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Honor and Dishonor at Mr. Jefferson's University: The Antebellum Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Jennings L. Wagoner Jr.
Jennings L. Wagoner Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Extract

It is a gracious and trusting tradition that allows the president of this Society considerable latitude in selecting a subject for this annual address. I hope I have not violated that trust by proposing to discuss a topic that, by its title, may convey marks of a parochial and narrowly conceived (if not contrived) theme. For a southerner to talk on the southern past is perhaps bad enough; but for one who teaches at the University of Virginia to dare focus on that same institution runs the risk of exceeding all bounds of courtesy and custom, to say nothing of decent historical conventions and canons of scholarship. Still, begging your indulgence, I shall seek to explore with you some possible linkages between cultural ideals and youthful conduct that gave a special cast to student life and identity in antebellum Virginia.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , Summer 1986 , pp. 155 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1 Hofstadter, Richard and Metzger, Walter P., The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (New York, 1961), 209–21; Rudolph, Frederick, The American College and University: A History (New York, 1962), 113; Freeman Butts, R., The College Charts Its Course: Historical Conceptions and Current Proposals (New York, 1939).Google Scholar

2 Jefferson, Thomas to Roande, Judge Spencer, 9 Mar. 1821, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Ford, Paul L., 10 vols. (New York, 1892–1899), 10:189.Google Scholar

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6 Jefferson's antipathy to the doctrines of Federalism and his lingering bitterness from earlier struggles with Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall culminated in a resolve to keep Federalist political views from contaminating the minds of Virginia students. In an effort to insure that students of law and government at Virginia would be exposed to “proper” political ideas, the Visitors of the university agreed to prescribe certain texts, i.e., Locke's, John Second Treatise on Government, Sydney's, Algernon Discourses on Government, the Federalist papers, the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison's Virginia Resolutions of 1798. At Madison's suggestion, George Washington's “Farewell Address” was added to the list. See Levy, Leonard W., Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 151–57. Standard sources on Jefferson's ideas concerning the University of Virginia include Bruce, Philip A., History of the University of Virginia, 1819–1919: The Lengthened Shadow of One Man (New York, 1920); Adams, Herbert Baxter, Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia (Washington, D.C., 1888); and Patton, John S., Jefferson, Cabell, and the University of Virginia (New York, 1906). See also Malone, Dumas, Jefferson and His Time (Boston, 1981), vol. 6, The Sage of Monticello, 417–18.Google Scholar

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20 Jefferson, to Carr, , 6 Aug. 1788, Papers of Jefferson, ed. Boyd, 13:470. Cf. Wyatt-Brown, , Southern Honor, 100. That Jefferson could indeed feel the pangs of conscience and contemplate God's judgment is pointedly suggested in his musings on the injustice of slavery and his statement: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever….” Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. Peden, William (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1954), 163.Google Scholar

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23 Cf. Wyatt-Brown, , Southern Honor, 19; and Ayers, , Vengeance and justice, 19–20.Google Scholar

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25 Joseph, C. Cabell to Jefferson, , 25 May 1825, Early History of the University of Virginia as Contained in the Letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph C. Cabell, ed. Cabell, Nathaniel F. (Richmond, 1856), 354; Wall, Charles Coleman Jr., “Students and Student Life at the University of Virginia, 1825 to 1861” (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1978), 6.Google Scholar

26 See, for example, Moore, Kathryn McDaniel, “The War with the Tutors: Student-Faculty Conflict at Harvard and Yale, 1745–1771,” History of Education Quarterly 18 (Summer 1978): 115–27.Google Scholar

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29 Jefferson, to Coolidge, Ellen Randolph, 27 Aug. 1825, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb, and Bergh, (Washington, D.C., 1903), 18:341.Google Scholar

30 “Riotous, disorderly, intemperate, or indecent conduct,” fighting, or giving or accepting a challenge to a duel were among offenses that could warrant immediate suspension or expulsion by action of the faculty. Enactments by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, 1825), 8–9.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., 10.Google Scholar

32 Wall, , “Student Life at U. Va.,” 44.Google Scholar

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37 Wall, , “Student Life at U. Va.,” 49–54. Apparently without exaggeration a student wrote his father in 1853 that “many state [scholarship] students here are heirs to estates of considerable value“ Wall contends that a number of the scholarship students were sons of Virginia gentry who had met with financial setbacks or failures or were temporarily short of available cash for college expenses. See ibid., 64; and St. George Cooke, Edward to Cooke, John R., 11 Dec. 1853, Edward St. George Cooke Collection, Accession no. 2974, Manuscripts Department, University of Virginia Library.Google Scholar

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42 The description is that of librarian William Wertenbaker as quoted in Bruce, , History, 2:263.Google Scholar

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47 See, for example, Head, Ronald B., ed., “The Student Diary of Charles Ellis, Jr., Mar. 10-June 25, 1835,” The Magazine of Albemarle County History 35 and 36 (1978): 30 and passim.Google Scholar

48 Rogers, William B. to Rogers, Henry, 5 Feb. 1842, as quoted in Wall, , “Student Life at U. Va.,” 78.Google Scholar

49 Bruce, , History, 2:270.Google Scholar

50 Ibid.Google Scholar

51 Ibid., 295; see also Wall, , “Student Life at U. Va.,” 91–95.Google Scholar

52 Bruce, , History, 2:293; Wall, , “Student Life at U. Va.,” 104–7.Google Scholar

53 Faculty Minutes, 1, Oct. 1–5. 1825; Tutwiler, Henry, Early Years of the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, 1882), 3–14; Bruce, , History, 2:298–301; Wall, , “Student Life at U. Va.,” 155–58.Google Scholar

54 Bruce, , History, 2:144–49, 299. Professors Long and Key did not in fact resign in this instance, but their action did signal a decided strain between them and the other professors as well as the students. Key left the University of Virginia after two years and Long after three, both to become professors in the newly established University of London. See also Malone, , The Sage of Monticello, 485.Google Scholar

55 Dunglison, Robley, “Diary,” as quoted in Novak, , The Rights of Youth, 127.Google Scholar

56 Except for a brief period of deviation during the 1832–33 session, this principle remained inviolate, thus making the detection and disciplining of offenders a trying task. Wall, , “Student Life at U. Va.,” 187.Google Scholar

57 Jefferson, as quoted in Bruce, , History, 2:300–301.Google Scholar

58 In addition to countless minor disturbances and clashes, serious rebellions occurred in 1825, 1832, 1833, 1836, and 1845. See Wall, , “Student Life at U. Va.,” chap. 6.Google Scholar

59 Ibid., 213–14.Google Scholar

60 The accused student, Joseph Semmes, is reported by Bruce to have later “perished miserably in Texas.” However, the Semi-Centennial Catalogue lists Semmes as a suicide in his home state of Georgia. Bruce, , History, 2:311; Students of the University of Virginia: A Semi-Centennial Catalogue with Brief Biographical Sketches, ed. de Vere, Schele (Baltimore, 1878).Google Scholar

61 Wall, , “Student Life at U. Va.,” 248–65.Google Scholar

62 J.T.C., “Mr. Rives Address,” Southern Literary Messenger 9 (Sept. 1847): 575.Google Scholar

63 See Wyatt-Brown, , Southern Honor, 100–105.Google Scholar