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Abolitionists as Academics: The Controversy at Western Reserve College, 1832–1833

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Lawrence B. Goodheart
Lawrence B. Goodheart*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Nichols College
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Extract

During 1832 to 1833, the faculty and trustees of Western Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio, were embroiled in a controversy over immediate abolition. The faculty advocated immediate abolition and the establishment of biracial equality in the United States; the trustees urged gradual abolition and the colonization of freed slaves in Liberia. The controversy at Western Reserve College raises the question of why some people adopted immediate abolitionism while others of similar background remained colonizationists? Although the case of Western Reserve College provides no Rosetta Stone to unravel the mystery of motivation, there were notable differences in age, in relationship to the community, and in enthusiasm for the evangelical doctrine of the immediate repentance of sin that distinguished the main protagonists among the faculty and the trustees from one another.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , Winter 1982 , pp. 421 - 433
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

1. Histories of Western Reserve College include Cutler, Carroll, A History of Western Reserve College during Its First Half Century, 1826–1876 (Cleveland, 1876); Waite, Frederick Clayton, Western Reserve University: The Hudson Era (Cleveland, 1943); Millis, John S., Western Reserve of Cleveland: One Hundred Thirty-Two Years of a Venture in Faith (New York, 1957); and Cramer, Clarence H., Case Western Reserve: A History of the University, 1826–1976 (Boston, 1976).Google Scholar

2. McManis, Michael A., “Range Ten, Town Four: A Social History of Hudson, Ohio, 1799–1840” (Case Western Reserve University, unpublished dissertation, 1976), p. 148, concludes that there was “no important economic differences between colonizationists and abolitionists” in Hudson. Generational, not economic factors, also appear most significant in differentiating the abolitionist faculty from the colonizationist trustees. See Banner, Lois, “Religion and Reform in the Early Republic: The Role of Youth,” American Quarterly, 23 (1971): 677–695, and Hammond, John L., “Revival Religion and Anti-Slavery Politics,” American Sociological Review, 39 (1974): 175–186.Google Scholar

3. See Bond, Beverly Jr., The Civilization of the Old Northwest: A Study of Political, Social, and Economic Development, 1788–1812 (New York, 1934); Hatcher, Harlan H., The Western Reserve: The Story of New Connecticut in Ohio (Indianapolis, 1949); Lottich, Kenneth V., New England Transplanted (Dallas, 1964); and McManis, , “Range Ten, Town Four.”Google Scholar

4. An outstanding example of the argument for establishing educational institutions in the West is Beecher, Lyman, A Plea for the West (Cincinnati, 1835).Google Scholar

5. Trustee Records, Western Reserve College, 1826–1834, pp. 1–23, University Archives, Case Western University; Cutler, , History, pp. 7–19; Waite, , Western Reserve, pp. 23–38; Millis, , Western Reserve, pp. 10–12; Cramer, , Case Western, pp. 4–10; and Tewkesbury, Donald G., The Founding of American Colleges and Universities before the Civil War (New York, 1932), pp. 8–9; and Wright, Elizar Sr., to Day, Jeremiah, April 23, 1821, Day Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University.Google Scholar

6. Wright, Elizur Sr., one of the founders of the Western Reserve College and himself a graduate of Yale College in 1781, queried his son, Wright, Elizur Jr., a student at Yale from 1822 to 1826, about Yale's curriculum and physical plant. See Wright, Sr., to Wright, Jr., June 10, Aug. 4, 1823, April 5, 1825, and May 26, 1826, Wright, Elizur [Jr.] Papers, Library of Congress. Also Wright, Sr., to Baldwin, Simeon, August 27, 1831, Baldwin Family Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.Google Scholar

7. Cutler, , History, pp. 12–15; Waite, , Western Reserve, p. 476; and Dexter, Franklin Bowditch, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History (New York, 1907), passim.Google Scholar

8. Cutler, , History, p. 81.Google Scholar

9. The Ohio Observer, Sept. 28. 1833; [Storrs, Richard Salter II], “Sketch of the Life of the Reverend Charles B. Storrs, President of Western Reserve College,” American Quarterly Register (Nov. 15, 1833): 84–89; Rev. Richard Salter Storrs to Henry [Storrs], Dec, 15, 1853, Storrs, Charles B. Papers, University Archives, Case Western Reserve University.Google Scholar

10. Wright, Philip G. and Wright, Elizabeth Q., Elizur Wright: The Father of Life Insurance (Chicago, 1937), pp. 1–65; Pease, Jane H. and Pease, William H., “The Political Gadfly: Elizur Wright,” Bound with Them in Chains: A Biographical History of the Anti-Slavery Movement (Westport, 1972), pp. 218–244; French, David, “Elizur Wright, Jr., and the Emergence of Anti-Colonization Sentiments on the Connecticut Western Reserve,” Ohio History, 85 (Winter 1976): 50–66.Google Scholar

11. Green, Samuel Worcester, Beriah Green (New York, 1875), p. 3; Waite, , Western Reserve, p. 487; and Block, Muriel, “Beriah Green, The Reformer,” (Syracuse University, Unpublished M.A. Thesis, 1935), pp. 1–36.Google Scholar

12. Western Intelligencer, July 14. 1829: Wright, Elizur Jr., “A Lecture on Tobacco Delivered in the Chapel of the Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, May 29, 1832,” (Cleveland, 1832); Green, , Green, pp. 8–9; “Sketch of… Storrs,” 87–88; and Cutler, , History, p. 31.Google Scholar

13. Storrs, Charles B., An Address, Delivered at Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, Feb. 9, 1831. (Boston, 1831, preface.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., p. 6.Google Scholar

15. Garrison, William Lloyd, Thoughts on African Colonization (Boston, 1832). The inaugural issue of the Liberator, Jan. 1, 1831, and subsequent issues contained frequent diatribes against colonization.Google Scholar

16. Cutler, , History, pp. 12–15; Waite, , Western Reserve, p. 95. See the Observer and Telegraph of Hudson, Ohio, June 24, Sept. 29, and Aug. 8, 1830, which carried information about Garrison's reform activities.Google Scholar

17. Wright, Elizur Jr., to Hitchcock, Reuben, Dec. 25, 1832, Peter Hitchcock Family Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society.Google Scholar

18. Wright, Elizur Jr., “Reminiscences of Groton during the Years 1826 and 1827,” Historical Series, II (Groton, MA) 9, and Observer and Telegraph, Aug. 30, 1832.Google Scholar

19. Observer and Telegraph, Aug. 30. 1832.Google Scholar

20. Wright's articles on immediate abolitionism continued in the Observer and Telegraph on a regular basis until December 1832.Google Scholar

21. See the Observer and Telegraph of Oct. 11, Nov. 1, and Nov. 22, 1832 for Clark's anti-abolitionist arguments.Google Scholar

22. For Wright's charge, see the Liberator, Jan. 5, 1833; for Isham's rebuttal, see the Observer and Telegraph, Jan. 17, 1833. Also Wright's comments in the (Boston) Chronotype, Dec. 24, 1847.Google Scholar

23. Waite, , Western Reserve, p. 98, 101.Google Scholar

24. Green, Beriah, Four Sermons, Preached in the Chapel of the Western Reserve College, on the Lord's Days, Nov. 18 and 25, Dec. 2 and 9, 1832 (Cleveland, 1833), preface; and Green, , Sermons and Other Discourses with Brief Biographical Hints (New York, 1860), p. 34.Google Scholar

25. Green, , Four Sermons, p. 18.Google Scholar

26. Observer and Telegraph, Feb. 7. 1833.Google Scholar

27. Cutler, , History, pp. 31–32, and Waite, , Western Reserve, pp. 92–99. Quotations are from Staudenraus, P. J., African Colonization Movement 1816–1865 (New York, 1961), p. 201, 203.Google Scholar

28. Green, , Four Sermons, prefacing note, and Liberator, Jan. 5. 1833.Google Scholar

29. Observer and Telegraph, Jan. 3. 1832.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., Dec. 27. 1832.Google Scholar

31. “Committee Report on Abolitionist Agitation, 1832,” University Archives, Case Western Reserve University.Google Scholar

32. Untitled Typescript of a Charles B. Storrs Manuscript of Jan. 11, 13, 1833, Storrs, Charles B. Papers, University Archives, Case Western Reserve University.Google Scholar

33. Observer and Telegraph, Feb. 14. 1833.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., Feb. 21. 1833.Google Scholar

35. Liberator, Jan. 5. 1833.Google Scholar

36. Liberator, May 22, June 1, 8, 22, 1833; Emancipator, June 8, 22, 29, 1833; Boston Recorder, June 5, 1833; George W. Benson to Isaac Knapp, May 27, 1833, Weston Papers, Boston Public Library; and Wright, Jr., to Beriah Green, June, 7, 1833, Wright Papers.Google Scholar

37. Wright, Elizur Jr., The Sin of Slavery and Its Remedy (New York, 1833), and Liberator, June 30, 1833.Google Scholar

38. Seward, John to Wright, Jr., July 24, 1833, Wright Papers.Google Scholar

39. Ibid.Google Scholar

40. American Anti-Slavery Society, First Annual Report (New York, 1834), p. 42.Google Scholar

41. Observer and Telegraph, Sept. 12. 1833, and Waite, , Western Reserve, p. 103.Google Scholar

42. Wright, Jr., to Green, Beriah, Sept. 18. 1833, quoted in Wright, , Wright, p. 63, and Wright [Jr.] to the Rev. Walker, R. M., Dec. 5, 1875, Cutler, Carroll Papers, University Archives, Case Western Reserve University.Google Scholar

43. “Sketch of… Storrs:” 84–89; The Ohio Observer, Sept. 28, 1833; Whittier, John Greenleaf, “To the Memory of Charles B. Storrs: Late President of Western Reserve College,” The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (Boston, 1927), p. 170; and Whittier to Carroll Cutler, [?] 1876, Cutler Papers.Google Scholar

44. Wright, Jr., to Weld, Theodore, Sept. 5. 1833, in Barnes, Gilbert H. and Dumond, Dwight L., eds., Letters of Theodore Weld, Angelina Grinke and Sarah Grimke, 1822–1844, 2 vols., (New York, 1934), I, p. 116; Wright, Jr., to Phelps, Amos, [between June 7 and Oct. 4, 1833], Wright Papers; and Wright, Jr., to Green, Beriah, Sept. 18, 1833, quoted in Wright, , Wright, p. 65.Google Scholar

45. Observer and Telegraph, July 4. 1833, and Green, , Green, 3.Google Scholar

46. African Repository, 9 (Oct. 1833): 245.Google Scholar

47. Ibid.: 266; African Repository, 9 (Aug. 1833): 186–187.Google Scholar

48. Observer and Telegraph, Sept. 5, 12. 1833.Google Scholar

49. That one faculty member was Rufus Nutting, professor of languages from 1829–1840, who did not take an active part in the abolitionist controversy. Little information exists about Nutting. See Wright, Elizur Sr., to Wright, Jr., April 10. 1829, Wright Papers, and Waite, , Western Reserve, p. 61. 487.Google Scholar

50. Wright, Elizur Jr., to Phelps, Amos between June 7 and and October 3, 1833, Wright Papers.Google Scholar

51. Wright, Elizur Jr., to Storrs, Charles B., Aug. 31, 1833, Folder 3GW1, University Archives, Case Western Reserve University.Google Scholar

52. Fairchild, James H., Oberlin: The Colony and the College, 1833–1883 (Oberlin, 1833), pp. 48–77, and Fletcher, Robert S., A History of Oberlin College: From Its Foundation through the Civil War (Oberlin, 1943), p. 144, 147, 150–178.Google Scholar

53. Barnes, Gilbert, The Antislavery Impulse, 1830–1844 (New York, 1933), p. 39, incorrectly contends that Weld converted Storrs, Wright, and Green to abolitionism when the reverse is true. As late as September 27, 1832, Weld declared himself a colonizationist—Weld to Birney, James G., in Dumond, Dwight L., ed., Letters of James Gillespie Birney, 1831–1857 2 vols. (New York, 1938), I, p. 27. The following two letters provide further evidence that the abolitionist controversy at Western Reserve College led to Weld's conversion-Wright, Jr., to Weld, Dec. 7, 1832, in Barnes, and Dumond, , Letters of Theodore Weld, I, pp. 94–97, and Weld, to Wright, Jr., Jan. 10, 1833, Ibid., pp. 99–101. Thomas, Benjamin, Theodore Weld: Crusader for Freedom (New Brunswick, 1950), p. 36, supports the position that Storrs, Wright, and Green had a significant influence on Weld's adoption of abolitionism, as does Abzug, Robert H., Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and the Dilemma of Reform, (N.Y. 1980), 87–88.Google Scholar