results to both sections.