Daily Times [Leavenworth, KS], September 22, 1860
It will probably be ascertained—as soon as the object which the alarmists hope to attain, is either secured or effectually prevented—that the recent extraordinary excitement and attendant horrors in Texas, were founded upon nothing more tangible than the fears which must ever beset those who hold their fellow men in servile bondage. The New Orleans Picayune already reveals to the utter baselessness of the alarming reports which have been spread so industriously.
“The investigations which have been prosecuted in the disturbed districts of Texas have not developed, with any degree of distinctness, the existence of any other plot for ruin than what a few desperate characters, without connection with or hope of help from any other quarter, might have formed. In some cases the negro population have been demoralized evidently by the insidious promises of those white men, and the work of ruin wrought has doubtless been mainly their work. But not half of what has been confessed seems to be borne out by later facts. The strychnine said to have been discovered in the hands of negroes turns out to be very harmless, having no affinity to the deadly poison, which it was supposed to be. The wells thought to have been poisoned, late accounts declare to be untainted with any deleterious substance.—Texas, like all other frontier States, has been the point where desperate men have congregated, and her whole history is full of violence and outrage inflicted by the foes of society. Aroused by the present danger, the citizens have now taken the most effectual means to bring such offenders to justice, and to break up all combinations for their protection.”