that the amount of school taxes collected from
Negroes should be returned. Exactly what should be done with such
money, however, was not stated in the act. But even if that were the
object in view, the provision was of little help to the people of
color for the reason that the clause providing for the return of
school taxes was seldom executed. In the few cases in which it was
carried out the fund thus raised was not adequate to the support of
a special school, and generally there were not sufficient colored
children in a community to justify such an outlay. In districts having
control of their local affairs, however, the children of Negroes were
often given a chance to attend school.

[Footnote 1: The Constitution of Illinois, in the _Journal of the
Constitution of the State of Illinois_, 1847, p. 344.]

As this scant consideration given Negroes of Illinois left one-half
of the six thousand of their children out of the pale of education,
earnest appeals were made that the restrictive word white be stricken
from the school law. The friends of the colored people sought to show
how inconsistent this system was with the spirit of the constitution
of the State, which, interpreted as they saw it, guaranteed all
persons equality.[1] They held meetings from which came renewed
petitions to their representatives, entreating them to repeal or amend
the old school law. It was not so much a question as to whether or not
there should be separate schools as it was whether or not the people
of color should be educated. The dispersed condition of their children
made it impossible for the State to provide for them in special
schools the same educational facilities as those furnished the youth
of Caucasian blood. Chicago tried the experiment in 1864, but failing
to get the desired result, incorporated the colored children into
the white schools the following year.[2] The State Legislature had
sufficient moral courage to do away with these caste distinctions in
1874.[3]

[Footnote 1: Thorpe, _Federal and State Constitutions_, Const. of
Illinois.]

[Footnote 2: _Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 343.]

[Footnote 3: Starr and Curtis, _Annotated Statutes of Illinois_, ch.
105, p. 2261.]

In other States of the West and the North where few colored people
were found, the solution of the problem was easier. After 1848 Negroes
were legal voters in the school meetings of Michigan. Colored
children were enumerated with others