, which was granted. Before
that, the highest legal tribunal in the State, the cause was
argued on the 22d of July, 1834. Both the Hon. W. W. Elsworth and
the Hon. Calvin Goddard argued with great ability and eloquence
against the constitutionality of the black law. The Hon. A. T.
Judson and Hon. C. F. Cleaveland said all they could to prove
such a law consistent with the _Magna Charta_ of our republic.
The court reserved a decision for some future time; and that
decision was never given, it being evaded by the court finding
such defects in the information prepared by the State's attorney
that it ought to be quashed.

"Soon after this, an attempt was made to set the house of Miss
Crandall on fire, but without effect. The question of her duty to
risk the lives of her pupils against this mode of attack was then
considered, and upon consultation with friends it was concluded
to hold on and bear a little longer, with the hope that this
atrocity of attempting to fire the house, and thus expose the
lives and property of her neighbors, would frighten the
instigators of the persecution, and cause some restraint on the
'baser sort.' But a few nights afterward, about 12 o'clock, being
the night of the 9th of September, her house was assaulted by a
number of persons with heavy clubs and iron bars, and windows
were dashed to pieces. Mr. May was summoned the next morning, and
after consultation it was determined that the school should be
abandoned."

Mr. May thus concluded his account of this event, and of the
enterprise:

"The pupils were called together and I was requested to announce
to them our decision. Never before had I felt so deeply sensible
of the cruelty of the persecution which had been carried on for
eighteen months in that New England village, against a family of
defenseless females. Twenty harmless, well-behaved girls, whose
only offense against the peace of the community was that they had
come together there to obtain useful knowledge and moral culture,
were to be told that they had better go away, because, forsooth,
the house in which they dwelt would not be protected by the
guardians of the town, the conservators of the peace, the
officers of justice, the men of influence in the village where it
was situated. The words almost blistere