Foiled in their attempts to frighten away Miss Crandall’s pupils by
their proceedings under the provisions of the obsolete “Pauper and
Vagrant Law,” Mr. Judson and his fellow-persecutors urgently pressed
upon the Legislature of Connecticut, then in session, a demand for the
enactment of a law, by which they should be enabled to effect their
purpose. To the lasting shame of the State, be it said, they succeeded.
On the 24th of May, 1833, the _Black Law_ was enacted as follows:--
“SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives, in General Assembly convened, that no person
shall set up or establish in this State any school, academy, or
literary institution for the instruction or education of colored
persons who are not inhabitants of this State; nor instruct or
teach in any school, or other literary institution whatsoever, in
this State; nor harbor or board, for the purpose of attending or
being taught or instructed in any such school, academy, or literary
institution, any colored person who is not an inhabitant of any
town in this State, without the consent in writing, first obtained,
of a majority of the civil authority, and also of the Selectmen of
the town, in which such school, academy, or literary institution is
situated,” &c.
I need not copy any more of this infamous Act. The penalties denounced
against the violation of it, you may be sure, were severe enough. That
the persecutors of Miss Crandall were determined to visit them upon
her, if they might, the sequel of my story will show.
On the receipt of the tidings that the Legislature had passed the law,
joy and exultation ran wild in Canterbury. The bells were rung and a
cannon fired, until all the inhabitants for miles around were informed
of the triumph. So soon as was practicable, on the 27th of June, Miss
Crandall was arrested by the sheriff of the county, or the constable
of the town, and arraigned before Justices Adams and Bacon, two of the
leaders of the conspiracy against her and her humane enterprise. The
trial of course was a brief one; the result was predetermined. Before
noon of that day a messenger came to let me know that Miss Crandall
had been “committed” by the above-named justices, to take her trial
at the next session of the Superior Court at Brooklyn in August; that
she was in the hands of the sheriff and would be put into jail, unless
I or some of her friends would come and “give bonds” for her in the
sum of $300 or $500, I forget which. I calmly told the messenger that
there were gentlemen enough in Canterbury whose bond for that amount
would be as good or better than mine; and I should leave it for them
to do Miss Crandall that favor. “But,” said the young man, “are you
not her friend?” “Certainly,” I replied, “too sincerely her friend
to give relief to her enemies in their present embarrassment; and I
trust you will not find any one of her friends, or the patrons of her
school, who will step forward to help them any more than myself.” “But,
sir,” he cried, “do you mean to allow her to be put into jail?” “Most
certainly,” was my answer, “if her persecutors are unwise enough to let
such an outrage be committed.” He turned from me in blank surprise, and
hurried back to tell Mr. Judson and the justices of his ill success.
A few days before, when I first heard of the passage of the law, I
had visited Miss Crandall with my friend Mr. George W. Benson, and
advised with her as to the course she and her friends ought to pursue,
when she should be brought to trial. She appreciated at once and fully
the importance of leaving her persecutors to show to the world how
base they were, and how atrocious was the law they had induced the
Legislature to enact,--a law, by the force of which a woman might
be fined and imprisoned as a felon, in the State of Connecticut, for
giving instruction to colored girls. She agreed that it would be best
for us to leave her in the hands of those with whom the law originated,
hoping that, in their madness, they would show forth all its hideous
features.
Mr. Benson and I therefore went diligently around to all whom we knew
were friendly to Miss Crandall and her school, and counselled them by
no means to give bonds to keep her from imprisonment, because nothing
would expose so fully to the public the egregious wickedness of the
law, and the virulence of her persecutors as the fact that they had
thrust her into jail.
When I found that her resolution was equal to the trial which seemed to
be impending, that she was ready to brave and to bear meekly the worst
treatment that her enemies would venture to subject her to, I made all
the arrangements for her comfort that were practicable in our prison.
It fortunately so happened that the most suitable room, not occupied,
was the one in which a man named Watkins had recently been confined
for the murder of his wife, and out of which he had been taken and
executed. This circumstance, we foresaw, would add not a little to the
public detestation of the _Black Law_.
The jailer, at my request, readily put the room in as nice order as was
possible, and permitted me to substitute, for the bedstead and mattress
on which the murderer had slept, fresh and clean ones from my own house
and Mr. Benson’s.
About two o’clock P. M. another messenger came to inform me that the
sheriff was on the way from Canterbury to the jail with Miss Crandall,
and would imprison her, unless her friends would give him the required
bail. Although in sympathy with Miss Crandall’s persecutors, he
clearly saw the disgrace that was about to be brought upon the State,
and begged me and Mr. Benson to avert it. Of course we refused. I went
to the jailer’s house and met Miss Crandall on her arrival. We stepped
aside. I said:--
“If now you hesitate, if you dread the gloomy place so much as to wish
to be saved from it, I will give bonds for you even now.”
“O no,” she promptly replied; “I am only afraid they will not put me
into jail. Their evident hesitation and embarrassment show plainly
how much they deprecate the effect of this part of their folly; and
therefore I am the more anxious that they should be exposed, if not
caught in their own wicked devices.”
We therefore returned with her to the sheriff and the company that
surrounded him to await his final act. He was ashamed to do it. He
knew it would cover the persecutors of Miss Crandall and the State of
Connecticut with disgrace. He conferred with several about him, and
delayed yet longer. Two gentlemen came and remonstrated with me in not
very seemly terms:--
“It would be a ---- shame, an eternal disgrace to the State, to have
her put into jail,--into the very room that Watkins had last occupied.”
“Certainly, gentlemen,” I replied, “and you may prevent this if you
please.”
“O,” they cried, “we are not her friends; we are not in favor of her
school; we don’t want any more ---- niggers coming among us. It is your
place to stand by Miss Crandall and help her now. You and your ----
abolition brethren have encouraged her to bring this nuisance into
Canterbury, and it is ---- mean in you to desert her now.”
I rejoined: “She knows we have not deserted her, and do not intend
to desert her. The law which her persecutors have persuaded our
legislators to enact is an infamous one, worthy of the Dark Ages. It
would be just as bad as it is, whether we should give bonds for her or
not. But the people generally will not so soon realize how bad, how
wicked, how cruel a law it is, unless we suffer her persecutors to
inflict upon her all the penalties it prescribes. She is willing to
bear them for the sake of the cause she has so nobly espoused. And it
is easy to foresee that Miss Crandall will be glorified, as much as her
persecutors and our State will be disgraced, by the transactions of
this day and this hour. If you see fit to keep her from imprisonment
in the cell of a murderer for having proffered the blessing of a good
education to those who, in our country, need it most, you may do so;
_we shall not_.”
They turned from us in great wrath, words falling from their lips which
I shall not repeat.
The sun had descended nearly to the horizon; the shadows of night were
beginning to fall around us. The sheriff could defer the dark deed no
longer. With no little emotion, and with words of earnest deprecation,
he gave that excellent, heroic, Christian young lady into the hands
of the jailer, and she was led into the cell of Watkins. So soon as
I had heard the bolts of her prison-door turned in the lock, and saw
the key taken out, I bowed and said, “The deed is done, completely
done. It cannot be recalled. It has passed into the history of our
nation and our age.” I went away with my steadfast friend, George W.
Benson, assured that the legislators of the State had been guilty of
a most unrighteous act; and that Miss Crandall’s persecutors had also
committed a great blunder; that they all would have much more reason to
be ashamed of her imprisonment than she or her friends could ever have.
The next day we gave the required bonds. Miss Crandall was released
from the cell of the murderer, returned home, and quietly resumed the
duties of her school, until she should be summoned as a culprit into
court, there to be tried by the infamous “Black Law of Connecticut.”
And, as we expected, so soon as the evil tidings could be carried in
that day, before Professor Morse had given to Rumor her telegraphic
wings, it was known all over the country and the civilized world that
an excellent young lady had been imprisoned as a criminal,--yes, put
into a murderer’s cell,--in the State of Connecticut, for opening a
school for the instruction of colored girls. The comments that were
made upon the deed in almost all the newspapers were far from grateful
to the feelings of her persecutors. Even many who, under the same
circumstances, would probably have acted as badly as Messrs. A. T.
Judson and Company, denounced their procedure as unchristian, inhuman,
anti-democratic, base, mean.