Standard [Clarksville, TX], February 4, 1860
It seems that Mr. Mills of Navarro, has found it necessary, in his place in the State Legislature, to define the position of the people of Northern Texas upon the Slavery question. We were not before this aware that the people of Northern Texas required any definement of their attitude in this respect, but suppose that of course Mr. Mills had heard something which called out his remarks. The debate arose upon a bill to grant 200 acres of land to actual settlers upon the frontier. We suppose that individuals could be found, here and there, having anti- slavery prejudices; but we have never met with one yet, in Northern Texas, who expressed them, in our hearing, and we imagine that the number is quite small. There is no danger of the growth of any such sentiment or prejudice in a slaveholding community; where persons can see the actualities of slavery; the sickly sentiment is grown upon fallacies, at a distance from the realities, the close observation of which, would obliterate all such poorly founded fancies. It does not matter what part of the Union a man comes from, or with what notions he was indoctrinated when he left home. Let him live in a slaveholding community for a few months, and he will be ready enough to acquire negro property whenever opportunity is favorable; and he will be oppressed with no qualms of conscience in so doing. There is no room in any sensible man’s mind for such romantic fancies, after he sees and knows what slavery really is, and what slaves are by the organization of the Supreme ruler, who suited their capacities and tastes to their position, and unfitted them for any other.
“I have heard some of my friends upon the floor, who are honest in their opinion, object to this measure, because the atmosphere of the State has been poisoned with the idea that the people who are settled in that upper country, are not sound in relation to the peculiar institution of the South. I apprehend that this is all a mistake. So far as my knowledge of that country extends, the people in the Northern part of the State are more sensitive upon the subject of slavery, than those in the vicinity of Austin, or any interior portion of the State. Abolitionists, and their incendiaries and emissaries, have taken advantage of these slanders that have been circulated generally over the State, to the injury of that section, and believing them to be true have attempted to go to that country and indoctrinate the people with their treasonable sentiments. Some of these individuals have lately shown themselves in that region, and on every occasion (and I defy contradiction) where their incendiary objects were made known to the people, they have been driven away and expelled from their midst. They were driven out of Dallas county, out of Cooke, out of Fannin and out of every other portion of that country where they have made themselves known. And I warn such gentlemen have been lecturing to respectable audiences and receiving applause in the city of Austin not to go to that country, for if they did they may receive an invitation from the people of that region to visit the nearest black jack in the vicinity. If the gentlemen who had [illegible] boldness to address a letter [illegible] city to the President of the United States, acknowledging that he had been principal secretary of an organization having for its object those which were developed in the late insurrection at Harper’s Ferry—I say if he had written that letter in the midst of that people, he would have paid for it by the forfeit of his life. I want gentlemen to reflect on fact—and the apportionment committee will bear me out in it—that the people of Northern Texas, have increased more rapidly in the last eight years, than those of any other portion of the State. And why is it Mr. Speaker, that their population augments so fast and has become so overwhelming? It is answered thus, sir: within the last eight or ten years the abolition spirit in the Northern portion of this Confederacy has been increasing; it has been resisted, however, until within the last six or eight years, by the conservative and patriotic citizens of that section. They have fought gallantly, but they have at last fallen before the foe. For a long number of years they stood in serried columns around the Constitution and the Union. Now they are crushed down and overwhelmed by an all powerful majority. Many of them have left the homes of their infancy and youth, as the Puritans left England, to escape persecution, on account of the faith that was in them. Many of them have come among us because they were patriots devoted to the Constitution of their country, and wished to live where the common sentiment around them was congenial with their own. They have settled in this Northern country because the soil and climate is adapted to the growth of such products as they have been accustomed to all their lives. And from the fact that these slanders have been circulated all over the State, and even found an echo in this hall, they have become more sensitive on the subject of Slavery than the citizens of any other portion of the country. And, hence, they have adopted every measure, and made use of all the means in their power, to prove that the settlers in their section of the State are not at enmity with that institution, which is the very life blood and existence of the whole South. I have felt it my duty, as it has been suggested by friends that these reports are having their influence on this very measure, to endeavor to disabuse the minds of the members in relation to this slanderous charge brought against the people of that portion of the country.