re of Massachusetts then
enacted a law providing that in determining the qualifications of a
scholar to be admitted to any public school no distinction should
be made on account of the race, color, or religious opinion of the
applicant. It was further provided that a child excluded from school
for any of these reasons might bring suit for damages against the
offending town.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Acts and Resolves of the General Court of Mass_., 1855,
ch. 256.]

In other towns of New England, where the black population was
considerable, separate schools were established. There was one even in
Portland, Maine.[1] Efforts in this direction were made in Vermont and
New Hampshire, but because of the scarcity of the colored people these
States did not have to resort to such segregation. The Constitution of
Vermont was interpreted as extending to Negroes the benefits of the
Bill of Rights, making all men free and equal. Persons of color,
therefore, were regarded as men entitled to all the privileges of
freemen, among which was that of education at the expense of the
State.[2] The framers of the Constitution of New Hampshire were
equally liberal in securing this right to the dark race.[3] But when
the principal of an academy at Canaan admitted some Negroes to his
private institution, a mob, as we have observed above, broke up the
institution by moving the building to a swamp, while the officials of
the town offered no resistance. Such a spirit as this accounts for the
rise of separate schools in places where the free blacks had the right
to attend any institution of learning supported by the State.

[Footnote 1: Adams, _Anti-slavery_, etc., p. 142.]

[Footnote 2: Thorpe, _Federal and State Constitutions_, vol. vi., p.
3762.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., vol. iv., p. 2471.]

The problem of educating the Negroes at public expense was perplexing
also to the minds of the people of the West. The question became
more and more important in Ohio as the black population in that
commonwealth increased. The law of 1825 provided that moneys raised
from taxation of half a mill on the dollar should be appropriated to
the support of common schools in the respective counties and that
these schools should be "open to the youth of every class and grade
without distinction."[1] Some interpreted this law to include Negroes.
To overcome the objection to the partiality shown by school officials
the State passed another law in 1829. It excluded color