The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil WarWoodson, Carter Godwin
History
The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War
Woodson, Carter Godwin
African Americans -- Education
The enactment of this law caused Canterbury to go wild with joy. Miss
Crandall was arrested on the 27th of June, and committed to await her
trial at the next session of the Supreme Court. She and her friends
refused to give bond that the officials might go the limit in
imprisoning her. Miss Crandall was placed in a murderer's cell. Mr.
May, who had stood by her, said when he saw the door locked and the
key taken out, "The deed is done, completely done. It cannot be
recalled. It has passed into the history of our nation and age." Miss
Crandall was tried the 23d of August, 1833, at Brooklyn, the county
seat of the county of Windham. The jury failed to agree upon a
verdict, doubtless because Joseph Eaton, who presided, had given it as
his opinion that the law was probably unconstitutional. At the second
trial before Judge Dagget of the Supreme Court, who was an advocate of
the law, Miss Crandall was convicted. Her counsel, however, filed a
bill of exceptions and took an appeal to the Court of Errors. The
case came up on the 22d of July, 1834. The nature of the law was ably
discussed by W.W. Ellsworth and Calvin Goddard, who maintained that
it was unconstitutional, and by A.T. Judson and C.F. Cleveland, who
undertook to prove its constitutionality. The court reserved its
decision, which was never given. Finding that there were defects in
the information prepared by the attorney for the State, the indictment
was quashed. Because of subsequent attempts to destroy the building,
Mr. May and Miss Crandall decided to abandon the school.[1]
[Footnote 1: Jay, _An Inquiry, etc._, p. 26.]
It resulted then that even in those States to which free blacks had
long looked for sympathy, the fear excited by fugitives from the more
reactionary commonwealths had caused northerners so to yield to the
prejudices of the South that they opposed insuperable obstacles to the
education of Negroes for service in the United States. The colored
people, as we shall see elsewhere, were not allowed to locate their
manual labor college at New Haven[1] and the principal of the Noyes
Academy at Canaan, New Hampshire, saw his institution destroyed
because he decided to admit colored students.[2] These fastidious
persons, however, raised no objection to the establishment of schools
to prepare Negroes to expatriate themselves under the direction of the
American Colonization Society.[3]
[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention for the
Improvement of the Free People of Color_, p. 14.]
[Footnote 2: _Fourth Annual Report of the American Antislavery
Society_, p. 34.]
[Footnote 3: Alexander, _A History of Colonization on the Western
Continent_, p. 348.]
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