It is not known, that in any way whatever, it has ever expressed its disapprobation of these proceedings. Certain it is, that the effect of the "appeal" and of this vote, was not such as to induce the Canterbury gentlemen to falter in their career—we have seen that Mr. Judson had a LAW, which was to arrest the school. When the "appeal" had been before the public just one month, the selectmen resolved to avail themselves of this law.

Among the pupils of Miss Crandall, was a colored girl about seventeen years of age, who had come from RhodeIsland to enjoy the advantages of the school. The pursuit of knowledge under discouraging difficulties has rarely failed to excite applause; and the virtuous struggles of the poor and obscure to improve and elevate themselves, claim the sympathy of Christian benevolence. In the present instance we behold a youthful female, of a despised and depressed race, attempting to emerge from the ignorance and degradation into which she had been cast by birth; and abandoning her home and friends, and travelling to another State, applying for instruction to the only seminary in the whole country open to receive her. And now let us see what sympathy this poor and defenceless, but innocent and praiseworthy girl, experienced from the admirers of "the benevolent Colonization system." On the day after her arrival, she was ordered by the selectmen to leave the town. This order, as illegal as it was inhumane, was disregarded; and on the 22nd April, Mr. Judson and his fellow functionaries instituted on behalf of the town, a suit against her under an old vagrant act of Connecticut, and a writ was issued to the sheriff, to require her appearance before a Justice of the Peace. The writ recited, that according to the statute she had forfeited to the town $1.62 for each day she had remained in it, since she was ordered to depart; and that in default of payment, she was TO BE WHIPPED ON THE NAKED BODY NOT EXCEEDING TEN STRIPES, unless she departed within ten days after conviction. The barbarous and obsolete law under which this suit was brought, was intended to protect towns from the intrusion of paupers who might become chargeable. The friends of the school had offered to give the selectmen bonds to any amount, to secure the town from all cost on account of the

pupils; and of course this suit was a wicked perversion of the law, and the plaintiffs ought to have been indicted, for a malicious prosecution under color of office. With equal propriety might the civil authority of New Haven warn a student in Yale College from New York to leave the city, and on his refusal, order him to be whipped on the naked body as a vagrant pauper.

About the time of the return of this writ, the Legislature of Connecticut assembled, and so successfully had the Canterbury persecution been identified with Colonization, that a law was passed to suppress the school, and all others of a similar character. Its preamble declared that "attempts have been made to establish literary institutions in this State for the instruction of colored persons belonging to other States and countries, which would tend to the great increase of the colored population of this State, and thereby to the injury of the people." The act provides, that every person, who shall set up or establish any school, academy, or literary institution, for the instruction or education of colored persons who are not inhabitants of Connecticut; or who shall teach in such school, or who shall board any colored pupil of such school, not an inhabitant of the State, shall forfeit one hundred dollars for the first offence, two hundred dollars for the second, and so on, doubling for each succeeding offence, unless the consent of the civil authority, and select men of the town, be previously obtained.

Mr. Judson's late attempt to enforce the whipping law, reminded the Legislature of the propriety of abolishing that relic of barbarism, and it was accordingly repealed, and thus were the backs of Miss Crandall's pupils saved from the threatened laceration.

It is painful and mortifying to reflect on the law obtained by Mr. Judson and his associates, for the suppression of the school, and which has very generally received the title of "the Connecticut Black Act." It is an act alien to the habits, the character, the religion of Connecticut. It is an act which neither policy nor duty can vindicate. It is an act which will afford its authors no consolation in the prospect of their final account, and which their children will blush to remember.

It is not surprising that a Connecticut Legislature, about to pass a law, for the discouragement of learning, should wish for an excuse; nor that they should find themselves constrained to invent one. Miss Crandall had fifteen or twenty girls in her school, and it does not appear that the Legislature had ascertained how many of them had come from other States, nor that they had inquired into the amount of injury sustained by the citizens of Canterbury in their "persons, property, and reputations," from these "misses of color ;" and yet they unhesitatingly assert, that the "increase" of the colored population in the State occasioned by such schools, would be "great;" and that such increase would tend to the "injury of the people." To test the truth of these two assertions, let it be recollected, first, that no evidence existed that any other seminary for blacks was at this time contemplated in Connecticut; and that the free colored people are, as a class, sunk in abject poverty, and that very few of them have the means of sending their children from other States into Connecticut, and there maintaining them at school; and, secondly, that no portion of this population would be so little likely to occasion "injury to the people," as those who were placed at a religious school, and instructed in morals and literature. As to the sincerity of the apprehensions felt by the Legislature, let it be further recollected, that the law is intended to prevent the ingress of such blacks only as might come for the honorable and virtuous purpose of education, while not the slightest impediment is opposed to the introduction of cooks, waiters, scullions, shoeblacks, &c., in any number. The best are excluded, the worst freely admitted.

We have seen that Colonizationists regard all attempts to elevate the free blacks, as an interference with their system, and the Black Act is admirably calculated to prevent such attempts. Connecticut closes her schools to blacks from New York and elsewhere. If this is right, and what State more religious than Connecticut, other States may be expected to follow her example. Hence no seminary, in any one State, for the instruction of the blacks, can be founded by their joint contributions ;—from the academies, boarding schools, and colleges of the whites, they are al

ready excluded; of course, they are-doomed to perpetual ignorance. Let each State, it is said, instruct its own youth. It is well for Yale College that this doctrine is applied only to black aspirants for knowledge.

In 1828, an African Mission School was established at Hartford, for the purpose of educating colored youth, “to be selected from our numerous African population," and, of course, from other States besides Connecticut. It was under the patronage of the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. No outcry was excited against this school; no citizen of Hartford trembled for his property, person, or reputation. Why not? Because the school was auxiliary to Colonization, and those instructed in it were to be sent out of the country.

No sooner was the passage of the Black Act known in Canterbury, than this triumph over justice, humanity, and constitutional liberty, was celebrated by a feu de joie, and the ringing of bells. Nor was the act permitted to remain a dead letter. Miss Crandall was prosecuted under it, and being unable to procure bail, was committed to PRISON. The next day bail was obtained, and she returned to her school. Well, indeed, might the public press, with some memorable exceptions, execrate the Black Act; and well, indeed, might Mr. Judson feel impatient, under the obloquy that was falling upon him, as the chief instigator and manager of the prosecution. "A friend in need, is a friend indeed." And now was the time when he needed and received that countenance, for which he had appealed to the Colonization Society. It was not probably expected that the managers of the parent Society would officially notice the appeal, but a mode was devised, on the part of Connecticut Colonizationists, of publicly expressing their approbation of Mr. Judson's conduct. On the anniversary of the declaration that "all men are created equal," and a few days after Miss Crandall's imprisonment, the Windham County* Colonization Society convened, and appointed Mr. Judson their orator and agent, thus proclaiming that HE was the man they delighted to honor. Another response to the appeal, was in a few days heard from New York. The chairman of the executive committee of the New York City *The county in which Canterbury is situated.

Colonization Society, is the editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser, and its columns were loaded with criminations of Miss Crandall, and vindications of the Black Act. "The inhabitants of Canterbury" were declared to be "as quiet, peaceable, humane, and inoffensive people, as can be named in the United States." The constitutionality of the Black Act was broadly maintained, and it was averred to be "just such a law in its spirit, if not in its provisions, as we are in the constant practice of enforcing in this city, to prevent our charitable institutions from being filled to overflowing with black paupers from the South, and white paupers from Europe." Of the gentleman who drafted the Black Act, the public were assured, "a warmer heart than his throbs in few bosoms, and the African race has no firmer friend than him."*

On the 23d of August, Miss Crandall was brought to trial. The crime with which she was charged, was fully proved. One of the witnesses testified: "The school is usually opened and closed with prayer; the Scriptures are read and explained in the school daily; portions are committed to memory by the pupils, and considered part of their education."

The orator and agent of the Windham Colonization Society, opened the case on the part of the prosecution, and to this gentleman, it is believed, belongs the distinction of having been the first man in New England to propound publicly the doctrine, that free colored persons are not citizens. This doctrine was essential to the validity of the Black Act, since by the federal Constitution, citizens of one State are entitled to all the privileges of citizenship in every other State; and the Act prohibited colored persons from other States from going to school in Connecticut, a prohibition palpably unconstitutional, if free blacks are citizens. The presiding Judge submitted the cause to the jury without comment; and some of them having scruples about Mr. Judson's new doctrine, refused to agree in a verdict of guilty, and a new trial was consequently ordered. In the ensuing October, Miss Crandall was again placed at the bar, while the vice president of the New Haven Colonization Society, Judge Daggett, took his seat on the *Com. Adv. July 16 and 29, 1833.