The deep interest which this modern reformer manifests towards everything in America in general, and in Texas in particular, and the unselfishness with which he avows his willingness to bring his colony, with all their capital, ingenuity, industry, virtue, and vices, too, we suppose, and settle them in our midst, in consideration of a grant of our worthless lands, would excite our gratitude, if we were not convinced that quite a sufficiency of this description of better citizens reach our shores through the usual medium of emigration, without the aid of any special agent, and that European malcontents can spread the slow but certain poison of their obnoxious principles quite rapidly enough for the good of this country, when they come singly and in couples, without this wholesale importation.[13]
Again, it was the fear of dissemination of socialistic principles that stirred the writer to warn his fellow countrymen.
The dissemination of any set of principles antagonistic to an existing government, must inevitably decrease the strength and vigor of that government, be it democratic or monarchial, in the same ratio that these principles find defenders and advocates. Wherever doctrines, however preposterous and destructive to society, have been broached by men of mind, they have never failed to find disciples.[14]
The principles which Considerant was advocating were such, the writer said, as the “vilest Red Republicans of France have repudiated, in the most licentious and stormy days of that wavering government.” Even though the whole scheme was to be experimental it would be very much better, so the writer thought, that such experiments should be done by “our own people rather than by a deputation of French philosophers” whose attempts to “half-sole and heel-tap society in days gone by” had ended in miserable failure.[15]
There were papers, however, that did not fear socialism and were anxious to see the experiment tried in Texas. The Galveston News even thought that the experiment might discover or explain certain social regulations that would bring to humanity “greater happiness and a higher degree of civilization.” But in such statements there existed in the mind of the writer a certain pessimism for he says, “Discord, which creeps into all human organization, may cause it to riot in infamy.”[16]
Even so, the colony was not sufficiently large or powerful to cause any serious dangers to the republican institutions of Texas. The Dallas Herald favored the colony because of the profit which would come to the city of Dallas and the surrounding country from the manufactories which Considerant proposed to establish.[17] The fact, though, that the men who were to form the colony were republicans who had been expelled from France because of their sentiments struck a responsive chord in the minds of the Dallas editors, and caused them to issue a general welcome to the colonists and express hope for their success. The Standard said:
For ourselves only, we say that we think the immigration of such a class of persons as he describes would be eminently beneficial to the State, and tend to its enrichment, by the introduction of Manufactures, without which no State is truly independent, and free from tribute in an eminent degree to other States. The agriculture, manufacturing and commercial elements all confined in a body politic, give it great power as the result of great resources—Texas has the elements for the successful development of all three, to which may be added mining in coal and iron.[18]
The support of the New York Tribune perhaps did Considerant more harm than good, as the Southern papers were suspicious of anything with which Greeley was connected. The mere fact that Brisbane and Greeley favored the colony was enough to convince most people in the South that the colony was organized for the sole purpose of establishing Free-soilers and Abolitionists in the slave states.
In fact, all the papers, even those supporting Considerant, were unanimous in their condemnation of the anti-slavery sentiment as expressed by Considerant. The State Gazette on October 13, 1855, says:
It is a matter of deep solicitude to all Southern men, that these Socialists should know in advance the opinions and views of our people. We are far from being fit subject for the transcendental theorists of the North and of France. The thousand isms of the day find no congenial soil in the South, and besides this, the hatred of the Slave Institution, cherished by these Socialists and avowed openly by them in our State, must only the more remind us of our duty and awake us to action.