Ranging widely over ethics, epistemology, theology, and political theory, they form an eclectic digest that begins by considering individual virtue before moving on to ponder the common good, a tried and true format familiar since Aristotle. One of his signal contributions at Princeton was to have steered the institution away from the misty if perfervid idealism of Jonathan Edwards, who had presided over the college a few years before. Madison is often called “the father of the Constitution.” His contributions to The Federalist, especially his analysis of the danger of and remedy for “faction,” is a masterpiece of political philosophy. Which is perhaps yet another reason he is less known today than other figures from the period. On May 17, 1776, John Witherspoon (1723-94) preached one of the most significant sermons in the history of this country. Others are virtual caricatures. Hi.s wife had died five Witherspoon never intended to publish his lectures. And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.” For many, perhaps most, of the Founders, Morrison observes, the chain of reasoning ran thus: “no republic without liberty, no liberty without virtue, and no virtue without religion.” John Witherspoon did as much as anyone to nurture that understanding. John Witherspoon, an actor-comedian who for decades made audiences laugh in television shows and films, including the hit Friday franchise, died suddenly at his home today. [14], By the end of the Revolutionary War in 1784, the nation Witherspoon entered in 1768 had been drastically changed. See: Antony Dugdale, “Ezra Stiles College,” Yale, Slavery and Abolition, accessed 10 August 2017, http://www.yaleslavery.org/WhoYaleHonors/stiles1.html. Collins, President Witherspoon, A Biography, 2:3. [10] Witherspoon adapted to this new context by owning slaves himself, but he maintained a commitment to the religious instruction and education of people of African descent—much as he had with Jamie Montgomery in Scotland. A sermon, preached at Princeton, on the 17th of May, 1776.... To which is added, An address to the natives of Scotland, residing in America. John Witherspoon was a Pastor, President of Princeton and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Within a year of coming to Princeton, Witherspoon had utterly reoriented the institution intellectually. Faction, Madison said in Federalist 10, was “sown in the nature of man”: avarice and arrogance were simply inseparable coefficients of the natural corruption man was heir to. But Rush persisted. Born in Scotland and educated at the University of Edinburgh, Witherspoon was … In the South, Witherspoon’s family and descendants built their lives and wealth on a foundation of slavery. John Witherspoon, (born Feb. 15, 1723, [Feb. 5, 1722, old style], Gifford, East Lothian, Scot.—died Nov. 15, 1794, Tusculum, N.J., U.S.), Scottish-American Presbyterian minister and president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University); he was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. Certainly, Witherspoon’s slaves were held—in some form or another—by “superior power.” Nonetheless, Witherspoon retained ownership over them. (“Wherever there is an interest and power to do wrong,” Madison wrote to Jefferson, “wrong will generally be done.”), But if there is a “a degree of depravity in mankind” (Federalist 55), so, too, “there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.” Yet the way to nurture that esteem and confidence is not to rely upon the goodness of men (that, as Witherspoon put it, would be “folly”): “Enlightened statesmen,” Madison observed, “will not always be at the helm.” Rather, one should rely on man’s energy, his ambition and self-interest. Princeton almost got Alexander Hamilton, too. [2] Slavery would not be prohibited in England until 1772 and throughout the British Empire until 1833, but even when Montgomery lived in Beith fewer than one hundred individuals were held as slaves in all of Scotland. . John Witherspoon PRINCETON; 1776 John Witherspoon (1723–1794). Benjamin Rush spoke for many when, a few years after Witherspoon died, he eulogized him as “a man of great and luminous mind” and predicted that “his work will probably preserve his name to the end of time.” He radiated what his contemporaries called “presence”: a personal dignity and charisma that transcended ideological differences and commanded respect. As Witherspoon’s student Ashbel Green noted, “enlargements at the time of recitation were indeed often considerable, and exceedingly interesting.” What the lectures provide is a summary, a sort of literary tableau vivant, of the chief motivating ideas about man and society that percolated through colonial and early republican America. This piece of homely political wisdom is not just consonant with, it is a direct product of Madison’s Calvinist background, a background that was formed and articulated in large part by Witherspoon’s teaching. He was 77. It is unclear whether the College ever acted on the charge to fund Chavis. Both of their congregations welcomed African-American members, enslaved and free. Harvard was older than Princeton, but under Witherspoon the New Jersey school became a political and intellectual powerhouse. As he stated: By comparing slaves to horses, Witherspoon denied enslaved people their humanity and defined them simply as another form of property. Letter from John Witherspoon to Samuel Hopkins, describing the progress of students Bristol Yamma and John Quamine. [5], Witherspoon was careful to emphasize to Montgomery that neither his Christianity nor his baptism would legally emancipate him. For Witherspoon, for all serious Presbyterian Calvinists, the problem with thinkers like Shaftsbury and Hutcheson—to say nothing of “infidels” like David Hume, one of Witherspoon’s bêtes noires—was that they encouraged pride and spiritual arrogance: tempting men to forget their moral weakness, they also cut him off from the possibility of redemption. In 1773, the eighteen-year-old Hamilton, bursting with ambition, presented himself to Witherspoon and asked to be admitted to the college and be allowed to advance “with as much rapidity as his exertions would enable him to.” Witherspoon was deeply impressed by the young man, but wrote denying his request because it was “contrary to the usage of the college.” Hamilton, for his part, was impressed by Witherspoon. Nietzsche observes that a pupil repays a teacher poorly if he remains nothing more than a pupil. At 6 A.M. there were chapel services. Theological skeptics and even atheists there were aplenty in late eighteenth-century America. In May 1776, when the colonies teetered on the edge of war with England, he preached a sermon titled “Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men.” The church historian William Warren Sweet called it “one of the most influential pulpit utterances during the whole course of the war.” Arguing that “There is not a single instance in history, in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire,” Witherspoon articulated a link between spiritual and temporal liberty in a way that that spoke vividly to the passions of the moment. James J. Gigantino II, “Trading in Jersey Souls: New Jersey and the Interstate Slave Trade,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 77, no. In the first Genealogy of the Witherspoon Family (in America) by his grandson, Robert Witherspoon (1728-1788) states "My Grandfather and Grandmother wer born in Scotland about the year 1670; they were cousins and both of one Sir Name, his name was John and hers was Janet; they lived in their younger years in, or near, Glasgow at a place called Begardie; were … Share with your friends. [23] The committee report recommended that the state take no action on the issue of abolition—claiming that slavery as an institution was already dying out in New Jersey and would not last beyond twenty-eight years. See John Witherspoon to Henry Remsen, letter dated 14 December 1779, reprinted in “Sugar, Tea, Silk Paid College Bills in 1779, Princeton Alumni Weekly, Vol. In The Political Philosophy of James Madison (2001), Garrett Ward Sheldon describes the daily routine of the college under Witherspoon. Portrait of John Witherspoon, Princeton's sixth president. [Thus it is that] the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. 17 THE DOMINION OF PROVIDENCE OVER THE PASSIONS OF MEN. Under Witherspoon’s tutelage, the college produced one presi- dent (James Madison), one vice-president (Aaron Burr), ten cabinet ministers, sixty members of congress, twelve governors, fifty-six state legislators, and thirty judges, including three justices of the supreme court. Witherspoon believed that religion was “absolutely essential to the existence and welfare of every political combination of men in society.” Madison agreed. At 5:00 P.M. there were prayers, followed by supper at 7:00 P.M. and bed at 9. He was, as one modern scholar puts it, “Quite possibly the most influential religious and educational leader in Revolutionary America.”. The day began at 5 A.M. with the morning bell. Witherspoon was particularly important as a political activist, an advocate for and architect of American independence. He was lineally descended from John … John’s father was the son of the Presbyterian Scot, Rev. David decided not to enter the ministry like his father but instead read law and became a member of the bar in New Bern. 17 (February 6, 1931), p. 2. His views were radical in England and was opposed to the Roman … John Witherspoon is pictured in the background facing the large table, the second seated figure from the (viewer's) right. [4] Witherspoon granted him a certificate verifying his “good Christian conduct” and then baptized him under the name James Montgomery in April 1756. The Presbyterian Diaspora, 18 dying on his farm near Princeton, the only clergyman only. 9:00 there was another period of recitation and study and was an institution fired by intellectual and... Americans in northern States willingly sought to extend freedom to enslaved people, 44 his farm near Princeton,:... Her independent research focused on Princeton 's sixth President, delivered his most famous address,! 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