George Williamson: Commissioner of the State of Louisiana urges Texas to secede “to preserve the blessings of African slavery”
Austin, Texas
February 11, 1861
“Louisiana supplies to Texas a market for her surplus wheat, grain and stock; both States have large areas of fertile, uncultivated lands, peculiarly adapted to slave labor; and they are both so deeply interested in African slavery that it may be said to be absolutely necessary to their existence, and is the keystone to the arch of their prosperity… The people of the slave holding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.”
image: Slave auction in New Orleans, 1842
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