It was said in the same issue that socialists were to be emptied upon Texas by the thousands, and already that their surveyors were working through several counties in which the colony had secured nearly every available piece of ground. Rumor had it that the slave-holders who lived near these people thought it opportune to dispose of their slaves, and many Southerners were disposed to leave their homes and seek plantations farther West.[19] Such statements apparently were wide of the mark as investigation fails to produce a single protest from people in the vicinity of the colony; such exaggeration merely represents the usual effort of some editors and newspapers to carry their points in any sensational issue and should not be given credence here. The incongruous statements of the Washington Sentinel are amusing:
We have a great country, interminable in extent, blessed with every variety of climate, and adapted to every kind of production. We have vast uninhabited wilds that resound oftener with the tread of the buffalo or the howl of the wolf than with the step or the voice of the man. We have room for the oppressed, the enterprising, the industrious and the patriotic of every clime and country. They are welcome. We would say to them, come—our arms are open to receive. Come ... and be naturalized into our free American brotherhood.
Yet when an effort is made to plant amongst us, and that, in a slave State (Texas) a colony of French Socialists and abolitionists (they are endorsed by the New York Tribune) then we demur, most positively and absolutely.
We want no abolition plantations or colonies here, whether they are foreign or native. We want no European ideas of liberty. We carved out, by our own strong arms, the independence of this country, and we want nothing of foreign origin infused into our system.
But Socialists are system-makers, government builders, and communists—they are political incendiaries and propagandists, and would not only plant themselves and their social institutions upon our soil, but would endeavor insidiously and furtively to erect the system of government which they espouse, on the same soil. Their system is altogether different from our system.... Besides, it is an abolition system. It is useless for M. Considerant or M. Anybody else to attempt to disguise it. They want to get a foothold here, and they will adopt any means to do so. It is vain for M. Considerant to attempt to hide his purposes under the rubbish of pedantic and scholastic phrases. Those purposes are plain and palpable.[20]
The above article was based largely upon Considerant’s declaration against slavery contained in his pamphlet, European Colonization in Texas, in which he stated that “The evil of slavery should not be increased by an addition of peculiar grants.” Considerant well understood that the slavery question would soon drive the North and South into war if it were not settled by some scientific formula rather than by the hot heads of either side. Personally, he wanted to see slavery abolished gradually. He was influenced in this position, no doubt, by Brisbane, who suggested as early as 1840 that a special investigation should be made into all slavery or involuntary servitude to determine whether it was economically sound to have such an institution. If it were found to be economically unsound or unjust to the men so penalized, then some plan should be worked out scientifically for its abolition.[21] The charge of many of the Southern papers that Considerant had been influenced by Greeley, Brisbane, and other liberal leaders of the North in the formation of his American political attitudes cannot be gainsaid. However, the wide political and basic fundamentals of his concept of social and political relations were European, and that of the extreme liberal school. Slavery was certainly against all his doctrines concerning the political and social equality of man, but he was not a fanatic on the subject as were many of the Northern and Southern leaders.[22]
The State Gazette referred to his statement of his position on slavery as “traitorous” and said that he was merely using “honeyed words” to cover up his “pernicious dogmas.” The prejudiced attitude of mind of the editors is evidenced in the editorials in the Gazette. They state that Considerant’s term “social relation of humanity” meant nothing more than “nigger good as white man” and that his proposal for a “scientific and peaceful progress” of the settlement meant “the development of this fact in the legislature.”[23] Seemingly conscious of the fact that many of Considerant’s arguments and pleas were unanswerable by reasonable arguments, the papers resorted to sarcasm and appealed to the prejudice of an inflamed public sentiment. It was not mere neutrality on the slavery question that was demanded; it was actual participation in the agitation for permanence of the institution.[24] Such activity would not have been possible from the colonists’ viewpoint because Considerant had distinctly declared against any active participation in the politics of the nation until the members of the colony had become thoroughly conversant with its problems, nor would such participation have been acceptable to the South which was at this particular time largely dominated by the “Know-Nothing” attitude toward the foreigner.
During the time that Considerant was trying to establish his colony in Texas, Albert Brisbane, his chief lieutenant in the United States, was having a very difficult time in New York. On one occasion the police, urged on by the usual anti-socialist complaint of that day, raided a meeting at which Brisbane was speaking. The New York Tribune in describing the scene said:
Nervous young gentlemen, destitute of hats, and bemoaning rent gloves and departed overcoats, dashed about to and fro in confusion—In Broadway, around the doors of Taylor’s saloon, and thickly packed up the sidewalks of nearly the distance of a block, stood an expectant crowd, who had got the wind of the fun that was to be heard of above, and who watched with intense eagerness the egress of one victim after another in the relentless grasp of the Police. As the female members of the club emerged from the doors, like a flock of frightened sheep chased by wolves, the Police followed closely in their tracks, the crowd raised loud shouts,—“Make way for the Ladies;” “Here they come;”—“Three Cheers”—“Let us see them”—“Hoo-Raw for the Free Lovers,” etc., etc., etc.[25]
The attitude of the legislature of Texas is very interesting. This attitude, perhaps, can best be explained by the study of a petition presented by Considerant and by the report of bills in the House and the Senate. Ignorance on the part of the legislators of the purposes and policies of the colony is astonishing, and this ignorance existed in spite of the fact that Considerant had done everything to inform them of his purpose and policies. At one time he distributed to the members his pamphlet on European Colonization in Texas which went into detail concerning the proposed colony. Savardan, in his book, states that this distribution was the greatest mistake made by Considerant because he took a neutral stand on political problems, especially on slavery. This, Savardan explains, was the very thing that Texans, especially the legislators, did not want. Conditions and circumstances in Texas demanded partisan politics and not neutrality. One must of necessity be for or against slavery, building of railroads, immigration, and similar movements.
In December, 1855, Considerant presented a petition to the House of Representatives and the Senate setting forth his appeal for grants of land in Texas.[26] In this he said that in returning to Texas for the second time he found there had been considerable change: in the public sentiment toward foreigners; in that all vacant lands in the north part of the state had been taken up by settlers, located on by speculators, or reserved to the Pacific Railroad Company. Thus the advantage which he clearly foresaw in 1852 for his colonization company and which he put forth as inducements in his reports to his friends to settle in Texas, had practically vanished, leaving him in a peculiar situation. The reaction to such a situation in Europe and among his friends had been such as to endanger the project of colonization. In consideration of these factors he asked if “a grant, for instance of two hundred sections of land, made to the Colonization Company, would exceed the measure of the favor” which the state would feel disposed to extend to the company as encouragement and compensation for the heavy expenses already undergone by the company in bringing settlers to Texas. So when he returned to present the above petition, he found public opinion aroused opposing his project.[27]
Considerant, thoroughly realizing this opposition to him and his colonists in Texas, attempted to answer the charges brought against him. In a letter to the governor of Texas, he said that certain persons “see only in our immigration an invasion of fanatics, enemies of property, of robbers, abolitionists,” and that they “imagined that we came to this country with the intention of subverting her institutions and laws, to bring about the abolition of slavery, and to create a State within a State.” Such charges were, according to him wholly unfounded, and could be charged only to “persons who had previously given unmistakable signs of mental aberration.”[28]
Nevertheless, in spite of Considerant’s pleading and earnest presentation of facts, the state legislature did not see fit to grant him lands which he had requested. This was due perhaps to the change of policy in regard to state lands which had been recently adopted rather than to any particular objections to the French colonists or their socialistic doctrines. Of course, as was shown by newspaper reports, the objection to the colonists was so great that no land would have been granted even if there had been no change of policy.