Prudence Crandall’s Legacy. Donald E. Williams
Judson, an article in the Liberator titled “More Barbarism” attacked those in Canterbury who charged Ann Eliza Hammond with violating the vagrancy law. William Lloyd Garrison was on a lengthy voyage to England at this time; George Bourne or Oliver Johnson wrote the forceful Garrison-style prose. “Georgia men-stealers have never been guilty of a more flagrant and heaven-daring transgression of the laws of humanity … Andrew T. Judson and his malignant associates bid fair to eclipse the infamy of Nero and Benedict Arnold!! … Shame to the Persecutors! Burning shame to the gallant and noble Inflictors of stripes upon innocent and studious Females!”26
After reviewing the petitions in support of Andrew Judson’s legislation, Senator Pearl and his committee decided that black migration from other states into Connecticut posed a serious threat to the state’s safety. “The dangers to which we are exposed … evince the necessity in the present crisis of effecting legislative interposition,” Pearl concluded.27 Pearl’s committee submitted its report together with Judson’s draft of a bill for the legislature to consider. The cumbersome title of the bill, “An Act in Addition to an Act Entitled ‘An Act for the Admission and Settlement of Inhabitants of Towns,’” led others to refer to it simply as the “Black Law.” It repealed the provisions of the old vagrancy law that permitted public whipping on the naked body—legislators agreed this corporeal punishment did not enhance the image of the state—and added new language that empowered towns to ban and prosecute those who assisted in teaching any “colored persons who are not inhabitants of this state.”28 Any person wishing to teach blacks from other states could do so only after securing permission, in writing, from the local town officials. The law also included a series of substantial fines for anyone who violated the new law: one hundred dollars for the first offense, two hundred dollars for the second offense, and doubled accordingly for succeeding offenses (for perspective, the typical wages of the day for mill workers and tradesmen in New England ranged from $.90 to $1.50 per day).29 Even a wealthy patron such as Arthur Tappan would find it difficult if not impossible to pay multiple and continuous fines, always doubling in their amounts.
The law imposed the same escalating fines on anyone who aided or assisted the school.30 Andrew Judson added this language—whereby the state could prosecute any merchant who sold items to Crandall for “aiding and assisting” the illegal school—to help enforce the informal embargo against Prudence Crandall. Judson also claimed this provision prohibited Prudence Crandall’s mother and father from delivering food or clothing to the school and her sister Almira from teaching at the school.
No doubt as a result of Judson’s considerable experience as a prosecutor, the legislation also made it easier to obtain testimony from witnesses for use as evidence at trial. The bill stated that any black student from another state “shall be an admissible witness in all prosecutions … and may be compelled to give testimony.”31 In the event that Prudence Crandall continued to operate her school in violation of the law, Judson wanted to ensure that the prosecution had the means necessary to obtain evidence and testimony from the students.
During the month of May, the legislature accepted and reviewed public input concerning the proposed statute, including Pardon Crandall’s letter. Senator Pearl then submitted his committee’s final report to the legislature, together with the legislation drafted by Andrew Judson. One commentator wrote, “Prudence’s opponents in Canterbury represented no particular villainy of that community but an aspect of human nature at large … ‘We should not want a nigger school on our common,’ was said by many persons in other Connecticut towns.”32 House Speaker Samuel Ingham certified passage of the law on May 24, 1833, and it passed the Senate with Lieutenant Governor Ebenezer Stoddard presiding. Shortly thereafter, Governor Henry W. Edwards officially signed it into law. The “Black Law,” designed to close Prudence Crandall’s school and keep blacks from other states out of Connecticut schools, was officially the law of the state.
In Canterbury “joy and exultation ran wild.”33 The bell of the Congregational Church rang throughout the day. As Samuel May recalled, “All the inhabitants for miles around were informed of the triumph.”34 Jubilant townspeople fired a cannon near the town center and gathered at Andrew Judson’s home. “His success in obtaining from the legislature the enactment of the infamous ‘Black Law’ showed too plainly that the majority of the people of the State were on the side of the oppressor,” May wrote. “But I felt sure that God and good men would be our helpers in the contest to which we were committed.”35
The events at the state capital and the subsequent celebration of the “Black Law” did not go unnoticed by the students at Prudence Crandall’s school. On the day that Judson’s legislation became law, the students sought support and reassurance from the teachers and staff. Would Prudence Crandall send the out-of-state girls home? Would the school close? A few students took the time to write about what they saw and experienced at the school. “Last evening the news reached us that the new law had passed,” one student wrote in a letter to the Liberator. “The bell rang, and a cannon was fired for half an hour. Where is justice? In the midst of all this, Miss Crandall is unmoved. When we walk out, horns are blown and pistols fired.”36
After the initial celebration of the Black Law, townspeople increased their harassment of Prudence Crandall and her students. “The Canterburians are savage—they will not sell to Miss Crandall an article at their shops,” a student wrote. “My ride from Hartford to Brooklyn was very unpleasant, being made up of blackguards” (blackguard was a term used to describe scoundrels or thugs).37 After the stagecoach dropped the student off in Brooklyn, she could not find anyone willing to drive her to Crandall’s school in Canterbury. “I came on foot here from Brooklyn. But the happiness I enjoy here pays me for all. The place is delightful; all that is wanting to complete the scene is civilized men.”38
Prudence Crandall and her supporters continued operating the school as if nothing had happened at the state capital. Crandall told her students the school would remain open. Despite taunts and threats from townspeople, the students stayed on at Crandall’s school and continued their lessons.
The sight of Liverpool, England, delighted an otherwise fatigued William Lloyd Garrison. His passage from New York took twenty-one days and was “inexpressibly wearisome both to my flesh and spirit.”39 Because of the “all disturbing influences of wind and water,” Garrison became seasick while the New York harbor was still in sight. “There is some dignity in falling after a host of stout bodies,” Garrison said, “but to be cast down when delicate females and bird-like children bear up bravely against the enemy is weak indeed!”40
On his arrival in England, Garrison saw the same sights and contrasts that Charles Dickens reported in the early 1830s. Garrison noted that “in England, there is much wealth, but also much suffering and poverty.”41 Liverpool was one of the busiest harbors in the world in 1833. Once called the “metropolis of slavery,” Liverpool was the primary entry port for Europe’s slave trade until England abolished the importation of slaves in 1807.42 Garrison did not see the city as conducive to residential life. “Let this suffice—it is bustling, prosperous and great. I would not, however, choose it as a place of residence. It wears a strictly commercial aspect,” Garrison wrote. “My instinct and taste prefer hills and valleys, and trees and flowers, to bales and boxes of merchandise.”43
Garrison may have recalled the landscape of Friendship Valley, the home of the Benson family in Brooklyn, Connecticut, or perhaps Haverhill, Massachusetts, home of Harriet Minot, where “sweet is the song of birds, but sweeter the voices of those we love,” as he wrote to her at the beginning of April.44 Garrison traveled on to London and began his intended work in England; he sought out potential donors to the abolitionist cause, promoted immediate emancipation, and challenged colonization supporters to debate.
The passage of the Black Law provoked a new battle in the newspapers regarding Prudence Crandall’s school. In a letter to the Emancipator, a New York-based abolitionist newspaper, a writer identified only as “Justice” attacked those who “violate their trust, infringe the rights of citizens and overlap the boundaries of the constitution.”45