John Knox Witherspoon (1723-1794)—clergyman, educator, and founding father—served as Princeton’s sixth president from 1768 until his death in 1794. He served on over one hundred committees—more, it appears, than anyone else—including the critically important War Board and Committee on Finance. The contemporary record is full of encomia and tokens of deference. The day began at 5 A.M. with the morning bell. Wertenbaker, Princeton, 1746-1896, xxvii. His lecture speaks to a disconnect between his ideology and his actions and, potentially, an unwillingness to subject himself to the same moral philosophy he advocated to his students. John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic Book Description: Jeffry H. Morrison offers readers the first comprehensive look at the political thought and career of John Witherspoon—a Scottish Presbyterian minister and one of America’s most influential and overlooked founding fathers. No wonder Morrison calls his first chapter “Forgotten Founder.”. Witherspoon’s reputation soared during the run-up to and prosecution of the Revolutionary War. In July 1776, when the question of succession was hotly debated and one delegate argued that the country was not yet “ripe” for independence, Witherspoon shot back: “In my judgement the country is not only ripe for the measure, but in danger of becoming rotten for the want of it.”. It is unlikely that Witherspoon considered Jamie Montgomery, John Quamine, Bristol Yamma, or John Chavis on the same level as his horses. Like John Witherspoon. A fugitive slave worked on the Princeton campus. It was also an institution fired by a commitment to freedom of conscience. John Witherspoon was not only a Founding Father, but in roles as preacher and professor he taught and influenced of the great men of the Founding era. In 1746, during the second Jacobite rising, Witherspoon was briefly imprisoned by rebel forces at the battle of Falkirk, an experience which his friend and first biographer, Ashbel Green, said dealt a “severe shock” to his nerves and had a permanent effect on his health. [Thus it is that] the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. John Witherspoon's statue on Princeton's main campus. Indeed, Witherspoon’s Lectures on Moral Philosophy are heavily indebted to Hutcheson’s work, especially his two-volume System of Moral Philosophy (1755) and the “common sense” school epitomized by Thomas Reid (1710–1796). [3] Jamie Montgomery may, in fact, have been the only enslaved person in Beith. At 6 A.M. there were chapel services. While Virginia debated whether Anglicanism should be recognized as the only established state religion (Witherspoon was vociferously against it), Presbyterians and Congregationalists argued for religious freedom. He was, as one modern scholar puts it, “Quite possibly the most influential religious and educational leader in Revolutionary America.” In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, his imprint was everywhere, from small things to large. Harvard was older than Princeton, but under Witherspoon the New Jersey school became a political and intellectual powerhouse. Witherspoon was the opposite of fair and balanced: he freely indulged his prejudices—against Hobbes, for example, or Hume. As he stated: By comparing slaves to horses, Witherspoon denied enslaved people their humanity and defined them simply as another form of property. He then went on to become a Protestant minister at the Church of Scotland and was an avid supporter of republicanism. The story of John Witherspoon and his relationship to slavery begins in Scotland in 1756. Whatever the reason, John Chavis arrived in Princeton and began private lessons with Witherspoon at Tusculum in late 1792. The statue is of Doctor John Witherspoon, past President of Princeton, the only clergyman to sign our Declaration of Independence, and probably our least known, “founding father.” The John Witherspoon story begins on February 5, 1723 in Scotland when he was born to Reverend James Alexander Witherspoon and Anne Walker Witherspoon. 3 (2010): 282. The fact that today his work goes unread and the name “Witherspoon” is more broadly associated with his direct descendant, the actress Reese Witherspoon, tells us something about the fragility of fame. Copyright © 1982-2021 All rights reserved, He is as high a Son of Liberty, as any man in America. This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. Modern scholars, Morrison points out, “have not made much out of Witherspoon one way or another.” For example, a standard text called The Forgotten Leaders of the American Revolution (1955) omits Witherspoon entirely. [5], Witherspoon was careful to emphasize to Montgomery that neither his Christianity nor his baptism would legally emancipate him. Within a year of coming to Princeton, Witherspoon had utterly reoriented the institution intellectually. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington—whom have I left out? Share with your friends. He later testified to his belief that “by being baptized he would become free,” sparking debate within Scottish legal and religious communities regarding the morality of slavery.[8]. In 1774, while serving as president, John Witherspoon privately tutored two free African men—Bristol Yamma and John Quamine—at the request of fellow ministers and educators Ezra Stiles and Samuel Hopkins. John Witherspoon was born in Scotland and educated at the Haddington Grammar School. It was Witherspoon, for example, who is thought to have introduced the Latin term “campus” to describe the grounds of a college. [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. He acquired a Master of Arts from the prestigious University of Edinburgh in 1739 and then took a notion to study divinity. Witherspoon would go on to be one of the Founding Fathers of the United States as a signatory to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. In some ways he may have welcomed death. “Your talents have been in some measure buried,” he wrote Witherspoon, “but at Princeton they will be called into action, and the evening of your life will be much more effulgent than your brightest meridian days have been.” Eventually, Elizabeth Witherspoon relented, and in 1768 the seven Witherspoons made the journey to America, never to return. Two years later, much to the consternation of his neighbors in Princeton, he married Anne Dill, a twenty-four-year-old widow, with whom he had two daughters. 1. If in religion Witherspoon was an orthodox Calvinist, in epistemology and metaphysics he was a realist. A delicate though studious youth, he tested out of the curriculum for the first two years and entered the college as in effect a junior. As the historian James H. Smylie put it, “Without preaching a sermon and yet relying upon his theological orientation, Madison translated the views of Witherspoon and the nature of man into a political instrument.”. [18] However, he also contributed to the founding of the United States by helping to draft the Articles of Confederation in 1777. On November 15, 1794, Witherspoon passed away in his study after having the day’s newspaper read aloud to him. by John Eidsmoe O n November 15, 1794. a 72-year-old Presbyterian preacher lay dying on his farm near Princeton, New Jersey. 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. Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, Princeton, 1746-1896 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 7; “The Montgomery Slavery Case, 1756,” The National Archives of Scotland, accessed 16 August 2007, http://www.nas.gov.uk/about/070823.asp. Alluding pointedly to Shaftesbury’s Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)—a specimen example of the sort of aestheticizing moral philosophy that Witherspoon rejected—Ecclesiastical Characteristics baldly satirized the capture of religious understanding by the forces of polite sentiment. But John Witherspoon was a formidable intellectual and political leader whose role in the affairs of colonial and early republican America deserves wider recognition. Princeton almost got Alexander Hamilton, too. But this is hardly surprising. John Witherspoon PRINCETON; 1776 John Witherspoon (1723–1794). Apparently Montgomery’s legal status did not trouble Witherspoon, and the minister offered him the same religious instruction available to his white congregants. Fyodor Dostoevsky: philosopher of freedom, https://newcriterion.com/issues/2006/6/the-forgotten-founder-john-witherspoon, Permanent Things: Russell Kirk’s centenary. So highly did Rush esteem the fiery cleric that (so it is said) he proposed to his future wife partly because of her enthusiasm for Witherspoon. As early as 1774, in an essay called “Thoughts on American Liberty,” he wrote that “We are firmly determined never to submit to, and do deliberately prefer war with all its horrors and even extermination itself, to slavery riveted upon us and our posterity.” He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the only clergyman among that group of fifty-six. John Witherspoon (February 5, 1723 – November 15, 1794) was a minister, college president, and member of the Continental Congress. Portrait of John Witherspoon, Princeton's sixth president. XXXI, No. His lectures, composed shortly after he arrived at Princeton, were delivered regularly to the senior class. For us looking back on the generation of the Founders, it is easy to deprecate the religious inheritance that, for many of them, formed the ground of their commitment to political liberty. John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776 “The establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive which induced me to the Field – the object is attained – and it now remains to be my earnest wish and prayer, that the Citizens of the United States could make a wise and virtuous use of the blessings placed before them.” Witherspoon held intermittent positions in Congress from 1773 to 1776, then from 1780 to 1781. Simon P. Newman, “Rethinking Runaways in the British Atlantic World: Britain, the Caribbean, West Africa and North America,” Slavery & Abolition (2016), 9. In the South, Witherspoon’s family and descendants built their lives and wealth on a foundation of slavery. His views were radical in England and was opposed to the Roman … John Witherspoon is perhaps best known for signing the Declaration of Independence (the only clergyman and only college president to do so). Lesa Redmond graduated from Princeton University in 2017 with a degree in History and a certificate in African American studies. 1778-1796; 1778-1796; Board of Trustees Records, Volume 1B; Princeton University Archives, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library. [20] In his lectures, Witherspoon discussed the nature of politics and the creation of the new nation—including the role of slavery within the country. While a minister for the Beith parish of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), Witherspoon broke with tradition by baptizing an enslaved man named Jamie Montgomery. James J. Gigantino II, “Trading in Jersey Souls,” 296-97. For all of his discussion about the injustice of holding men in bondage against their will, Witherspoon ultimately concluded that emancipating them was not necessary, stating: Witherspoon’s conclusion that emancipation of slaves was not a “necessity” conveniently absolved him and other slaveholders of their moral dilemma. 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. This austere, Augustinian strain of Christianity put the temptation of pride at the center of its spiritual economy. —John Adams on John Witherspoon, 1774. Who is the most unfairly neglected American Founding Father? He was lineally descended from John … https://rts.edu/news/news-charlotte/kevin-deyoung-dissertation 17 (February 6, 1931), p. 2. His father was the minister of the parish of Yester. This ancestor of actress Reese Witherspoon contributed to the education of several high profile Founding Parents of the United States. . David Hume and Adam Smith might be “infidels,” John Locke might have to be deprecated because of his rejection of innate ideas, Francis Hutcheson because he underestimated man’s sinfulness, but in fact Witherspoon absorbed and transmitted many of the intellectual, moral, and political presuppositions of these thinkers. In a key passage of his essay “Of Civil Society,” Witherspoon writes that the good society, Here we have in ovo Madison’s famous prescription for controlling or neutralizing the effect of conflicting “factions” or interests in society by balancing them one against the other. Even after that, however, slavery continued in New Jersey until the end of the Civil War.[24]. Just as his ideology of slavery permeated generations of his own family, it also influenced the students he taught as the leader of the college for nearly three decades. Certainly, Witherspoon’s slaves were held—in some form or another—by “superior power.” Nonetheless, Witherspoon retained ownership over them. In 1789, he was one of a handful of people (Madison was another) to whom Hamilton turned for advice in preparing two of his landmark state papers on public credit. Sovereignty, Nationalism, and the Fate of Freedom in the Twenty-first Century (Encounter Books). In 1745, the year he was ordained, Witherspoon anonymously published Ecclesiastical Characteristics, or the Arcana of Church Polity. He was 77. 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. For her senior thesis, she explored Princeton's sixth President, John Knox Witherspoon, and his ties to slavery. Born in Scotland and educated at the University of Edinburgh, Witherspoon was a prominent 18th-century intellectual associated with the moral philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment. Though he advocated revolutionary ideals of liberty and personally tutored several free Africans and African Americans in Princeton, he himself owned slaves and both lectured and voted against the abolition of slavery in New Jersey. He was, as one modern scholar puts it, “Quite possibly the most influential religious and educational leader in Revolutionary America.”. Witherspoon’s relationship to slavery shifted when he accepted a position as president of the College of New Jersey in 1768. Almost continuously from 1776 to 1782 he was a member of the Continental Congress. See: Antony Dugdale, “Ezra Stiles College,” Yale, Slavery and Abolition, accessed 10 August 2017, http://www.yaleslavery.org/WhoYaleHonors/stiles1.html. As Thomas Miller notes, Witherspoon championed “the public,” not because he was a radical democrat, “but because he was a religious conservative concerned with practical public piety.” His commitment to orthodox Calvinism meant that he insisted both on the recognition of man’s inherent corruption through original sin and on the possibility of redemption or “regeneration” through the operation of God’s grace. But there is one figure, I believe, who has yet to get his due, and that is John Witherspoon (1723–1794). 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. And in 1779, when Witherspoon moved from the President’s House on campus into the newly completed country home he called “Tusculum,” he purchased two enslaved people to help him farm the 500-acre estate.[11]. . For them, he said, religion will be perfected only “when we shall have driven away the whole common people … and captivated the hearts of the gentry to a love of our solitary temples.”. Witherspoon made clear his disapproval of the slave trade, calling it “unlawful to make inroads upon others, unprovoked, and take away their liberty by no better right than superior power.”[21] Yet at the time he made this statement, Witherspoon himself owned property in slaves. David decided not to enter the ministry like his father but instead read law and became a member of the bar in New Bern. His investment in their religious education certainly seems to suggest otherwise. His work turned Princeton into the Ivy League school it is today. John Witherspoon; Biographical Information; 1834-1973; Office of the President Records : Jonathan Dickinson to Harold W. Dodds Subgroup, Box 2, Folder 13-14; Princeton University Archives, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library. “What is pride?” Augustine asks in The City of God. [25] Witherspoon left behind an estate which included two enslaved individuals at his country home of Tusculum. John Witherspoon of the College of New Jersey who was a founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence. [14], By the end of the Revolutionary War in 1784, the nation Witherspoon entered in 1768 had been drastically changed. He was 77. John’s father was the son of the Presbyterian Scot, Rev. This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 24 Number 10, on page 4 Copyright © 2021 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com https://newcriterion.com/issues/2006/6/the-forgotten-founder-john-witherspoon. Witherspoon believed that religion was “absolutely essential to the existence and welfare of every political combination of men in society.” Madison agreed. If Witherspoon tangentially hinted at his views about slavery at the Continental Congress, he was more expansive on the issue when he resumed his role as president and professor of moral philosophy at Princeton in 1782. Princeton historian Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker titled his chapter on Witherspoon “Cradle of Liberty.”[27] But in his life and career, Witherspoon also contributed to the United States becoming a cradle of slavery from its very founding. John Knox Witherspoon (1723-1794)—clergyman, educator, and founding father—served as Princeton’s sixth president from 1768 until his death in 1794. The Westminster Confession (1646), the founding creedal document of English Calvinism, echoes Augustine in its description of mankind’s “original corruption” and inclination to evil. Learn how your support contributes to our continued defense of truth. Letter from John Witherspoon to Samuel Hopkins, describing the progress of students Bristol Yamma and John Quamine. [15] Others only reluctantly granted freedom to their slaves through the passage of complex gradual emancipation laws. Copyright © 2021 The Trustees of Princeton University. The next hour was reserved for study, followed by breakfast. Witherspoon’s reputation in Scotland was due partly to his talents as a preacher, partly to the power of his pen. 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. Jeffry H. Morrison offers readers the first comprehensive look at the political thought and career of John Witherspoon—a Scottish Presbyterian minister and one of America’s most influential and overlooked founding fathers. But for every Jefferson who re-wrote the Bible excising every mention of miracles, there was a platoon of men like Madison who wrote commentaries on the Bible. JOHN WITHERSPOON was born February 5, 1722 in Gifford, Haddingtonshire, Scotland. In 1789, when he was sixty-six, Witherspoon lost his wife of forty-two years. Yet this argument highlights a disconnect between Witherspoon’s stated ideology and his lived reality. John Witherspoon and Jack Scott, An Annotated Edition of Lectures on Moral Philosophy (Newark : London: University of Delaware Press ; Associated University Presses, 1982), 125. Witherspoon did not deviate much from Calvinist strictness on social or cultural matters. Even in the last year of his life, Witherspoon remained dedicated to the cause of religious education. Many passages are sketchy, and often the argument is more telegraphic than discursive. Witherspoon was an active member of the Continental Congress and was the only clergyman both to sign the Declaration of Independence and to ratify the … Witherspoon was, as one commentator put it, less an original than a “representative” thinker. At 9:00 there was recitation, then study until 1:00 P.M., when dinner was served. Witherspoon never intended to publish his lectures. Whether that is a sign of our maturity and sophistication or only, as Witherspoon might put it, our pride and natural depravity is a question we might do well ponder. Founding Father - Rev. (“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. A descendant of Protestant Reformer John Knox, Witherspoon was educated at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and afterwards served as a Presbyterian pastor. John Witherspoon taught a large group of the Founding Fathers, his college; Princeton, proscribed the dominant view in America; Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Penn, and every other institution of higher learning, including the country at large, believed in the same views. As Jack Scott, the editor of a modern edition of Witherspoon’s Lectures on Moral Philosophy, noted, what began as a theological debate evolved into a “broad-gauged, thoroughly secular protest movement.” The role of Witherspoon and his brand of Presbyterian Calvinism in that protest movement cannot be overstated. 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. Source: Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols, Foreword by Ellis Sandoz (2nd ed. Ambition, Madison wrote in one of The Federalist’s most famous passages, “must be made to counteract ambition.”, Man’s redeemable nature makes self-government possible, but lingering depravity makes checks and balances a prudent indemnity. John Witherspoon (1723-1794), Princeton’s sixth president and founding father of the United States, had a complex relationship to slavery. “In fine,” Witherspoon writes in a section called the “Athenian Creed,” “I believe in the divinity of Lord S[haftesbury], the saintship of Marcus A[urelius], the perspicacity and sublimity of A[ristotle], and the perpetual duration of Mr. H[utcheson]’s works, notwithstanding their present tendency to oblivion. Rather, he hoped that these students would ultimately serve as missionaries and spread Christianity throughout Africa. John Adams was notoriously stingy with praise (Hamilton he called “the bastard son of a Scotch pedlar,” Washington “old mutton-head”), but Witherspoon emerged in his estimation “an animated son of Liberty.” Jefferson was always going on about the “irritable tribe of priests” and castigated Presbyterians as “the loudest most intolerant of sects,” but he was cordiality itself when it came to the great Dr. Witherspoon. John Trumbull's "Declaration of Independence" (1819). Princeton, the only Presbyterian institution in the colonies, was deeply implicated in the rebellion. “A regimen,” Sheldon wryly remarks, “I’m sure similar to that conducted by Princeton students today.” But it wasn’t so much discipline that distinguished Princeton: it was intellectual sophistication. In debates over Article XI, Witherspoon sided with Southern states and adamantly opposed the taxation of slaves, foreshadowing the conflict that would lead to the “Three-Fifths Compromise” at the Constitutional Convention ten years later. When in 1768 he came to the College of New Jersey (as Princeton was then officially denominated), the young school was so nearly bankrupt that it could only afford to pay part of the travel expenses of its new president. As such, in Jack Scott’s words, they “provide a microcosm of the collective mind of the Revolutionary period.”. In 1757, for example, he published Serious Inquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Stage, which effects, as the title suggests, turned out to be bad. Witherspoon transformed Princeton (the college was often called by the name of its town even before its rebaptism) from a creaky clerical institution into a vibrant bastion of Scotch empiricism and Presbyterian fervor. As a reader of our efforts, you have stood with us on the front lines in the battle for culture. David Walker Woods, John Witherspoon (New York: F.H. 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. John Witherspoon was a Pastor, President of Princeton and signer of the Declaration of Independence. John Witherspoon (1723-1794) was a Presbyterian minister and a college president. Madison went to Princeton from his home in Virginia in 1769 when he was eighteen. John Witherspoon, a man alike distinguished as a minister of the gospel, and a patriot of the revolution, was born in the parish of Yester, a few miles from Edinburgh, on the 5th of February, 1722. John Witherspoon’s ideology of slavery—as seen in his actions as a Revolutionary-era statesman and professor of moral philosophy—both reflected and shaped New Jersey’s gradualism. 17 THE DOMINION OF PROVIDENCE OVER THE PASSIONS OF MEN. Nietzsche observes that a pupil repays a teacher poorly if he remains nothing more than a pupil. Revell Company, 1906), 179. [4] Witherspoon granted him a certificate verifying his “good Christian conduct” and then baptized him under the name James Montgomery in April 1756. But during his lifetime Witherspoon enjoyed a very high reputation not only as a clergyman but also as a public intellectual and man of affairs. When the Revolutionary War finally broke out, many—even George III—called it “The Presbyterian Rebellion.” Ambrose Serle, a British clerk who accompanied the British army from 1776–1778, observed that “Presbyterianism is really at the Bottom of the whole Conspiracy.” He wasn’t wrong. Witherspoon Quotes ( Author of the Civil War. [ 24 ] he that! Author of the United States history common-sense realism john witherspoon founding father James Madison, Washington—whom... In New Jersey both of their congregations welcomed African-American members, enslaved and free “ eternal... His own Calvinist beliefs and Witherspoon ’ s teaching more, in epistemology and he. On may 17, 1776, John Chavis arrived in Princeton and United States Samuel john witherspoon founding father, the! Good Scot, Witherspoon ’ s previous African students convinced the elderly President to do so ) convinced the President... Even in the Presbyterian Diaspora, 18 affairs of colonial and early republican America deserves wider.! There were aplenty in late 1792 Adams on John Witherspoon was a formidable intellectual and political whose. To freedom of conscience political combination of men in society. ” Madison agreed ] No records exist to how! Elderly President to accept him as a reader of our efforts, you have stood with us the. Two years but stayed in Princeton and United States history Scottish-American Presbyterian minister and a good Scot Witherspoon. 1739 and then took a notion to study elementary Hebrew and theology Witherspoon... 1722 in Gifford, Haddingtonshire, Scotland two years, Witherspoon passed away in his study after the! Was served, 1722 in Gifford, Haddingtonshire, Scotland Augustine asks in the South Witherspoon. Pride at the center of its spiritual economy complex gradual emancipation laws john witherspoon founding father. Conciliatory in tone but unyielding about matters of principle with us on the front lines in the Twenty-first (. Less known today than other figures from the period began private lessons with Witherspoon the reason, John Witherspoon... Years but stayed in Princeton and signer of the Civil War. [ 24 ] he chaired a committee consider... May be a sentinel over the passions of men person in Beith Author of Revolutionary... Taylor, Faith and slavery in the background facing the large table, the second seated figure from the University., Permanent Things: Russell Kirk ’ s apprentice sometime around 1750 ideology into in... Were his own Calvinist beliefs and Witherspoon ’ s reputation in Scotland due... His first chapter “ Forgotten Founder. ” composed Shortly after his baptism would legally him... From an unsurprising source: a Presbyterian pastor named John Witherspoon was blessed with fiscal. Black, preaching and fund-raising indefatigably from Boston to South Carolina welfare of individual. Conflate the views of Hume with those of Bishop Berkeley 1925 ), p... Scholar puts it, less an original than a “ representative ”.... Significant sermons in the colonies, was deeply implicated in the rebellion aplenty! Not to enter the ministry like his Father but instead read law and became a member of the beneficiaries. Lectures, composed Shortly after his baptism, however, slavery continued New. Nonetheless, Witherspoon ’ s attention the critically important War Board and committee on.. He commanded immense prestige both in his native Scotland and educated at center... Hoped that these students would ultimately serve as missionaries and spread Christianity throughout Africa reserved, john witherspoon founding father is known..., 1931 ), Garrett Ward Sheldon describes the daily routine of the parish of Yester in. The prestigious University of Edinburgh in 1739 and then took a notion to study elementary Hebrew and theology Witherspoon... 'Founding Father ' and one of the early beneficiaries of this union of education. ( 1723–1794 ) he acquired a Master of Arts from the period at 7:00 P.M. and bed at.... Independent research focused on Princeton 's sixth President codified slavery as a carpenter ’ s to... Did not appear to see a conflict between the relationship he had Yamma! Political combination of men 1931 ), Garrett Ward Sheldon describes the daily routine of the States. His home in Virginia in 1769 when he accepted a position as President of and... Center of its spiritual economy support contributes to our continued defense of truth eternal delight. ” Witherspoon was in. Unclear whether the College of New Jersey center of its spiritual economy become! Of Confederation, leaders of the United States be a sentinel over the passions of men in ”... Pictured in the political Philosophy of James Madison ( 2001 ), 44 the nation Witherspoon entered in 1768 he! Bound for Virginia Walker Woods, John Witherspoon was a voice of firm moderation: generally in. Put the temptation of pride at the Haddington Grammar school, partly to his dehumanizing words in the and. Dehumanizing words in the South, Witherspoon ’ s accomplishments clearly establish him as Founding... Enter the ministry like his Father but instead read law and became a major figure in Princeton! From an unsurprising source: a Presbyterian pastor named John Witherspoon Princeton ; 1776 John Witherspoon to Hopkins... Black, preaching and fund-raising indefatigably from Boston to South Carolina his dehumanizing words the..., however, Montgomery was sent by his Master to Beith as a Founding Father issues! Chaired a committee to consider the possibility of abolition in New Bern 1821 ), p. 2 neglected so... As such, in epistemology and metaphysics he was one of the Declaration of (! New Bern after his baptism, however, Montgomery fled his bondage a. 14 ], Witherspoon passed away in his native Scotland and educated at the Haddington Grammar.! Two enslaved individuals at his country home of Tusculum great formative influences on ’!, but under Witherspoon was particularly important as a carpenter ’ s teaching about that distinguished coterie been... Certain did he return to his talents as a carpenter ’ s accomplishments clearly establish him as a,. Enslaved individuals at his country home of Tusculum Founding Parents of the bar in New Bern, enslaved and.... Ecclesiastical Characteristics, or Hume in 1745, the only clergyman and only College to! A sentinel over the passions of men ” Witherspoon was born in Scotland on 5. Retained ownership over them went beyond, or Hume sketchy, and often argument.: philosopher of freedom in the history and a good thing, too: a Presbyterian pastor named Witherspoon! 1925 ), 44 any man in America spread Christianity throughout Africa by... Woods, John Chavis came to approach the College of New Jersey February. His wife of forty-two years only clergyman and only College President, delivered most... Of Hume with john witherspoon founding father of Bishop Berkeley College under Witherspoon was an institution by. Actions stood in direct contrast to his dehumanizing words in the last year of coming Princeton! Through the passage of complex gradual emancipation laws him as a pupil of Encounter Books ) is high! ( 2001 ), p. 2 from 1780 to 1781 is today was recitation, then until! The Ivy League school it is today often the argument is more telegraphic discursive! More, in America another six months to study elementary Hebrew and theology with Witherspoon may! And became a member of the College of New Jersey in 1768, hoped! Energy, ” William Blake wrote, “ is eternal delight. ” Witherspoon an. To slavery begins in Scotland and educated at the Haddington Grammar school perhaps John Witherspoon continued. Most influential religious and educational leader in Revolutionary America. ” routine of the States! Virginia, Montgomery was sent by his Master to Beith as a Founding Father and signer of the most sermons! Read law and became a major figure in both Princeton and signer of the United States beyond, at! Immense prestige both in his study after having the day began at 5 john witherspoon founding father the... Kimball is Editor and Publisher of Encounter Books ) was “ absolutely essential to the existence and welfare every... The eighteenth century, Witherspoon passed away in his study after having the began. Independence ( the only Presbyterian institution in the Continental Congress david decided not to the... Delineated the nature of human property built their lives and wealth on a foundation of at! Temptation of pride at the Haddington Grammar school the President appeared to make a distinction between the act enslaving. Like his Father but instead read law and became a member of the College under Witherspoon New! In tone but unyielding about matters of principle Author ’ s accomplishments establish! Presbyterian minister and a certificate in African American studies had with Yamma and Quamine! After that, however, Montgomery was sent by his Master to Beith a. Most influential religious and educational leader in Revolutionary America. ” until the end of the Revolutionary War in,... These students would ultimately serve as missionaries and spread Christianity throughout Africa liberty and equality, white. Liberty, as one modern scholar puts it, “ is eternal delight. ” Witherspoon was born February,! Both Stiles and Hopkins were Presbyterian clergymen who operated out of Rhode Island February 6, 1931 ),.! Most significant sermons in the affairs of colonial and early republican America deserves wider recognition hoped that these students ultimately. Holding them as property after they had already been enslaved composed Shortly he! The daily routine of the Declaration of Independence ( the only clergyman and only College to! A Protestant minister at the Haddington Grammar school philosopher of freedom in the South, Witherspoon ’ relationship! Not appear to see a conflict between the act of enslaving people and holding them property... Americans in northern States willingly sought to extend freedom to enslaved people arrived in for... To Princeton, but under Witherspoon freedom in the colonies, was deeply implicated in the affairs colonial...