Some Recollections of Our Antislavery ConflictMay, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph)
History
Some Recollections of Our Antislavery Conflict
May, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph)
Antislavery movements -- United States
When, in April, 1835, I became the General Agent of the Massachusetts
Antislavery Society, I was brought into more intimate relations with
Mr. Burleigh. We were indeed fellow-laborers. Repeatedly did we
go forth together on lecturing excursions, and never was I better
sustained. With him as my companion I felt sure our course would be
successful. I always insisted upon speaking first; for, if I failed
to do my best, he would make ample amends, covering the whole ground,
exhausting the subject, leaving nothing essential unsaid. And if I
did better than ever, Mr. Burleigh would come after me, and fill
twelve baskets full of precious fragments. He is a single-minded,
pure-hearted, conscientious, self-sacrificing man. He is not blessed
with a fine voice nor a graceful manner. And the peculiar dress of
his hair and beard has given offence to many, and may have lessened
his usefulness. But he has a great command of language. He has a
singularly acute and logical intellect. His reasoning, argumentative
powers are remarkable. And he often has delighted and astonished his
hearers by the brilliancy of his rhetoric, and the surpassing beauty
of his imagery, and aptness of his illustrations. The millions of the
emancipated in our country are indebted to the labors of few more than
to those of Charles C. Burleigh. But to return.
MISS CRANDALL’S TRIAL.
On the 23d of August, 1833, the first trial of Prudence Crandall for
the _crime_ of keeping a boarding-school for colored girls in the State
of Connecticut, and endeavoring to give them a good education,--the
first trial for _this crime_,--was had in Brooklyn, the seat of the
county of Windham, within a stone’s throw of the house where lived
and died General Israel Putnam, who, with his compatriots of 1776,
perilled his life in defence of the self-evident truth that “all men
were created _equal_, and endowed by their Creator with the inalienable
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It was had at
the County Court, Hon. Joseph Eaton presiding.
The prosecution was conducted by Hon. A. T. Judson, Jonathan A. Welch,
Esq., and I. Bulkley, Esq. Miss Crandall’s counsel were Hon. Calvin
Goddard, Hon. W. W. Ellsworth, and Henry Strong, Esq.
The indictment of Miss Crandall consisted of two counts, which amounted
to the same thing. The first set forth, in the technical terms of the
law, that “with force and arms” she had received into her school; and
the second, that, “with force and arms,” she had instructed certain
colored girls, who were not inhabitants of the State, without having
first obtained, in writing, permission to do so from the majority
of the civil authority and selectmen of the town of Canterbury, as
required by the law under which she was prosecuted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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