[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., p. 30.]

Encouraged by the fact that colored children were indiscriminately
admitted to the schools of Salem, Nantucket, New Bedford, and Lowell,
in fact, of every city in Massachusetts but Boston, the friends of
the colored people fearlessly attacked the false legal theories of
Solicitor Chandler. The minority of the School Committee argued that
schools are the common property of all, and that each and all are
legally entitled without "let or hindrance" to the equal benefits of
all advantages they might confer.[1] Any action, therefore, which
tended to restrict to any individual or class the advantages and
benefits designed for all, was an illegal use of authority, and an
arbitrary act used for pernicious purposes.[2] Their republican
system, the minority believed, conferred civil equality and legal
rights upon every citizen, knew neither privileged nor degraded
classes, made no distinctions, and created no differences between rich
and poor, learned and ignorant, or white and black, but extended to
all alike its protection and benefits.[3] The minority considered it a
merit of the school system that it produced the fusion of all classes,
promoted the feeling of brotherhood, and the habits of equality. The
power of the School Committee, therefore, was limited and constrained
by the general spirit of the civil policy and by the letter and spirit
of the laws which regulated the system.[4] It was further maintained
that to debar the colored youth from these advantages, even if they
were assured the same external results, would be a sore injustice and
would serve as the surest means of perpetuating a prejudice which
should be deprecated and discountenanced by all intelligent and
Christian men.[5]