The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-01
CULTURE IN TOUCH WITH THE PEo-
PIE

said that Harvard college sympathized
with and supported the anti-slavery cause
The reverse Is the fact. Before President
Eliot took the reins of Harvard In 1869 the
culture of Harvard college had in the main
been conservative to the point of Egyptian
hunkerism. 1t is true that Harvard col
lege sympathized with the American Rev
olution. but that was because, as President
John Adams, a Harvard graduate, ex-
plains, the Puritan theocracy that gov
erned Harvard college dreaded the posi-
bility of the establishment of the Anglican
church in America far more than they did
the Stamp act.
The record of Harvard, and, indeed, that
of all the New England colleges and
churches during the anti-slayery struggle
which ragged from 1880 to 1861, was dis
tinctly pro-slavery. Professor Charles
Follen, the distinguished German scholar
and political exile, after nearly ten years
by the corporation because of his open ex-
preston of anti-slavery opinions. The
bitter pro-slavery citizens of Boston,
Hiliard, Lunt, Saltonstall, Winthrop,
Abbott, Harrison Gray Otis, were all
Harvard men. Two presidents of
Harvard, Edward Everett and @. C.
FELTON,, were aggressive enemies of
the anti-slavery movement Everett was SO
abject an apologist for slavery on the floor
of congress that John Randolph of Roa-
noke, senstor from Virginia, denounced
him, saying: "Sir. envy neither the
head nor the heart of that man from the
North who stands up here to apologize for
human slavery" The few graduates Of
Harvard who sided openly with the anti
slavery cause, like Emerson, Parker, Sum-
ner and Wendell Phillips, were at once
ostracised by the governing forces Of the
college in its corporation and faculty.
Lowell was originally bitter satirist of
the anti-slavery party; the beautiful
woman he fell In love with and married
converted him, but after her death in 1853
Lowell never said word for the cause,
and when he became professor in Har-
ward in 1856 he dropped all his anti
slavery associates, indeed. during the
great anti-slavery struggles of 1S5O-1S54-
1856 and 1860 Lowell's was not among the
resonant voices of freedom. He had be-
come stupefied into silence by the conser-
vative associations of Harvard college Gull
ture.
We are not saying that Harvard was any
worse than the rest of the Eastern colleges
and churches of that day; she was simply
the able leader of that kind of false culture
which places colleges out of touch with
the people; to be out of touch with the
mob Is the glory of large knowledge, sound
learning and soulful culture, but to be out
of touch with the people indicts the sound
ness and value of so-called culture. The
president of Dartmouth college. Rev. DR..
Nathan Lord, Congregational clergyman,
defended slavery from the Bible, defended
the right of secession and championed the
pro-slavery cause until emancipation left
him without vocation. Rev. DR.. John
Henry Hopkins, bishop of Vermont Epis-
copal church, published a pamphlet in de-
Tense of secession in January, 1861, and
subsequently a book defending slavery
from the Bible, which Rev. Dr. Goodwin
of his church, and Bishop Alonzo Potter,
of Pennsylvania. eviscerated SO completely
that the North stopped to laugh even amid
the awful solemnities of civil war.
When Mrs. Stowe issued "Uncle Toms
Cabin" Rev. DIR. Hawks, of the Episcopal
church of New York city, declared that
sits author would so to hell" Rev. DR..
orville Dewey. of the Unitarian church,
said that he would obey the fugitive slave
law even if it obliged him to send his own
mother back into slavery. Rev. DR..
'Southside" Adams. CT Boston, and Rev.
DR.. Gannett were of the same conservative
breed of culture. Rev. Dr. John Wheeler.
president of the University of Vermont,
was another noted champion of slavery,
and Andover Theological seminary, from
the great Professor Stuart down, was pro-
slavery to the backbone. Princeton Theo-
logical seminary defended slavery from
the Bible, and Lane Theological seminary
(ohio) lost number of its brightest
students by trying to silence all protest
against the Bible view of slavery.
The only churches in America that
raised their voices against slavery were the
great popular democratic Methodist
church, which split on the question in
lst0, and the Baptist church, which fol-
lowed the Methodist q few years after.
The early champions Of the anti-slavery
cause were children of these democratic
churches and the common schools. When
they were children of culture their coll
leges always ostracised them, no matter
how blameless their lives; how splendid
their natural talents and scholarly attain
ments.
OF course, when Sumter was fred upon
Harvard and all the rest of the New Eng
land college and church culture was for
the Union; they were like the Dutchman's
wife, of whom her husband said she was
resigned when she disd-"she had to be. {"
The shot at Sumter made Harvard COL
lege uproariously for the Union Just
as the shot at Sumter made Caleb Cush-
Ing, Ben Butler. Daniel S. Dickinson.
Lewis Cass, Edwin NJ. Stanton, Stephen
A. Douglass, Edward Everett. Charles
Devens, Dan Sickles, John A. Dix, Isaac
j. Stevens, John A. Logan, John A. Nc
Ciernand, Joseph Holt and Matt Carpen-
ter, ell for the Union. although they had
fought the an,i-slavery cause all their
lives and had opposed the election Of even