mittee written certificates of their approbation, of the education of colored youth. Little, alas, did these gentlemen anticipate the feeling this effort would excite, among the Christians of New Haven. No sooner had intelligence of the intended school reached that city, than the mayor summoned a town meeting " to take into consideration a scheme, said to be in progress, for the establishment in this city of a college for the education of colored youth." The meeting was held on the 8th September, 1831, and it was "Resolved by the Mayor, Aldermen, Common Council, and free men of the city of New Haven, in city meeting assembled, that we will resist the establishment of the proposed college in this place by every lawful means." This resolution was preceded by a preamble, stating that "in connexion with this establishment, the immediate abolition of slavery in the United States, is not only recommended and encouraged by the advocates of the proposed college, but demanded as a right," and "that the propagation of sentiments, favorable to the immediate emancipation of slaves, in disregard of the civil institutions of the States to which they belong, and as auxiliary thereto, the contemporaneous founding of colleges for educating colored people, is an unwarrantable and dangerous interference with the internal concerns of other States, and ought to be discouraged."

That the education of colored citizens in Connecticut, is an unwarrantable interference with the internal concerns of other States, and that the friends of the proposed college ever recommended the immediate emancipation of slaves in disregard of the civil institutions of the States to which they belong, are assertions which the Mayor, Aldermen, Common Council, and free men of the city of New Haven, prudently permitted to rest on their own authority, without adducing any other evidence of their truth.

But surely, the pious and excellent Colonizationists of New Haven, who are so anxious to civilize the natives of Africa, must have been indignant at this attempt to keep Americans in ignorance. Alas, in that crowded assembly, there was but one voice raised against its unholy resolution, and that was the voice of a decided Anti-colonizationist, the Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, while one of the public advocates of the resolution, was the Secretary of the New Haven

Committee of Correspondence of the American Colonization Society.

The Colonization party in New Haven, could have prevented this high handed oppression, but their influence was exerted not for, but against the improvement and elevation of their colored brethren.

Unhappily for the character of Connecticut, for that of our common country, and even of Christianity itself, the proceedings in New Haven were but the commencement of a series of outrages on justice, humanity, and the rights of freemen.

There are occasions on which it is treason to truth and honor, if not to religion, to suppress our indignation; and while we shall scrupulously adhere to truth in relating the measures pursued in Connecticut, to prevent the education of a certain class of colored persons, we shall not shrink from a free expression of our opinions of those measures, and of their authors.

Miss Crandall, a communicant in the Baptist church, and, as we believe, a lady of irreproachable character, had for some time been at the head of a female boarding school, in the town of Canterbury, Connecticut, when in the autumn of 1832, a pious colored female applied to her for admission into her school, stating that she wanted "to get a little more learning-enough if possible to teach colored children." After some hesitation, Miss Crandall consented to admit her, but was soon informed that this intruder must be dismissed, or that the school would be greatly injured. This threat turned her attention to the cruel prejudices and disadvantages under which the blacks are suffering, and she resolved to open a school exclusively for colored girls. It has been thought expedient to doubt the philanthropy of this resolution, and to attribute it to pecuniary motives. Whatever may have been her motives, and pecuniary ones would not have been unlawful, she had a perfect right to open a school for pupils of any color whatever, and had not the moral sense of the community been perverted, this attempt to instruct the poor, the friendless, and the ignorant, would have met with applause instead of contumely. She discontinued her school, and in February, 1833, gave public notice of her intention to open one for

colored girls. This notice excited prodigious commotion in the town of Canterbury. That black girls should presume to learn reading, and writing, and music, and geography, was past all bearing. Committee after committee waited on Miss Crandall, to remonstrate against the intended school, but to no purpose. More efficient means were found necessary to avert the impending calamity, and a legal town meeting was summoned to consider the awful crisis. At this meeting resolutions were passed, expressing the strongest disapprobation of the proposed school, and the preamble declared that "the obvious tendency of this school would be to collect within the town of Canterbury, large numbers of persons from other States, whose characters and habits might be various and unknown to us, thereby rendering insecure the persons, property, and reputations of our citizens." Had this extreme nervous apprehension of danger, been excited in the good people of Canterbury, by the introduction of some hundreds of Irish laborers into their village to construct a rail road or canal, we should still have thought their temperament very peculiar; but when we find them thus affecting to tremble not merely for their property, but for their persons and reputations, at the approach of fifteen or twenty young ladies and little misses of color," we confess we are astonished that the collected wisdom of these people was not able to frame an argument against the school, less disgraceful to themselves.

Andrew T. Judson, Esq. acted as clerk to this meeting, and supported the resolutions in a speech, in which he is reported to have said, "that should the school go into operation, their sons and daughters would be forever ruined, and property no longer safe." For his part, he was not willing for the honor and welfare of the town, that even one corner of it should be appropriated to such a purpose. After the example which New Haven had set, he continued, "shall it be said that we cannot, that we dare not resist ?" Mr. Judson farther stated, that they had "A LAW which should prevent that school from going into operation.”

The resolutions of the town meeting, as became so grave a matter, were communicated to Miss Crandall by the "civil authority and selectmen," but strange as it may seem,

that lady stood less in dread of them, than they did of the "young ladies of color," for she refused to retreat from the ground she had taken.

The example of New Haven, we have seen, was held up to the people of Canterbury by Mr. Judson, for their encouragement, and as an earnest of their ultimate success. Still the cases were not exactly similar. "The civil authority and selectmen" of Canterbury, had not the imposing array of power and influence displayed by "the Mayor, Aldermen, Common Council, and freemen of the city of New Haven." The latter, by the mere expression of their opinion, had prevented the establishment of a college for colored youth; the former were set at naught by an unprotected female. Some means more efficacious than the fulminations of a town meeting were, therefore, next to be tried. Mr. Judson had indeed a certain LAW in reserve,but it was necessary that certain influences should be previously brought into action, before a civilized and Christian people could be induced to tolerate the application of that law. Colonization, as already remarked, had taken a deep hold on the affections of the people of Connecticut. Their most eminent men had enrolled themselves in the ranks of the Society. To this powerful association recourse was now had. On the 22d March, 1833, the "civil authority and selectmen" of Canterbury made their " APPEAL TO THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY." In this most extraordinary paper, they expatiate on the benevolence of the Society towards the colored population, and deplore the opposition it encounters from certain individuals who have formed the Anti-Slavery Society." These men, they assert, wish to admit the blacks "into the bosom of our society," and would "justify intermarriages with the white people." They then recite their own grievances, detail the proceedings of their town-meeting, dwell on Miss Crandall's pertinacity in pursuing her own plans, express their horror of abolition principles, and state that Mr. Garrison had said that the excitement in Canterbury "is one of the genuine flowers of the Colonization garden;" and they add, "Be it so, we APPEAL to the American Colonization Society, to which our statement is addressed-we appeal to

every philanthropist and to every Christian!" Mr. Judson's name appears at the head of the signers to the appeal.

Had Miss Crandall appealed to the Society in behalf of her school, she would probably and very properly have been told that the subject of her school was not embraced in the constitutional objects of the Society; and may we not ask, if the Society has no right to encourage, has it any right to discourage the establishment of schools of any description whatever? In the singleness of its object it has often been compared to the Bible Society; what would have been thought of such an appeal to the American Bible Society? How the appeal was answered we shall presently see.

Having thus identified their cause with that of the Colonization Society, and secured the sympathy of its numerous and powerful friends in Connecticut, Mr. Judson and his associates proceeded to further operations. Foiled in their attempts to persuade or intimidate, they now resolved on coercion. On the first April, another town-meeting was convened, at which it was "Voted that a petition in behalf of the town of Canterbury, to the next General Assembly, be drawn up in suitable language, deprecating the evil consequences of bringing from other towns and other States people of color for any purpose, and more especially for the purpose of disseminating the principles and doctrines opposed to THE BENEVOLENT COLONIZATION SYSTEM, praying said assembly to pass and enact such laws as in their wisdom will prevent the evil." Mr. Judson, with others, was appointed a Committee to prepare the petition, and to request other towns to forward similar petitions. The malignity of this vote is equalled only by its absurdity. The desired law is to prevent the evil of blacks passing not only from other States, but other towns. Every black citizen of Connecticut is to be imprisoned in the town in which the law happens to find him, and he may not travel into the adjoining town for "any purpose," and all this especially to prevent interference with "the benevolent Colonization system."

Did the Colonization Society protest against such an outrage being committed in its behalf-did it indignantly disclaim all connexion, all sympathy with men, who in its name, were striving to perpetrate such abominable tyranny?