Prudence Crandall’s Legacy: The Fight for Equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education

7 On Trial

[ 113 ] U sing Arthur Tappan’s financial resources, Samuel May hired three of the best attorneys in Connecticut to defend Prudence Crandall: William Ellsworth, Calvin Goddard, and Henry Strong. Crandall’s attorneys expected to persuade the judge and jury that the Black Law violated the Constitution. Samuel May knew, however, that if they lost at the trial court level, they could appeal to the state supreme court, and if necessary , to the U.S. Supreme Court for a definitive ruling on the rights and citizenship of black men and women in America. The Crandall case would require all of her attorneys to search the Constitution of the United States for direction and clarity regarding citizenship and human rights for blacks.Their mission was unlike that ofanyother legal team to date in the history of the young nation. For William W. Ellsworth, Crandall’s lead attorney, the question of fairness and equality for the less powerful was not a case of first impression. As a congressman in 1830, he had argued against legislation sanctioning the removal of Indian tribes and in favor of the rights of American Indians. He said that American Indians “have the right of territory and self government , and that these have ever been accorded to them by the United States.”1 Ellsworth said the removal scheme was a thinly veiled attempt by certain states to abrogate well-established treaties and steal the Indians’ land. “Sir, I declare there is no right in us to take it or their government from them. Power may do it, but the God in heaven will not sanction it. . . . We shall not stand justified before the world in taking any step which shall lead to oppression.”2 William Ellsworth’s family had a very direct connection to the roots of American law. Ellsworth’s father, Oliver, represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate, served as the 7 : On Trial [ 114 ] Prudence Crandall’s Legacy third chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, nominated by President George Washington, and helped draft the Constitution of the United States.3 William Ellsworth followed in his father’s substantial legal and political footsteps. He graduated from Yale in 1810 and began practicing law in 1813 in Hartford with Thomas S. Williams, who later became chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.That same year, Ellsworth married Emily Webster, the eldest daughter of Noah Webster, creator of the famous dictionary. At the time of the Crandall trial, Ellsworth served in Congress—then a part-time job—while teaching law at Trinity College and managing a busy law practice. He was fifty-three. Ellsworth later served as governor of Connecticut, judge of the superior court, and justice of the state supreme court.4 Calvin Goddard, Prudence Crandall’s second attorney, studied law with his cocounsel’s father, Oliver Ellsworth, after graduating from Dartmouth in 1786.Goddard taught at the Plainfield Academy and began practicing law in 1790. He served as speaker of the house in the state legislature , as state’s attorney for New London County, three years as a judge of the superior court, and as a representative to Congress. In addition to his law practice, he had recently completed a series of terms as mayor of Norwich . Goddard brought substantial legal experience to Crandall’s defense team; he was sixty-five years old.5 Crandall’s third attorney had experience in education and overseeing an academy. After graduating from Yale in 1806, Henry Strong ran a school for young women in Norwich for two years; he knew something about Prudence Crandall’s work.6 Thereafter, he studied law with Judge Charles Chauncey in New Haven and began his law practice in 1810 when he was twenty-two years old. Strong lived in Norwich and later served in the state senate.7 A fourth attorney volunteered his services to help Prudence Crandall’s legal team. Lafayette S. Foster had studied law in the office of Calvin Goddard and later opened his own office in Hampton.8 Born in Franklin,Connecticut , Foster was twenty-six years old at the time of Crandall’s trial. He later won election to the General Assembly of Connecticut, where he served as speaker of the house, and to the U.S. Senate beginning in 1855, where he served as president pro tempore. After President Abraham Lincoln ’s assassination in 1865, Foster became vice president of the United On Trial...