[Footnote 1:_Ibid._, pp. 323-324.]

The reactionary tendency was in no sense confined to the Southern States.  Laws were passed in the North to prevent the migration of Negroes to that section.  Their education at certain places was discouraged.  In fact, in the proportion that the conditions in the South made it necessary for free blacks to flee from oppression, the people of the North grew less tolerant on account of the large number of those who crowded the towns and cities of the free States near the border.  The antislavery societies at one time found it necessary to devote their time to the amelioration of the economic condition of the refugees to make them acceptable to the white people rather than to direct their attention to mere education.[1] Not a few northerners, dreading an influx of free Negroes, drove them even from communities to which they had learned to, repair for education.

[Footnote 1:  Proceedings of the American Convention.]

The best example of this intolerance was the opposition encountered by Prudence Crandall, a well-educated young Quaker lady, who had established a boarding-school at Canterbury, Connecticut.  Trouble arose when Sarah Harris, a colored girl, asked admission to this institution.[1] For many reasons Miss Crandall hesitated to admit her but finally yielded.  Only a few days thereafter the parents of the white girls called on Miss Crandall to offer their objections to sending their children to school with a “nigger."[2] Miss Crandall stood firm, the white girls withdrew, and the teacher advertised for young women of color.  The determination to continue the school on this basis incited the townsmen to hold an indignation meeting.  They passed resolutions to protest through a committee of local officials against the establishment of a school of this kind in that community.  At this meeting Andrew T. Judson denounced the policy of Miss Crandall, while the Rev. Samuel J. May ably defended it.  Judson was not only opposed to the establishment of such a school in Canterbury but in any part of the State.  He believed that colored people, who could never rise from their menial condition in the United States, should not to be encouraged to expect to elevate themselves in Connecticut.  He considered them inferior servants who should not be treated as equals of the Caucasians, but should be sent back to Africa to improve themselves and Christianize the natives.[3] On the contrary, Mr. May thought that there would never be fewer colored people in this country than were found here then and that it would be unjust to exile them.  He asserted that white people should grant Negroes their rights or lose their own and that since education is the primal, fundamental right of all men, Connecticut was the last place where this should be denied.[4]

[Footnote 1:  Jay, An Inquiry, etc., p. 30.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., pp. 32 et seq.]