Note 102 — ON THE CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR.

[Footnote 102: Of the truth of this remark, the trustees of the Episcopal Theological Seminary at New-York, lately (June, 1839) afforded a striking illustration. A young man, regularly acknowledged by the Bishop as a candidate for orders, and in consequence of such acknowledgment entitled, by an express statute of the seminary, to admission to its privileges, presented himself as a pupil. But God had given him a dark complexion, and therefore the trustees, regardless of the statute, barred the doors against him, by a formal and deliberate vote. As a compromise between conscience and prejudice, the professors offered to give him private instruction—to do in secret what they were ashamed to do openly—to confer as a favor, what he was entitled to demand as a right. The offer was rejected.