[MARSHALL] TEXAS REPUBLICAN, September 15, 1860, p. 1, c. 7
                                                                                                                
From the Galveston News.

Letter from Dallas.

                                                                                                                
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 the 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 32o 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.