e.

In 1834 an academy was built by subscription in CANAAN, New Hampshire,
and a charter granted by the legislature; and at a meeting of the
proprietors it was determined to receive all applicants having
"suitable moral and intellectual recommendations, without other
distinctions;" in other words, without reference to _complexion_.
When this determination was made known, a TOWN MEETING was forthwith
convened, and the following resolutions adopted, viz.

"RESOLVED, That we view with _abhorrence_ the attempt of the
Abolitionists to establish in this town a school for the instruction
of the sable sons and daughters of Africa, in common with our sons
and daughters.

"RESOLVED, That we will not associate with, nor in any way
countenance, any man or woman who shall hereafter persist in
attempting to establish a school in this town for the _exclusive_
education of blacks, _or_ for their education in conjunction with
the whites."

The frankness of this last resolve is commendable. The inhabitants
of Canaan, assembled in legal town meeting, determined, it seems,
that the blacks among them should in future have no education
whatever--they should not be instructed in company with the whites,
neither should they have schools exclusively for themselves.

The proprietors of the academy supposing, in the simplicity of their
hearts, that in a free country they might use their property in any
manner not forbidden by law, proceeded to open their school, and in
the ensuing spring had twenty-eight white, and fourteen colored
scholars. The crisis had now arrived when the cause of prejudice
demanded the sacrifice of constitutional liberty and of private
property. Another town meeting was convoked, at which, without a
shadow of authority, and in utter contempt of law and decency, it
was ordered, that the academy should be forcibly removed, and a
committee was appointed to execute the abominable mandate. Due
preparations were made for the occasion, and on the 10th of August,
three hundred men, with about 200 oxen, assembled at the place, and
taking the edifice from off its foundation, dragged it to a distance,
and left it a ruin. No one of the actors in this high-handed outrage
was ever brought before a court of justice to answer for this
criminal and riotous destruction of the property of others.

The transaction we have narrated, expresses in emphatic terms the
deep and settled hostility felt in the free States to the education
of t