[Marshall] Texas Republican, January 28, 1860
Our thanks are due Dr. E. J. Beall and T. J. Beall, Esq., for late New Orleans and Mobile papers. These gentlemen have been on a visit to Alabama. They reached home a few days ago. Mr. Beall states that the emigration from Alabama, and through that State, to Texas has been very great this year. When he came down the Alabama river, there were a number of steamboats that started about the same time, carrying in all about eighteen hundred passengers, the most of them destined for this State. He learned that more slaves had been cleared this year from the custom house at Mobile destined for Texas, than for five preceding years, as large as the emigration has been during that period. Every portion of the State reports a heavy immigration, If the increase has been as great elsewhere as through this immediate section, the prospects are indeed flattering. Our vast extent of territory, presenting millions of acres of unoccupied lands, from which to make selections; the fact that Texas herself possesses a hundred millions of public domain; that she has made ample provision out of this fund for common schools and for the endowment of a magnificent free University, to be open alike to poor and rich; but more than all, the inauguration of a liberal railroad policy, promising the most brilliant results, has stimulated capital and enterprize to seek this new theatre of exertion. None of our great public works are languishing; all of them are being prosecuted with redoubled energy. The confidence felt in their success has brought a vast emigration, and this increase of population, wealth, and enterprize, is destined to give them an extraordinary impetus. If the history of Texas for the last ten years has been replete with interest, the succeeding decade will contain much more to challenge admiration. We have had roads opened through the haunts of the red man, counties created, and towns built up as if by magic; but within the next ten years, the great body of our lands will be settled, the State in all probability ramified by railroads, and cities rivaling in population and wealth many of the older States. The immigration into Texas since the period of annexation has been of the most desirable character. We venture to say that no State in the Union possesses so many intelligent, enterprizing men, or presents a more fruitful field for the exercise of energy, talent, and capital.