Page:The Slave Struggle in America.djvu/29

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Slave Struggle in America.
7

colored children." The parents of the white "young ladies" objected to their daughters going "to school with a nigger," and gave Miss Crandall the alternative of dismissing the colored girl or losing her white pupils. In answer to this, Miss Crandall, at the commencement of the following term, advertised that her school would be open to young ladies, little misses of color, and others who might wish to attend. Miss Crandall's next-door neighbor was one Andrew Judson, afterwards member of Congress and judge of the District Court of the United States, and this gentleman was much shocked on finding that negro girls were to be educated so near to his dwelling. He led a cowardly persecution against Miss Crandall and her pupils, and openly declared his purpose of frustrating her noble aim. Notwithstanding, the school was opened with fifteen or twenty colored pupils. Miss Crandall was "Boycotted," her house assailed, and she and her pupils insulted in every way. It was sought to show that the negro girls came under the Vagrant Act, and were thus liable to summary imprisonment; but Dr. Samuel J. May and others gave bonds for 10,000 dols., and consequently this plan to drive away poor girls, whose only fault was the color of their skin, broke down. Judson and the town authorities then secured the passage of a law through the legislature, prohibiting the establishment of schools for the education of colored persons not inhabitants of the State, without the permission of the select men of the town—a permission then, of course, impossible to obtain. The inhabitants of Canterbury were so overjoyed at the passing of this truly generous measure that cannon were fired, bells rung, and there was a general rejoicing as at a great victory. Miss Crandall was arrested, committed for trial and placed in a cell, only lately occupied by a murderer who had left it for the scaffold. Miss Crandall was bailed out the following morning, but the persecution was carried on with unabated vigor. The physicians refused to visit the sick members of her family; the trustees of the church forbade her attendance at church. The next year Miss Crandall's case came on for trial, with Judson the persecutor as prosecutor. The Judge held the new law to be constitutional, but the jury refused to convict. It is said that seven were for conviction and five for acquittal. The persecutors obtained a new trial, and this time the jury convicted. Miss Crandall's friends appealed to the highest tribunal, who quashed the case upon a technical objection, but refused to give any decision as to the constitutionality of the law. Despite persecution, insult, and imprisonment, brave Miss Crandall again tried her educational work; but her house was assailed in the middle of the night, and rendered almost uninhabitable. At last this estimable woman—who had carried on so brave a fight in this noble cause—felt compelled to yield, and, acting under the advice of her friends, broke up her school.