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]