Charles C. Burleigh

This short publication alerted the Abolitionists to Charles Burleigh Genius of Temperance, Philanthropist and People’s Advocate 3:45 (May 15, 1833) THE CANTERBURY AFFAIR. – Some of the people of Canterbury are still exasperated about the school for colored misses, recently established by Miss Crandall. But very few of the 30 or 40 scholars who were expected to commence with the term, have as yet attended — owing, probably, to the “fanaticism” which seems to have taken hold on the minds of so many of the sober citizens of that portion of the “land of steady habits;” and which vents itself in vexatious attempts at legally coercing the scholars to leave the town, and the teacher to abandon the enterprise. We have been favored by a correspondent, with the following copy of a proceeding of a town-meeting on the subject, which we publish “for the benefit of whom it may concern”— “At a town meeting legally warned and held at Canterbury on the 1st day of April, 1833, Asahel Bacon Esq. Moderator— Voted, that a petition of the town of Canterbury, to the next general assembly, be drawn up in suitable language, deprecating the evil consequences of bringing from other towns, and other states, people of color, for any purpose, and more especially for the purposes of disseminating the principles and doctrines opposed to the benevolent colonization system, praying said assembly to pass and enact such laws, as in their wisdom will prevent the evil; and that Andrew P. Judson, William Lester, Chester Lyon, Rufus Adams, Solomon Payne, Andrew T. Harris, Asahel Bacon, George S. White, Daniel Packer and Isaac Backus, be agents to do the same. Voted, that said agents respectfully request the inhabitants of other towns to proffer similar petitions, for the same laudable object. The foregoing is a true copy of Record: Examined by ANDREW T. JUDSON, Town Clerk. Fine business, truly!—Perhaps those who have been so much in the habit of reading homilies on constitutional law, to the “hair-brained emancipationists,” might be instructed with a peep into that instrument which binds our states together, and there read for themselves, the rights of citizens going from one state to another—“for any purpose,”—or in its favor,—so that they conduct morally and peaceably. But what are the “evil consequences” which are so much to be “deprecated,” in the petitions to the legislature of that state? And how can a “petition” be “drawn up in suitable language,” which “deprecates the evil consequences of bringing” people of color into that town, “for any purpose”—whether to gain moral or literary instruction, cultivate land, vend merchandize, or “make notions”? Garrison is completely “out Garrisoned,” in “fanaticism” and “incendiary” movements,—by a body which ought to have been deliberative! But we do not believe a majority of the citizens of Canterbury favor such “wild schemes,” even though backed by the declaration of a professing Christian, “that before he would see the Green polluted by a negro school, he would oppose it to the shedding of blood!”