324 and be henceforth, de facto, free and Many slaves, both in the regiment and elsewhere, displayed superior bravery when death was imminent. Wilson instances the case of a negro, Lambert by name, who at Fort Griswold, Sept. 6, 1781, slew the British officer who murdered Col. Ledyard; he then fell,' pierced by thirty-three bayonet wounds," as true a hero as ever lived. J. Hammond Trumbull, in describing the efficiency of slaves as soldiers writes: "So far as my acquaintance extends, almost every family has its traditions of the good and faithful service of a black servant or slave, who was killed in battle or served through the war and came home to tell stories of hard fighting, and draw It has been said that many masters freed their slaves to make soldiers of them, and it cannot be doubted that the aid thus furnished to the masters in the struggle for freedom was a factor in the movement for freeing the blacks themselves. It must not be supposed, however, that this was the initial step: nor must we fall into that other error of supposing that the sole or controlling motive was humanitarian. It may possibly be true, as a prominent writer has said, that the importation of Africans into the state reduced the price of labor to such a degree that the service of freemen was not required and that this consideration influenced the legislature to some extent, but it is quite evident from the records of the twenty years previous to 1784 that the ceaseless, uncompromising agitation against slavery, carried on by the clergy of the state was the real reason for the extinction, within Connecticut borders at least. Before the opening of the Revolutionary war, then, the sentiment against slavery and practically against the slave trade, had considerably grown. For ten years, 17741784, there were many eloquent sermons hurled from pulpits all over the state About against slave owners and traders. 1776, the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, pastor of a church in Housatonic (now Great Barrington, Mass.) but a native of Waterbury, a man of great power, issued a dialogue" wherein he proved beyond doubt that it was the plain religious duty of every slave owner to liberate his slaves. This "dialogue" was interestingly written and had its mission. As the sturdy Connecticut farmer, sitting before his fireplace after a hard day's work, read this little pamphlet, he was probably brought for the first time to realize the wickedness of African slavery. The younger Jonathan Edwards also published an anti-slavery pamphlet, "The Injustice and Impolicy of the Slave Trade;" both from the pulpit and from pamphleteers, by 1776 petitions began to be presented to the General Assembly, praying for the emancipation of slaves in Connecticut. Public opinion at last turned the tide and the agitators saw their hopes realized, for in 1784 the legislature passed the first emancipation law. On this important issue Connecticut has the honor of being about the first to commit herself. The law, originally drafted, I think, as early as 1780, provided for a gradual emancipation, whereby every negro or mulatto child born after the first of March, 1784, should not be held a slave after reaching the age of twenty-five years. Although this law was not radical, it was meant by its authors to be very firm, for slave owners who did not file certificates of birth of slaves at a specified time, or within six months of that date, were required to pay a fine of seven dollars for every month over due. In 1797 another act was passed making all born after Aug. I. 1797, free at the age of 21 years. Although the use and importation of Africans had been believed in and countenanced by the best citizens, yet such eminent statesmen as Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, our representatives in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, came out boldly against the traffic, and the former declared it to be iniquitous. The law worked silently and steadily, and when, in 1848 the act was passed which abolished slavery in this state forever, there were, according to the eminent authority, John Hooker, only six slaves surviving. Whether the liberation of the blacks was a benefit to them as individuals or not has been a matter for grave dispute. Undoubtedly it was sometimes an injury. to both master and slave, but Professor Fowler avers that his experience in gathering testimonials for forty or fifty years regarding this question convinced him that emancipation was more advantageous and less injurious to the slave. Noah Webster, however, writing about the time of emancipation, took a dismal view of the case. He said, "Slaves born and bred beneath the frown of power, neglected and despised in youth, they abandon themselves to ill company and low vicious pleasure, till their habits are formed, when manumission, instead of destroying their habits and repressing their corrupt inclinations, seems to afford them more numerous opportunities for indulging both." In direct opposition to this doleful opinion of the great lexicographer, Prof. Fowler, an unimpeachable authority, says that, in talking with men born in Connecticut not far from 1760, he learned that slaves in this state "were more moral, religious, had larger families of children. and lived longer than their free brethren." This is the opinion of a man who made a study of slavery in its every aspect. The condition of the blacks under slavery is very comprehensively viewed by Tapping Reeve, the famous head of the more famous Litchfield Law School (now the Yale Law School) in his able work entitled "Domestic Relations" "In 1816," he says, "it is difficult to find in the state of Connecticut a slave." In discussing the relations between master and slave, he writes: "The master had no control over the life of his slave. If he killed him, he was liable to the same pun ishment as if he killed a freeman. A slave was capable of holding property in the character of devisee or legatee. If a slave married a free woman with the consent of his master, he was emancipated: for his master had suffered him to contract a relation inconsistent with a state of slavery. The master by his consent had agreed to abandon his rights to him as a slave." Notwithstanding the beneficent working of the law, and the desire of the lawmakers to do away with slavery, the records of events show an evident desire on the part of the public still to antagonize negroes individually whether bond or free. In the year 1831 a movement was inaugurated at New Haven, by the friends of the blacks, to establish there a college where negroes might receive a proper education. But a large mass meeting of prominent citizens passed strong resolutions against the project; they declared in vigorous language they were utterly opposed to abolition sentiment. So strong was the feeling that the legislature in sympathy with the meeting passed, two years later, an act which rendered the establishing of schools in Connecticut, for the instruction of pupils from other states, unlawful. The excuse for its passage was given that such schools would" tend to the great increase of the population of the state, and thereby to the injury of the people. How an increased population could be an injury to the people was not explained, But it was probably the wiser course. under the provision of this act that a famous prosecution was made, which attracted widespread attention, not only in this but in many other states. Miss Prudence Crandall opened a young ladies' school in the small town of Canterbury. She had taught with marked success in other places, and the leading citizens of Canterbury prevailed upon her to move thither. This she did and opened the school in the fall of 1831. Miss Crandall prospered until she allowed a colored girl, the daughter of a respectable resident of the town, to become a pupil. It appears that Miss Crandall had access to Garrison's anti-slavery paper, "The Liberator," and had imbibed from it sentiments decidedly favorable to abolition; she therefore had no hesitation in starting the girl on a course of study which would enable her to "teach colored children." This innocent act precipitated a little storm, instigated by the wife of an Episcopal rector, residing in the town, and a general boycott was declared. This fierce opposition only nerved the brave little woman in the determination to carry out her design; she soon afterwards made the public announcement that she proposed opening a school for "little misses of color." The ire of the townspeople was At a public town thoroughly aroused. meeting held in the Canterbury meeting house, March, 1833, resolutions were unanimously adopted denouncing and vehemently opposing the opening of the school for colored girls within the limits of the town; a committee was appointed to confer with Miss Crandall and persuade her to abandon the project. At a second town meeting a committee was appointed to apply to the next legislature for a law to meet the case and as a consequence the disgraceful law of 1833, alluded to before, was passed. From this time on her school was treated with an extreme of lawlessness which would have astonished even a party of western cowboys. Unruly boys, encouraged by their seniors, created an unearthly noise in front of her school and threw rotten eggs and other offensive missiles. She and her She was pupils were even debarred from purchasing goods at the village store. warned that if she continued teaching colored children not residents of Con necticut, the law would be rigidly enforced, and, in very truth, on the 27th of June, 1833, the amiable, Quaker schoolmistress was arrested and committed by a justice of the peace for her trial before the Windham County court in August. Her friends refused to furnish bonds, preferring rather to let the law take its course; accordingly Miss Crandall passed one night in a cell previously occupied by a condemned murderer. Bail was, however, furnished by an unknown person next morning, but the fact rather turned public sentiment in her favor, for the Honorable Arthur Tappan of New York, the famous anti-slavery agitator, notified Miss Crandall's friends to spare no cost in obtaining the ablest lawyer in her defence. The case of the state versus Crandall came to trial before Judge Eaton at Brooklyn on the 23rd of August, 1833. The jury stood seven for conviction and five for acquittal, and the case was brought before Judge Daggett in the October session of the Superior Court. The ver dict again went against Miss Crandall. Her counsel appealed to the Supreme Court of Errors, where the case was heard on the 22d of July, 1834. Here the previous decisions were reversed on the ground of "insufficiency of information." The school was continued through this long bitter controversy, but popular indignation did not decrease. The prosecution having failed in the courts, the thirst for vengeance broke out afresh; the officers of the Congregational church refused to allow Miss Crandall or her pupils to worship within its walls; her barn was set afire, fortunately without bad results; and on the night of Sept. 9th a crowd of men and boys attacked the house, breaking all the windows and doors and almost totally ruining the structure. After this barbarous outrage the school was discontinued and the miserable affair came to an end, yet the little town, in justification of its conduct, placed this resolution upon its records: "That the Government of the United States, the nation with all its institutions, of right belongs to the white men who now control them, that our appeal to the legislature of our own state in a case of such peculiar mischief was not only due to ourselves, but to the obligations devolving upon us under the Constitution. have been silent would have been participating in the wrongs intended. We rejoice that the appeal was not in vain.” Numerous incidents of the irrepressible conflict in Connecticut might be cited. The famous "Amistad Case," which lack of space prevents our discussing, began in 1839 and ended only in 1844 in the Supreme Court of the United States; a signal legal victory was then won by John Quincy Adams and Roger Sherman Baldwin for the Amistad captives. At public meetings held in Hartford and New Haven in 1835, the Abolitionists were roundly denounced for sending their "inflammatory literature" into the Southern states. Governor Isaac Toucey himself presided over the Hartford meeting. Later in 1850, there is record of transaction, significant as showing the evolution of public feeling. Joseph R. Hawley, agent, purchased for John Hooker, Esq., of Hartford, Rev. James Pennington, D. D., (“Jim Pembroke") an escaped slave who had previously served as pastor of a church in that city. He was fearful of capture after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and had adopted the means of going to Canada and afterwards to Germany to obtain his freedom. Mr. Hooker paid one hundred and fifty dollars for the doctor of divinity, owned him one day and then executed a writ of manumission. The sentiment against the Abolitionists throughout the state was certainly bitter, 328 cut," J. H. U., 1893, and "The Historical Status of the Negro in Connecticut," by William C. Fowler, L. L. D., I am especially indebted. Prof. Fowler's valuable work was printed in Dawson's Historical Magazine, 3d series, Vol. III, 1874. yet through the work of the "Christian Freeman," afterwards known as "The Charter Oak," with the able Burleigh as editor, the cause was continually agitated and steadily advanced. In 1840 James I have also consulted the following works G. Birney, candidate of the Liberty Party in the preparation of this article: De of Connecticut;" 'Indians for president received only 174 votes; Forest's In 1852, Moore's "Notes on Slavery;" Caulkin's four years later he got 1,943. "Norwich" and "New London; "William's John P. Hale received 3,160, and but two 'History of the Negro Race in America; " years later the candidate for governor In 1856 Fremont, for Jameson's "Essays in Constitutional Hisobtained 19,465. tory;" Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the president, carried the state with 42,715 Slave Power;" Bacon's "Slavery Disvotes, and from then on the gain was cussed in occasional Essays; " the general Histories of Connecticut, by Trumbull, rapid, placing Connecticut in the RepubHollister and Barber, and numerous town lican column for many years. histories. AUTHORITIES. To Dr. Steiner's "Slavery in Connecti |