91
DOUGIASS
Further Statement of Facts
and Circumstances.
LD
2791
K4D7
FUKTHER STATEMENT
FACTS AND CIKCUMSTANCES
CONNECTED WITH THE
REMOVAL OF THE AUTHOR
THE PRESIDENCY OF KENYON COLLEGE,
IN ANSWER TO
" THE REPLY OF TRUSTEES," ETC.
BY D. B. DOUGLASS, LL. D.
ALBANY:
/ ERASTUS TTTPEASE.
1845.
MUNSELL AND TANNER,
PRINTERS.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The following statement drawn up, and originally designed, as
a letter to a friend, is now respectfully communicated to the pa-
trons and friends of Kenyon College, and of education generally,
as well as to the friends ol the writer, and to ALL, in every situa-
tion and relation, who may have read the pamphlet to which it
is an answer.
The position of the writer is a very painful one, 'but, so far as
he can see, unavoidable. Thrown before the public, by the in-
justice and cruelty of a corporate body, acting with the counte-
nance and co-operation of a high public functionary, in direct
violation of pledged faith, he was compelled to vindicate himself
in a temperate but firm appeal ; and he has been met in reply,
with scarcely any regard for the real merits of the case, by
a virulent and needless personal attack upon his name and cha-
racter. To that attack he now replies, and should it be repeated,
he sees no alternative but to pursue the course he has laid down
for himself until it is decided beyond appeal, whether there is, or
can be, under the constitutional forms of this enlightened age
and country, a vested right to do wrong, or an immunity superior
to moral obligation.
But it is not merely as a matter of private and personal griev-
ance, that this subject is now presented. Questions of much
higher import are involved in it. The essential nature of the en-
dowment -at Gambier ; the due and proper conservation of that
endowment, as a means of liberal education, and as a property
of the Church, without endangering both, by the union of
unlimited temporal power, with that which is, in its nature, jure
divino ; these, and to some extent the constitution and adminis-
tration of educational trusts generally, in our country, are topics
of deep interest, which cannot fail to engage the attention of the
intelligent reader.
The writer regrets the necessity of drawing out his statement
to so great a length, but he trusts it will be considered, that in
defence of charater as in that of religion, pages of elaborate re-
ply are sometimes necessary to neutralize lines of unfounded as-
persion. He hopes however that no one, who thinks it worth
while to have an opinion on the subject at all, will be deterred
from reading the whole.
Jllbany, 30th June, 1845.
LETTER &C.
Dear Sir:
Your kind letter of the 16th ult., and the interest you were pleased
to express in my behalf on account of the very severe and vituperative
character of the Bishop's " Reply," demand my heartfelt thanks. They
should have had, as well as the pamphlet itself, an earlier acknowledge-
ment from me, had that been possible; but the nature of my engage-
ments with the Cemetery Association at Albany, (in consequence of the
lateness of the season when I commenced lhat work) precluded (he pos-
sibility of my attending 1 to any other thing, until that wasj in some mea-
sure, complete; and the delay has been further prolonged by other imper-
ative engagements since. I regret it the more, as I find that a notice of
my intention to answer the " Reply," which I sent down lobe inserted in
one of the New York papers, in November last, was not attended to by
the person to whom I sent it, and I have been, thus long, exposed there-
fore, to the implication of having plead guilty to, or at least tacitly ad-
mitted the slanderous insinuations, which constitute so large a part of the
publication referred to. I am now, however, once more in the vicinity
of my papers, and not a little thankful in looking over them, to find how
provident I have been, in securing documents and references, to sustain
me, in this otherwise unequal contest. And now, before I answer you at
large, let us look for a moment, at the state of the controversy, and the
relations of the parties engaged in it.
My adversaries would have you believe, that in the publication of my
former statement, I was guilty of a wanton and unprovoked attack upon
the " powers" at (iambier the Bishop, or the Trustees, as the case may
be; and upon this circumstance they found not only (he ordinary pre-
sumption in favor of the defensive party, but the most unlimited license
in regard to the means of defence. Let us see with what propriety.
I was at Gambier, under a solemn compact, to which I had pledged
myself, for life. I was engaged in the peaceful discharge of my duties
under that compact; and perfectly unsuspicious of any evil. No crime, or
offence, or neglect of any kind, had been laid to my charge. The pro-
ceedings of the Trustees show, that I enjoyed the approbation and " high
regard'"' of that body, as " a gentleman of integrity and moral worth"
c< a most excellent man, entitled to universal respect and affection."
Bishop Mcllvaine, the official head and representative of the Board, (writ-
ing about me after my dismissal,) expressed his " entire confidence" in
my " strict integrity, and gentlemanly character," and his " high respect
for my eminent attainments in science," "which," said he, '-do honor
to you and to your country;" adding his testimony at the same time to
my " diligence and zeal" in promoting "the interests of the institution,"
6
and to my " kindness and hospitality, in endeavoring to enhance the
comfort and happiness of the students, and secure their affections."*
Finally, the whole body of students, concurring in all these particu-
lars my " gen'lemanly character," my "eminent attainments," my
"moral and religious worth," my " zeal and diligence in behalf of ihe
institution," and my " sincere kindness and hospitality" to themselves,
added over and above all, many gratifying assurances of their " personal
esteem and respect." Yet, in the midst of all these golden opinions,
freely expressed, WITHOUT ANY CONVERSE ALLEGATION, or the
slightest pretence of an accusation of any kind against me, the Board, in
a secret, inquisitorial process, and without a moment's warning, put an
end, or affected to put an end to my engagement, as President, and im-
mediately published abroad my name as having been stricken from the
rolls of the Institution.
We have heard of such a thing as " guilt without criminality," and I
suppose there may be also, vice versa, criminality without guilt; but in
what code of jurisprudence or morals was it evei heard of before, that a
man was visited with the severest possible punishment, in consideration
of his " eminent attainments," his " gentlemanly character," his " moral
and religious worth," or his "zeal and diligence" in discharge of his
duty ?
There is no explaining away or evading this absurdity. Bishop Mc-
Ilvaine says, "it was the desiie of the Board to do all things in the kind
est manner towards Mr. D." and "so to injure as little as possible, his
future standing, hence the complimentary language," &c. This would
be very intelligible, if Mr. D. had been put upon his plea, and convicted
of anything worthy of punishment; but what does it mean when applied
to a person legally innocent against whom no charge of any kind had
been exhibited " a most excellent man, entitled to universal respect and
affection ?" Is outrage any the less outrage, because committed in a
kind manner ?
The consequences of this proceeding, TO ME, were the sacrifice of my
property, ihe taking away of my proper and legitimate means of support,
the scattering of my family like sheep without a shepherd, ai d Ihe frus-
tration of all my cherished schemes for the education of my children;
the entire uprooting, in short, of all my plans and prospects in life. Yet
these benevolent and kind gentlemen would have it believed, that all
this was no aggression; and that /, in presuming to set forth the wrongs
done me, in a calm, temperate, and Christian spirit, no one can deny
that such is the character of my statement have, wantonly, disturbed the
peace of the community, and almost forfeited my claim to be treated as
a human being!
" O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason !"
To this hour, notwithstanding all the abuse they have endeavored to
heap upon me in their " Reply," I stand uncharged, as you justly re-
mark, with any thing that would be admitted as of the least weight
under a legal rale to show cause. There is no lack of inuendo, va;ue
insinuations implying SOMETHING, rhetorical tricks and subtleties in
abundance, conveying to the mind of the careless or prejudiced leader,
the idea of some unnamed fault or failure on my part, which the writer
seems loo humane to specify. The whole streng h of the pamphlet lies
in this. Full from beginning to end of the gall of defamation ; and barren
* This language is quoted from the letter of the students, but as the draft
of that letter is claimed to have been written by Bp. M., I am entitled to
consider it his language also.
every where of authentic facts and sober arguments. Examine for your-
self and tell me if it is not so.
I was dismissed, you will please to recollect, for unpopularity with
the students, and the authors of the reply took their position vauntingly,
(see their published card in October last,) in the first place to justify
that act; an.l secondly, to exonerate Hishop Mcllvaine from having had
any part in it. Now I have read the reply, as you may suppose, with
some little attention, and I have not yet been so fortunate as to discover a
single passage, in the way of argument, that bears (logically) upon either
of these questions. They have reiterated, with a great many changes and
variations, the charge of unpopularity, (a charge which I shall show
to be utterly without foundation,) but beyond that there is nothing abso-
lutely nothing. They have not proved the fact; they have not said a word
to show that the alleged unpopularity, if true, was not a natural and ne-
cessary consequence of my responsibilities. It might have been, as 1 have
elsewhere said, an evidence of faithfulness. They have not said a word to
show that it was any cause for their unceremonious violation of a
contract; not a woid to justify the insidiousness and secrecy of the
S-ocess of my removal; nor, finally, a word to prove (logically) that
ishop Mcllvaine was not a full participator, positively as well as nega-
tively, in that process. Their whole collective energy has been concen-
trated in the effort to defame and villify my character, and to impair, if
possible, my claim to confidence. And of this let me now give you a
few examples:
Passing with a mere notice the round and plenary denials which appear
(p. 5, and elsewhere,) and which are to be expected perhaps in propor-
tion as proof is scanty, you will observe occasional reflections, in the way
of petitioprincipii, upon my " rashness in refusing to resign," and in pub-
lishing my " statement." " His only wise plan," say they, (p 4) "was
to let his case be forgotten as soon as possible. He does not know what
is good for him," (Col. Bond, p. 12, )i. e. in refusing to resign. " D. has
brought all these things upon himself. He would have consulted his dig-
nity and peace by receiving the advice to resign in the spirit in which it
was given," (Col. Cummings, p. 47,) &c. Whether I was rash in refu-
sing to resign depends upon whether I was wrong; and that is not shown.
Look also at the reflections, (p. 9 and elsewhere,) equally gratuitous,
that I was indifferent as to the financial condition of the institution. "The
question whether we were running in debt to sustain (he College, was
one which never troubled Mr. D ," &c. If it were even true, (and it can
be shown to be most maliciously otherwise,) what possible relevancy
has it ?
Look, then, at the representation of my private affairs at Brooklyn pri-
or to my removal to Gambier; what has it really to do with the proper
subject matter of this controversy? I speak not now of its falseness
that will come up in due time but of its logical correctness and relevancy,
supposing, for argument's sake, it were all true. Were my embarrass-
ments (at a period of universal stagnation) likely to render my removal
less difficult ? Was my mere going to Gambier to relieve me from them
at all ? Did the circumstances alleged, supposing them to have been as
represented by Bishop Mcllvaine, absolve him or the trustees from any
part of their obligation as parties to the compact under which I went?
What was it that made it the best if it was best for myself and my fa-
mily to go to Gambier at all ? Was it not especially the permanency of
the situation ? And would it not have been madness in me to have re-
moved myself and them thither at great expense and great sacrifice, (I
insist upon the propiiety of this word,) without a full and unquestioning 1
reliance upon the Bishop's propositions in this respect ? These questions
8
are answered from the surface of the " Reply," without any arguments,
and the answers will show how perfectly sophistical and irrelevant
to the real matters in controversy this whole discussion is.* But it was
not inserted without motive, and if you will tum to the 25th and follow-
ing pages of the Reply, you will see by the spirit in which its details are
enlarged upon, what that motive unquestionably was:, it will be still more
apparent when I come to the facts.
Another example in the same spirit is found on page 29th, where Bi-
shop Mcllvaine speaks of my not being his " first choice for the Presi-
dency." I shall show presently that I was his first choice ; but suppose
I was not; what bearing has this fact upon the real merits of the case ?
Not the slightest. If 1 had been his hundredth choice, his obligation, in
the compact finally made between us, would not have been a whit the
less. The subject is wholly irrelevant therefore, and could only have been
pressed into the controversy like the preceding, for the purpose of defa-
mation.
Look then at the insinuation (p. 31,) in regard to the truth of my state-
ment of my affairs, before going to Gambier. " We know all about his
relations to the Greenwood Cemetery" say they, " from which that annu-
al receipt proceeded, and could, if we chose, give a statement of particu-
lars that would convince Mr. D. that we do know." What a parade of
magnanimous charity is here exhibited in keeping back what never was
pretended (o be concealed ! My relations with the Greenwood Cemetery
were no secret; but does it follow that a knowledge of these is a know-
ledge of all my relations and interests in life ? The Bishop knew, unless he
had forgotten, that while I was in the Greenwood, 1 was also a pro-
fessional Civil Engineer, in extensive correspondence; insomuch that
when I was elected President of Kenyon College in 1840, he was in breath-
less hasfe to communicate the fact to me lest I should " commit myself
to any other engagement." 1 could Lave added, moreover, with evidence
of the fact, that wilhin a little more than a year before that election, sal-
aries and fees were tendered tome to an aggregate amount of 06,000. In
one instance a permanent salary of $2,500 which was refused; and in an-
other a fee of $500 for only three weeks service, repeatedly urged upon
me by the intermediation of third parties, and refused ; and many other
like examples.
Closely connected with these charitable insinuations, and a step beyond
them in the moral quality, are the suggestions (p. 33, and elsewhere,) as
to the CAUSE of my embarrassments ; not expressed in distinct terms,
and still less attempted to be proved, but shadowed forth, as better suited
the purpose of the writer, in significant hints and allusions. " Had Mr.
* The authors of the " Reply " introduced this discussion as If to repel a
charge of "base ingratitude and injustice" brought by me against Bishop
Mcllvaine ; which, they say, " is the main string upon which all the harp-
ing of (my) pamphlet is struck." I deny that I have charged either ingrati-
tude or injustice against the Bishop. Bad faith and injustice are doubt-
less to be inferred from some parts of my statement, though they are by no
means the "main string." But what relevancy has the discussion here allu-
ded to, to either of these ? The question of bad faith turns upon the con-
sistency of the Bishop's professions with his practice ; that of injustice upon
the conformity of his acts with his written or implied obligations as head of
the Trust ; and with either of these my embarrassments at Brouklyn in 1839
40 had about as much to do as the annexation of Texas. The charge of
" base ingratitude" is a goblin of their own raising ; evidently invoked for ef-
fect, and to show or seem to show " that I have attempted too much for my
own integrity." ("Reply," p. 32.)
JJ. been in the receipt even of $4000 per annum while residing in New
York or Brooklyn, it would have been a kindness and favor to himself
and family, considering peculiarities of character which his friends will
readily advert to without our being more particular, to take him to a
salary of $1000 in such a place as Gambler. We do not mean that he
can understand this." Pause a moment, I pray you, over the deep malig-
nity of this thrust. What has the cause here hinted at to do with the action
of the Board of Trustees, on the 27th Feb. 1844; or with the part which
Bishop Mcllvaine may or may not have taken in that act ? Has it the
slightest relation to any legitimate object of this controversy? Clearly
none whatever. I am before you, if you please, demanding justice the
reparation of gross wrong; and my adversary meets the demand by going
far out of his way, even abusing the sacredness of spiritual confidence,
to defame and vilify my private character. Look at the sort of insinua-
tion by which this is attempted to be done. How perfectly gratuitous !
Is there any where a reputation so spotless, a character so pure, the
most beautiful example, male or female, that adorns and dignifies huma-
nity that may not be defamed at any time, if it should suit the purposes
of malevolence to defame it in the same way ? There is no protection for
any character against such malevolent assaults, and the more pure the
object the greater the outrage.
But for the sake of variety, I will give you now an example of a less
serious character. The Bishop while in New York was impressed wiih
the fear, " that things were not going right at the College, and that he
shnuld Jind some fresh burden to be born on his return to Gambier."
(Reply p. 7.) What was the ground of this apprehension ? Simply that
his correspondents said nothing at all on the subject ! ! A most pregnant
premiss truly The Bishop would do well to keep it for future uses. It
will prove any thing. I presume the suggestion, (p. 16) as to the number
of students that did not come to the College, belongs to the same cate-
gory. And I know not where else to class his proof (in the same place,)
that the numbers had diminished, under my Presidency, viz. because they
had increased only ftoo."
But again. " The earnest desire of the Board, while flinching from no
duty, however painful, to do all things in the kindest manner towards Mr.
D , &c." (Reply, p. 12), has already been noticed in another relation.
I recur to it again, for the purpose of pointing out more particularly the
disingenuousness of the logic. The question under discussion is the essen-
tial justice or injustice of my removal from rffice : Some show of argu-
ment had been attempted to make it out expedient, but not a word to prove
it just, and the moment this point is fairly reached, it is evaded by the
dexterous interposition of a circumstance, viz. the manner of my re-
moval ; while, by a specious talk about " duty however painful, &c."
the mind of the reader is betrayed unconsciously into an impression that
the right and wrong of the thing has already been settled by some pre-
vious argument.* But the fallacy does not end heie. The paragiaph
goes on to state, that it was in the overflow of their kind feelings
towards me (!) that the Board " placed my removal only on the ground
* The committee of the Board who originated the action in that body
against me, expressly disclaim having made any " inquiry as to the justice
of the difficulty." Their preamble and report is as follows: " The com-
mittee which has had in charge the inquiry into the causes that have produ-
ced the existing diminution in the number of the students belonging to the
classes of Kenyon College and Preparatory Schools, has had the subject in
anxious consideration and made all the investigations in their power, and
REPORT, that in their view two facts have mainly led to the present state of
things : One is, the high charges in the senior grammar school, whereby that
2
10
of want of acceptableness with the students," without " giving other rea-
sons." What other reasons ? The whole proceeding, the Bishop and the
Board tell us, was an inquiry into [he financial condition of the Institution
the causes of the diminished revenue, &c. an inquiry perfectly imper-
sonal. My connection with it arose only from my (alleged) unaccepla-
blentss, and must have been limited specifically to that circumstance.
(if the Bishop and the Board speak iruth.~) Yet here they allude to
" other reasons," as if the enquiry was personal to myself, embracing
the circumstances of my conduct and character at large ! ! How is this ?
If the enquiry was, as they pretend, purely financial, what do they mean
by other reasons for my d'smissal ? If personal, what is to be thought of
all their former disclaimers on this point ? Nor is this jumble of contra-
dictions confined to the page quoted. It runs through the " Reply."
Every attempt to set forth " other reasons," (which is in short the gist of
the whole publication,) involves the same dilemma, and shows at once
the temper of the publication, and the liability of extreme subtlety to
over-reach and betray itself.
But let us follow the logic of these gentlemen in another of its features.
I wish you to notice how rapidly their wings expand after they have fairly
shuffled off the restraints of the original controversy, and taken their
ground against me personally. On page 13 of the " Reply," the writer
remarks, that with " many eminent qualities, a man may be totally unfit
" for the Presidency of a college, and may utterly fail of exerting that in-
" fluence over the minds of students, which commands obedience at the
" same time that it warms and enlists, instead of chilling and repelling,
" the affections of the heart." The drift of this language is not to be
mistaken. Under the form of a mere abstract, potentiality, speciously
expressed, it is evidently intended to convey to the mind of the cursory
reader the idea that there was an actual personal unfitncss for the Presi-
dency of a college, and an actual failure in exerting " that influence
over the minds of the students which commands obedience, while it warms
and enlists without chilling and repelling the affections of the heart."
Yet all this, you will see, is a mere inuendo, unsustained by one iota of
proof.
Again, (Reply, p. 13) the author continues, " after he declined,
the necessity of his removal became still more imperious," as he could
not be kept there " in the temper, towards the officers, and the trustees,
and the Bishop, which it was manifest the process, thus far, had raised."
This is a precious avowal, truly. Banditti take the lives of their captives
department is almost reduced to a nonentity. The other they mention with
great reluctance, berause it attaches to t most excellent man well worthy of
universal respect and affection, the point to which they refer, is theunpopu-
larity of the President. In regard to the justice of this difficulty the commit-
tee do not pretend to speak ; but it is believed by us to exist, and to operate
prejudicially to the institution over which he presides. The committee
therefore recommend the adoption of the following resolutions:
1. That the charge for tuition in the senior preparatory school be reduced,
&c-
2. That while we seriously deprecate the necessity, we are constrained, in
view of all the circumstances of the case, respectfully to ask President Doug-
lass to resign his official relation to this Institution ; assuring him at the same
time, that the Board, as a body and individually, entertain for him the kindest
feelings of regard.
3. That the salary of President Douglass be paid him to the first of Sep-
tember next.
11
on the very same principle ; the latter, after being rifled and robbed, are
not likely to be in a very amiable temper with their spoilers, and the ne-
cessity for taking life becomes, under such circumstances, " still more
imperious." The allegation, however, is not more disingenuous than it
is untrue. The Rev. Dr. Fuller was my spiritual adviser during these
persecutions, and will bear me witness that my temper was not unduly
excited. " I am amazed to see you bear up so well," was his continual
exclamation.
Finally, in this connection, (Reply, p. 14), the author siill goes on as
follows : " To have kept him there, would have only given him the great-
er opportunity of injuring the college, without the least reason to expect
any change in his constitutional and habitual unfitness for his office."
Here is another sweeping inuendo, equally unsupported and still more
subtle than the preceding ; and in the same ratio more slanderous. But
what I wish you chiefly to observe is the summary process by which one
of the "most excellent men, entitled to universal respect and affect ion, full
of diligence, and zeal, and kindness, and hospitality," is converted into
a cold and cruel despot, "commanding obedience," indeed, but "chil-
ling, and repelling the affections of the heart," and not only " constitu-
tionally and habitually unfit for office," but even seeking opportunity to
injure the institution, which every consideration of duly and policy should
have impelled him to promote. All this in the turn of a single leaf, loith-
out a particle of evidence, by mere periphrasis, and the unlimited license
of words, " Eleven buckram men grown out of two."
Such are a part, a small part of the fallacies and falsehoods of this pre-
cious production. Many others will be developed as we proceed. Do I
call them by too harsh a name ? Examine them attentively, and tell me
whether they are not clearly intended to " darken council" to mystify
the mind of the reader, and lead him off as far as possible from the mat-
ter in hand, for the manifest purpose of defamation and slander ? " And
who is it ?" I almost hear you enquire, that descends to such unfair and
disingenuous artifices ? Is it some low paragraphist in politics, who es-
teems nothing unfair ? Some pettifogger, cunning in all the arts of chi-
canery, " to make the worse appear the belter reason ?" No ! It is
neither one nor the other. It is a body of men who, at this moment, are
legally intrusted with the concerns of the Theological Seminary of the
Diocese of Ohio an institution founded by the benevolent donations of
pious men and women, for the education of ministers of the Gospel, un-
der the presidency of a Bishop of the church, who is at the same time
the Professor of Ecclesiastical Polity and Pastoral Divinity in that school
of the Prophets. "But the Bishop," you will say, "must have been wholly
unaware of these proceedings." No! I am sorry to say he was not. The
pamphlet was written in Philadelphia during the session of the General
Convention, ostensibly by three of the trustees, assuming to speak in behalf
of their fellows, and unquestionably with the aid and countenance of the
Bishop. He is known to have overlooked and corrected the proofs. Four-
fifths of all the matter must needs have been furnished by him; and the di-
alectics ex unguine leonem it would be a moral absurdity to look for
the authorship of them, to any other person connected with the publica-
tion.*
* The Rev. Mr. Smallwood is an ungradnated clergyman, recently reward-
ed with the honorary degree of M.A., by the (President and ?) Faculty of
Kenyon College. Mr. Rogers is a store-keeper at Mount Vernon, and Mr.
Reynolds, a forwarding merchant at Masillon. The last two had been mem-
bers of the Board of Trustees only about five months, and never but once in
session with them before the 28th February, 1844. They were, besides, al-
most strangers to me and to my administration; respectful and kind in their
12
You are now prepared to estimate the disparity of the parties in this
contest. On the one hand you see the principalities and powers of Gam -
bier, with all the accessories of high official station, character, and influ-
ence, and a skill and subtlety in the use of words, seldom, if ever sur-
passed. You see them, confederated (in ihis case) by a community of
interest, zealously sustaining each other in the effort to crush an humble
individual, whom, having once grossly injured, they cannot foigive. On
the other, you behold that individual, standing alone, with no pretence or
ground of confidence but in the righteousness of his cause, striving, as
he may, against such odds, in delence of his name, his character, his
means of support, and his capacity for usefulness. The disparity is fear-
ful ; and I arn not surprised that some of my kind friends should have
been ahrmed for me, when my enemies, breathing out threatenings, and
scarcely concealing their unscrupulousness as to rrxians, seem already to
exult in the certainty of my destruction. But there is no alternative. If
the disparity was even a thousand fold greater than it is, I could not, with-
out a moral dereliction, recede from the contest. The interests for which
I am engaged, God has made it my duty, in a right spirit, lo defend; and
I humbly trust that he will enable me so to defend them while life lasts.
I am no lover of controversy. No one, better than yourself, knows how
repugnant it is to every instinct and feeling of my nature. I take it as I
take medicine, only when I must, and then with loathing. But in the
present instance it has been forced upon me by the intolerable aggression
of these men ; and so long as they go on, adding wrong to wrong, the
option to continue or discontinue it is not with me. I am the defendant.
Some of the partisans of Bishop Mcllvaine have endeavored to raise a
presumption against me, on the ground that my statements are ex parte.
But what is the meaning of that phrase in this connection ? Every ap-
peal against personal injustice or violence, is more or less e.x parte. If
you expose, as it may be your bounden duty to do, an attempt upon your
life or property, your complaint has necessarily this character. The out-
cry of murder! or a call for help! from the victim of lawless power or un-
bridled passion, is ex parte, but is it therefore to be unheeded, or is the
complaint of any injured one to be ruled out of court, as unworthy of no-
tice on that ground ? This would be a precious immunity, indeed, on the
side of aggression. But even this is not the whole of what seems to be
claimed in the present case. The complaint of the single-handed victim
is to be debarred a hearing, while the adverse statements of the confede-
rated aggressors, no matter how vituperative and slanderous, are to be re-
ceived on their own mutual endorsement, with full and unhesitating con-
fidence, as if any principle in human character was more determined or
more relentless than that which prompts an overbearing and high handed
oppressor to justify his wrong doing.
Another, more imposing presumption has been urged, on the ground
that my Statement involves an impeachment of the conduct and character
of Bishop McTlvaine; and the authors of the "Reply," well aware of the
advantage which this view of the case would be likely to give them in an
appeal to the popular mind, have artfully contrived to shift the whole con-
troversy to this ground. "The manifest object of the pamuhlet," say
they in their card, "is to lay all the responsibility of that act (my dis-
missal) upon the Rt. Rev. Bishop Mcllvaine, to injure his character,
&c." " So far as Bishop Mcllvaine is concerned, (Reply p. 5) this ef
fort to injure him must fall to the ground and recoil upon the author of it,
if it can be shown," &c. "The base ingratitude and injustice of the
personal intercourse with me, (until the present action,) and the last named
even made a point of expressing, with tears, his strong regard for me, after
the adjournment of the Board.
13
Bishop is the main string on which all the harping of his pamphlet
strikes." The morale of this double artifice is of a piece with the exam-
ples already given; I pass it in that aspect, without further notice, and
proceed, at once, to examine its logical relations to the real matter in
hand. And first, as a false issue.
If you turn to my Statement, you will see that more than half of it, (18
pages in the first edition, and 16 in the last,) is occupied with an account
of th'j corporate proceedings of the Board of Trustees, in the matter of
my removal, and an exhibition of the essential injustice of the act, in
form and substance. This exhibit is fundamental to all the subsequent
discussions, and is to be taken therefore as the primary aim and object
of iny publication. The remainder is taken up with statements explana-
tory of the circumstances, under which I became connected with, and
" held office in the institution," having in view to illustrate the motives
and agency, which, (there was some reason to believe,) had operated in
effecting my removal. Bishop Mcllvaine is certainly and of necessity
implicated, in these statements, he is almost as much so, in his own
version of the matter, as in mine, but what does it signify ? The ques-
tion whether HE did or did not take an influential part in the proceedings,
is entirely incidental, and of no manner of consequence to the main alle-
gation. It may be proved either way, without taking a feather's weight
from the enormity of that injustice, which, I declared frankly beforehand,
and still declare, I will never cease to denounce.
But I may go further on this point, and I ask you to open my pamphlet
and verify what I say. I have not been moved by any undue desire to
make out a case against Bishop Mcllvaine. What I might have done,
had I been so minded, if is not now needful to say. It is sufficient that
my course would have been a different one a very different one. As it
was, I confined myself to the exhibition of facts bearing directly upon
the subject matter of my removal; and which, however roundly denied
by my adversaries, I am prepared to substantiate in all their essential
particulars by legal testimony. These facts I exhibited in a calm and
temperate manner; far from endeavoring to enhance their weight or im-
pressiveness by any rhetoric of mine, 1 even abstained from drawing
formal conclusions, when I might easily have done so leaving the mind
of the reader, in this respect, perfectly free. Have my adversaries been
equally dispassionate ?
In the same spirit I made my quotations from the Bishop's letters.
The correspondence on his part was no light matter; it extended in time,
over a period of more than sixteen years, and in volume to near a hundred
sheets, embracing a variety of topics, and written with the freedom and
unreservedness of the most entire confidence. And what have I quoted?
Nothing but his propositions and persuasions (demi official} to induce my
removal to Gambier, and a few a very few, out of a vast number of
his professions of friendship ard confidence, to show the nature of our
personal relations. Neither one nor the other could be considered confi-
dential; nor could either, in itself, have the slightest effect to injure his
character. They were rather honorable; unless it should turn out in
a comparison of those professions with his subsequent conduct, that his
pledges had been violated, and his faith broken : But even that inference,
like the others, I left to the unbiassed conclusions of the reader.
Secondly: as to the presumption against my "statement" on the
ground that it impeaches the character and conduct of Bishop Mcllvaine.
This is a point of some importance. Almost every page of the " Reply"
is drawn up in some dependence, more or less, upon this presumption ;
but of course it could not be stated as fully and explicitly under the proof
reading of Bishop Mcllvaine himself, as it has since been in certain re-
14
ligious newspapers. The amount of it, as there insisted upon, appears to
be that so eminent and holy a Bishop, full of zeal and eloquence, more
than ordinarily spiritual in his views, and, ahove all, the champion of
doctrinal purity in opposition to the errors of a corrupt and schismatic
church, is not to be held capable of doing wrong, or subject to a charge of
wrong: doing on any evidence; and such is the import of the etiquette as-
sumed by the Bishop in the matter of my accounts. (Reply, p. 24.) Was
it for the order of Bishops in general that this immunity was claimed, or
for Bishop Mcllvaine in particular ? Recent events answer beyond the
possibility of being misunderstood the latter; and we have then this cu-
rious anomaly: a man in this republican country in the 19th century
ready to die in the last ditch of a dogmatic controversy with Papal Rome*
broadly and boldly appropriating one of the most arrogant pretensions
of the most corrupt period of that very Rome pontifical infallibility.!
As to the fair and proper presumption in favor of character, God for-
bid that I should trespass upon it in the slightest particular. It is of all
personal rights that which I hold most precious, and as I claim it for my-
self, I freely and fully concede it to all others. But how is it to be de-
fined ? Does it give impunity to wrong doing ? Does it take away the
accountability of men ? By no means. It simply secures to every man,
high and low, the most humble as well as the most dignified, the right to
be held blameless in reputation and character till fairly impeached on good
and sufficient evidence. I do not deny that great consideration is due to
established reputation and tried worth. I yield to no one in my respect
for the sacredness of ministerial and episcopal character, and I admit
that more decisive (external) evidence (much more decisive) is requi-
site for an impeachment in many cases. But this is founded upon a rule of
evidence, not upon the presumption anterior to evidence. And now let
us apply these principles to the case in question.
Five days after my dismissal, while I was yet bleeding under (he sense
of that outrage, meditating in what terms I should answer Bishop Mc-
Ilvaine's letter of condolence, several of the students waited upon me,
(not one, as the Bishop has it, but several,) voluntarily, and with strong
feelings of sympathy, to tell me that my character had been terribly as-
sailed by the Bishop, in accounting for my dismissal to the students.^.
" How can that be," I said. " I hav<. been dismissed for unacceptable-
ness with the students : If it was f a true bill ' they (the students) must
have been conscious of it without any argument from Bishop Mcllvaine.
But of course he confined himself to that subject." "No! not at all. He
took up your character at large disparaged you in every thing you have
done for the college remarked very freely upon your circumstances and
conduct before you came to Gambier and a great many things after-
* See Bishop Mcllvaine's address to the Convention of Ohio, in 1844, ag
reported in the papers at that time.
t This pretension is not confined to the publication referred to. It is in a
much stronger sense the distinguishing feature of the whole system at Gambier.
The idea is that the ecclesiastical power reaches and inter-penetrates EVERY
THING from the highest spirituality to the lowest secularity on the Hill,
and that its rectitude, in any application the Bishop chooses, is not to be even
mooted. This was precisely the issue made in the famous interview in Aw
study, Oct. 1842, of which I shall speak again. And the real ground upon
which he put an end to our correspondence.
$ Two of the classes the Soph-mores and Seniors visited the Bishop on
this occasion ; the former at the instigation of some of the beneficiaries the
" Swiss " of " the Hill " and the letter probably on the suggestion of Mr.
Lang, who belonged to it. The Freshmen and Juniors, much the more nume-
rous, were also tampered with, but refused to go.
15
words that we never heard of before. He was very severe upon you, and
seemed to do his utmost to injure your character in every respect."* Such
was the verbal communication at the time, and this has been corrobora-
ted in writing by several others since. Fifteen days after this informa-
tion the return of mails brought me word from Brooklyn that the same at-
tack upon my private character had been perpetrated by the same Right
Rev. individual, in letters to my friends there, and that even a lady,great-
ly honored and respected by me, then as now, had been so far swayed as
to become the medium of these communications.!
Such was, in general, the train of circumstances which led to the pub-
lication of my first "statement," and I think no impartial person who
* A sort of excuse for this proceeding is pretended in the <J Reply " on the
ground that the subjects treated of by the Bishop, had been previously intro-
duced by me in my interviews with the students ; and it is affirmed that those
interviews were sought by me for that purpose. Neither position is true; the
interviews, as I can abundantly prove, were not sought by me ; very few of the
subjects spoken of by HIM were alluded to by ME at all ; nothing that had not
a direct bearing upon the theory of my dismissal ; nor was a word uttered
that was personally disrespectful to him (the Bishop.)
t I desire to refer to this letter with the utmost possible delicacy so far as
the lady to whom it was addressed is concerned. I have never impugned the
goodness and purity of her intentions in communicating it, as she did, to se-
veral persons, according to the request of the writer ; nor has her doing so in-
terrupted, in the slightest degree, the cordiality of our long established rela-
tions, so far as I am concerned. But I will not dissemble or disguise the pro-
found contempt in which I hold the taste of any man who could deliberately
and voluntarily place A LADY in such a position. The letter was quoted "from
hearsay," as the Bishop truly remarks, simply because there was no other
way of quoting it. My friends requested leave to make a copy, and were re-
fused. I wrote to the Bishop for a copy, and my letter was return unopened.
But, in the mean time, a memorandum of all, or nearly all the allegations con-
tained in it, was carefully made by one of the persons who heard it, which has
since been attested by several of the others ; and this is now in my possession.
The following is a copy of my (returned) letter to Bishop M. on this subject,
dated Glenville, (Greenwich) Conn., 12th August, 1844:
Right Rev. Sir. I respectfully ask of you the letter, or a copy of the letter
addressed by you to in March last, containing a number of allegations
touching my character and conduct while at Gambler, and as President of
Kenyon College ; which letter I understand she was requested to communi-
cate, and did communicate to sundry persons in Brooklyn.
Your motives for making A LADY the medium of this communication, I will
not now attempt to penetrate. My reasoning upon the subject will depend
somewhat upon your willingness or unwillingness to comply with the present
request. If you do comply I shall be ready to admit that, whatever other mo-
tive you may have had, you were not actuated by fear to meet the responsi-
bility of the allegations referred to in a proper manner ; for I give you dis-
tinctly to understand that my object, in asking a copy, is to bring you to that
responsibility.
(Another letter was demanded also, but the demand is omitted here from
the desire not, at present, to introduce a third party. The letter then pro-
ceeds :)
Perhaps you may, in replying, lay claim to a reciprocal right, and to save
time I answer on that point at once. As the assailed party in this business,
and acting wholly on the defensive, I claim to have an unconditional moral
right to the letters referred to ; but I am willing, at the same time, and shall
hold myself ready to give up, as I am ready to sustain any where and in any
manner, whatever I have said or written on this subject. I shall expect an
answer to both these requests at your earliest convenience. I am, &c.,
D. B DOUGLASS.
Right Rev. C. P. MC!LVAINE.
16
reads that document carefully, will say that I have gone aught beyond what
those circumstances required. Then comes the " Reply," void of any
thing like argument on the real questions at issue, but fitted, from begin-
ning lo end, with thrusts at my private and professional character, which
whoever may have been the penman (1 will not descend to any spe-
cial pleading on that point,) Bishop Mcllvaine only could have
conceived. Will any one say that the presumption of which we have been
speaking, or the proper etiquette of his official character, ought to save
him from the responsibility of these things ? Does not the assumption of
that etiquette for protection, under such circumstances, dishonor and de-
grade the sacred function to which he appeals, as truly as it aggravates
the wrong for which he thus seeks impunity ?
But enough of these preliminaries. Let us come more particularly to
the statements and facts set lonhin the " Reply ;" and first its assertions
as lo the lime and manner of my publishing my first edition.
Great significancy is attached to the delay of seven months, but if Bi-
shop Mcllvaine should ever be the subjecl of such an infliclionas he and
his colleagues adminislered lo me, 1 venture lo say lhal he will find it a
much more serious mailer than he is now aware of. Many months would
probably elapse before he could collect his faculties sufficienlly lo minis-
ter lo any thing but the exigencies ol himself and his family. * *
I own 1 did not write in haste, as men do under the influence of passion,
nor do I mean so to write or act on this subject at any time. I published
as soon as I could with consistency; withoul any calculation of effect, but
rather in the belief that the suggestions of policy were all against me in
delaying so long; and the first perfect copy I could procure from the bind-
er was mailed lo Bishop Mcllvaine, in time to have been received three
days before he left home.
As to the manner of circulating: the pamphlet was published, as it pur-
ported, for private circulation, and given lo churchmen only, except a
few personal friends; to editors of secular papers only one or two, and
those churchmen. It was left at no book slore or publication office, ex-
cepl at ihe request of clergymen, who desired to receive il in that way.
Finally, as to the imputalion of having writlen or circulated my " stale-
ment" for party purposes, 1 ullerly disclaim it. If 1 know myself I
wrote and only wrote in Ihe cause of truth and justice, and there are those
who can bear me witness that I have kept studiously aloof from all party
relations whatever.
The first attempt of the Reply, in the way of argument, i s introduced
(p. 5,) with a passage of personal history, illustiative of the weakness of
Bishop Mcllvaine's memory a fact sufficiently well known, but of which
the relevancy is not very apparent It seems lo have for its object to dispa-
rage a suggestion of mine, viz; that there was some connection between my
removal and my action in the committee of the Ohio Convention, (on the
Carey ordination,) on the ground that the Bishop, while in New-York,
forgot the name of one of the members of that commitlee. The logic is
ralher foggy in any application of it, but perfectly foreign as lo the mat-
ter really suggested by me. If you turn to my " stalement " (p. 34,) you
will see that my language had no reference to Bishop Mcllvaine what-
ever. I expressed my conviction that my conduct, " on that occasion
" was noted by one at least of my constituency," &c. I repeat
that conviction now; it is founded upon no vague surmise, but up-
on the certainty that within a very short time after the Convention, one
of that consliluency, who had previously been one of Ihe loudest in his
professions of affection and regard to me, was so loud in detraction, when
speaking of me to third parties, that a humane friend thought it but just
and proper I should be apprized of it. It was not Bishop Mcllvaine
17
however, nor does my language imply that it was; yet it is so assumed in
the " Reply," for the sake of a flouiishing page of disproof, and this is
offered as " the first specimen of the confidence to be placed in my so-
lemn assertions."
Another like " specimen" follows on page 6, the occasion of which is
thus slated. " But again it is distinctly asserted, (p. 32)" so they say,
" that during the Bishop's absence in ihe east, in the fall, subsequent to
the convention, the plot went on." " The Jiishop was actually, at this
very [early] period, (so they quote me,) arranging with his confidential
advisers the modus operand! of the impending and final proceeding." If
now you turn to page 32 of my "statement" you will find that the thing
which they here say is " distinctly asserted" is not asserted at all, dis-
tinctly or otherwise. It is assumed, gratuitously, by my adversaries. I
spoke specifically, of the period after the Bishop's return from New
York. '1'hey falsify my language, making me to speak of the time of
his absence. The whole case is of their own making, and that it was so
made deliberately and designedly is evident, from the fact that they had
to interpolate the word " early" in their quotation from me, to make it
suit. What can be done with men who have so little regard for truth and
fairness ? What can we think of the Theological Seminary, whose trust
powers are thus con scientiously administered ? What precious lessons in.
Ecclesiastical Polity must not the young Theologians of that Seminary
be favored withal, under such teaching ? But to proceed :
The Bishop " solemnly declares that (he idea of Mr. D-'s removal by
an act of Trustees, or of any proceeding with regard to him, such as af-
terwards occurred, had never to that time arisen in his mind, &c." There
are several specialities in the language of this declaration, which, from
such a dialectician, entirely destroys its efficacy as a general disclaimer.
If the Bishop really meant that there was at the time referred to, no plot,
no scheme, no design to effect my removal, which is the thing asserted by
me, why does he not say so in distinct terms, and make the issue on that
point in a tangible form ? I affirmed in my statement (p. 33), not
that "the Bishop" was at that "early" period "arranging the modus ope-
randi," &c., but " that the design and purpose of [my] dismission was
distinctly shadowed forth, and spoken of. in terms, long before the date of
the Bishop's return from New York." I repeat that declaration now; and
I ask the Bishop, if he joins issue with me, to explain how it was that his
family were taking so lively an interest, as they did take, in my private
affairs and personal character, al that early period ?" How was it, that
some of them were stationed near me, on particular occasions, to catch
my words any words uttered, or supposed to be uttered that could be
made available for the purpose of defamation ?* How was it that inmates
of his house, at the same early period, (early in the fall,) were aware
that my removal was contemplated 1 How was it, that some of his chief
managers on the " Hill," enjoying his full confidence, and notoriously
SUBORDINATE, were then engaged in tampering with the stnden's, and
endeavoring to create a party feeling against me ? How was it, that his
own son was constantly in the College, laboring with all the influence in.
his power to the same eff;ct ? And finally, when the notice for the meet-
ing of the Board of Trustees appeared in the Gambier paper, how was it
that the same person was enabled to say, as he did say, (five or six weeks
before the time of their meeting,) that IT WAS FOR THE PURPOSE OF
DISMISSING PRESIDENT DOUGLASS? These things are susceptible
* A memorable instance of this was brought to the notice of Bishop Mc-
Ilvaine, in September, before he left for New York, and then made the sub-
ject of a remonstrance.
3
18
of LEGAL pRooF,whenever the occasion shall be offered, and then what
becomes of all the disclaimers of Bishop Mcllvaine, and the swagger of
TRUSTEES ?
Perhaps it may be as well to mention here at once, that though I have
regarded Bishop Mcllvaine as mainly accountable for my removal, be-
ing not only President of the Board of Trustees, but co-ordinate with
them, and without whose sanction, (whatever may 6e,) in point of fact,
nothing is done ; being, also, the person who negotiated my acceptance
as President, (after having known me intimately lor fifteen years,) and
who should have known, therefore, all the obligations expressed or
implied in that negotiation. While I have considered him, there-
fore, as mainly responsible in the matter of my removal, I have not
for a moment supposed that he was the sole worker. On the contrary, I
have constantly had in view the reality, known and felt elsewhere, as well
as on the "Hill," that there is a clique, a cabal, a kilchen cabinet at
Gambier, embracing also a part of the Hoard of Trustees, under some of
the very leaders, who, in 1839-'40,* were near driving the Bishop out of
the Diocese, but who now, under a coalition of interests, of which I shall
speak more fully by and by, kindly relieve him of all the little work ne-
cessary for the accomplishment of their common erids.f
We come now to the inception of the actual process of my removal, as
set forth in the " Reply." " After the Bishop had been at home about
' three weeks, a Professor of the College [he tells us] drew his attention to
' the declining state of that department with its two preparatory schools,"
'&c. * * * " Under [this] serious suggestion, the Bishop enquired
'into the financial stale of the Institution, and found that while all the nett
' income from fees of students and from the land and every other source,
'with the exception of $400 taken for a Theological Professor, was ex-
' pended upon the support of the officers of the College, those of the Senior
'Grammar School being officers of the College, and the other Grammar
' School sustaining its own expenses, there would be a deficit that year in
' the salaries of College officers to a large amount." This financial dis-
covery, you will please to remark by the way, was the only ground on
which the Bishop professes to have acted, and the use of similar language,
page 10, shows that it was also the basis of ALL that was done by the
Board of Trustees. " The object of the meeting was in no way com-
" municated to that body, [such is the language,] until the Treasurer sent
" in his exhibit of the state of the finances of the Institution. The Bishop
" read to them that document, from which it appeared that the receipts were
" expected to fall alarmingly short of expenses that year."
The phraseology of these statements is deceptive and disingenuous. It
conveys by a plausible implication, to the mind of the uninitiated, the idea
that the College was, or might be a self-supporting Institution, competent
to meet its own salaries, &c. The harping about an " alarming deficit,"
" a new debt to be created," " no reserve to fall back upon," and the
" solemn responsibility" of the Bishop and his Board in the premises, is
just so much mere declamation, intended evidently as an appeal to the
* Bishop Chase can probably eive an earlier account of some of them.
There seems to have been no period in the history of the Institution, when it
has not been under the control of a back stair influence.
t" You must not forget," said a friend, writing to me on the subject of my
dismissal, " that there is a power behind the throne GREATER THAX THE
THROXE." " I do not forget that there is such a power," I replied, " but I
cannot believe that it is the greater. It is there because the Bishop wishes it
there, for the accomplishment of his purposes, and need not have been there
unless HE had willed it.
19
business mind of the community, to which, the writer well knew, such
ideas were peculiarly odious ; and all this, it is intimated, was the pecu-
liar circumstance of " THAT YEAR," the regular consequence of MY
ADMINISTRATION.
If the minutes of the Board of Trustees were in Court, (and the current
books of the office forthcoming,) it would be seen that there never was a
time, since 1832, the year of Bishop Mcllvaine's consecration, when the
Board were not embarrassed " alarmingly" embarrassed with deficits;
and generally by a much larger amount, in the College alone, lhan could
have been anticipated for ihe year 1843-4. By a Report of the Treasurer,
entered on the minutes in Nov. 1835, (an abstract of which is now before
me,) it appears that the total receipts of the College, inlcuding room
rents, must have been from $3,000 to $3,500 less than the aggregate of
salaries and other current expenses for THAT YEAR the state of the
College being about the same as in 1843; and that after all the profits
of the two Grammar Schools, (containing at that time 120 pupils,) were
swallowed up in this deficit, there was still a deficit of some $1,500,
against the Institution. The truth is that Ihe College not only never did
bear its own expenses, but never was expected to bear them. Any one at
all conversant with Colleges, would see at once that the idea of its doing
so was absurd; and so Bishop Mcllvaine evidently thought when he wrote
his appeal in behalf of the Institution, in June 1843: "No College (he
says,) can hold its proper stand, and rely merely on the fees of students.
Especially cannot this be done in a new country. Eastern Colleges have
large endowments or annual grants from the States for the support of in-
structors.* We have nothing but our land. You see then, that the sale
of our land would be the death of the Institution." Such is his language,
and the whole appeal is based upon the principle, that without a land re-
venue, the College could not exist.
But perhaps it will be said, for this is also implied in the language of
the " Reply," that the deficit of " that year" must have been unreason-
ably large, since it swallowed up, not only all the profits of the Grammar
Schools, but the land revenue also. Whether it was unreasonably large
or not, is a simple question to be determined by comparison with other
years. That it absorbed all the profits of the Grammar Schools and the
rents besides, (if it did so,) might arise from the falling off' of those
profits, or of the rents, either or both, and then the responsibility would
be on the proper heads of those Seminaries, or on the " Prudenti 1 Com-
mittee;" but in no case upon me. I shall take leave to examine all these
questions in order.
First, as to whether the deficit of that year was unreasonably large ?
There were in the College classes at the epoch of my removal, 40 stu-
dentsf The regular receipt from these would be $1,600; and as the ag-
gregate of salaries and current expenses, (see Journal of Convention for
1843, page 35,) was $4,040, the difference to be provided for by other
means, was for that year, $2,240. Had the same calculation been made
the year before, or three years before about the time of my arrival on
" the Hill" the deficit in either case, would have been from $100 to $200
* Instances are known of Colleges enjoying a much larger patronage than
Kenyon College has ever enjoyed, which receive from grants and other extra-
neous resources, from $5,000 to $10,000 per annum, and could not he sustain-
ed otherwise; yet this circumstance is not deemed invidious, or in any way
a reflection upon the judicious and prudent management of those Institutions.
t There were always some Clergymen's sons &c., who did not pay. But
as these are not considered in the calculations of the " Reply." it is but just,
in making comparisons, that they should not be considered here.
20
more ; and in 1835, with about the same number of students, it was as
heretofore stated, (from $3,000 to $3,500,) at least $1,000 more. It ap-
pears then, from these comparisons, that the deficiency which excited
such serious alarm in the mind of Bishop Mcllvaine, and rendered it ne-
cessary to call together the Board of Trustees; which became the ground
of such grave deliberation and action on their part, and which is charged
so inviduously (page 15,) to my particular administration, was in reality
os to the College no DEFICIT at all. It was rather a surplussage,
being in fact from $100 to $1,000 less than the corresponding deficiency
in other years. The real deficit then, must have been either in the Gram-
mar Schools, or in the land revenue; and therefore
Secondly, as to the Grammar Schools.
On this subject you will find a statement in the "Reply," (p. 15,) to
which I beg your particular attention. It is as follows:
" Milnor Hall, when Mr. D. took charge, (we take his own statement,
p. 15, without vouching for its accuracy,) had fifty-four pupils. It
therefore yielded by tuition, more than $900 for tlie salary of Mr. D.
and the other College officers. The other school he says had forty-two
' when he took charge. Thus it produced in fees for tuition $1,260, all
e of which, as its instructors were College officers, was available for their
'salaries so that when Mr. D. went to Gambier, these two schools
' yielded an income of at least $2,160."
" Now what, according to his statement, was their reduced state when
' he was removed ? By his own account the pupils in the Senior Gram-
' mar School had been reduced to eleven, diminishing the income from
' that source from $1260 to $330; and those in Milnor Hall had declined
' to twenty-seven ; so that instead of yielding a nett income of $900 to
' the college deficit, it only met its own expenses. Thus, according to
' Mr. D.'s statement, the falling off in the Grammar Schools at the time
' of his removal, had diminished the means of meeting expenses by at
least $1830."
These calculations, you will observe, are based with great emphasis
upon my " statements." But if you will turn to the page (15) to which
reference is made, you will see that /am not at all accountable for them.
I made no statements, whatever, of the kind quoted. I never said that
"Milnor Hall had fifty-four pupils when I took charge." I never said
that I took charge of it at all ; under any circumstances it would have
been a falsehood. I never said that "the other school had forty-two when
I took charge," or that I " took charge" of that any more than of Mil-
nor Hall ; it would have been equally untrue.* In all these particulars
* My language in the passage referred to (part of my address to the Trus-
tees, pending their proceedings against me) was as follows : " The falling
off in numbers is not in the College classes, but in the Grammar Schools. The
effective number in these classes when I came here, was thirty seven ; it is
now thirty-nine (40), and has not materially varied from that number in all
the intermediate time. In the Senior Grammar School, however, there has
been a diminution from forty two, year before last, to twenty four last year,
and eleven now. So also in the Junior Grammar school, from fifty -four last
year to twenty-teven or eight now. But what is that to me ? I have nothing
to do with the internal affairs of those schools ; I took no credit for their in-
crease, and I protest against being held in any way responsible for their de-
crease. The real causes I apprehend in both cases, were very easily ascer-
tained, if that had been the object of your committee."
My object in this language was plainly to show the absurdity of the hypo-
thesis, which made me responsible for the diminution in the Grammar schools
with which I had only a very remote connection, when in the college with
which I was immediately and responsibly connected, there had been no ma-
terial change. I was desirous, also, to excite the Trustees, if there was a
21
the quotation is false; and as the variation is palpable, and the numbers
were so easily corrected, if truth had been the aim of the writer, mere-
ly by opening the College catalogue for 1840-41, and as ihe taking
" charge" is evidently thrown in with an artful and insidious design to
pervert truth in other respects, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion,
that the falsehood was wilful and malicious. Mark now how plain a tale
shall put it all down.
As to (he falling off: the Senior Grammar School had, when I went to
Gambier, seventeen pupils. Sixteen months afterwards, in the summer of
1842, the number had increased to forty-two ; but wanting the care and
attention of a zealous and efficient Principal, its most important recita-
tions (those of Professor Sandells) being sometimes omitted for nearly
a week together, and no effort made to give it unity and character as a
Seminary, it gradually lost interest and dwindled down, from sheer want
of cultivation, to twelve, (I said eleven, but it should have been twelve,)
at the date of my removal. There was in that Institution, therefore, a
falling off of five, (from seventeen to twelve), during my official residence
on " the Hill," making a diminution of $227 (instead of $1260) in its
receipts. In Milnor Hall, the number of pupils when I went to Gambier,
was thirty. In two years it increased to fifty-four ; but Irom that time to
the date of my removal, it fell off again, (not from the neglect and inat-
tention of its principals, as in the former case, but from essential defects
in the modes of instiuction), to its original number, about thirty. So
that its receipts were not, from first to last, materially altered. And \\o\y
let us sum up the whole of this matter. In the College there was an incre-
ment of two : in the Senior Grammar School, the falling off (from forty-
two to eleven, as they have it) settles down to jive : while in the Junior
Grammar School (Milnor Hall) there was no material variation. The
aggregate falling off, in ALL the Institution then, from the beginning to
the end of my incumbency as President of the College, was three, as to
the number of pupils ! and one hundred and thirty-five dollars, (instead
of eighteen hundred and thirty) as to the amount of receipts ! Some-
what of an error. Typographical, think you ? Bishop Mcllvaine read
the proof !
But there is a climax of disingenuousness, even, if possible, beyond
this, in the renewed attempt to make me responsible for the sins of the
Grammar Schools. This is evidently a mortal effort with them, and page
after page of the " Reply" is garnished with asseverations and arguments
or verbiage intended for argument, to make it out. I am sick of fer-
reting out these dishonest fallacies, but this is a point of some impor-
tance, and must not be passed over. They say that I was responsible for
these schools.
First. Because the profits arising from them went to pay Ihe salaries
of the College officers, dns. So did ths profits of the lands. Was I
responsible for theml The Prudential committee, I apprehend, would
have had something to say on that subject.
Secondly. Because the Principals were members of the College Facul-
ty, tfns. They were also members of the Education Committee, and
might have been members of a dozen organic bodies besides. Would
that circumstance have transferred, fro'Y- them, to the heads of those
bodies, any part of their proper responsibility as Principals of their res-
pective Schools ?
Thirdly. Because in one of them (the Senior Grammar school,) a Pro-
fessor was the Principal, and tutors gave instruction. Sins. The same
particle of truth or justice in them, to institute an inquiry into the real causes
of the former. But it was of no avail.
22
Professor was also a Preacher, and an instructor in the Theological Semi-
nary. Were these departments " as much connected with the President
as any department of duty of the same professor ?" And why not, if the
principle is sound ?
Fourthly. Because, in the same school the students live in the College
edifice. Ans. Their living there is purely and professedly incidental.
Circumstances might render it necessary for Theological students to live
there in the same way. Would the President's responsibilities, in that
case, extend to the Theological Seminary 1
Fifthly. Because the Schools are dependant upon the reputation of the
College. Ans. So are the tailors, and shoemakers, and trades-people of
" the Hill," and what of it ?
Sixthly. Because "not only the existence, but much of the charac-
ter and attainment of the College, depend on them" (the schools.) Ans.
There were many things upon which the well-being, and even the exist-
ence of the College depends, over which /had no control, and for which
I was not in the least responsible. Its resources might be wasted, its
property alienated, or its standard of discipline or scholarship fatally de-
based, by the mismanagement of an ignorant Board of Trustees. What
power had I to prevent it ? There were always abuses and nuisances on
" the Hill," which I had no power to reach authoritatively, however
much I might use my personal influence to restrain or correct them; as I
used that influence to correct evils in the two Grammar schools.
Seventhly. Because these schools were " important nurseries" for the
College, and furnished a large proportion of its pupils ; and "as pupils
were sent to (Mem) expressly to be prepared for the college," parents
would not so send them if the College was in bad repute, dns. Was I
responsible for all the nurseries in which pupils were, or might be reared
for Kenyon College? That would be a large responsibility, truly. Eve-
ry grammar school in the country, while open for students at large, is
also, potentially, a nursery for Kenyon College ; and this was precisely
the case in regard to those at Gambier. The Senior Grammar School
was "an Academy, or High School, [see Catalogue just published] de-
signed for the accommodation of young men who may wish to obtain a
thorough English education, pursue a partial classical course, or be pre-
pared for admission into the Freshmen class of the College." It had in its
best state, twice as many general pupils as candidates for College ; and
could have had, under ood management, a much larger proportion. So
far from pupils being placed there " expressly to prepare for College,"
parents much more frequently placed them there under a popular bias
against College education altogether, and were only induced to allow
them to prepare for- College by great persuasion afterwards.* Milnor
Hall, in like manner, was " an Institute of Elementary and Classical In-
struction," (see Catalogue) where " Reading, Orthography, and Pen-
manship" were taught to boys (from 10 to 15 years old), as well as "the
studies required for admission to the Freshmen class of Kenyon College,
and such others as are usually taught in common Academies." This In-
stitution furnished, in 1841, seven candidates for the Freshmen class, not
one of whom, however, was able to proceed with the class in which he
entered. In 1842, having about forty pupils, it furnished not a single
candidate; and only three out of fifty-four pupils in 1843; making an
average of one qualified candidate, out of an average of forty-one boys,
per annum. So much for the assertion that pupils were sent there ex-
pressly to be prepared for College.
* I have a volume of correspondence on this subject, with parents who
committed their sons to my care.
23
Eighthly. Because such was the " previous practice," these depart-
ments having " always been as much under the direction of that body,
(the College Faculty) and consequently under its President, as the Col-
lege, in every thing but very minute and subordinate details " Answer.
There was not and could not have been any " previous practice" on the
subject ; I went to Gambier under " a new organization, provided for by
changes in the constitution of the Theological Seminary," (see Bishop
Mcllvaine's address to the Convention of 1841), by which new offices,
new duties, and new relations, were created in all parts of the Institution.
Whatever subordination the Grammar schools may have had to the present
faculty, they were not the less organized instilulions under their own proper
and responsible heads, nor did the Faculty ever in a single instance
overlook that circumstance, by the slightest attempt to exercise a control
over the, interior management of either. When they appointed examina-
tions, it was as a conservative visitorial body, and at Milnor Hall in
particular, they were, on such occasions, always regarded and treated
as the guests for the time being, of that Institution. The assertion,
therefore, that these schools were, in the same sense as the College, under
the direction of the Faculty, is simply false. But even if it had been
true, it by no means follows that the President was individually respon-
sible for the acts of the body.
Ninthly. It is said that " the doctrine that the President of the College
had nothing to do with the internal affairs of the Grammar schools, was
as new to the Trustees as it was surprising," and that " no Officer of any
department, no Trustee, no one but Mr. D. ever took any other view than
that taken" by the author of the Reply. The profound ignorance of
the Trustees on all matters (of fact and principle,) connected with the
real interests of the Institution, renders the first clause of this allegation
extremely probable.* The second is simply untrue. I venture to affirm,
without fear of contradiction, that no person on the " Hill" ever alluded
to me or thought of me as the head of either Grammar school. I am per-
fectly certain that I never performed a single act, or gave a single direc-
tion in that character ; and that if I had done so, it would have been
indignantly resisted, and universally regarded as an act of arrogant and
unjustifiable usurpation.
But it is stated by Bishop Mcllvaine that " before (I) began (my)
duties, (I) asked (him) to explain (my) relations to those schools, espe-
cially Milnor Hall. Which he did; slating that according to all the
previous practice and universal interpretation, (I) was President of these
departments precisely as of the College ; that (I) was never heard to
demur to that construction, that (I) began and went on in the fulfilment
of that trust, and conversed with the Bishop about those institulions, as
having that relation to them." If I understand this language right, it is
a reiteration in the Bishop's own name, of what I have just denied, viz.
that I was constituted the organic head of the two Grammar schools, and
endowed with administrative functions in and over them, exactly as in the
College. But the Bishop is mistaken. With a full sense of the responsi-
bility of what I am saying, and as I shall answer hereafter, I solemnly
declare that the whole of the statement for which he here makes himself
responsible is untrue. He gave no such " construction"; he conferred
no such powers. I did not " begin to fulfil" any such " trust," nor did
I ever ".converse with the Bishop about these institutions as having such
a relation to them." I would not have accepted the Presidency, under
any circumstances, encumbered with such a condition. The powers of
* One of the best informed of them was surprised, only a few months be-
fore, to learn that the President's salary was only $1000.
24
the Presidential office were certainly defined as extending, in a certain
sense, to these Grammar schools, 1 was in favor at (hat time, and the
Bishop exceedingly liberal, but it was as to them, a supervisory power,
over organised departments, each having its own pioper head, responsi-
ble, not to me, but to him the uishop and the Board of Trustees ; su-
pervisory, as his own oversight of a parish is supervisory, and not at all
administrative or interior, like that of the President over the College. I
again solemnly affirm, that no such construction was ever put upon my
duties or my responsibilities by the Bishop or any one else, till it became
necessary to trump up a pretext for my removal. And I appeal to the
unvarying usage and custom of the '' Hill"; to the constant language of
Bishop Mcllvaine, and to the repeated declarations of the Board of Trus-
tees, in corroboration of this fact. What man, woman or child, ever
looked to me for any single function or responsibility in the interior man-
agement of Milnor Hall i Was any body, but Mr. Blake and Mr. Badger,
ever so much as thought of in connection with those responsibilities ? I
answer unhesitatingly, and without fear of contradiction from any quar-
ter, no ! And the same is equally predicable of the Senior Grammar
school. Look at the catalogues. They give in due order the names of
the HEADS and all the MEMBERS of those schools, but they give not the
slightest reference to the President, as having any organic connection
with them whatever. Hear also Bishop Mcllvaine. As early as 1833,
in his appeal to the public, he spoke of the Institution as consisting of
" four distinct seminaries the Theological Seminary, Kenyon College,
the Senior Preparatory, and Junior Preparatory Grammar Schools." in
all the negotiation under which I became President of the College, the
Preparatory Schools were not so much as named or alluded to by him.
In his address to the convention of 1841, after speaking in great praise of
the College under my Presidency, he thus proceeds: " The same may
be said with emphasis, of the Junior Preparatory school, Milnor Hall.
Under the great efforts and untiring zeal of the Principals, that department
has been wholly renovated, &c." Finally, observe the language and
action of the Board of Trustees, to the same effect. In their Report to
the Convention of 1839, they say : " The Institution, as the Convention
are aware, comprises four departments a Theological and Collegiate,
and two Academical or Preparatory ; each has its appropriate officers,
its separate course of studies, and its peculiar regulations and discipline."
In the reports of committees entered upon their minutes as for instance,
at the meeting at Gambier in September 1842, when a committee reported
the (then) prosperous condition of the Junior Grammar School, to
whom do they refer as the responsible head ol that Institution ? To me ?
Oh no ! Such a reference would have been perfectly ridiculous. No !
They refer justly and properly to Messrs. Blake and Badger the joint
Principals ; and I venture to say, that the absurdity of a reference to me
in that relation, is not to be found any where in the records of that astute
body, however ready they may have been to " see things otherwise,"
when THE BISHOP had a special end to be answered by their so seeing.
But though I had, as I have thus clearly shown, " nothing to do with
the internal affairs of these schools, I was not indifferent to their welfare,
and did faithfully, perhaps too faithfully, all that was in my power to
avert the state of things, which in my view incurred, as to them, the
loss of public confidence and patronage. What that state of things
was, in regard to the Senior Grammar School, I have already in part
intimated. You will better understand it, however, as well as some
other things connected with the whole subject, by the addition of a gene-
ral remark, which I may insert here.
25
The whole Institution, College and Grammar schools, at the date of
my first personal acquaintance with them, was found, as to classic dis-
cipline, most unexpectedly and alarmingly low; greatly below that of
any reputable eastern College: And the Grammar schools, far from fur-
nishing a resource for the correction of this evil, stood precisely in the
way of any substantial improvement. The desire of the Principals, young
in office, to fulfil the expectations of parents, (often injudiciously exci-
ted,) in regard to the admission of their sons into the College, was para-
mount, whether the latter were prepared or not; and it was no uninvidi-
ous task 1 assure you, for me, or any one else, to raise a question on the
ground of qualification. In the Senior Grammar school, and in the Col-
lege, by operating through the Tutors, I was enabled to accomplish some-
thing, notwithstanding the inertia and occasionally the undissembled op-
position of Professor Sandels. But in the Junior Grammar school, hav-
ing no such lever, my task was a much more difficult one. My first im-
pressions of that Institution weie highly in its favor. It was vacation, but
the <reneral arrangements for police and external management, seemed
admirable, and I supposed every thing else must be upon the same foot-
ing. This impression was a little shaken during the summer of 1841, but
complet ly overset at the first examination I atlended, in July of that
year; and I became painfully aware, that, with all the decorum and pro-
priety of its external arrangements, there was no such thing as sound
mental discipline in the school.* The candidates for the Freshman class
of the College, furnished no exception to this remark ; they were totally
unfitted for admission. A years' hard study would scarcely have qualified
them for admission into any respectable college ; and yet Mr. Badger,
their instructor, thought them well prepared, f Mr. Sandels did not ob-
ject, and I was too new to the whole system lo be at liberty to take the
stand which my judgment strongly suggested. Six of the seven were
therefore admitted, to the entire satisfaction of their parents, and the
great glory of the Junior Grammar School.
And no v, what think you was my duty in these premises ? Messrs.
Blake and Badger were not appointed by me ; they were not in any way
accountable to me in the performance of their d Jties ; but the well-being
of the College, and a really friendly regard for them (Blake and Badger,)
and for the institution over which they presided, forbade that I should pass
over this state of things without some attempt to ameliorate it. Nor did
I. I embraced an early opportunity of conversing on the subject with
Mr. Badger, expressed, with perfect frankness, and as much freedom as
I felt myself at liberty to use, the results of my observaiion, and my
views as to the proper mo-ie of classic discipline, tendered my services,
at his pleasure, to visit the school, and, in any way, giveall the influence
in my power to stimulate the pupils in their classic recitations. So far as
Mr. Badger was concerned, I have reason to believe these suggestions
were received, as they were certainly given, in a kind and friendly spirit;
but I am equally certain that they were coldly and unkindly regarded by
Mr. Blake ; that my personal efforts at the " Hall" were deemed obtru-
sive by him, and the impediment thrown in the way of the promotion of
Milnor Hall boys, invidious and offensive. Certain I am, that his man-
* There was scarcely a question asked on any subject, from the beginning
to the end of the examination, that was not answered by the examiner, or so
put in a leadinsr form as to infallibly suggest the answer. In the Classics,
there was scarcely a phrase construed or a word parsed, in which all that
had any approximation to correctness, was not suggested seriatim by the ex-
aminer. These circumstances were particularly noted at the time.
t Mr. Blake did not pretend to teach even thus far, in elastics.
26
ner towards me became more repulsive, and at times positively insulting;
nor was 1 at all surprised to he informed* that the boys, his pupils,
went home to their parents with a strong impression " against the Presi-
dent."
That I should have relaxed the zeal of my supervisory efforts under
these circumstances, seems tome a matter of course ; and yet the author
of the " Reply," page 16, adverts to it as if it was a dereliction of duty.
He would have had me go on, it seems, in the course of action I had cho-
sen to adopt, without any regard to the amount of ill-feeling or jealousy
(unpopularity) I might incur from Mr. Blake, or any one else ; and yet,
mark me, I have been tried and condemned in the secret councils of this
man (the writer of the Reply) and his colleagues ; and actually hurled
from my office, without a moment's warning, ON A SECRET PRESENT-
MENT FOR UNPOPULARITY, RESTING UPON THE SECRET IN-
FORMATION OF THIS VERY MR. BLAKE.
But I must get back to my subject. I have been drawn aside, perhaps
too far, in speaking of my relations to the two Grammar Schools, in con-
sequence of the attempt of my adversaries to fix upon ME the responsi-
bility of their decline. I do not forget, however, that I am really discus-
sing a. financial question, touching an alleged insufficiency of the receipts
to meet the expenses of the institution, and that it still remains to be in-
quired.
Thirdly. Whether the " deficit," spoken of by Bishop Mcllvaine,
may not have arisen from the falling off of the LAND REVENUE ? I
have shown that there was no " deficit," in the proper sense of that term,
in the College ; that there was not a very considerable one from firsl to
last, and leaving responsibility out of the question, in the Senior Gram-
mar School; and in the Junior Grammar School, regarding it in the same
aspect, none. The only other soutce of revenue, to be noticed, then, is
the DOMAIN, the " COLLEGE TOWNSHIP," the lands, farms, build-
ings, &c., the administration of which, in t heory and practice, was exclu-
sively reserved to the Episcopale, as PRUDENTIAL COMMITTEE.
By the Treasurer's report in 1835, heretofore referred to, it appears lhat
although the deficit of the college for that year, (after absorbing all the
profits of the Grammar schools), was more than $1700, the revenue, from
land and other rents, was sufficient, not only to extinguish this arrearage,
but to meet the interest of the debt, amounting to nearly as much more,
and still leave an unexpended balance of .$450 in the Treasury. The nett
income from this source, was, in short, at that time, $3841. It would not
be unreasonable, I think, to expect that (his income had been somewhat in-
creased in 1844, by the improvements from 1835 to that time ; and espe-
cially as we find an addition of som $6000 1o the capital debt, on that ac-
count; a considerable portion of which must have been incurred within that
period. But even if it had remained unaltered, as THE DEBT of (he in-
stitution had been paid, and the interest account, therefore, extinguished,
it was sufficient to have met the entire wants of the Collegiafe depart-
ment, (in 1844), inclijvling the " $400 for a Theological Professor," and
still to have left a surplus of from $1700 to $1800 in the Treasury. The
declaration of Bishop Mcllvaine, then, "that there would be a deficit to a
large amount," after all the " income of the lands," Sfc., " had been ex-
pended," implies that there must have been a falling off in the latter since
1835, of from $2500 to $3000 ; and this conclusion is verified by other
evidences, bearing upon the subject. The Report of the Trustees lo the
Convention of 1843 for instance, under the head of " Buildings,
This fact was stated in terms by the Bishop, in his interview with the Se-
nior and Sophomore classes, as I am prepared to prove.
27
Farms," Sfc., gives the " total receipts, $2992.20," and the " t ot al
expenditures, $1928.67," leaving an " excess of receipts, $1063.53."
Finally it was stated by Mr. Dennison, in committee, on the memorable
evening of the 28lh of February, 1844, that the nett amount of the land
revenue for the year, would not exceed $900.
Here, then, is the rub the real source of the alarming deficit so much
talked of; not " in the salaries of the College officers," nor in " the de-
clining state of (the College) department " as the Bishop has it but in
the prostration, the frilterring away of the means, duly provided and al-
ways counted upon, for the payment of those salaries. Think of the rev-
enue of this magnificent domain 4,000 acres of rich, productive Ohio
land estimated by the Trustees in 1842 (see Journal of Convention, page
74,) at $90,000 besides mill property, and a whole village of tenements;
the revenue from all these sources, amounting, in 1835, to almost $4,000
per annum, now dwindled down, under the management of the Pruden-
tial Committee, to $900! Can any one, contemplating this state of things,
fail to perceive the deep policy of the whole proceeding against me ? At
a moment when the mismanagement of this noble property seems to have
reached its climax, when the evidence of its abuse had become too pal-
pable to remain much longer unobserved, when it was daily to be ex-
pected that the friends and patrons of the Institution would become
alarmed and call for some inquiry on the subject, a hubbub is suddenly
raised about " the unpopularity of the President," an alarming " diminu-
tion in the College classes " is discovered all at once, the Institution is
threatened with a " deficit to a large amount " in consequence, and " a
new debt will have to be incurred (so they say) unless he (the President)
is immediately removed from office." All this is duly seasoned (in the
Reply) with intimations of the wasteful expenditures of that officer his
recklessness in such matters his utter indifference, in short, to all con-
siderations of this kind; and, on the other hand, in strong contrast, the
solemn responsibility of the Bishop his vigilance in guarding against
abuses his " bounden duty to a College, which, by so MUCH LABOR,
HE HAD JUST SUCCCEEDED IN RELIEVING FROM ITS EMBAR-
RASSMENTS." Can it be a question, I say, in the mind of any one, af-
ter what has been said, that all this is but part and parcel of the most
deep and subtle scheme to overwhelm me, and at the same time to divert
inquiry from a real and palpable abuse of a great public trust ? And see
how perfectly it would have been consummated had I been weak enough,
under the wheedling of Col. Bond, to tender my resignation.
We proceed, now, to examine the mode and the means and appliances
by which, according to the " Reply," the final result was brought about:
" The Bishop was bound (he tells us) as President of the Corporation and
Prudential Committee, to look into the causes of this deficiency, and 'his
he (accordingly) proceeded to do with all delicacy and caution." What
were the Bishop's ideas of " delicacy and caution ?" Doubtless you will
say he went immediately to the President, and spread the whole matter
confidentially before him. The President was at the head of Ihe Acade-
mic administration no small responsibility and more deeply interested,
personally, in the prosperity of the College than any other individual. It
is hardly supposable that he could have been called to that situation with-
out some pretension, also, to experience and education, and professional
standing; and a reference to the contemporaneous le'ters and publications
of Bishop Mcllvaine, show that he actually regarded him as holding a
very high rank in all these respects* Besides, he was the Bishop's "dear"
The following article, from the Western E. Observer of March 27th, 1841,
is instructive on this subject as coming from the pen of Bishop Mcllvaine.
Of course I am not responsible for its hyperbolisms :
28
and "old friend;" having acknowledged claims upon him from " Ihe
long and intimate associations " subsisting between them, (nearly twen-
ty years) " under such various and interesting circumstances."* In ev-
ery view of the case, under every suggestion of official propriety, frank-
ness, faith and honor, it was the plain and obvious duty of Bishop Mcll-
vaine to consult the President of the College at the very threshhold of tliis
inquiry. Did he do so? Oh no! His "delicacy and caution " were of a
different complexion altogether; not the caution that hesitates under the
fear of doing wrong, but that which seeks concealment, and dreads only
discovery. The inquiry was secret. No little address must have been
required to keep it from coming to the ears of the President, eight entire
weeks, (the Bishop and his consultants being all the while in daily inter-
course with me,) till his Trustees could be got together, and the blow
struck; Out it was not wanting. The mind that conceived the plan had
in it precisely those elements of " delicacy and caution " needful for its
execution. The eight weeks rolled round; the Board met, and their work
was already done before a single note of alarm reached me. Yet the Bi-
shop would have it believed there was no plot, no design, no scheme
against me at all.
Who were the persons actually honored with the Episcopal confidence
in these proceedings ? My particular friends, he tells us; persons who
had been advanced by my patronage, and who enjoyed, in some sense,
my regard and confidence. This was his idea of " delicacy." But why
such delicacy if there was no previous design no presentiment in his
"KENYON COLLEGE President Douglass arrived at Gambier the day before
the close of the term last week. His connections, in the duties of an Engi-
neer with an extensive company in New York having been rendered unex-
pectedly difficult of completion by the increase of embarrassments in the bu-
siness community of the East, have occasioned, necessarily, some delay in his
coming to the sphere of his future labors. Meanwhile, however, the full
course of study in the College has been vigorously sustained. The Faculty is
now very strong. President Douglass has had great experience in education,
and been most zealously enlisted in the effort to improve the literature and
science of our country by means of Institutions combining the decided incul-
cation of Christian principles and duties with the pursuit of secular learning.
No less than sixteen classes, of as many successive years, at West Point, were
trained by him, as he filled successively the Professorships of Mathematics,
of Natural Philosophy, and of Civil and Military Engineering. Almost all
the eminent scientific instructors, who were trained at that Institution, were
educated by him. Prof. Ross, of Mathematics, at Kenyon College, who is
universally considered as second to no mathematician or instructor in Ameri-
ca, was his pupil. So were the Professors who now occupy the three princi-
pal chairs at West Point. To the great devotion and skill of President Doug-
lass in the cause of education, he adds the zeal of a devoted Christian, for the
highest interests of man, associated with the utmost kindness of manner, and
benevolence of disposition. The cause of literature and science in the West
has received, indeed, a great accession of strength in the person of this gen-
tleman, and Kenyon College may well be proud of her President."
Who could have anticipated that, in three years from the date of this arti-
cle, the eminent, devoted, and benevolent individual here described, should
have been characterized by the same pen as " chilling and repelling " in his
manners " constitutionally and habitually unfit for office. only appointed
thereto " when it really went a beaging," Sic., and that he should have been
arraigned dismissed rather without a previous complaint made, or ques-
tion asked, on the presentment of the College bell ringer. But even this is not
the greatest of the marvels connected with this strange proceeding.
See the Bishop's letter of condolence, dated the day after my dismissal
in my former itatement, page 34.
29
mind against me ? Why avoid me, whom, on every just principle, he
should have consulted, to tamper with the weak (or unprincipled?) breth-
ren of my Academic family ? The Bishop himself gives the solution :
"The President had a few days before more than once informed (him)
that the College was never in a nealthier state. Such (he adds) being ihe
remaikable contrast between his idf-a of the state of things and that of
his officers, the Bishop proceeded to no further inquiries," &c. In other
words, my testimony did not suit theirs did.*
The Bishop labors hard to bolster up the respectability of his consult-
ants, and make it appear that they were a considerable portion of the offi-
cers of the College; but they were not so, either in numbers, experience,
intelligence, or general character. Mr. Blake, as I have already stated,
was one of the Heads of the Junior Grammar School. He (or his col-
league) had indeed a seat in the Faculty, (for what purpose is not exact-
ly known) but he was not a College officer, nor competent, by his own
acknowledgment, to have discharged the duties of the lowest Academic
station there. Mr. Lang was, in no sense, an " officer" of the College
or of the faculty. He was simply an undergraduate student, to whom
the perquisite of ringing the bell had been given, to aid him in his (me-
ritorious) efforts to complete his education; and for this purpose also I
had recommended him as a teacher of Elementary Mathematics in the
Senior Grammar School J
Of the four consultants then named by the Bishop, and so often referred
to as " THE officers," only two were really officers of the College at all.
There were in Ihe College altogether, as you probably know, four Pro-
fessors and two Tutors. The Bishop's consultation embraced but a sin-
gle person of each grade. Prof. Ross was not included, any more than
myself, nor Prof. Thrall, nor Tutor Comstock; Prof. Sandels and Tutor
Gilbs were, and to them were added Mr. Blake, the English teacher of
the Junior Grammar School, and the undergraduate, Mr. Lang ; and it is
this compound of odds and ends that is held up in the " Reply " as the
Academic corps the official body of the College " my officers," &c.
I shall not undertake to distribute very nicely the proportions of dis-
honor incurred by the individual parties of this quartette. I cannot but
hope yet that the agency of some one or two of them is misrepresented in
the " Reply." They were examined separately, it seems and in private.
Bishop Mcllvaine was at liberty to make any version of their replies he
thought proper; nor does he pretend to have submitted that version to be
corrected and verified by them afterwards, except in the particular case
of Prof. Sandels. The presentment set forth in Ihe " Reply " then, (p.
8-9,) while it purports to have come from the joint and unanimous testi-
* The Bishop throws m a remark at this point, that I was indifferent to the
pecuniary welfare of the Institution, and took no concern in its indebtedness,
&c. The assertion, however, is wholly gratuitous not only unproven bntin-
capable of proof for it is untrue. During all my early residence on the "Hill"
I was unceasing in my inquiries and conversations on this subject, till it be-
came too evident to te mistaken that the Bishop did not intend i> admit me,
quo ad hoc, to his confidence : and it was pointedly intimated to me by Prof.
Sandels, when the Bishop's obliquities towards me first began to be noticed,
that THIS was a point on which he could not bear to be questioned. " You
may get along with him (said he) on all other points, but beware of that,"
and accordingly I did, then and for that reason only, begin to beware. But I
did not cease to feel therefore ; and perhaps it may yet appear that I felt as
much and as disinterestedly even as Bishop Mcllvaine.
J A College honor open to undergraduates.
30
raony of the four, really stands upon his declaration alone; nor will I be-
lieve, till it is established by unequivocal testimony, under the test of a
cross examination, that either of the others Lang and Gibbs at least
would deliberately have verified what (hey could not but have known to
be false. It is, however, unquestionable, that while they were in daily
and familiar intercourse with me Gibbs and Sandels as members of the
Academic family, and Lang as a favored pupil and all, except Mr.
Blake, apparently on terms of the most entiie confidence and coidiality;
they were for eight weeks also in the relation of secret correspondents of
Bishop Mcllvaine, and, with full consciousness, co-operating in a design
to drive me from my office and station, by an attack upon the dearest and
most vital of all this world's interests my name and character. It will
be said, perhaps, in excuse, that they weie called upon by the Bishop. I
answer, the Bishop must have known upon whom to call, and how to season
his application. He called u\>onthem because they were available for his
purpose, and did not presume to call upon others who he knew were
not available.*
But the important part in all this preparatory movement seems to have
been played by Professor Sandels ; Professor of the Latin and Greek
Languages and Literature" in Kenyon College ; head of the Senior
Grammar School, and " Instructor of Lalin and Greek" in the Theologi-
cal Seminary of the Diocese nf Ohio. Such an accumulation of titles
and offices would ordinarily imply ihat the incumbent must be some vete-
ran in literature, deeply read in all the lore of classical antiquity, and
perfectly at home in all the disciplinary administration of " Colleges and
Halls." In the present instance, however, you must prepare yourself for
a different reality. The professor was no veteran ; an Irishman by birth,
not very long in this country, without any regular education, graduated
in no college, and never associated (till he came to Kenyon,) with any
academic body whatever. So late as 1840 he was a Theological student
in the Seminary ; but having made himself in some way useful to the
Bishop in the movements of that year, he was suddenly elevated after
a short period of tutor's duty, a little before his ordination to the
Professorship, and other responsibilities above named. His depart-
ment, as I have already intimated, was, in discipline and attain-
ment, far below the grade of the same department in respecable
eastern Colleges. It could not well be otherwise. The discipine, as
line, as might be expected, was extremely superficial ; in addition to
which a considerable proportion of his recitations were often omitled on
the slightest pretexts. It is susceptible of proof, that at the date of my
removal, the most delinquent person graduate or undergraduate con-
nected with the Institution, was the Professor of Languages. He had
heard the Freshman class in Xenophon but 17 recitations, and the Juniurs
in Tacitus but 16, in eight weeks, and wondered why the latter did not
take more interest in the subject. His turn at prayers was omitted not
uncommonly four or five times out of seven for months together ; the
* Mr. Lang was appointed Head of the Senior Grammar School a few
months after. Mr. Gibbs is styled in the "Reply" "an officer of (my)
choosing," but he was not chosen by me. Prior to his appointment, I had
never seen him or heard of him. A Tutor was to be chosen ; the Senior Tu-
tor, with whom he was to be associated in duty, strongly recommended a
friend and classmate, whose name was Gibbs ; I nominated him accordingly,
and he was elected by the Faculty. Had I known him I should not have no-
minated him, for many reasons. Though of mature age, he was in mind,
character, intelligence and manners, a mere youth ; and over and above all,
an open declaimer against the church, by whose endowment he was paid and
gratuitously instructed.
31
excuse being, THAT HE COULD NOT WAKE UP. These derelictions
of duty were the subject of earnest and oft repeated appeals on my part ;
and it is known to Professor toss, as well as to Professor Sandels, lhat
for a long time it was to me a subject of deep grief, that 1 could not by
any admonitions or entreaties, awaken in the iatter the least interest in
any of the duties to which he was pledged. *
Such was the character and responsibility of the chief witness in this
proceeding ; and it Avas before such testimony, be it remembered, that
the " skill," and " experience," and " zeal" and devotion and Christian
character and " benevolence of disposition" of the new President, so
recently lauded in all the forms of rhetoric by Bishop Mcllvaine, vanished
from his mind like the early dew. It was not even necessary to " ask
HIS opinion" on a subject of the most momentous concern to himself and
to the Institution ; " the remarkable contrast between his idea -of the
stale of things and that of his officers ; (i. e. Blake, Lang, Gibbs and
Sandels,) being in the Bishop's opinion a sufficient reason for making
" no further inquiries." The testimony thus drawn out and recorded in
the Bishop's private memorandum. (Reply, p. 8-9,) embraces substan-
tially the following allegations : P\rst that the students were without
exception extremely dissatisfied with the President's " ways and modes,
in the government of the College, and with no person or thing of the
Institution besides. Secondly that because of this dissatisfaction they
had lost their interest in the Institution and become indifferent to its
discipline. Thirdly that the spread of these sentiments abroad, had
made parents far and wide unwilling to send their sons. And finally
that the same feeling pervaded the Faculty ; the President having usurped
all the powers of government, to the exclusion of that body, and they
allowing it only " from a wish to avoid unpleasant difficulties with him."
These allegations, though of no particular importance as bearing upon
the ulterior action of the Board of Trustees, for they were not laid be-
fore that body at all, are yet of no little significance as developing the
grounds of the Bishop's action, and the state of the plot on the 6th of
January. I am not arraigned, you perceive, on any charge of miscon-
duct, (unless the last allegation be supposed to embrace some intimation
of that kind,) but upon an opinion of my official conduct and character
said to have been held by the students ; as if such an opinion unstable
and fluctuating as it is known to be was a proper test of my official
character and faithfulness as President of the College. Who ever ex-
pected that in the discharge of my difficult and responsible duties, I
should escape the judgment, sometimes even the harsh judgments, of
those under my care ! Bishop Mcllvaine called me to Gambier, lor the
purposi: of taking responsibility, in the enforcement of a vigorous system
of discipline and study ; and neither he or I ever expected this to be
done without great self-sacrifice, and severe trials of firmness and pa-
tience, f Yet here I find him with his pliant auxiliaries, making my very
self-devotion in this cause, the lever for my destruction ; and that too,
* The relations in which I found the Professor with Bishop M. on my arri-
val at fJambier, naturally gave him a large share of my confidence. He also
sympathised or appeared to sympathize warmly with me on various matters
and occasions where sympathy was needful , (particularly in regard to
church matters, and the obliquities of Bishop M. towards me in 1842-3 till
September, 1843. His salary was raised then; and after that I heard no more
of sympathy ; and the plot against me was brought to its maturity, precisely
in the four following months.
t The following extract from the address of the Bishop to the Convention of
1837 , will show what were his sentiments on this subject at that time : '* If the
32
when he knew (every ingenuous student could not but see) that in thus
subjecting the highest executive function to the irresponsible, and often
prejudiced opinions of the students, he was virtually surrendering all that
was dignified and respectable in the character and government of the
College. Who, after this, can exercise authority, or administer discip-
line in K>nyon College, except in such degrees and proportions as the
subjects of such discipline may be pleased to approve. Bishop Mcllvaine
having made their approval the unqualified test of executive faithfulness,
future Presidents and Professors will disregard it at their peril ; and
what then becomes of the dignity and character of the College ?
Apart from the principle, I could have had no objection to rest my
case upon an appeal to the students actually then present.
I had not indeed made their approval the primary object of my admin-
istration, but I had not been therefore regardless of it. Their confidence
was very dear to me, and it was one of my most cherished reflections, in
the midst of laborious duties and severe trials, that by the uncompromi-
sing devotion of myself to the permanent welfare of the Institution, and
the highest inteiests of those connected with it, I was establishing the su-
rest claim to the ultimate approbation of every intelligent, thoughtful, and
right minded student. I had moreover a sincere regard for a large pro-
portion of the students personally, and I could not doubt that lhat regard
was in some degree reciprocated. Without making any particular in-
quiries, I had sensible evidence that it was reciprocated; and when the
charge of unpopularity was brought out upon me, with the suddenness of an
electric shock, on the evening of the 28th of February, I was far less amazed
by the suddenness than by the substance of the allegation, and the confi-
dent assurance with which it was made. The clearest convictions of my
understanding, the results of all my experience in the daily intercourse of
the students a far more intimate intercourse than any other person en-
joyed were diametrically contradicted by it. And it was only by the
spon'.aneous reaction of the students themselves, a few days after, that I
number of students in the College classes, (he observes) exclusive of those in
the preparatory departments, seems small in comparison with other Institu-
tions, it should be recollected that in the West, a College can hardly be expected
to sustain a dignified stand, as to the requisites of admission; to enforce a
vigorous system of internal discipline, and carry out such a course of study as
becomes its profession and its degrees, without sacrificing for a long time
numbers for attainments. It is the determination of those in the adminis-
tration of Kenyori College, to endeavor to attain an enlarged patronage with-
out compromise with any defective notions of education or any humoring of
popular caprice. A few young men well educated are worth a host super-
ficially taught. Such a determination in this country requires much patience
and firmness in the prosecution ; but I trust it will never yield to any tempta-
tion to popularity or pecuniary increase ; ultimately it must have its reward."
Entertaining precisely the same views, I wrote to Bishop M. in the course of
our negotiation in 1840, to know whether I could depend upon being sustained
in them by the Board of Trustees, and the following is his reply : " The
questions you propose as to the interference of the Board, &c. may all be
answered in one sentence they have never interfered in such things all has
been left to the Faculty all under yon will be ; so you are left at ease on all
such heads ; therefore I conclude you will certainly come,"&c.
The same views were also taken and sustained in all my consultations
with the Bishop before entering upon my duties, and it was announced
in the chapel, that thorough discipline and sound scholarship would be
insisted upon at all events. Finally, in my address at the commencement
of 1842, the same determination was still more strongly and fully expressed,
before a very large audience of the friends of the institution the Bishop
being present and tacitly approving. It was a settled system therefore, fully
understood and sanctioned by him and duly published, on which I acted.
33
was relieved from this state of perplexity and doubt. The following are
the facts.
1 had been giving a course of popular lectures, at the request of the
students, on a subject of military history, the last of which was to be
delivered on the Saturday evening after my dismissal; but being placed
in a new position by that event, and as a hostile feeling was said to exist
among the students, I was in doubt whether I might not expose myself
to some unpleasant exhibition of that feeling in giving the lecture; and,
finally concluded not to give it. Immediately on making the announce-
ment, however, I was waited upon by a number of the students, with an
urgent request that I would by no means give up the lectuie; and in re-
ply to the reason assigned, the most full and affectionate disclaimers
were uttered and reiterated by them in behalf of the whole body of the
students. Thus reassured, I went to the chapel at the hour appointed, and
gave my lecture to a most attentive and respectful audience, adding at
the conclusion, as the occasion seemed to demand it, a few words of part-
ing counsel to my young friends, without any reference however to the
subject matter of my removal. The professors and their families were
there, and most of the population of the " Hill," and many of them will
undoubtedly recollect the strong emotion with which these last words
were received by the students; the enthusiastic response to the vote of
thanks; the call that was made upon me for the charges on which 1 had
been removed, and my answer;* and the motion to pass a vote of censure
upon the Trustees; which motion, I am confidently assured, would have
passed by a large majority had I not interposed to prevent it; and finally
the adjournment of the students to meet again on Monday. So far from
any demonstration of hostile feeling, many of the students gathered
round me, in leaving the Chapel, with the strongest expression of their
sympaihy and regard; and I have before me unequivocal evidence that
such was the sentiment of the great body of the students all, indeed,
except a very few, and those mostly, if not all, beneficiaries the paid
retainers of the Education Committee. At the meeting on Monday they
passed unanimously, and of their own motion, without any influence of
mine, (Mr. Lang being in the chair,) a set of resolutions, much more
strongly expressed and more decidedly in my favor than the letter of
which the Bishop makes so much account, and it was only when they
were discussing an incidental question about publishing the resolves, that
two or three beneficiaries came in, and excited some opposition; and even
then their plea for so doing was the injury they affected to think the re-
solutions would do mtf.f So much for the universal dissatisfaction of the
students with my administration.
* I objected to any discussion or action on this subject, but as the question
was catagorical, as to the matter charged against me, I felt mjself al liberty
to give them the answer which had been given to me, by one of the Trus-
tees (Col. Bond) in reply to the very same question, which was as follows:
"Nothing at all sir! I have not heard the beginning of a charge against
you." A resolution was then moved denouncing the "injustice of my re-
moval," but I admonished them to abstain from any proceedings of that
kind, and immediately left the desk. My position was a very difficult one.
I asked the opinion of several of the Professors afterwards, as to the pro-
priety of my action. None of them censured me and Prof. Ross in particu-
lar, though: I might have gone much farther.
t I am said to have stimulated the-e meetings, and to have collected the
students at my house, and to have " made great efforts to enlist their sym-
pathies against the Bishop and the Board of Trustees}" but it is untrue, in
every particular. I did not assemble the students in a single instance; I
had nothing to do directly or indirectly, with any of their meetings; my sons
were forbidden to attend them. A letter now before me, of which I have
5
34
But how, you will ask, could a memorandum have been made so oppo-
site to the truth ? I ask in reply, why did not Bishop Mcllvaine, if he
wished to know the truth in a mailer of such deep interest, go directly lo
the source the only proper source of correct information the students
themselves ? Why did he call to his councils, secretly, four special indi-
viduals to give their opinions of the opinions of the sludenls, \\hen the
latter were at hand to give their own version of the matter? Why did he
examine them apart, and then, in the secrecy of his own closet, make his
own memorandum of their aggregate testimony, without submitting it,
afterwards, to either of them except Prof. Sandels ? Was this the way
to arrive at truth 1
The second allegation is, that " they, (the students,) found no fault
with any thing, or anybody, but the President.". If Mr. Gibbs, one of
the persons upon whose responsibility this declaration is said to stand,
bad carried back his recollection a few months, it would have em-
braced a very critical state of things, then existing in one of the classes,
in regard to himself. It was the subject of an informal consultation, on
his own statement of the matter, in the Faculty, and the occasion of some
interviews between him and me : and he may now know further, that I
was waited upon by a deputation, professing to represent the class, with
a strong protestation against him, as a teacher and as a man ; and that it
was only through my personal influence that a very serious outbreak was
averted.
There was, perhaps, no circumstance in the institution which was so
constantly complained of by good students, as the deficiency and ineffi-
ciency of the Classical department. It was notorious at all times that
there were students present, prepared at other seminaries, who were far
more competent lo instruct than the College instructors, and who could
have no motive to stay, with any view to improvement in that particular;
while those less thoroughly prepared, but desirous of becoming good
scholars, complained that they made no progress, except as they could
learn something incidentally from their more competent fellow students.
Several of the most desirable pupils of both descriptions left on this
account. But there were other drawbacks to the College. There was no
instruction in modern languages; no apparatus connected with the Phi-
losophical department, and therefore no practical instruction in physics;*
several, on this subject, says, " we met by common consent without a call
from any body," " no body could have prevented our meeting." .Neither did
I stimulate them to any action against the Bishop or Trustees; quite the
contrary. My clients and all within my influence were cautioned against it,
and several of them have since given me memorai'dums of the words made
use of by me. I certainly did read the documents, and answer frankly the
questions put to me as to the circumstances of my removal, when the stu-
dents called upon me; but by what rule of rectitude or honor should / have been
restrained from so doing? If the removal was rizht, it need not fear exam-
ination; if wrong, it may hope in vain, to avoid it. The first resolutions
passed by the students, were pretty severe upon the Trustees; nnd it was on
this account I sent for Mr. Lang, who had been chairman, and requested him
to modify them, so as to make them unexceptionable to all. Yet the Bishop
speaking of this action, with his accustomed candor, says, " he tried to get
something of the kind from the students, but in trying to get them to go too
far, he failed in getting any thing." Perhaps I may have an opportunity,
hereafter, of cross examining some of the Bishop's witnesses on ihis matter;
we shall then know what passed in the meeting of the students.
" Almost the only good article of philosophical apparatus, was an Atwood's
machine, made in New York, while I was Professor of Natural Philosophy
in the New York University, and purchased by me for $200, and presented to
Kenyon College. It was my intention to have constructed, by the labor o
35
no sufficient labaratory or apparatus for the chemical department ; no
systematic collections ; nor any of the incidental means and appliances
by which the interest of college students is ordinarily excited and sus-
tained. And the institution suffered in proportion. These things were
constantly mentioned by students to me, as grounds of objection, however
little they may have been apprehended in that light by Bishop Mcllvaine
and his counsellors.
The memorandum goes on to state, in substance, that the young men,
in consequence of their dissatisfaction with the President, had become
disaffected towards the institution, and wholly indifferent to its discipline.
The same idea is paraphrased with some improvement on page 16.
" Dismission had little terror," they say, because it inflicted no
penalty. Students of the best character for morals and study left the
college, promising to return if Mr D. should resign, "&c. These alle-
gations necessarily imply that there must have been a very debased state
of discipline in the College at that time. So great disaffection must
needs have been accompanied by an increased amount of delinquency
frequent irregularities, and disorders of a grosser kind tending toward
dismission, and a more than ordinary number of actual dismissals,
or voluntary withdrawals. I think I am right in saying that these cir-
cumstances are necessarily connected in the mind of the reader, with
the facts alleged ; so that if the former are shown not to have ex-
isted, it will be apparent that the latter cannot be true. And now for the
proof.
I have before me an abstract of the delinquencies and discipline of the
College for the greater part of the time of my Presidency ; from which
it appears that during the term in which I was dismissed, there was not a
single (o/Acr) dismission in the College. About two-thirds of the term
had transpired, and in that time not a single student had been arraigned
for any offence whatever ; there had not been an act of discipline of any
kind, even so much as a private admonition ; nor had a single student
left the College, or shown the least disposition to leave it on any pretext
whatever, i venture to say, another such instance cannot be found in all
the records of the institution, from its foundation to the day of my dis-
missal. Again, the same document shows, in the most conclusive
manner, that so far from there being a debased state of discipline, the
discipline had never been higher. There had been a regular progressive
improvement in that respect, from the beginning to the end of my Presi-
dency. Take, as an exponent, the average proportion of ordinary de-
linquencies, per student, for a term of 13 weeks. In the latter part of
1841, this average was 11 ; in 1842, 10 ; in 1843, it was reduced to 6 ;
and in the beginning of 1844^my final term to 3^. Or take the pro-
portion of non-dd.nquents* during a like term. In the latter part of
1841, it amounted to only 12 per cent of the whole number of College
students ; in the latter part of 1842, it had increased to 40 per cent ; in
1843, to 58 per cent ; and in the beginning of 1844 my final term, it
had gone up to 69 per cent. The assessments for damages also, furnish
instructive evidence to the same effect. In the summer of 1842, it ave-
self supporting students, a working laboratory in the basement of the Col-
lege, and to have made by the same means, the ordinary articles of a com-
plete philosophical apparatus. Timber for this laboratory had already been
cut and hauled at the date of my dismissa! ; and with good seconding, I could
have had, in two or three years, the means of illustrating, in a very satisfac-
tory manner, the whole course of physics, without any outlay of money
worthy of consideration.
* Those who had no (unexcused) delinquencies, or not more than two du
ring the term.
36
raged from $1.50 to 02.00 per student, (making proportion for a term of
13 weeks), whereas, in 1844 my final term it was only about one-
fourth that amount.
As to the number of students leaving the College, by dismissal or oth-
erwise, without taking a degree : There had left in this way, within
one year previous to the date of my removal, 16 persons about 37 per
cent of the whole average number of students lor that year. This pro-
portion may seem large to those who are chiefly conversant with eastern
colleges, but it is by no means extraordinary in the west, in " where the
nature and value of a regular systematic education," the Bishop tells us,
" have yet, in a great measure, to be learned." I could identity a single
year of Bishop Mcllvaine's Presidency at Gambier, in which the propor-
tion thus leaving was 64 per cent of the average whole number, and a series
of four years in succession, in which it was more than 50 per cent. For
10 years before I went there, it averaged 40 per cent. Finally, in
1839-'40, the two years before my going there, the number thus leaving
was greater than the number entering, and the whole number who left,
including graduates, more than double that number.
But the gravamen of this part of the memorandum is, that /in particu-
lar was the author of a harsh and relentless system of discipline; that I
was distinguished above all the Faculty in this respect so as to be notori-
ous among the students, and that 1 was regarded by them, in consequence,
as an object of peculiar dread and dislike. The falsity of this allegation
in substance, has been already shown. It seems to be connected in the
Reply with the idea of an inordinate number of dismissals, of which I was
understood to be the author. Let us again look at the facts.
During the term in which I was dismissed there was, as I have said
no other dismissal. In all the preceding term there were but two
gross and aggravated cases of habitual delinquency and idleness,
and so regarded by the Faculty unanimously. In the long vacation of
1843 one person was dismissed by the Faculty for a violent assault upon
a fellow student, and refusing lo pledge himself not to repeat it, besides
other irregularities.* Finally, in the summer term of 1S43, there were
* There was, however, in the Institution at that time a clique of young
men, (alluded to in my former statement) in regard lo whom il was urged
in the most impressive terms, more than once, by Bishop Mcllvaine, that
they ought all to be sent away. Their general habits and character, were
said to be derogatory to the character of the College, and likely to hinder
exemplary young men of Ohio and its vicinity from joining it. But there
was a private consideration also. He insisteJ, (without the slightest evi-
dence however,) that it was they who had made some attempts upon his
orchard, and said he had loaded his gun for them in case they came again
an instructive example of" that influence which commands obedience at the
same time that it warms and enlists instead of chilling and repelling the affec-
tions of the heart." Prof. Sandels also, leaving home in the course of the va-
cation, made a point of calling upon me to give his vote for ihe unqualified
[dismissal of these young men. They were not dismissed however. Circum-
stances, with which I had no connection, except as their patron and fii.'nd,
suggested their withdrawal from the Institution and they were allowed to
withdraw, without the degradation of an actual dismissal, except in the one
case mentioned. It was some of the persons connected with this clique
who are referred to as being personally friendly to me, and at the same time
dissatisfied with my ''ways and modes" of government; and again, "as
students of the best character for morals and study, who " left College for
the same reason." Their competency to judge in such a matter, as well as
their " character for morals and study," may be estimated from the following
data : They were all, except one, Freshmen ; all, without exception, of lew
standing in their classes; all, more or less, exceptionable in conduct, not
having been matriculated, after a year's probation, except one, and he had
been degraded again. Finally, they had all been dismissed but a short time
37
two dismissals and one expulsion, clear and unquestionable cases, in re-
gard to which there was not the slightest difference of opinion in the
Faculty. The whole number of actual dismissals, then, during a year
preceding my own, was but six certainly not a very inordinate number
not more tlian li id been dismissed in a single term under Bishop Mc-
Ilvaine's presidency, and less than one-third the number peremptorily
disposed of in a single act of the Faculty, during the winter of 1842-3,
wilh the unanimous approval of the Board of Trustees.
But on what ground and by whom was 1 held up as the specialand par-
ticular author of these dismissals, or, in fact, of any dismissal ? Dismis-
sals, and all other specific punishments, were awarded by the Faculty
a deliberative body. The President neither moved in them, nor voted,
except when there was a tie; and the records will show that, so far from
there being a lie in either of the instances, referred to, there was not even
a single dissenting voice. I appeal with confidence to those records; I
appeal to every member of the Faculty; I pledge myself to prove, by the
testimony of Professor .Sandels himself, if I should ever be so fortunate
as to catch him upon the witnesses stand in any Court of Record, that the
attempt to fix upon me in particular the authorship of these dismissals or
of any dismissals that occurred during my Presidency, is a base and
barefaced slander. An instance cannot be named in which I ever went
beyond the Faculty in my views of punishment, whilst there were repeated
instances in which the severity of their views was restrained and mitiga-
ted by me.* But it is said that the students, in point of fact, did particu-
larize me, regarding me as the author of harsh discipline, and finding no
fault, in this respect, "with any one but the President." If this allegation
were true (which it is not) I would ask, who taught them thus to regard me.
The deliberations of the Faculty were secret and confidential; how and by
whom were the students taught to refer to any particular individual the res-
ponsibility of our corporate acts ? The answer is not a difficult one, it was
pretty well understood long before my removal ,and by others probably soon-
er and better than by myself, that there was a lobby intercourse kept up be-
tween the author of this slanderous allegation and a portion of the students,
by which false impressions were constantly disseminated among the lat-
ter in regard to the proceedings of the Faculty. It was notorious that while
no one of that body was more generally harsh and severe in his judgment
of the students, or more ready to propose vindictive and severe measures,
than the Professor of Languages; he invariably managed to be regarded,
even by the persons who were the subjects of those measures, as their zea-
lous advocate and friend; while others who, in repeated instances, were
before by the unanimous vote of the Faculty unanimously approved by the
Board of Trustees and only restored again through my instrumentality.
It is not possible that the reason mentioned for leaving the College could have
been given by any one whose judgment in such a matter cannot be proved to
be utterly worthless.
* Had it not been for my interposition, in the spring of 18-12, the whole
Senior class would have been dismissed, Prof. Sandels was in favor of it,
but it was opposed by me, and by pursuing the course suggested by myself,
I was enabled to save the class, without compromising the, dignity of the In-
stitution. The papers on this subject are now before me. Had I been left
at liberty to pursue the same course (suggested, again by me,) on the occa-
sion of the holiday outbreak in the winter of 1842-3, viz : to assemble the stu-
dents concerned, and reason the matter with them on principle ; the Faculty
would not have been obliged, as they were, to dismiss 19 undergraduates in
one batch Nor would they have had the opportunity to take back 13 or 14
of that number, on acknowledgment, if I had not ultimately pursued that
course, on my own responsibility. For all which I have, in addition to other
evidences, the assurance of the parties themselves.
38
most reluctant to yield even to the claims of discipline, and never did yield
except when Iho^e claims were clearly paramount, were represented as
harsh and overbearing. With this malign influence thus operating against
me, and all the other agencies, of which 1 have spoken, busih engaged
through the winter in exciting the minds of the sludenls against my " ways
and modes" of government, it is not so much a matter of surprise that there
should have leen some thus excited, as that there should have been so few.
It still remains to say a word or two about those not yet fully accounted
for, who left the College, within the year before my dismissal, voluntari-
ly. Of these, one left on account of sickness, and having lost much time,
finally concluded not to return expressing, however, as it happens, the
fullest confidence in the President and most of the Faculty. Another was
withdrawn by advice of his patron, Prof. Sandels, for reasons to me un-
known. Another left on account of inability to meet his bills, and all the
rest on account of utter and hopeless inability to get on with their studies.
But there were many others, the memorandum goes on to state, that
" would go away if their parents would let them," while, in the very
next sentence, we are informed, that on account of the bad reputation of
the College under my Presidency, parents were prevented from sending
their sons. Parents must have been very perverse if both these allega
lions are true; but what shall be said of ihe reasoning which draws from
both alike an argument against me ? Surely, if the sentiment of the
parent is good against me in one case it ought to be good in my favor
in Ihe other, and with greater weight too: since those who had their
sons in the College may be supposed to have had a better knowledge of
its affairs, and a higher responsibility in what they did than those who had
not. But the truth is, both allegations, in any sense that would in the
slightest degree implicate my administration, are utterly groundless. That
there may have been students restrained from leaving the College, by their
parents, is not improbable; it is more or less the case in all Colleges, but
it WHS at Kenyon, as elsewhere, a strife between the better judgment of
the parent, and the idle, undutiful, insubordinate spirit of the son, without
any personal reference to the President or any other officer. Of the sen-
timent of the students, as a body, towards myself, I have already spoken
and may have occasion to speak again. With regard to that of the pa-
rents, a single statistical fact will show that it could not have been very
adverse. The average number of students entering College during the
three years of my Presidency, was 26 per annum ; and during the two pre-
ceding years, under Bishop Mcllvaine's Presidency, only 12 per annum.
If parents were really unwilling to send their sons then in 1841-2 and 3,
what must they have been, according to this statement, (which is docu-
mentary) in 1839-40 ? But by what right, with what color of decency, I
may say, do these secret presenters a foreigner, a young and inexperi-
enced tutor, and an undergraduate presume, if they really did presume,
to expound the sentiments of parents, scattered, as the patrons of the In-
stitution were, over the whole United States ? I have before me the re-
sults of a large and extensive correspondence with parents and with the
friends and patrons of the Institution generally, including several mem-
bers of the Board of Trustees; and I pledge myself to draw from them at
least ten clear and unequivocal testimonials of approbation and confidence
for each single allegation of the least value, (of a date prior to the 28th
Feb., 1844,) that the Bishop and his abettors can produce from the same
source a gainst me.
The last count of the Bishop's indictment implies that there was a
deep, radical, and irreconcileable misunderstanding between myself and
the Faculty ; the latter having given up the government almost wholly
into my hands, "from a wish to avoid unpleasant difficulties' ' with me, and
" with no hope or prospect of any amendment." This, like the other items
39
of this precious document, stands, you will recollect, upon (he single
averment of Professor Sandels. The Bishop might have obtained the
opinions of all the olficers in particular, but this probably did not consist
with his views of" delicacy and caution." He did not even consult the
older and more expeiienced of the Professors. On this as on the other
points, ihe same inexperienced Tutor, the same head of the Gianmiar
School, half a mile distant, and the same undergraduate, were his only
consultants, besides the Professor of Latin and Greek ; and even these,
were not called upon to verify the record. The language made use
of implies an entire and hopeless diversity between the Faculty and
myself ; a determination, on my pait, to carry out my own particu-
lar views, in opposition to the corporate sentiment, and a giving up of (he
matter, on theirs, in opposition to their better judgment, lor the mere
sake of peace.
Let me pause a moment here to consider the weight which this allega-
tion ought to have as an argument against me, supposing it true. If the
Faculty of Kenyon College had been, as the faculties of most colleges
are men of liberal, education and mature experience, thoroughly verged
in the administration and discipline of colleges I myself bi-ing at the
same time, comparatively, young and inexperienced, 1 grant you that
a wide difference of opinion between them and me in regard to the
administration of the College would have been a fair subject for in-
vestigation ; and the attempt to carry out my particular views with-
out such investigation, indelicate and improper. But even then, the
subject of difference would have been entitled to a fair hearing, on its
merits. The real case, however, was widely different from that here
supposed. So far from the Faculty standing above me in the particulars
mentioned, (1 suppose I may say without arrogance, what nobody pre-
tends to call in question), they were greatly behind me in academic ex-
perience and education, as well as in age. They had been collected
together as an academic body, in haste, (in 1840) to meet a particular
exigency ; and were all, except myself, as to college matters, notoriously
and confessedly new men ; perfectly inexperienced in the " ways and
modes" of college administration.* Of the four Professors, I was the
only one who had been educated in a college at all ; the only one who
had been trained to any considerable extent in other departments of a
college course, besides his own ; the only one who had been connected
with ihe administration of any college, before Kenyon. Professor Ross,
who was by far the most efficient and accomplished among them as an
instructor, was yet a cadet when I occupied the principal chair of Ma-
thematics at West Point ; and when nominated by me to his present Pro-
fessorship at Gambier, confessed his entire want of acquaintance with the
administration of colleges. Professor Sandels had been Tutor a little
while in Kenyon while studying for orders in 1839-40, and that was all
his previous experience. Professor Thrall was a respectable west country
physician. None of these had received an academic degree of any
kind, (there were in fact but two graduated out of six or seven members
of the whole Faculty,) before my arrival. Under such circumstances,
had there been a difference of opinion between the Faculty and myself, I
submit to every candid and ingenuous mind, whether it ought to have
been taken even as prima facie evidence against ME ; much less (as the
Bishop would have it considered.) a ground final and conclusive, for my
peremptory dismissal, without so much as a question asked about the
merits of the matter in debate.
* I am far from wishing to disparage any gentleman connected with the
Faculty by these statements ; they are however the facts of the case, and the
very facts on which Bishop Mcllvaine rested his most urgent appeals to
hasten my arrival at Gambier in the fall of 1840.
40
But (here was no such difference. The Faculty and myself were upon
the most amicable footing, in all respects. So far from any attempt on
my part to overbear them, there had not been Ihe slightest disagreement
or dissention of any kind in our deliberations for more lhan a year.* No
deliberative body could have been more perfectly harmonious ; they (in
their corporate character,) exercising without let or hindrance from
me, all the powers which a Faculty ever does exercise ; and constantly
of their own free will referring to me all sorts of discretionary matters ;
and all, to human appearance in perfect harmony and good will. The
assertion that I had private and particular ends to carry out in opposition
to the common weal, is most unjust. I venture to say there is not one of
the Faculty who will pretend to have come near me in the devotion of
himself, his ease and comfort, and the comfort of his family, to the pro-
motion of the common interest. All the experience of my early life had
been a school of esprit de corps to me, and it is not very likely that I
should have forgotten its lessons when called to preside over a seminary
* The only occasion of disagreement in the Faculty during all my Presi
dency were three, all occurring in the year 1342, and all, as I am now well
assured, connected with certain political movements on the Hill, of which I
shall have occasion to speak hereafter. I will briefly state the occasions,
that it may be seen how far ray claim> to confidence as President of th(> Col-
lege, were forfeited by the rule or mode of my action, in either case. First
the right of the President to convene the Faculty during \ acation ! That
body having been thus convened, on business of importance, the President's
right in this particular was unexpectedly mooted and contested with some
asperity by one of the Professors. He was not sustained however by the
Faculty, and in an amicable conversation some time after I succeeded in
showing him that it was not an unusual or improper exercise of the Presi-
dential power. Secondly on a question, whether or not to have an after-
noon recitation in all the classes. It was desired by some of the Professors, and
clainel as a prescriptive right by one, to have all his particular recitations
arranged in the morning hours, by which one of the classes was subjected to
the inconvenience of having its three recitations crowded together between
eight and twelve in tne morning. As the evils of this arrangement were
very conspicuous, and had been greatly complained of, I took upon me to
represent and urge somewhat strongly the interests of the College in this
particular, and in taking the question, for the first and only time during my
Presidency, I exercised the right given me by the laws, of calling for a
two-thirds vote. It went against me, and I gave it up ; but I claim that
the position taken was a proper one, properly insisted upon, and perfectly
disinterested. Thirdly a proposition made by me to adopt an uniform sys-
tem of class marks, with a view to the more equitable distribution of the
College honors, was resisted somewhat warmly by one of the Faculty, as
tending to bring them (the Professors) unduly into subjectiveness to the Pre-
sident. The objection was not sustained, I believe by any of the Faculty.
Most of them were decidedly in favor of the system propo ed, and after a
few weeks delay, the dissentient himself conceded his objections, and it was
unanimously adopted.
All these instances occurred within a month of each other, in 1842; and
were connected, as I shall presently show, with a secret movement of that
period, having for its object to detach the Bishop from myself, and connect
him in a coalition with his quondam enemies. It placed almost every body
on the Hill for the time in a false position, and among the rest created for a
brief period an estrangement between Professor Ross and myself; and it
was then that he expressed his intention to have left " the Hill" in case
Bishop Mcllvaine had removed to Cincinnati, (lleply, p. 35). Professor
Ross and myself, however, had been too long and intimately associated to
be long estranged ; I sought an early occasion for mutual explanations, and
the good understanding then effectually restored, was not afterwards inter-
rupted again during all my residence at Gambler.
41
of learning 1 . The facts would show that I did not forget them ; my influ-
ence a^d vig-Hanre were constantly employed in smoothing liltle matters
of disagreement among the olficers themselves, and whenever the com-
mon interest was assailed or threatened from any quarter, I was the first
and often the only one to stand forth no matter at what hazaid, in its
defence.*
Finally, my private and personal intercourse with the members of the
Faculty was unmarked by any external circumstances indicating Jhe
slightest want of friendliness or confidence. With all of them, wiihout
a single exception, it was cordial, familiar, and [apparently] confiden-
tial ; characterized, in all the relations of neighborhood and society, by
the habitual interchange of kind and friendly offices. 1 know very well
that these external signs are not proof positive that I had, in point of fact,
" the confidence of the Faculty," and especially as ONE at least, in.
whom these si<rns were all very conspicuous, is now known to have been
at the samr time an active co-operator in a plot to destroy me. But while
I confess with sorrow that my confidence in human character is somewhat
unsettled by this instance of baseness, 1 am by no means yet prepared to
give it up entirely. I would ralher be the dupe of an occasional decep-
tion than obliged to live in continual suspicion regarding all kindness,
all courtesy, and all sympathy, as hollow, deceptive, and insincere.
Such was the matter and the manner of the secret investigation, on (he
grounds of which Bishop Mcllvaine proceeded without further inquiry,
to convoke the Board of Trustees. It was not necessary, he tells us, [p.
9,] to have any communication with the President on the subject, since
the question whether we wen 1 running into debt to sn-.tain the College,
was one which never troubled Mr. D. It mijrht be asked how Mr. S-in-
dels, an unnaturalized foreigner ; and Mr. Gibbs, a Presbyterian Theo-
logical student ; and Mr. Lang, an undergraduate, came to be so much
more deeply interested in the pecuniary welfare of the Institution than
the President. The latter had been for years regarded, wherever he was
known, as one of the firmest friends of Kenyon College : He had taken
an active part in the e iternrize for paying off the debt ; and no one listen-
ed more joyfully to the Bishop's account of the success of that enter-
prise, j Who could have supposed that the consummation of that success,
when the debt, with its heavy burden of interest, amounting to more than
two thousand dollars per annum, had just been extinguished, was an
occasion of financial difficulty and alarm ? I conversed with Bishop Mc-
llvaine on the financial state of the Institution several times, and with
more than ordinary familiarity after the 6th of lanuaiy. He answered all
* I might mention several instances of this, in connection with the relations
of the Faculty to the Agent, Mr. While. In the spring of 1S43, for instance,
a proposition was passed round among the Professors, to resign en masse on
account of an alleged impertinence on his part I was probably the on'y
person who discouraged the movement on our part on principle ; an'l at the
same time the only one who went forward to assert the honor and dignity
of the Facu'ty, in a personal remonstrance with Mr. White incurring in
no small degree the " unpopulatity 1 ' of that individual fo so doing.
f I >,piipvp -t <-xn H" shown that in proportion to my means, I have been
the largest donor to Kenyon College. My donations prior to 1834, in appa-
ratu : > ' ' n hase I expressly for the Institution, and amounting to
between 3 and 400 dollars in cash, were thought worthy of honorable men-
tion by Bishop Mcllvaine in his address to the Convention of that year. Yet
now by a mere change of polaritr in himself, he is pleased to represent me
as destitute of all concern in th'- pecuniary prosperity of the Institution ; and
would, if he conM.hv n touch of his potent rhetoric dissipate all my claims to
confidence in this respect.
6
42
my questions with apparent frankness and cordiality, but he gave me no
information, not the slightest hint, of the " alarming" state of things,
which he now s;iys was the ground work of these secret proceedings.
Such an intimation, 1 hesitate not to say, would have been most strange
and incongruous.* He spoke of calling the Board of Trustees together,
as if their action was necessary in the disposition of the funds collected
by him, and advised me in the most affable and friendly manner to make
out and present my accounts, [the very accounts for disbursements against
which he now declaims so loudly,] promising to give me a good commit-
tee to examine and report upon them. Such was his countenance TO ME
during that interval, and yet he was at the same time, beyond the possi-
bility of a doubt, meditating aye, actually working out my dismissal
from the Presidency. For what else, by his own showing, was the Board
assembled? What is the meaning of his exhortation to them before act-
ing, [p. 10,] and his approval afterwaids [p. 12], if such was not his deli-
berMe purpose ? But there is even more direct evidence than this. The
call for the meeting of the Trustees was published in the Gambier paper
about the middle of January. A few days after its appeaiance, the
Bishop's son, who was then spending much of his time in the College,
was asked for what purpose the Board was called together? " To remove
President Douglas," was the prompt reply ; and the reasons being asked,
were given, viz. l\\e fiscal difficulties of the Institution, with much of the
same declamation as in " the Reply ;" but not a word about unpopu-
larity with the students.
With regard to the Trustees, I must caution you not to form any estimate
of them from what you have been accustomed to see of College trustees
in the East. There, at least in the cases with which you are most con-
versant, the selection of such functionaries is governed by some little re-
gard to the nature of the trust, and the infinite importance of the great
end to which it is consecrated; at Gambier, however, since 1840, the
primary qualification has been subserviency to the Bishop. Although
elected ostensibly by the Convention, they a^e virtually appointed by him;
and with due care, smce the date mentioned, that no one is appointed
who is not ready to square all his ideas, whatever they are, in accordance
with the Bishop's. Formerly it was not so. The Board had some de-
gree of independence; appointed their own prudential committee, for the
management of the domain, fcc.; and in 1838, they even went so far
the Bishop being absent as to define the relative powers of the Board
and its President in the management of the property. He assembled
them, however, immediately on his return, and compelled them to re-
scind all that they had done.f Nor did he stop, till in the Convention
of 1839 he succeeded in transferring, by a change in the Constitution, the
whole discretionary power, which had hitherto been exercised by the
prudential committee, exclusively and permanently to HIMSELF. Final-
ly, in 1840, a ''new Board and a right Board" was elected upon his no-
mination, and since then the Tru-tees have had little to do but to pass
and record {he fiat of Bjshop IVlcIlvaine.
Intelligence and liberality under such a system were not needed; they
might even be objectionable; and the Bishop's policy, as he distinctly
* I well remember, however, that a note on this key was touched by Mr.
Wing, before the Bishop returned from New York; and by Mr. Sandels a
little after, vefy enigmatical to me at the time, but now well understood.
Yet Mr. Santlels' salary had been raised from $600to$SOO, only a few months
before, while the success of the Bishop's efforts in raising money was yet
uncertain.
t The verification of this statement will be found in the proceedings of the
Board of Trustees, of March 21, Sept. 4, and Nov. 22, 1838.
43
avowed to me in 1842, having been to keep them away as much as pos-
sible from Gamhier, they were consequently very ignorant of the actual
condition, as well as of the wants and necessities of the College.* The
constitutional time for their annual meeting was at commencement, but
it was so managed during all my presidency, in spite of my remonstran-
ces, that they never did meet on that occasion. There were in fact but
two meetings (at Gambier) from first to last, and those in the middle of
the long vacation. Not an individual member of the Board had ever
been present at any one of the college examinations; nor did they on
other occasions appear to take interest in its affairs, as a seminary of
learning; and the natural, as well as the most charitable conclusion was,
that they really did not know what interest it was proper for them to
take. Such was the constituency of Kenyon College. j
The members of the board arrived from their remote places of resi-
dence, generally on the evening of the 27lh of February. On all former
occasions, my house, which had become a sort of hotel, was the usual
stopping place for four or five of their number, and was now accordingly
prepared lor their reception again but nobody came. Three of my ha-
bitual guests, Burr, Bury and Allen, absented themselves from the meet-
ing, and Mr. Smallwood came and excused himself on the following
morning, having been invited some weeks beforehand to stay with Mr.
Elakel Prof. Ross and Prof. Thrall also expected guests, bui were like
myself, disappointed. The whole Board, was billetted upon the Bishop,
Mr. Blake, Mr. Sandels, Mr. Wing, and Mr. White generally two at
each place leaving Dr. Fuller, Prof. Ross, Prof. Thrall and myself,
vacant.
The business of the session commenced in form on the morning of the
28lh. The Bishop, having read to them, as he tells us, the " exhibit" of
the " Treasurer, " by which it appeared thai the receipts wr.re expected to
' fall alarmingly short of expenses that year," then said, " this is your
1 first information of the business for which I have called you. We are
' more than ever under solemn obligations to avoid any further debts.
' We must make any sacrifices to do so. You see the present prospect;
' you are called to inquire into the causes and remedy of this deficiency.
' I have made inquiries, and formed an opinion, but you shall not know
' anything that 1 have learned, or what 1 think on the subject." Here
was a riddle indeed " the causes and the remedy of this [alleged] defi-
ciency," (the dream and the interpretation thereof,) were to be found
out forthwith, without the slightest direction or hint from the propounder.
But our Trustees, unlike the soothsayers of the Assyrian monarch were
not to be daunted by the difficulties of the case. The way, they were toUl,
had been trodden before them ; and with an exhortation to be rr-ady for
any responsibility, they adjourn their meeting and go forth to the work.
In so extensive and complicated an establishment, embracing four or-
ganic seminaries of learning, a College, a Theological Seminary, and
* A part of the Board, as I have intimated, Was doubtless in confederacy
and correspondence with the clique on " the Hill ;" Jbese were of course well
supplied with, information ex parte.
t To any one acquainted with the circumstances, the self-devotion of these
gentlemen in assuming the " responsibility" of my dismissal, and the grand-
iloquent terms in which they speak of their " personal knowledge" of
matters and things at Gambier, are quite amusins. " Th$ most wonder-
ful part of the whole affair." said an Ohio friend tome, shortly after my
removal, " is that these Trustees should have been so completely duped
into the belief, that they were the authors of your dismissal." " Not all
dupei," I replied.
44
two distinct Grammar Schools with their respective systems of disci-
pline, their various departments of instruction, the means and appliances
of each, and all the relations, internal and external, incident to such in-
stiluiions; embracing also an extensive domain of farms, village tene-
ments, mills, and privileges ot various kinds; and finally havini:, as all
admit, a most mysterious complication of books aiid records in the office
of the Agent; it might reasonably have been expected that several clays,
perhaps even weeks, would have been occupied, even by men of experi-
ence and discipline, in the investigation of either branch of the proposed
inquiry. Bui no; the Board adjourned a little before dinner, and met
again a little after, having achieved that meal, and digested to their own
salisfaction, all the complicated interests and relations of the whole insti-
tution. This wai done, we ate told, by dividing the committee of six,
into three sub-committees and so, by a labor-saving process, making a
circle of domiciliary visits to " every officer of the whole institution,
whether of the College, its Schools, the Theological Seminary, or the
Treasury, except t.'ie Bishop." Let us follow them a little way in this
process.
The two who called upon me were Col. Bond and Mr. Smallwood.
They came into my study just before dinner, very much in the manner of
gentlemen in New York making a new year's call. They did not lay
aside their hats or canes, and my impression is that they did not even sit
down, but perhaps they did; at all events, their call was very unlike a
call of busine-s in any respect, nor did the time or manner of it admit of
any thing like formal statements. They spoke at first, generally, of the
diminution of numbers, which I showed them was an inquiry relating to
the Grammar Schools, not to the. College. They then pressed me to
speak more particularly of those institutions, and I stated, very frankly,
with regard to the Senior Grammar School, that Mr. Sandels had more
on his hands than he could do. He was a young instructor, in point of
experience, and often complaining on account of his health; about half
his recitations, in the College, had been from one cause or other, omitted
during the current term, and 1 presumed an equal proportion of hi* duties
in the Grammar School; that- the students of that instilulion had com-
plained greatly on this account, and imist, to a very considerable extent,
have lost interest in the school. Will) regard to the Junior Grammar
School at Milnor Hall, I declined making .my statements, leaving the
principals of that institution to speak for themselves. The whole inter-
view may have lasted twelve, or fifleen minutes; and the cotMiiillee then
went over to Mr. Ross's, where they remained about five minutes. They
afterwards called upon Dr. Thrall and Mr. Sandels, which I presume
completed the forenoon operations of that sub-committee. Their col-
leagues in the meantime were similarly engaged, as I suppose at Milnor
Hall, Mr. Wing's and Mr. White's office, and in the College with Mr.
Gibbs and Mr. Lang; remaining about twice as long with each of the lat-
ter as with Prof. Ross and myself collectively.
Such was the moc/tts operandi of this so called investigation. And now
I prav you look at it for a moment as n judicial proceeding, involving the
public station, name, and character of the President of the College. Ob-
serve in the first place, that although tho process had been maturing for
nearly two months, with a clear, acknowledged, reference to myself, I
was still uninformed of it at the meeting of the Board; and the hole in-
quiry, such as it was, had been completed, and for hours deliberated
upon, before the slightest intimation reached me (and then from a foreign
source) that I was the subject of it, or my conduct and character in any
way called in question. Observe secondly, the organization of the com-
mittee of inquiry into sub-committees, taking away from it all its effi-
45
ciency as a judicial body to weigh and compare evidence, and making it
a mere dra^ net to collect every species of idle gossip. Thirdly, tne ir-
responsibility of the testimony. None of the witnesses, except the initi-
ated, having any idea of the drift and bearing of the thing, or appre-
hending at all the value about to be assigned to the casual words of an
apparently, common conversation. Fourthly, the power of the sub-com-
mittees to draw out precisely (he testimony that suited them, and re-
press whatever did not a power that was used without scruple, (in the
case of Mr. Ross and others) whenever the replies did not implicate me.
Fifthly, the irresponsibility of the sub-committees keeping no record
of the statements made to them, and giving virtually their own versions
of such parts as best suited them, and rejecting others. No part of my
statement, for instance, nor ol Prof. Ross's, and but a small portion of
some others, appeared in the committee's report. Was this a fair and
honorable inquiry ? Has it a single feature of judicial equilyinit? On
the contrary, does it not everywhere betray the workings of a simple pre-
determined purpose to remove me from office, right or wrong, and a
perfect symbolism among all the agencies for carrying out this purpose'
from its firs! inception in the early part of January to its final consum"
rnation on the 29lh of February ? It is of no consequence how or in ha*
manner this symbolism was effected. I care not to speculate upon the
secrets of the Bishop's back parlor, or Mr. Wing's, or Mr. Sandel's, or
Mr. Blake's studies, or Mr. White's office; nor will 1 trouble myself to
inquire what passed between these persons and their guests, that night,
or that morn ng, or at any time. There was enough in the Bishop's
ominous exhortations and cautions, enough in his significant rrserves
the President not being admitted to his councils to have guided them,
(the Trustees) even without any external confederacy. At all events,
whether by instinct or inference, their actions show that they knew very
well what was to be done; no pack " bred out of the Spartan kind" ever
fleshed their game with a more sure and certain scent.
The Board reassembled between two and three in the afternoon of the
23th, the committee having already completed their work and made up
their report. Between three and five, of the same afternoon, I had an in-
terview with them on matters of ordinary business, and sat for an hour in
familiar conversation, ending with an invitation to dine with me on (he
following day ; and slill not a lisp was heard of the ruin which awaited
me, and which even then must already have been virtually consummated
in their secret council. It was not till neap nine in ihe evening (hat Prof.
Ross came into my strdy, and with startling earnestness exhorted me to
go and see the Board forthwith; informing me undthis was my first in-
formatim not that I was accused, but (hat I had been actually tried and
condemned, and the sentence the severest which it was in the power of
the Board to inflict was already in suspi-nse over me. Then followed
my interview with (he committee at (he Bishop's, of \\hich I hove given
a detailed account in my former Statement, and whirh for (he first time
unfolded all the realilies of the systematic treachery and duplicity with
which I had been surrounded.
I need not repeat Ihe narrative, already given, of these painful develop-
ments (he night of agony that followed the interview just mentioned
ihe tampering of Cols Bond and Cummings on the following morning to
in luce me to endorse my own dishonor by the tender of my resignation
the like plausable attempt of (he former and the Rev. Smallwood to draw
me into a hypothetical defence of my character and conduct, when it
was not pretended (hat either was impeached my final protest against
the whole proceedings and finallv, in a little more than twenty hours
from the first note of warning by Prof. Ross, the coup de grace by the
Board.
46
A brief notice of one or two mis -statements in the Reply is all that need
now be said on these subjects. "A private advice to resign," it is stated,
" was first given to Mr. D. by Col. Bond." This of course refers to the
call of that gentleman at my house on the morning of the 29th, that being
the only personal interview I had with him during the proceedings. But
the writer forgets to mention that there was a first communication prior
to this. On the previous evening I had an interview of an hour and a
half with the investigating committee, in which 1 was distinctly told that
unless I resigned, I should be dismissed; and this alternative was never
after for a moment lost sight of. It was still hanging over me in all its
terrors, when Col. Bond called, with the look and language of a friend,
and exhausted all tfye powers of his rhetoric to induce me to tender my re-
signation, lean hardly look back upon this crisis without ashudder. I have
had many dangers to encounter in the course of my life, and some hair-
breadth escapes, but I remember none with more fervent gratitude to a
kind protecting Providence, than that while thus surrounded with sore
temptations and trials, unaided by any human counsel, I was yet enabled
to maintain my integrity, in spurning this insidious advice. The value
of the friendship that prompted it may be estimated by what followed.
The Colonel, in making his report of the interview to ihe Board, is re-
puted to have said, " He will not resign, we cannot avoid dismissing
him;" and yet within the same hour, the same gentleman, acting as a
committee man, assured me in the most cordial, as well as the most court-
ly pi. rase, that there was not the slightest charge of any kind pretended
to be alleged against me; and such was also, in effect, the recorded report
of the committee of inquiry, as heretofore quoted. Why could they not
avoid dismissing a man confessedly innocent?
The version (hey give of this disclaimer of "charge against me," (p.
17) is, that when I complained " that I was to be dismissed without being
informed upon what charges," " the answer was that no charges were
brought; that the simple fact was, that the patronage of the institution
was not enough for its support;" " a large debt and deficit must accrue
that year," &c. &c. I affirm in the most solemn manner, that this state-
ment is, in every particular, utterly false. The matter of the " charges
against me," was not called up by me in the way of complaint at all; it
was a simple inquiry for information. When the committee offered me
an opportunity of defence, I wished to know, of course, what was to be
the subject of that defence, and to this end I inquired, "what are the
charges against me?" The answer, after some conversation, was given
by Col. Bond; not " that no charges were brought ;" but, that there were
no charges; and this was the only answer, consistent with the committees
report just referred to. The " simple fact," namely, that the patronage
of the institution was insufficient, &c., said to have been stated to me
in reply, is a pure imagination. The fiscalities of the institution were
not mentioned or alluded to by the committee in anyway whatever. Not
a word was said on that subject.*
His next position, say thev, (p. 17,) was, that he had been given no
opportunity of confronting those who had given information whereupon
"the Trustees immediately senta Committee," &c., &c. This again, is
untrue. It is, in fact, opposed lo their own statement, see page 12, where
they say, tc a Committee was sent (immediately after Col. Bonds report
of the private interview,) to urge a resignation, and to convey the assur-
* A detailed account of this interview is giveu in my former Statement, p.
12, 13. It embraces every subject discussed and the substance of every
thing that was said ; it has not been, nor can it be controverted in any par-
ticular.
47
aiice that if not received by a certain hour, a dismission would ensue. '
I shall not try to reconcile these conflicting statements. The last quoted
is the true one. As to an opportunity of confronting my accusers, it was
neither asked nor tendered. The idea was not expressed or implied in
any part of the conversation. I protested against the whole proceeding
from beginning to end. I denounced it then, as I denounce it now, as an
inhuman outrage and I warned them fully that 1 would " never cease to
protest against if as an act of flagrant cruelty, injustice and oppression."
The Reply, page 13, attempts an argument against my claim of tenure
for life, i am represented as having said to the Bishop on a former
occasion, " that (I) was then in correspondence with gentlemen east-
ward, about an office similar to what (I) then held;" and as "every
bargain has two sides," if I did not feel myself bound to slay for life, I
could have no claim to a tenure for life. This statement and the reasoning
from it comes of course from the Bishop, and they are botli alike erro-
neous. I never told him or any body else that / was in correspondence
with any body, about any office, similar or dissimilar. In point of fact,
I nevor penned a syllable to any gentleman Eastward of the kind here
represented, except to decline a very advantageous proposition that was
gratuitously made to me. But if it were even true that I was in such a
correspondence, and that I fully contemplated resigning whenever "an
alternative worth thinking of should occur," it would not in the least have
impaired my claim to a tenure for life. Officers of the Army re-ign
Judges of the Court resign any person holding office for a term of years
resigns within that term, if he pleases.it dees not alter the tenure. Bishop
Me Ilvaine was fully determined to resign, in a certain contingency, in
1840. He even wrote to me about an "alternative worth thinking of ;"
does it follow that the Convention of Ohio have a right to turn him out
therefore, whenever they please ? The idea is absurd. Bishop M.
well knows that the right of tenure is not a reciprocal right in the sense in
which he here affirms it. It is emphatically a safeguard to the incumbent,
against the injustice or bad faith of a capricious employer, and in this
light I claim it. Whether my claim is good depends not upon whether I
might, or might not have been induced to resign under certain circum-
stances, but upon the expressed or implied conditions of the original com-
pact, under which 1 accepted the Presidency, and removed to Ohio,
and thatf/M>*e may be somewhat better understood, I give here entire the
two first letters I received from Bishop Mcllvaine President of the
Board of Trustees, on this subject. The first is written, you will per-
ceive, on Sunday morning, just before the solemn services at the cluse
of the Convention at Mount Vernon.
LETTER I.
Mount Vernon, Sunday morning, August 9th, 1840.
My Dear Major I write in great haste, just to say that I nominated you
yesterday to be President of Kenyon College, at a salary not less than $1000,
with house and grounds, pasturage, ?cc., and that you were unanimously
elected, with acclamation, by a new Board, and a right Board, representing
the Diocese the Board having been elected almost without dissent All
thinss have gone as I desired. My troubles in this respect seem nearly over
in case you accept I write now hastily to say I will write more fully as soon
as I can get an hour. Only don't commit yourself to any thing else, and say
nothing about it till I can write to , and you again. Write me as soon
as you pkase. Yours very affectionately, CHAS P. MclLVAINE.
LETTER II.
Gambier, August 10, 1340.
Dear Major I wrote you hastily yesterday, announcing your appointment
as President of Kenyon College, with a salary of $1000, a house, and not
48
more than 10 acres of land for pasture, &c. I write now to say that the ap-
pointment is exceedingly popular. Only it is predicted by certain, who would
not be a little pleased to see my plans fail, that you will not come. I say
you will and all with me depends on that. I consider the living worth at
least $2000 in Brooklyn. I do hope you will consent to consecrate yourself
to this work for life. Your department is Moral and Intellectual Phi'losophy
and Rhetoric. Don't be alarmed, you can easily make yourself up for it
with your Mathematical mind, and fondness for reading, and ability to study,
you will easily go ahead. We have appointed K Prof, of Mathem.itics
and Nat. Philosophy. 's health was considered too unpromising. We
should not have turned him off, but as we were organizing a College, not
supposed before to have existed, he was not appointed. A new Prof, of
Lansuages has been appointed a new Agent also. I think it probable
will resign his Professorship. All see now that I am head, and will
be, and am powerfully backed by the Diocese. We shall be all harmony
here. is left out. Now I want you to go right up to see K , and
get him to accept. His salary is $600, and house and grounds. I shall write
him immediately. You have a vacation of eight weeks to get ready. The
sooner you are here, however, the better. I rejoice indeed in the prospect.
You must come. I am killed if you do not. You will find things very much
on the m^nd. told me he would not undertake Intellectual Philoso-
phy. That was an insuperable obstacle. But I see now that I have made
precisely the choice. All, even my opponents, say so. Let me hear without
delay. The sooner I can say in the papers you have accepted, and that
K has, the better. All wait to hear. It will probably save us some stu-
dents, if it comes in time. Try to get K 's ear before writes
him.* Yours very affectionately, C. P. M .
Upon the faith of these letters, followed by many others in the same
strain of urgency and conciliation, removing every obstacle and every
objection as fast as it was presented I finally accepted the Presidency
of Kenyon College ; wound up my affairs at Brooklyn by a peremptory
liquidation, the more ruinous because of the universal embarrassment of
the times, and cast all my future fortunes and the fortunes of my family,
upon the prospect of honorable employment, and usefulness, in the station
to which I had been so long and so urgently invoked * Was this a
compact to be dissolved at an hour's notice, at the mere will of the party
of the first part ?
The Bishop would fain have it believed, that my appointment was not
a compact between equal parties, but a pure gratuity from HIM to MK,
involving no reciprocal d ity or obligation on his part whatever. To
judge from many parts of the Reply, I was almost a stranger to him,
scarcely known except upon the footing of a very general acquaintance,
* I have thought it due to myself to publish these letters entire, to guard
against the disingenuous evasions and perversions to which the author of the
" Reply" has thought proper to resort, in his notice of the extracts hereto-
fore given from this same correspondence. I deprecate as much as any one
can, any refen nee to such a correspondence in a public discussion, but I claim
justification on the ground, which justifies even the taking of life, that it is
absolutely necessary in self defence. It has been said that the case of neces-
sity can only be made by the order of a civil court, but I submit with all due
deference that the order of the court does not make the case at all, it only
declares it. The necessity, like that of justifiable homicide, is physical ; it
exists prior to and independent of any such declaration. In regard to the
present case, I ask any upright man to realize it as his own his ri.'hts and
the rights of his family violated, his property wasted, his name and character
vilified, his professional hopes in a measure blasted by the broken faith or
vindictiveness of his fellow man, and he with the evidence of that broken
faith in his hand, under the sign manual of the aggressor need I ask what
he would do? The two letters now published, however, are at least demi-
official.
49
yet it may be shown from the correspondence, that I had been upon terms
of the nrnst intimate and unreserved confidence, the confidence of entire
personal equality, for 15 /ears previous to my appointment as President.
His importunity in 1833, and in 1840, he represents as having 1 reference,
not to the substantive question but only to the time of my coming 1 , &c.
But I submit to the judgment of any impartial reader, regarding the ex-
tracts already given, whether this is a correct or candid view in either
case, and to make it more plain, I shall add one or two farther particu-
lars. In regard to the Vice-Presidency in 1833, the Bishop represents
me [p. 26,) as having " no business or permanent employment," at that
time, and being-" in need of such employment ;" yet he knows that I
was Professor of Natural Philosohpy in the New York University, with
the option of lucrative employment also as a Civil Engineer. He knows
moreover, that the " pecuniary affairs" that hindered me from going at
that time, and upon which he has dilated so largely as a ground of re-
proach, was a simple transaction ( in the stock of a certain company
with which I had been officially connected) into which I had been inad-
vertently drawn without anv the slightest fault on my part. He knows
this, for I stated it to him fully in answer to his vehement and unceasing
solicitations, and I have now before me his letter of condolence in reply ;
an extract from which will be a sufficient answer to all the unkind
misrepresentations now attempted on this subject, (the Vice-Presidency
of 1833.) The letter is dated Gambier, Feb. 14, 1834.
" My dear friend and brother I received your two, well filled, and
interesting sheets a few days since, and had hardly read two lines before
I began to feel very sorry that 1 ever wrote you those letters which in
your circumstances must have been exceedingly painful. But Major,,
you must set them down to my selfishness, and impetuosity, and love of
you, and anxiety to be a co-worker with you, and not to any thing like
complaint or alienation of heart from you. I had no conception that your
difficulties would prove so great or your debt so deep. In the anxiety
and load they must occasion you, I do most deeply sympathise. May
you have the consolation of him who is touched with a feeling of your
infirmities," &c. &c.
The Presidency in 1840 is held up as a pure gratuily.* Although
" the place went a begging." it was offered as a favor to me, a
" pecuniary convenience''; and the idea that I accepted it with any view
to oblige the Bishop is indignantly spurned. Referring to one of my
letters of 1840 in which this view was presented, he tells us, it was
" immediately answered with a protest" in the following words : viz.
' I chose you because 1 wanted you for the College, but believing also
that it would be good for you'; which words he says were written, not
on the 21st September, as quoted in mv " statement," but on the 2d De-
cember, and answered by me on the 16th. If the Bishop " kept a copy"
of this correspondence, I can only say he has made a very disingenuous
* I could show by our intermediate correspondence that the Bishop was
always anxious to get me at the head of some institution in the West, and
I always reluctant. In 1837 he moved by himself in a particular attempt
for this purpose which he had much at heart, and wrole several times chid-
ingly, to me because I did not take the same interest. In 1839, the moment
the Journal of the Ohio Convention was out, he sent me a copy endorsed
in his own hand with my name, and the words " see page 25'' and, on turn-
ing to that page, I found a score round the passage of the Bishop's address
in which he opens the subject of a separate presidency. All hit friends nnd
mine, to whom I showed it, construed it as an intimation of his "first choice."
I do not quote these things to disparage the Bishop's friendship at that lime,
but to show what are his claims to consistency in the position he now takes.
7
50
use of it ; if he has not , he shows great hardihood in asserting ore rotun-
do, what lie could not be very sure of. His letters are now before me,
and the passage referred to appears, not as a protest, nor in the letter of
December 2d at all, but exactly as I quoted it, under date of September
21st part of an argument to confirm me in the acceptance of the prof-
fered Presidency.* The real " protest," if protest it can be called, is a
very harmless thing, and i take leave to quote it is a pregnant commen-
tary upon the position now so arrogantly assumed by the wntr. It
occurs in the midst of other matters on the fourth page of his letter.
" Dear Major, I do not quite like it, that in your last you set down all
your efforts to come here and be President, anil the resistance of tempt-
ing offers, &c. to a ' desire to accommodate my wishes.' Is it only for my
wishes ? But this is a point which between us is too delicate to be further
touched on." This is the allusion noticed by me in my letter of (he
16th. But the most remarkable part of this so called " protest" is, that
while it was expressly intended (so says the Bishop) to remind me of
my obligations as the favoured party, it does in fact absolve me entirely
from any such obligation. " I have had my views fov you," it goes on
to say, " but I have no idea of thinking, or beginning to think, that you
are under any obligations tome."|
An equally disingenuous and detractive use is made of my letters writ-
ten (after my acceptance) to explain the cause of my detention at Brook-
lyn for the settlement of my affairs. By garbled extracts, the Bishop
endeavors to make out that I was one of the most abject of prodigals
embarrassed in circumstances not as every body else was embarrassed
at that time, by the monetary crisis, but by my own sheer recklessness
and improvidence. I will not enter into a defence of my chanicter in this
particular. Perhaps I may not always have been sufficiently regardful uf
the value of money ; but that is not now the question. As to my embar-
rassments in 1840, the Bishop knows that the representation he has given
of them is utterly unfounded and most unjust. The facts are simply
these : Under the advisement of friends I was induced to invest my liitle
capital (the earnings of my professional life) and some credit, in
Brooklyn property. Being myself wholly engaged in other pursuits, I
allowed, as many others did, the critical moment for realizing to pass
unimproved ; and when the troubles came, agitating alike the whole bu-
siness community, 1 had enormous assessments, taxes and interest to pay
without the power to sell a foot of land at any price. J Of course all my
resources for ready money were completely absorbed by these demands,
and I was for a time, as I stated in all frankness to the Bishop, most seri-
* The entire quotation under date September 21, is as follows: " I have
been greatly relieved to-day by yours of the 14th, by which I conclude, as
on the strength of it I have given out, that you are comina : All sorts of ru-
mour had been spread that you had declined'' " I could only hope, but I have
suffered great anxiety" The " questions you propose as to the interference
of the Board, &c. may all be answered in one sentence they have never in-
terfered in such things all has been left to the Faculty all under you will
be so y ou are leit at ease on all such heads. Therefore I conclude that you
will certainly come ; and Major, I do honestly believe that it is your duty to
the Church to your usefulness to your family. 1 know you will never be
as happy in Brooklyn as you may be here. I chose you because I wanted
you for the College ; but believing also it would be good for you."
t The letter was in fact an apology for his hasty epistle from Medina, and
concludes, after detailing; the circumstances under which that letter was writ-
ten, as follows : " Now let us have fair weather again."
$ I paid in one instance an assessment of about $4090 on an acre of ground
for the opening of a street on which I had not a foot of front.
51
cusly and painfully embarrassed. There are many, I imagine, who can
realize ihe case on Us merits, however much HE may be disposed to
myslify it.
It was in my endeavors to extricate my affairs, and mostespecially with
a view to Ihe interest of my creditors that in 1S39 and 40, I declined, as
I have stated, all offers of service, however tempting, that would have
taken me away from Brooklyn. And the question really to be decided,'
when the Presidency of Ken) on College was tendered to me, was whether
I would abandon all hopes of retrievement, and submit, in those adverse
times, to an immediate and peremptory liquidation. Ihe decision, it may
well be supposed, was a very painlul one. Nor was it settled affirma-
tively until 1 was assured that the aid and agency of kind friends would
be given 10 carry out the best possible arrangement of my affairs, for the
benefit of all concerned.* According to the Bishops account there was
no sacrifice in all this; not the least difficulty in closing up all my multi-
farious concerns, public and private; in the midst of the general depression
of that period, on a short notice of six or eight weeks. My removal to
Gambier, instead of enhancing my embarrassments, he affects to regird
as the grand panacea that was to cure them all. 1 shall not answer these
absurdities, further than to give an extract from my letter of the 16th De-
cember, by which, together with that of the 27lh Nov., the Bishop might
have corrected his sentiments on the subject if he had been so minded .f
The quotation is made from a copy which I believe to be substantially
correct. " In my early letters, no matter which, I spoke of my debts,
and the absolute necessity of arranging them before going to Gambier.
Now every body here knows that the most tedious, difficult, wearisome,
and vexatious of all labors in these times is the settlement of accounts;
unles> indeed one has money in hand to pay them as fast as they are ren-
dered. That I have had my full share of these trials you will see by my
last letter, and I counted upon the difficulties incident to such business,
being, as a matter of course, equally well known to you, as to us here.
It was known furthermore that I was President of an important Public In-
stitution, [the Greenwood Cemetery] which was yet to be matured under
my administration, and for which, undrr that view, considerable sums of
money had been advanced by different individuals; and besides, it was
the meajis by which I was myself to realise funds for the payment of my
bills and expenses. Now this consummation has certainly been delayed
beyond my own expectations, yet under any circumstances, it could
hardly have been expected that an Institution of such magnitude and im-
porlance could be peremptorily disposed of."
I might add other evidences to show that my acceptance of the Presi-
dency of Kenyon College was emphatically an act of self sacrifice, that
it was so regarded by both parties, and that Bishop Me llvaine haughtily
as he now speaks on that subject did not then presume to think, or
"begin to think that I was under any obligations to HIM." What then
could have been my inducement? I answer again, in the language of my
former " Statement," " chiefly my long cherished and uncompromising
attachment" to one who had so earnestly "desired to be a co-worker
with me" "to stand by him, and hold up his hands in the struggle in
* I have before me the draft of a letter to a friend asking his advice on the
subject, on the very day (Aus. 15) that I received the Bishop's first letter an-
nouncing my appointment, in which the interest of my creditors is set down
as the most important point to be considpred.
t These letters \vere considered perfectly satisfactory at the tine, as to the
cause of my delay. Yet the Bishop now uses them, by disingenuous quota-
tions, to make out a case against me.
52
which he was supposed to be engaged, and sustain to the utmost of my
power ami upon principle, ihe honor of the Episcopate."* I believed
that Ihe cause of "religion and leaining" in the West demanded such
sacrifices, ami I submitted to them that I might "consecrate myself to
this work" of honorable usefulness " lor life."
But here I am met with a vague pretence that I did not fulfil the object
of my mission Jt is not pretended that I was wanting in zeal, or dili-
gence, or fidelity, or honesty of purpose, my attainments also are pretty
fairly acknowledged "nobody ever denied these things at Gambier,"
the Bishop himself tells us. But then it is obscurely thrown out in various
forms of indirect speech, lhat, alter all, 1 may not have " succeeded in
promotingthe welfare of the College" my measures may not have been
"good ami wise" and the Bishop was " painfully aware that in nomi-
nating me he had committed a prodigious mistake." The legal bearing
of this exception I do not think it worth while to discuss; every body
mu-;t see that the thing alleged, if it were even verified by specification
and proof, is unworthy of the least notice in this aspect. Men make
" prodigious mistakes" every day in the most solemn concerns of life,
but who ever heard of this being made a ground for the voidance of a
contract ? Nor is it of any .greater value as a formal justification of the
ACT of my dismissal. I was not di missed upon any allegation that my
measures were not wise and good, but because of a certain feeling, said
to have existed among the students, of the merits of which the Foaid did
not pretend to speak. The whole thing now alleged is manifestly an
after-thought, intended to operate upon the public mind to my prejudice,
and so to avert popular censure from the perpetrators of an atrocious out-
rage, and in this light only I notice it.
Observe in the first place, if you please, how short the time since the
object of this vituperative insinuation had been held up, by the AUTHOR
of it, as the glory of the College, and a great acquisition to the "cause
of Lilerature and Science in Ihe West;" a man of " great experience in
education," unit'ng with greal "devotion, and skill," and Christian zeal,
the " upmost kindness of manner and benevolence of disposition " Ob-
serve also that these laudatory phrases were not uttered in ignorance.
The object of them had been in the most intimate and confidential inter-
course with Ihe writer, his bosom friend, for 15 years; had been his fa-
vorite candidate for the Vice- Presidency in 1833, and, with difficulty,
resisted his importunity to move to Gambier, at that time; had been
urged by him again in 1837, wilh scarcely less importunity, to put in his
claims to another very high Academic office in the West; and finally in
1840 had been induced to accept the Presidency of Kenyon College, by
consid' rut'ons of personal rcgaid and Christian duly, strongly urged upon
him by the same individual. To suppose that tnere could have been any
misapprehension in the mind of the Bishop as to the character of his nomi-
nee, under lhes circumstances, is to suppose an obtuseness of under-
standing for which he is not very likely to gain credit.
Again, notice if you please, the entire want of consistency between the
nature of the allegation and the mode of proceeding upon it. Fidelity
nnil zeal, and honesty of purpose, are certainly worth something, and in
the very difficult and responsible station in which I was placed, one would
* It has been sairl that my statement of the condition of things on "the
Hill," nt the time of my arrival, was incorrect, and by implication that the
Episcopate was not in the condition stated I shall have occasion to notice
that subject presently, but in the mean time, what do you suppose the Bishop
means in his letter of August 9th, (quoted above,) by his " troubles being
almost over in case (I) accept ?" &c.
53
suppose they should at least have entitled me to a fair and impartial hear-
ing, even though opinions might differ as to the merit of my acts. Is a
man of eminent attainments, whose Christian character, and moral worth,
and zeal and faithfulness in the discharge of his duty, are unquestionable,
to be huiled from his station like an outlaw, without waining, on a vague
and irresponsible suggestion ihe mere breath of human opinion? VV iih
what consistency are his character and professional reputation assailed
afterwards 1 Is it conceivable, in fine, that a man should be so far gone
in unwise measures as to have incurred any formal judicial proceeding,
whose acts had never before in a single instance been called in question.
Wilh regard to the actual merits of my administration, 1 pretend to no
extraordinary claims, neither do 1 fear the utmost sciutiny of fair and
candid examination.* The principles on which I acted had the entire
sanction of Bishop Me Ilvaine,and are beyond all question the only prin-
ciples on which Keriyon College can have any just claim to public pa-
tronage. I hart and still have the firmest conviction that, in faithfully
conforming all my administration to them, I was laying a wide and suie
foundation for its permanent and extensive usefulness; and I believe, n< t-
withstanding all that has been said, that I have the witness of the Bishop,
and the Trustees, and the Faculty, and the Students, and the. Public at
large, besides a volume of internal evidence, to the same effect.
This is not, of course, the place to enter upon a formal proof of this
allege t 'on; but 1 may without impropriety offer a few particulars in the
way of illustration, to show that it is not made by impulse or at random.
Some of the evidences from fact I have already in part staled. It wrs
shown for example, that the number of ordinary delinquencies as wellrs
of gross offences, and the amount of assessment* for damages, were all
greatly diminished during the period of my administration; and it mry
be added without fear of contradiction, that the general regard for ordir
and decorum, the sense of personal character, and Ihe zeal lor sluHy, had
as greatly increased. No one acquainted with the College can deny,
that there was a very decided improvement in the character of the stu-
dents, as gentlemen and as scholars, from the year 1841 to 1843 inclusive.
In Ihe very term in which I was dismissed, more than at any former pe-
riod, it was felt that the College, without any diminution of its external
patronage, had been freed almost entirely from evil influences within
itself; and that it could now be safely recommended to the confidence of
the most sciupulous and careful patent. Do these things indicate ineffi-
ciency ?
That my administration was generally appreciated on this account I
have also shown in part, and shall now proceed to illustrate further ;
first, by an extract from Bishop Mcllvaine's Address to the Convention
of 1841 : as follows.
" The new organization provided for by the changes in the Constitution of
the Theological Seminary, which were completed during the year 1839-40,
* It was my constant aim and endeavor during all my Presidency, to draw
public attention towards the College, and to induce the Diocese and the com-
munity at large to look into every part and department of its management.
The members of the Convention of 1841. 2, and 3, will remember that these
views were held forth on each of these occasions, as a reason for the Conven-
tion meeting habitually on the day after commencement at Gambier.
In t'ie Convention of 1843 I als-o moved and sustained a resolution for a Visi-
tor! il Committee to attend the College examinations on the same principle.
Perhaps some will remember also that it was Bishop Mcllvaine, and
the prominent adherents of the Gambier " Clique" that chiefly opposed these
several propositions.
went into effect at the beginning of the last winter term. It was not however
until more than one half of the year had elapsed that the College could feel
any distinct benefit from the new system, on account of the necessary delay
in the arrival of President Douglass, who commenced his duties in April last.
Since then I can truly say, and none can know the present state of the Col-
lege in its preparatory departments without concurring with me, that great
life and vigor has been infused into all its government and instruction. The
greatest degree of zeal and earnestness animate the officers ; entire harmony
prevails in their counsels ; the instruction of the classes is eminently success-
ful ; the spirit of the students is that of cheerful conformity to Jaw, zealous
prosecution of study, and unusual satisfaction with the efforts made for their
improvement, united with a very kindly personal relation to their instructors.
The College building is now undergoing a thorough inlernal repair, by which
its aspect in reference to comfortable accommodations will be entirely changed,
and the indwelling of the students will be placed on a very desirable footing. 1 '
My next quotation shall be from the Valedictory Address of 1842 ; in
regard to which please remark that it was interpolated by the Orator,
after the body of his Oration had been overlooked and criticised, and was
not seen or heard by me therefore until I heard it on the platlorm;* and
furthermore that I had the personal assurance both of the speaker and of
the members of the Class generally, that it was no unmeaning compli-
ment, but the actual sentiment of them all; It followed the address to the
Faculty, in the following words :
" President Douglass " Our relations with you have been so peculiar
and interesting, 'hat we canno' depart, without some faint expression of our
thankfulness for the friendly manner in which you have uniformly treated
us, and a public avowal of our high esteem for your character, and attach-
ment to your person. During the eighteen months that you have presided
over the destinies of this Institution \ve have daily met you on terms of fami
liarity and confidence, not often accorded to the pupil, by his instructor. We-
are sensible that it has been your earnest desire to render our intercourse
with you, not merely instructive, but pleasant and improving. We have
not been cold observers of your constant attention to our convenience nnd
comfort, nor uninterested spectators of your exertions to add to our means
of enjoyment, by improving the natural advantages and beauties for which
this place is distinguished.
" But I need nof enumerate the labors, nor speak of those traits of cha-
racter which have won our affectionate regard. It is enough to spy, that we
have never doubted the goodness of your intentions, but have at all times
been confident that your aim was our welfare. With this estimate of your
worth, we now leave the scene of your instructions; and wherever our lots
shall be cast, there you may look for those who are ready and willing to do
all that in them lies to defend your reputation and secure your happiness.
Farewell .'"
I give also an extract from an editorial notice of the same commence-
ment, in one of the Mt. Vernon papers, ihe writer of which, (as well
as the sources of his information,) was (hen, and is still unknown to me.
" President Douglass explained some important changes in the College
discipline, introduced by the present Faculty within the last year. While
we have not room to remark upon them, justice requires of us to say that
they are changes that will gain for the Institution a character which few
seminaries of learning deserve. President Douglass, we are informed, is
much beloved by the students and respected as a father by them. Great
improvement has been made in the College grounds since last year."
Bishop Me Ilvaine was seated on the platform at the same time.
55
In the same strain I might quote a multitude of letters from the parents
of pupils, and from students after iheir leaving College. A large file of
them is before me, almost every letter of which is interspersed more
or less with expressions of approbation and thankfulness. Not to occupy
too much surface however, 1 content myself with a single example from
a very estimable and examplary student, whose leaving College before
the completion of his course is very likely to have been charged to my
account. It is dated in February, 1843: " No length of time," he re-
marks, "can ever efface from my memory the recollection of one whom
] cannot regard but as a father. Never, so long as life lasts, shall 1 for-
get your kindness to me while at Kenyon. I think at times that I can
still hear the sound of your voice, warning me and my fellew students,
with all the anxiety of a parent, to avoid those shoals and quicksands on
which young persons are so apt to fall and be wrecked that I can hear
you telling us of the path of duty and honor, and pointing out the way
to distinction and usefulness." * * * " From the improvements
which have been and are still being made in the College, I hope to see
her at no distant day take that station among the institutions of our coun-
try, which her triends would have her take."
The following is from a member of the Board of Trustees, dated
January, 1843: " I assure you I think of you very frequently, and do
hope that things may be so arranged to your comfort and satisfaction,
that Kenyon College may become all that you desire to make it." * *
I trust you will still have patience with our difficulties at Gambler.* Do
not, until it would be wrong to do otherwise, yield up your efforts in the
cause of the first Institution in the west. I know that you have things
to contend with, sorely trying to your temper, your patience, and ) our
Christian fortitude. * * * I consider your service of immense value
to the Institution," &c. &c. I might make other quotations from the
letters of the same individual, and from other Trustees, to the same ef-
fect.
The following is from a prominent clergyman of the diocese: "I
feel a lively interest in your present improvements at Kenyon. The wel-
fare of our Western Church depends much on the prosperity of the Col-
lege; and the higher the standard of education there, the more able will
our young clergy prove, and the greater influence will our church at
large attain to. I wish you every success, and every blessing on your
labors."
The following is also from a clergyman, high in the confidence of
Bishop Mcllvaine, and dated in June, 1843: "I would comply with
your request, if for no other reason, from a principle of gratitude for
tha eminent service you are rendering the Church of my affections, in
your efficient superintendance of every thing connected with the interests
of Kenyon. I want you to feel that the Clergy of our Church appreciate your
able and hearty services. I want you to feel that we are thankful, and that
we would rejoice in any opportunity of surrounding you with an affection-
ate and hearty co-operation. You are serving God wish abi'ities, which
few if any of us possess; You occupy a place on the walls of our Zion,
second in importance to none. Most fervently therefore do I implore for
you grace to persevere without wavering."
The following is also from a Clergyman very favourably situated for
knowing what he states, written after my removal : " As regards the
College I may be allowed to bear evidence to whal 1 consider a distinct
* Alluding to the pecuniary embarrassments, just after the special conven-
tion at Newark ; and in answer to some remarks upon the conduct of the
Agent, by which considerable excitement had been produced in the Faculty.
fact ; that wherever I went you were spoken of in (he highest terms ; and
there appeared to be a general impression among the people that now
things will go well. Your Presidency seemed lo me to establish confi-
dence in the Institution, and I never heard one syllable of doubt or un-
popularity breathed against you."
A corresponding strain of remark was constantly made, viva voce, by
the members of the Convention and by the friends and palrons of the In-
stitution visiting "the Hill" from all parts of the country. During the
sessions of the Convention, the prevailing tuple in the intervals of actual
business, was the improved condition of the Institution, in every respect
of which any judgment could be formed in time of vacation. Compari-
sons between the past and the present, always complimentary to the latter,
were in the mouth of almost every visitor who had ever been on " the
Hill" before.* It was constantly the subject of complimentary language
to me ; and persons otherwise unacquainted with me not unfrequenlly
introduced themselves for the purpose of speaking it.
I have thus endeavoured to illustrate by facts, and also by some evidences
of current and responsible opinions, that my administration was in sub-
stance, as well as in common repute, an efficient and beneficial adminis-
tration to the ends for which the Presidency was conferred upon me. It
remains to notice the few particulars, in which the " reply" seems to
controvert this position, with anything like fact. And first as to the
management of the Matriculation system (p. 42.) This the writer says,
was erected in theory and broken down in prac'ice till it became almost
or quite a nullity." The assertion is simply untrue. The system had,
as it was expected to have, peculiar difficulties to encounter on its first
introduction. The means of estimating the character of the students was
less perfect than it would undoubtedly be after the system had been for
some years in operation-; but in the mean time there was no lack of care,
the wisdom of the whole faculty was employed, to make it in practice
what it was in theory, a moral restraint ; and that it was so in an eminent
degree, I most solemnly aver, with a much better opportunity of know-
ing, than any other person could possibly have.
The Bishop notices also the Patronage system, and pretends to illus-
trate its operation by a distorted account of, what he could not but have
known to be, a special and peculiar case. He repiesents a youth, who
was committed to my care with a deposit of $200 previously estimated
by me for the expanses of one year. After " fifteen months" residence
(having: heen dismissed) " his father [it is said] had been called by me to
p:iy $350 more which he paid [making $550 in all] and more is still
called for " " The father," it is fuither said " has received no satisfac-
tory account of the matter, and the sum still called for, h refuses to pay."
I must give the Bishop credit for no small degree of art in getting up
(his case for effect. How far it is entitled to confidence we shall see.
My first commentary upon it shall be an extract from the last letter of the
father of the youth referred to, dated August 5, 1844, some months before
the reply was written, and covering a remittance of $75 ; " The sum of
* It was on an occasion of this kind, in the latter part of 1842, when this
comparison was strongly expressed by a visitor in the presence of Bishop,
Mcllvaine, that the latter betrayed, for the first time in my presence, but most
unequivocally the jealousy to which I have alluded in a note to my former
statement (p. 25) ; and a very short time after, occurred the outbreak of
indignation in his study, mentioned in that statement, (p, 29.)
57
$75," he writes, " covers the amount of what you have paid, with interest
for a period somewhat over one year. I shall be in New York about
the time of the General Convention [n. v.] and shall be glad to
see you and pay any balance which you think is justly due." The
balance here spoken of, has reference to one, of two or three small
bills, not due to me, but which I had merely forwarded at the request of
the parties concerned. There was some uncertainly, whether I might not
have paid this one at my own risk, but not finding the voucher, 1 did not
include it in my return of bills paid; and it was the adjustment of this
(possible) balance, to which the quotation refers. It will be seen then
that so far as I was concerned the statement that " more is still called for
and refused," is destitute of truth. Every cent rendered in my abstract
as having been paid or pledged by me, was more than covered by the 75
remitted, and the party was even willing to have settled an additional
balance, if upon inquiry it was found to have been so paid. The state-
ment implying that 1 had given no satisfactory account of the matter, is
also, as to me, incorrect. I wrote in succession five long letters, to the
father, explaining with minute particularity the conduct of his son To
these letters I received no answer, and after waiting eight or nine months,
till I began to think of collecting the balance of my disbursements in
some other way, I met a private opportuniiy and sent the naked bills with
a request for their immediate payment, and then, for the first time, it
was made known to me by a letter of complaint from the father tliat none
of my previous letters had reached him.* I wrote anolher long letter in
reply, but while I was meditating upon the means of sending it, with the
certainty of its being received, I, and my family, were overwhelmed with
our o\vn troubles, and this letter, getting mingled will) other papers, was
lost sight of. A briefer explanation, written after my return to New Yoik,
was all that my situation and engagements then permitted. That some
explanations may have still been wanting, to the party concerned, under
these circumstances, is very probable; but if so, 1 repeat it was not from
the want of any possible care or pains taking on my part, and of this, that
gentleman was made aware by the letter just referred to.
The amount of expenditure in the case of this young man, stated to
have been $'550, is afterwards more correctly stated at $525. In either
case, however, it was without doubt most extravagant, and such as any
father would have just reason to complain of; but before the responsi-
bility is placed upon the College patron, it should be observed, First:
That the father, with particular views on the subject of expense, and
deprecating any thinsr like stint, enjoined upon me, again and again, to
supply his son on a liberal scale, and to advance beyond the amount de-
posited, if necessary for that purpose; and when at the end of the first
year I rendered him an account of $320, (in all,) including College ad-
vances for the following term, (a part also having been incurred surrep-
titiously by the son,) he entirely approved of my doings, and reiterated
strongly the sentiments just mentioned. Secondly: The aggregate sum
$525 comprehends several items of extraneous expense, not embraced or
supposed to be embraced in any estimate of ordinary expenses. Such as
an excursion to the North in the Vacation of 1842 $35 for his expenses
home an outfit of extra clothing for the same occasion the surreptitious
bills above mentioned ; (which finally proved more considerable lhan was
at first supposed) and a considerable amount of expenses incurred at Ml.
Vernon, (after he withdrew from theCollege and from my oversight,) the
payment of which could not be avoided : All together amounting to
That they had been received and read by his son, however, was made
known lo me by a token not to be misunderstood.
8
58
about $-170 or $180 which being deducted from the 525, leaves a nett
amount of $'350 for his proper expenses for one year and a half (Aca-
demic reckoning) under my patronage.
I could give, if the occasion required it, many other particulars of these
surreptitious bills and the expenditures at Mount Vernon, lhat would exon-
erate me from all blame in regard to any of them. Most of them were
for articles of necessity, (money furnished by me for such articles having
been diverted to other objects.) These could have been recovered at
law. A few of a more doubtful character might not have been recovera-
ble, but being peremptorily demanded, an.i suit threatened, they would,
at least, have detained the young man some weeks in Mount Vernon,
where his associations were of the most demoralizing sort. In rny opin-
ion it was of vital importance to disengage him from those associations
and send him home immediately, and such also was the urgent request of
his father. Without a moment's hesitation, therefore, I assumed the pay-
ment of those bills, and got him off. I had been requested to act for him
as I would act for my own child, and, whether appreciated or not, (God
is my witness) I did so most faithfully.
The use made by Bishop Mcllvaine cf this case would stand as a con-
spicuous example of sophistry, if it were not lost in the multitude of other
like examples. It is the substitution of an obvious exception to a general
rule for the rule itself ; a mode of reasoning which would at once break
down all distinction between truth and falsehood in morals. With re-
gard to my patronage duties generally, I may add, that they were ever
held by me as of the most solemn obligation, and discharged with uncom-
promising devotion, even in the midst of other and very pressing duties.
About half the students in the College at the time of my dismissal were
my clients, and though it may be that my efforts were frustrated in a few
instances, as those of the most careful parents sometimes are, by the wil-
fulness or wickedness of those for whose benefit they were intended, I
have the happiness to know that, in general they were justly appreciated,
and in some cases conducive in no small degree, to the permanent wel-
fare and happiness of the client.
The next set of allegations to be examined in order, are those which
relate to the expenditures, made or administered by me at sun<lry times
on the College and College premises ; than which, probably no part of
the pamphlet is more unsparingly or more rancorously virulent.* Turn,
if you please, to the 36th and following pages for an example. The
Bishop here gives an account of the repairs in the College building in
1841, and of my connection with them. These repairs' he first tells us,
were oriirinaled by Messrs. Blake and Badger, of Milnor Hall, so that I
was entitled to no credit on that score. ; Ihey were finally assented to,
however, in a conference, with me, on condition lhat I would ; ' make
such arrangements with the persons to be employed that no payment
should be demanded except at such and such intervals." This condition
he goes on to say, was neglected by me, and after a few pariphrases upon
the troubles that, ensued, it comes out at last that this was the cause of
all the financial difficulties of the Institution. " "Thus were we swamped.
Here was the crisis which required the special convention to consider
* The motive to this, will be better understood by a reference to what I
have elsewhere said, on the theory of the whole movement, viz. to divert
from Bishop M. to me the odium of his mismanagement, as head of the trust.
The Bishop has a peculiar tact in this way. At the convention at Newark
all the responsibility of these embarrassments was thrown back upon his pre-
decessor, Bishop Chase.
59
whether to meet (he debts by sale of lands or otherwise. Thus came the
necessity of the application made last year at the east and in Ohio for
$30,000" " eleven buckram men/' again, " grown out of two."
To any one who has taken note of the progress of things at Gambier,
or attended to the representation of its embarrassments elsewhere made,
by Bishop M., a reply to this fanfaronade can scarcely be necessary. I
shall notice it, but as briefly as possible. In the call of the special con-
vention, the Bishop speaks of it as a notorious fact that the institution
had always been greatly embarrassed with pecuniary difficulties. In
writing to me in 1840-1, he represented it as very nearly " swamped";
and when I conversed with him on the subject soon after my arrival, he
put entirely out of sight the possibility of any other alternative than the
sale of the lands for relief. What else can we do ?" was his reply to
every thing I said in opposition tosnle.* The chief source of alarm then
and always, was the New-York mortgage $15,000 of which the inte-
rest had not been paid for nearly two years. It was understood when the
Ohio delegates went on to the general convention of 1841, that they and
the Bishop were to make a joint effort to " stave off" that claim ; but the
latter writing to me on the subject while in New York, spoke in utter
despair of accomplishing any thing ; and it was the ultimatum of the ad-
ministrator of Mr. Ward's estate that chiefly made the crisis on which
the special convention was convoked. Listen to the Bishop himself on
this subject. " Much (he larger part of the debt is owed to an estate in
New York now in the hands of an administrator, who holds a mortgage
upon all the real estate of the Institution," * * * " He will not with,
hold his hand from the lands unless the debt be forthwith discharged," &c.
In his address to the convention. Bishop M. gives an account of the
different items of expenditure out of which the debt about $36,000 in
all had arisen, beginning with a pretty large old score charged to the
administration] of his predecessor, Bishop Chase. Then comes a sum
for improement of lands, and building's, including the noble edifice
erected under the eye of Bishop M. for his own accommodation. Then
his salary for several years, and Ihe expense of his removal to Ohio. * *
And finally the repairs here alluded to, of which he speaks in the follow-
ing terms :
" The last particular in this account is an expenditure upon the repairs of
the College building, and furnishing the rooms with certain articles of
stnndiug furniture for the sake of the better ensuring order and propriety
therein I am aware that some have supposed there was extravagance in
this, considering the indebtedness of the Institution, and I believe it was
made a handle of by some toils prejudice. In justice to the gentleman
under whose supervision that measure was carried forward, I feel bounl
to say that while it was possible there might have been better terms with
the contractors, as to times ot payment, there is not the least reasonable
doubt thai all the expenditure was good and very useful, and the great bur-
den of it absolutely demanded. The College had undergone no repairs of
* Mr. Fox (Sands and Fox, of N. Y.) will recollect that when at Gambier
in thesnmmer of 1841, I requested him to speak to the Bishop on this sub-
ject. All that was wanting was good financial and prudential management,
in the office and over Ihe grounds : Clergymen were unfit for such a manage-
ment, and ihis unfilness was the real element of all our trouble.
t It now appears that a specific asset was left by Bishop Chase for the
express purpose of paying off all arrearages created by him ; viz. the " north
section of College lands." These were afterwards sold for about $22,000,
and the " arrearages" were only quoted at $20,000. Yet the whole of the
latter are put down in Bishop M.'s expose as so much debit to the adminis-
tration of Bishop C.
60
"any permanence since it was built. Its condition was a disgrace. We
" were either to be ashamed to receive students or make repairs."
Tliis language expresses in very moderate terms, the sentiment under
which I put my hand to these improvements. My first visit to the Col-
lege building tilled me with surprise and disgust, at the foul and dilapi-
dated stale of it, regarding it as a place of habitation for young gentlemen.
Early in the summer (1841), I drew the attention of the Faculty to the
subject, got a special committee raised, put myself upon it, spent
some days in exploring the whole extent of the evil, and drew up a report,
which being highly approved by the Faculty, I was authored to commu-
nicate to the Bishop. As the evil was a very serious one however, and
some expense would have to be incurred, I requested the members to co-
operate with me in bringing it strongly to his mind, and purposely kept
back my report until it was known that some of them had seen him in ac-
cordance with this suggestio i.*
The co .currence of the Bishop being at length obtained, and the ar-
rangements made, I entered upon the work, immediately aftercommence-
ment, and in about eight weeks, with unceasing toil, and care, and laborir
and vigilance, having western men and western mechanics to deal
with, ;ind using, with my own hands, as occasion required, the paint
brush, the hammer, the hod, or the wheel barrow ; I succeeded in re-
newing and finishing the whole interior of the building, wood, plaister,
paint, and paper, and furnished it with bed-steads and matresses, chairs
tables and wash stands complete. f
The Bishop took the liveliest interest in the whole proceeding at the
time ventured into the dust occasionally to cheer and encourage me, and
spoke in the most laudatory terms of what was doing, to the Convention at
Chillicothe His letters from New York where he went to attend the Gene-
ral Convention, breathe the same spirit. But now turn to the spirit oflhe
" Reply ;" Is it conceivable that it could have flown from the same pen ?
My neglect in not attending to a certain stipulation, in the making of the
contract, the consequences of that neglect, the accumulation of conse-
quences as the ball rolls on, crescit eundo, till the whole Institution
wa* ' sw.im )t.f " The answer to all this, however, is very brief. I DID
NOT MAKK THE CONTRACT. The workmen were engaged by the
agent; the plaisterer and his men came to commence the work without
my having spoken a word to them, nor did I know anything about the
terms on which they were engaged. I may have catered for a hand or
two in the progress of the work, but if so, it was upon conditions pre-
* This accounts for the part assigned in the reply to Messrs. Blake &
Badger.
t The whole expense of furniture was about $SOO, and of repairs $1300 : in
return lor which, an addition of $2.00 was put upon the room rent and $2 00
charged for use of furniture, making an additional annual receipt of $260 (on
65 College and Grammar School Students) for an outlay of $2100. The
" repairs" were estimated before hand, at $800, but when we came to touch
the plaister, it fell down in masses over our heads, and had to be almost en-
tirely removed. Much of the wood work was also found so saturated with
vermin, as to make it necessary to remove it very extensively ; hence the in-
crease of cost.
JThere is another version of the Mount Vernon Suits, which are here said to
have precipitated the crisis. They were brought, or brought about, to make
another gentleman (the agent Dr. Crittenden,) unpopular, and get him to re-
tign. The chief of them, was for an account with a firm, of which the senior
partner stepped into the vacated agency the moment it became vacant.
61
viously established and without assuming any responsibility in that re-
spect at all. With regard to the furnituie, it did fall in my way to nego-
tiate a contract for the article of bed-steads, but even this was in an un-
derstanding with the agent, and duly reported to him.
But there is still a sequel to this matter more malignant if possible than
the main allegation ; and in the discussion of which Bishop M'llvaine is
enabled to place in striking contrast his devotion to the \velfaie of the
institution, ar.d mine ; for example, " In the midst of the suits which had
now come upon us, when the Bishop, to save expense, was teaching in
two professorships in the Theological Seminary. [N. B. The whole
rank and file of that Institution, including the two College Tutors, was
three Students ! .'] Mr. D. brings in a bill of 82 for that very labour,
&c. highly two Dollars charged for the labours of a vacation by the
President, while the Bishop hao been labouring twelve years in gratuitious
instructions ! charged too in the midst of the embarrassments and trials of
the institution, when the Bishop and all others were considering what to
do to keep the College from sinking." How disinterested the Bishop !
How selfish the President ! ! The Bishop seems to forget that a little
while before HE brought in a bill for $80 for teaching one of my classes
while 1 was detained ai Brooklyn. But perhaps it makes a difference that
it was not brought " in the midst of the suits." Be it so, I will not spend
lime upon these bagatelles. Let us go to that which was the veritable
substance of all the suits, the debt. It amounted, you will recollect, to
about $36,000. Would you believe it, that upwards of $15,000 of it-
more than two fifths of the whole was incurred (either directly, or by
diverting the funds of the institution, to the purposes of the Diocees,)
for the accommodation of this very, disinterested nan! His residence,
second to none iri Ohio, had been built ; his salary for several of the first
years, paid ; all his expenses in moving his family from Brooklyn to
Gambler, added to the debt, and adding also, its interest to the other bur-
dens of the institution for some eight or ten years ! I might speak of
other, local, facilities enjoyed by Bishop M., besides all this : but I let
them pass. I do not dwell upon the things here mentioned as regards
their propriety or impropriety in themselves, but I do presume to question
the taste of a man who, has been so well cared for, and whose con-
venience and comfort have made so considerable items in the indebted-
ness, of the Institution, taking so much credit to himself for his disinter-
estedness.*
My explanation of the obnoxious charge, the Bishop broadly repudiates.
"He had no churn, " he says "no bill of timber was ever heard of by the
Bishop," &c. With all due deference, I must correct this statement. I re-
peat in the most solemn mariner, that a bill of timber was the gist, the es-
sential matter of the whole conference. Dr. Crittenden was settling up
his affairs to leave ; I found a bill of timber charged in my account, which
I supposed had been furnished, as limber for like purposes was furnished
to Mr. Ross and others, without charge. I objected to the charge, and
carried my claim to ihe Bishop, with whom the matter was fully discussed.
He made "no objection to the principle, but feared the -precedent, as Dr
C. and others had built fences, and would expect the same allowance.
Returning to the office, I was informed that the principle of allowing
compensation for extra services in vacation, had been settled in the case
of one of the Tutors ; and as my claim had been refused to save a prece-
* The Bishop's talk to the people in New York and Brooklyn about the hard-
ships and poverty of his condition at Gambler (!) is much of the same charac-
ter. He is a comfortable farmer, with an abundant salary, and money at in-
terest ; and lives on the fat of a most plenteous land.
62
dent, I thought it not unjustifiable to use a fair precedent, in return, to
save myself. 1 accordingly drew up the bill referred to, and called a
second lime upon the Bishop, to whom the whole matter was minutely
and particularly explained. The Bishop, according to the Reply, and
in his account of the matter elsewhere, assumed a very magisterial tone,
refusing to allow the whole bill, and he even affects to repeat the very
words in which his refusal was expressed. I again declare, with the
most clear and perfect assurance, that no such tone was assumed, nor any
such words used, on the occasion. The Bishop did not refuse any part of
the account. The reduction from $2.00 10 $1.50, per diem, was my own
voluntary act ; suggested by myself, on the principle that it would then,
cover the timber furnished/ro/tt the College Saw-mill, and with this I was
willing to be content.*
But I am lo notice yet some other matters (of account) of a later date,
to which the Bishop is pleased to allude in the same amiable and liberal
terms. " All other expenditures," he observes, p. 38-9, " which Mr.
D. involved himself in, were deeply regretted by the Bishop, because he
knew he could not afford them." " He was only injuring the Institution
by such things." These allusions have reference to certain additions and
alterations made in my house, and to certain improvements on the Col-
lege grounds in 1843. With regard to the first; the members of the Con-
vention of 1842 will probably recollect some pleasantries of that date,
about " building three Tabernacles." Objection having been made to
the proposal to meet again at Gambier, on the ground that the accommo-
dations were too limited, I replied with great earnestness to secure the
object, and after expatiating on its benefits to the Institution " it is good
for us to meet here, and if there is any lack of accommodation, let us
build three Tabernacles," &c. The point was carried, and in the spirit
of my suggestion, (as well as to provide employment for two meritorious
young men, who wished to support themselves in the Institution by me-
chanic labor,) I undertook, in 1843, to make such enlargements in my
house as would enable me to accommodate more than my proportion of
the Convention. With very great exertion, these improvements were
ready in season; and by furnishing a large room in the College with beds,
I was enabled to keep open housn for some 25 or 30 guests during the
Convention week, including several of my constituency, the Trustees,
and their families. And now comes the sequel. Three or four months
are passed, and lo ! my own family is turned unceremoniously out of
house and home, by these very Trustees, and my pains taking and labor
to promote their comfort, and the comfort of the Convention, is cast with
insult into my teeth, as a piece of useless and wasteful prodigality ! Does
the Diocese of OHIO endorse this proceeding, in taste, in feeling, in
rectitude, or inequity ?f
* The Bishop makes a reflection upon the style of the fence, as if it was
something extra ; It certainly was a good substantial fence, but with as little
pretension to style as possible, nothing in fact but a rough oak picketing.
He also speaks invidiously of my enclosing grounds" without authority," for
my own private ue. What use? Was it for orchards or gardens or grain
fields ? O no ! My garden when I went there was a very small patch,
slightly fenced, and surrounded with a deep triangled thicket of cat-briers,
almost impracticable. In building new fences I tookin a portion of this thick-
et, lying between the College and the Chapel, and expended upon it about
$150 to clear it out, and make it, look beautiful ! And this was all the use
I had of it.
t I never pretended that I had an original claim to reimbursement for these
expenditures, but as they were incurred in the discharge of my official hospi-
talities, and in reliance upon the permanency of my station, they are justly
chargeable, and will have to be paid.
63
Secondly, as to expenditures of the same date on the College grounds
I had been constituted, at a meeting of the Trustees at Chillicolhe, in
September, 1841, the agent for laying out and improving the (park)
grounds around the College. I was engaged in this duty in the S| ring
of 1843, with a small balance of appropriation, at comman ', which I was
expending, (with the unanimous approbation of the Faculty,) in the con-
struction of a substantial and tasteful path way, underlaid with stone, from
the College towards the village. My balance ran out as I reached the
front of the Chapel, and there I proposed to stop. Butasthe students and
most of the people on the Hill, were struck wiih the utility and beauty of
the improvement,* I was induced (by their solicitation) to make out a
plan and estimate for finishing it, with a substantial gate way of stcne at
its outer terminus in the village. Not to multiply details, I proposed that
if $100 could be raised by subscription within the College, I would pro-
ceed, taking the risk of raising the balance in some other way, and upon
this arrangement the work was already far advanced towards completion
when the Bishop returned from (his first trip to) N. Y. Nothing could
exceed the fullness of his approbation, both of the work itself and the
progress made in it, when we first looked at it together, in coming from
the Chapel, a day or two after his return. " How do you manage as to the
expense ?" he inquired. I explained the airangement to him, stating
that the whole subscription would probably reach $150, and (hat there
would still be a deficit of about 130. "U! well take care of that,"
said he in reply, and so I considered the matter settled. Some time after,
he asked me about the front fence, and desired that I would put that in
hand also, and have it done, if possible, by the meeting of the Conven-
tion, (in Sept.") which I did. The work was not entirely finished, how-
ever, till the Bishop left, on his second trip to N. Y., and of course noth-
ing more passed till his return. A week or two after that event, I called
upon him in relation to the subject, and requested his interposition, as I
had been put to some inconvenience, from having had to advance most of
the amount myself. " Make out your bills," said he, in the most kind
and affable manner, " include every thing; I shall have to call the Trus-
tees together on other business, and it will be a good time to present
them." Alas! could I but have known what was in that secretive mind,
at that moment! but I spare you any unnecessary reflections. It was
finally agreed that the accounts should be referred to a " good and liberal
minded" Committee, and I left him without a doubt that he was entirely
concurrent with me, in all respects.
After my dismissal, as nothing seemed to have been done on this sub-
ject, it began to be rumored that my claims were not to be allowed, and
one or two persons who had balances still due them, called to know how
they should get their pay. I referred them to Mr. White, the Agent, and
lodged a certificate in the office, that the improvements were made by
me as an asrent, specially appointed to lay out and improve the grounds;
that the path and gate-wav, (when part done) had received the sanction
of Bp. M., President of the Board of Trustees, who pledged himself
that the deficit should be provided for; and finally, that the fence had
been built at the specific request of that personage. Upon this certificate
one of the creditors immediately put his claim in suit, against the Insti-
tution; and some interest was excited on the Hill, at the prospect of the
trial. But care was taken that it should not be tried. The Agent re-
ceived instructions to settle it, the evening before the day of trial, and all
* Substantial stone paths were a great desideratum in that country. This
was 10 feet wide, trenched out from one to two feet deep, and filled with
stone and gravel. Great quantities of loose stone and rubbish were also re-
moved from the grounds in making it.
64
the other unpaid balances were then also assumed. If Bishop M. thought
my claims so very unfounded why did he pay these balances which were
a par) of them ? Why did he evade a legal decision, which would have
set the matter at once and forever at rest ?
It was in rel ition to these matters that the correspondence arose, in
which I am accused of having spoken unbecomingly to Bishop Mcll-
vaine ; and which, on that ground, was taken by him as a pretext for
breaking off our further intercourse. 1 will not deny that my letter was
a very severe one, more severe, it may be, than was consistent with my
own dignity, but consider! I was seated in the midst of the ruins of all
my household comforts in a desolated house, writing, peradventure
upon a barrel-head, with a medley of boxes and baskets and crockery
piled around me, my furniture having just been sacrificed under the
hammer of the auctioneer, to meet for the second time a forced liquida-
tion : All this at the hands of my " old friend " A letter is brought to
me. Six long pages of the most refined special pleading, to show that I
was not technically authorized to make certain improvements on the
College grounds ; that the Bishop, though he appeared to approve of it,
did not so in reality ; and that one hundred and forty-two dollars
and tioelve and a half cents, if you please, expended on such improve-
ments, we:e therefore to be siiperadded to the burden of my other cares.
Is it surprising that under such circumstances I should have written as I did,
(a private letter) to the author of these things ? The Bishop has seasoned
his reply with a few garbled extracts. I give them more fully.
* Yon say that our conversation (at the time you promised to make
good the deficit) was exclusively about the gateway. I affirm, in the most
solemn manner, (and there are others to corroborate me if needful,) that this
is diametrically contrary to the fact. We were standing in front of the
chapel, which we had just left, it was within a few days after your return,
from New York you began the conversation by remarking in the most ap-
proving manner, that I had done "' a monstrous deal of work here" point-
ing directly to the path, which was full before us in an unfinished slate.
Almost the whole conversation was of the path. I told you how many tons of
stone there were in it how many loads of earth had been removed what
grading and levelling had been done, and was doing upon the risjlit and left,
&c. &c. The gate ivas spoken of, but much more remotely, and the state-
ment of expenses was distinctly and emphatically for the whole work.
I further, and most solemnly affirm that the deficit, which was then and
there assumed by you, was not a mere deficit in name, but an estimated
amount in dollars. (viz. $130) conditioned upon the fact that the $150 which
I said I had hoped to raise by private subscription, was actually so raised.
I affirm also (hat your language and manner at that lime and afterwards,
were of the most cordial and unqualified approbation of the whole work, as a
great and eminently beneficial improvement to the College ; and that from
that lime to the date of your recent letter, I never heard from you one word
of disapprobation. The indebtedness ol the College was never once alluded
to. You had just returned from New York whence you had written, and
brought the most flattering account of your success in raisins; money, with
the prospect of speedily paying off Ihe whole debl of Ihe Inslitution. Any
discouragement on that ground therefore would have been stransely out of
place; while on the other hand, a little bonus for the improvement of the
College, was not only justified, but under the circumstances, the most natu-
ral suggestion of common good taste and feeling. *
Speaking of my call upon him after his (second) return from New
York, the letter proceeds :
You received the application in the most gracious manner, made not the
slightest objection, said not a word of disapprobation to any part of the
work, and yourself suggested that I should make out a statement of the
whole, and bring it before the Board of Trustees, saying that they were about
65
to be called together on other business. I beg you to note particularly that
up to this time, and in fact to the very meeting of the Board, you had never
on any occasion made the least objection; or intimated by any sign to me that
you did not cordially approve of the whole work. On the contrary, on the
occasion just referred to, your words and manner were most decidedly favor-
able, and such as left in my mind no manner of doubt that you were so, in
feeling and sentiment as well as in taste.
And now, sir, I am prepared to account for the exceeding modesty, as you
are pleased to call it, of my application to the Board. "You had, in the pleni-
tude of your kindness, promised me a special committee, with whom I could
confer at large on the subject of these expenditures, and it was only necessary
therefore to address the Board in such terms as would bring the matter fairly
before them. There could be no need of an ex parte statement where no an-
tagonism was known to exist. The Board were presumed to be liberally
minded; ils chairman, professedly, and to all appearance, my friend. The
hostile and illiberal feeling you now exhibit was then, as yet concealed a
mental reservation in the deep recesses of your dark double mind ; and so
completely disguised under the outer garb of smiles and courtesy, that to
my poor simple apprehension, there was not the slightest ground of suspicion.
that all was not equally fair within.
You proceed to say with a good deal of declamation, that the Board felt
" deeply and strongly" that the works referred to ;< were not good and pro-
per improvements ;" I know very well now, the process by which the
opinions of the Board are formed ; but how does it happen that they should
have passed a vote of thanks for these very works in September last? Sir,
I have the best reason for believing that they had no such feeling as that here
represented. The greater part of them declared to me and others on the
Hill, that they thought the improvements highly important and valuable, and
that they ought to be paid for and, (unless they too practice upon the ethics
of the secreta monita) there is no reason to doubt that a vole to that effect
would have passed, if you had not been perfidious.
A word or two as to the substance of your present feeling you think (and
such it appears was your secret mind, even when you were professing the
contrary) that the works in question, were in bad taste, considering the in-
debtedness of the Institution, and that those who had money to appropriate
to such objects, might better have employed it, in removing that indebt-
edness.
This is certainly a disinterested and liberal minded thought! Why did it
not occur to you, when you were laying out 7 or 8000 dollars, for your own
private accommodation, on your house. There was indebtedness then as well
as nou> and the appropriation of this sum at that time besides reducing the
principal debt, would have saved to the Institution at least 5,000 dollars of
interest money. Your predecessor was content to live in a very humble dwel-
ling, so that he could appropriate his means and energies to the welfare of
the Institution you build a splendid palace for yourself suffering Kenyon
College to degenerate into the filthy p sty I found it in 1841, and when in the
progress of my unceasing efforts to give it somewhat of the dignity and char-
acter which a College ought to have, a few hundred dollars are expended, it
is denounced oy you as a " most unjusti6able expenditure." Such is how-
ever the narrow, illiberal and selfish spirit, by which all your administration
here, has been characterized.
There is one more topic in your letter, on which, before taking leave of it,
I must make a few remark*, viz. your bold and unblushing avowal of thnt
most dishonest of all Jesuitical artifices ; mental reservation. A large part of
your letter is the quotation of your secret mind, as the criterion of obligation
and duty, in diametrical opposition to the plain and explicit declarations of
your lips. I can hardly realize it I ask myself in amazement, if this can be
the same man in whom I used to place confidence alas ! how are the mighty
fallen. But, while I am slow to realize this double-dealing policy, the avowal
of it has I confess unlocked a world of mystery which I had otherwise found it
even more difficult to realize. I now see how your pledges an J promises, so lav-
ishly proffered to me before I came here, have been utterly disregarded since.
9
66
Those eloquent appeals, and that solemn adjuration in the name of the church
by which I was induced to come " and consecrate myself to this work lor
hie" alas! how quickly dishonored and forgotten by you. The smiles and
courtesy with which you received me in public, while you and those in your
confidence, were endeavoring by secret detraction to undermine and destroy
me. Your disclaimer in regaid to my dismissal, when by }our own confes-
sion you were holding secret councils to bring it about: And finally, the
overflowing expression of your kindness and sympathy in your letter of con-
dolence, when within three days after, you were laboring with your utmost
zeal to disparage my life and character, and render me odious and confrnpti-
ble to my former pupils: These things were somewhat mysterious, but now
1 understand them.
Bishop! I speak plainly to you on these subjects from principle it is high
time somebody should do so, and there is nobody else on this hill, who dare*.
The time-servers and flatterers whom you have drawn around you have other
business in hand, and would not, if they dare; and sir, if you are not speedily
roused to a sense of your perilous position, and led under the guidance of di-
vine grace, to repent and do your first works, you are a lost man.
Respectfully yours, &c., D. B. DOUGLASS.
I know this is very severe. 1 will not say that regarding the office and
dignity of Bishop Mcllvaine I was wholly justifiable in writing it. It
was "out of my grief and my impatience" (hat I did so. But I must
say, afler mature deliberation, that as regards the man who had thus
wronged, and was wronging me, I do not see that I could have expressed
mvself very differently. Deeply do I regret that he did not see fit to act
upon my suggestion.
But I foel that there is a mystery involved in all this which ought not
longer to go unexplained. The question which you and other friends
have asked, will naturally press itself upon the mind of every reader who
has followed me thus far. " How could the Bishop, so long, and so unre-
servedly your friend, prior to 1841, have become so bitterly your
enemy in 1844 !" That question 1 will now attempt to answer.
I suppose it will not be denied it \vas a fact very notorious atlhe lime,
that, for some years prior to 1S39-40, there had been a division of senti-
ment, a party feeling, gradually growing up on the Hill at GamMer, and
in (he Diocese of Ohio, against Bp. Mcllvaine; that this opposition ral-
lied under the name of Dr. Sparrow, [embracing pretty nearly the same
elements that had been opposed to Bp. Chase,] and that, somewhere about
the date first mentioned, it had become so formidable as to have made it
a practical question, which should prevail. The collision in the Board
of Trustees, noticed in a former part of this letter, viz : with regard to the
powers of the President, [of the Board] and the discretionary functions
of the Prudential Committee, were a part of this controversy: And in the
Convention of the same year, [1839] at Steubenville, the whole matter
was brought to a direct issue by the Bishop himself.*
The points specifically presented for debate, were certain amendments
in the Constitution of the Theological Seminary. First, to exclude all
officers " of the Seminary or any institution annexed thereto " [virtually
Dr. Sparrow and his friends] from seals in the Board of Trustees. Sec-
ondly, to vest the power of the Prudential Committee, permanently in the
Bishop putting an end to all antagonism from that quarter. And finally,
to annex, pro forma, a College, [which had already been annexed, en-
dowed, and in full operation for 13 years] with a seperate Faculty and
President to be nominated by the Bishop, [another exclusion to Dr.
Sparrow.] The Convention was a small one, but a favourable report
having been obtained from a Committee of reference, the measures were
He had no alternative as he distinctly informed me, but to put down that
opposition or quit the Diocese.
67
eventually carried with some modifications. The party question, how-
ever, was not considered as settled, li I the Convention of 1840. The
steps which were (aken to ensure a preponderance in that Convention, it
is not necessary now to particularize. The Bishop was still doubtful of
the result when he visited New York and Brooklyn in llie summer of il at
year, and spoke determine tely to me and others ol his intention t-> resign
in case he should he out voted. He wasnof out-voled, however, the ques-
tion was settled in his favor, and the resulls were decisive, to uit a ' new
Board an I a right Board" of Trus1e.es; an entire new Faculty in tl.e Col-
lege; a President, not Dr. Sparrow; the resignation of the latler, and
other of the Professors and officers; changes in the headship of both
Grammar Schools; a change in the Agency; and generally, the displace-
ment, hy some means, of every officer, who had been at all prominent in
the late opposition except Mr. Wing! MR. WING WAS ALLOWED
TO REMAIN, not, as the Bishop informed me, because he had ci nfidence
in him,* but because he thought him harmless. Mr. Blake, and peihaps
one or two others, suspected of a leaning towards the Sparrow interest,,
were also retained, and besides them of course, the rank and file of the
party generally.!
Such were the circumstances under which I commenced my Presiden-
tial career, in the Spring of 1841. Chosen by Bishop Mcllvaine as a
"dear and old friend" "elected wilh acclamation hy a new Board and
a right Board" and announced on my arrival in terms which 1 need not
now repeat. The occasion was hailed as a new era in ihe prospects of
the College. At the date of the Convention of Chillicoihe, my adminis-
tration was spoken of as having already " infused new life and viyor into
all the government and instruction." And again in ihe Spring of 1842,
a highlv complimentary vote, on the state and prospects of the Institution,
was passed by the Board of Trustees al Cincinnati. Generally, it may be
said, the improved condition of the College in every respect, external and
internal, was a subject of remark ami congratulation to all (he friends of
the Institution, conversant with it. Even Ihe Bishop's " opponents" con-
curred in this But now in the midst of these bright prospects, when
everything seemed to point wilh unerring certainly towards the con um-
mation of Ihe good wishes andhijrh hopes of ihe. friends of the Institution;
wrnt was my grief and mortification to find ihe countenance of Bp. M.
averted from me ; our intercouse, without any failure on my part, grown
cold and formal; my plans and aims, involving no expense, disparaged;
the popular approval of my admi istration listened to wilh evident repug-
nance; and myself studiously thrown back to such a di*lance fion him-
self and Ihe Board of Trustees, as almost to preclude the possibility of any
confidential intercouse with either. J
* They were scarcely upon terras of common intercourse.
t My representation of the state of society on the Hill, at ihe time of
my arrival in H41, is controverted in the Reply, but not with truth. There
was nothing like social intercouse so far at least as Bishop Mcllvaine and
his family were concerne I. The principal families ne.xt in order, were Prof.
Sparrow's. Prof. Wina's, Prof. Muenscher's, and ex-Frof Bache's; and I
should like to know in which of these, there was any cordial intimacy or in-
terrourse kept up with the Episcopal mansion. Prof Ros a siranser un-
til I arrived was so struck wilh the stale of thinas Ihnt he was temple' 1 , as
he told me, if I had much longer delayed my coming, to throw up his appoint-
ment and return to New York.
They try very hard to make it appear that I had some ambitions project,
some '"' new views" or " claims that were inconsistent with the decisions or
68
While I was yet in the midst of my grief and amazement under these
painful experiences, lo ! another wonder is presented : Mr. WING, as-
sisted by Mr. Blake, taking the lead, in a [glorification^ movement, and
a memorial addressed to the Bishop in the ieai of his removal to Cincin-
nati. [Reply, p. 34.] The very men whose opposition two years before
had nearly sent him an exile from his Diocese, now rushing- to his side
with sanctimonious horror at the bare idea of his removal iron) the Hill.
Then, alter an interval of three or four weeks, came the Bish jp's an-
gry and violent outbreak upon ME in his study, [see Statement, p. 29 ]*
revealing in its connexions and consequences, the fact, that Mr. Wing,
one of the loaders of the late anti-Bishop party, was now in the full and
exclusive confidence of the Bishop; and /an alien.
Then followed two or three days afterward, the [cruel] letter to the
Faculty on the subject of the Catalogue, of which a copy is given in the
Reply, [p. 43 ] The Bishop thinks it was not cruel, but if he can point
out a more insidious device to create a breach between me and the Fac-
the Convention of 1339. Mr. Smallwood. I believe, has something; to say on
this subject; but it is all false. Neither Mr. S. or any body else can name a
single claim ever urged by me that was inconsistent with those decisions, or
with any established rule or law of the Institution. If any thing, I thought
that loo muck had been conceded to the Presidency of the College in those de-
cisions, instead of too little, and so declared myself to the Bishop and others
repeatedly. One of the reasons assigned by me to Bp. M. for the immediate
drawing up of a code, was that / should be willing to concede many things
for the sake of a right organization, which another perhaps would not. (See
former Statement, p. 26.)
* The Bishop gives a modified version of this interview,(p 41 2.) from a
memorandum which he says was penned within five minutes after I left him.
Had he waited four or five hours, it would probably have been less affected by
the excited impressions of the moment. The stamp of the foot of which he
speaks is a pure invention. God is my witness that there was nothing ot the
kind. The phrase " we'll see to that," was not used in the connection in
which he places it ; and the attempt at " explanation," which the Bishop says
he made, was not made at all. Ever}' word uttered from the time I took my
hat till I left him, was the bitterest recrimination and reprimand. In regard
to what did take place, I solemnly re-assert all that I said in my former
statement, and I coul I, if it were necessary, go into other particulars. He
was in a state of excitement when I went in. All his answers were testy and
impatient the answers of an angry unreasonable man; and I changed the
course of my remarks once or twice, to avoid his angry mood. We were
talking of matters perfectly indifferent, when he branched off into an invide-
ous parallel between his labours and mine. I still answered nothing, except
to acknowledge the greatness of his labours and express my willingness to aid
him if in my power to do so; to which he replied with the insulting sneer, as
heretofore slated. When I was about leaving the room, he said, in a loud
anthoritative tone, I want to know, sir, what it is you are grumbling about)
I can fight it out now as well as any time." I disclaimed having any thine
tojl^ht out, and he proceeded with increased vehemence, " you want to be in-
dependent, 1 understand, but I'll let you know I am President over every part
and parcel of the College, the same as over the Seminary." Pestered at length
out of patience, anl greatly surprised at this new assumption of power, I
turned upon him and replied: " I was not appointed, sir, with any such un-
derstanJing, and I never will recognize you in that character." (I conceded
almost every thing, however, in the subsequent interview.)
1 am not unaware of the responsibility of these declarations. I make them
upon my conscience, and with certainty that they are categorically correct.
My habits of attention had been disciplined by seventeen years daily exercise
with pupils at the black-board, and were not likely to fail me on such an oc-
casion as this.
69
ulty, he is more perspicacious in that way than I can pretend to be. I
will not waste words on the subject, however, further than lo give, in the
margin, an extract from my letter in reply.*
.Next, after another short interval, came the pelty intrigue to throw me
out of the delegation to the special convention. The bishop speaks of
this as an evidence of my great unpopularity, but the people had no more
to do wilh it than yourself. By their vole 1 was in fact already a dele-
gale; a legal delegale, incapable of being displaced by any vote of ihe
vestry ; and the movemeni to displace me instead of being a popular
movement was directly opposed to the popular decision. A pretence
was made (by those who knew at the lime that il was illegal, accoiding
to ihe arlicles of ourassocialion) to elect a special delegation to that con-
vention. A little cabal of three persons (Scott. Warner and Sims,) was
moved to oppose my election, and several ballots were taken before a
choice was made. As this was the first instance of an obstinate division
in Ihe vostry since I had been senior warden, 1 asked Mr. Scott what was
the meaning of it? and his answer was, ' we weie told, sir, that you
were opposed to the selling of the lands." This revelation then, seemed
to unravel the mystery of all the recent proceedings. The only persons
with whom I could recollect having conversed on the subject of selling
the lands, were Bi.-hop Mcllvaine and Mr. Wing. The latter in particu-
lar, had repeatedly argued with me at great length, and with earnestness,
the policy of sale ; and putting all these things together, I could not doubt
that the ascendancy to which he had now raised himself in the confidence
of the Bishop, had THIS at least for one of its objects ; and under this
impression 1 immediately sat down and wrote the following note.
Dear Bp I write in all sincerity as in times past. I have indeed been,
most deeply wounded by your changed conduct towards me, (changed I
solemnly declare, without any just cause.) after so many years of uninter-
rupted intercourse and confidence, and after so conclusive an evidence of my
devotion to yourself and the Institution, as was given you in my coming here.
But I am now satisfied that your mind must have been abused in regard to
me for sinister purposes, and I am greatly mistaken if there be not a plot in
progress bo'ling no good t> either of us, or to the Institution. Is it fit that
our little differences shonld keep us under these circumstances, where our
enemies would wi-h to keep us, at sword's points ? There is nothing on my
side that may not be settled between us in five minutes ; and if I have seemed
to give any cause of offence to you, I think it may be explained in as little
lime. If you are disposed lo meet me on this ground, (and I repeat my be-
lief that it is of vital consequence to ourselves and to the Institution), I will
come to you alone at 8| o'clock this evening. Drop me a Jine, and give no
intimation to any one of my intended visit. Yours, &c.
* " Your note to me of the 24th June last, contained no intimation of any de-
sire or expectation on your part that it should be laid before the Faculty. On
the contrary the note and all the circumstances connected with it. gave me
the impression without the shadow of a doubt that it was for me alone; and
that it required no answer. I had conversed with you at my study on the
23d, and informed you of what had transpired in the Faculty on the subject
of the Catalogue, and also that I was then engaged in the work of preparing
it. You replied that you would request Mr. Wing to act with me on behalf
of the Theological Faculty, and the note received on the day following was,
as I understood it, a mere announcement that you had done so."
" Allow me a further word in regard to the subsequent failure of the arrange-
ment I supposed it a matter of too great notoriety to need the form of an
explanation that within a few days of the date referred to, my eyes, in conse-
quence of excessive application, and mental anxiety, were attacked with the
first symptoms of a malady, apparently of the most dangerous and fatal char-
acter, so that it became necessary to suspend all literary labour of whatever
kind, for several months."
70
The meeting took place as proposed, and in the spirit of my note I con-
ceded and was willing to concede every thing (concedable) for the sake
of harmony and (he interests at stake. To some extent I succeeded.
Many strange misapprehensions into which the Bishop had been betrayed
either ihrough the blindness of his own passions, or i>y the arts of tl o-e*
around him, were removed ; and as far as I was able to draw his mind
from its concealment, he expressed himself satisfied. The relations of
external courtesy were restored, and I cannot doubt that this circumstance
gave me the position in which I was enabled to act with so good effect
in the convention for the saving of the lands.* But the designs of the
" Clique," as it turned out, were not limited t-> that object. They still
retained their position " behind the throne." keeping appearances, in-
deed, with me, while the liishop was raising his funds in the East; but
the moment that end was attained, the. blow was struck, and *
Dr. SPARROW NOMINATED BY BISHOP MC!LVAINE as my succes-
s >r ! ! " What think you now," said an Ohio correspondent, " of the
power behind the throne ?"
The Dr. (wisely) declined the appointment, however, and two or three
others have since declined ; and the Presidency of Kenyon College, with
nil its " pecuniary convenience," is now literally " a begging" again.
JFfe will be an adventurous spirit who accepts it, under a regime which is
ready to repudiate all its solemn obligations at the next chanire of the
moon ; and to add contumely and insult, if the " temper" of the victim
should render that necessity " imperious." * * *
I am sorry for Bishop Mcllvaine. Greatly as he has injured me and
mine, I mourn with unfeigned sorrow over the position in'.o which by his
* The part taken by me in the proceedings of the special convenlion, as set
forth in my statement is denied of course in the Reply, and reference is made
for proof, to the Journal. Will the respondent please to tell us from the
journal, whether the books of the Institution were before the Convenlion?
The Bishop introduced them in his address, were they forthcoming ? Will
he tell u from the journal, on what business the house went into committee of
the whole ? and what report was made by that committee when it rose?
What resolutions were referred to a select committee ? and what became of
them afterwards ? The journal is- very lame on all these points. The fact is,
that when every one was filled with doubt and fear and uncertainty, as to
the course to be pursued, and it was unjerstoo that the committee of refer-
ence would only report in general terms. / proposed at a certain breakfast
table, that a direct attempt should be made to get, in Ohio, 100 subscriptions
individuals or clubs. of $100 each, payable by instalments in two years,
and to make that the basis of an appeal out of the stale. The proposition
being approved. 1 brought it before the house as soon as the committee's re-
port was disposed of. After some discussion it was referred to the commit-
tee of the who'e, nnd there debated for some hours. It was the test questioi
between the advocates anil opponents of sale, and no pains were spared on
the part of the former to defeat it. It was eventually carried, however, in
the form in which it appears, and has proved as it was intended, the effective
beginning of the entire movement for paying the debt. I do not wish to dis-
parage the labors of Bishop Mcllvaine in raising the money, though F grently
deprecate in some particulars the means employed ; but there was a time
when the Bishop an I the principal leaders of opinion on the Hill were loud
in favor of sale, an I I repeat the declaraion that it was my motion in the
special convention and the debate thereon, thnt chiefly defeated that policy.
Mr. E. H. Cummings, who len Is his name to the denial of this statement,
knows all these facts. He and Col. Bond know also that the statement of
the language used by them in my study, in regard to Bishop Mcllvaine's over-
bearing deportment in the Board of Trustees is TRUE Gumming? assert-
ed it in terms ; and Bond, with a shrug far more significant than words, ex-
pressed his assent.
71
lust of temporal power he has betrayed himself. Gladly would /have
avoided (he necessity which his wrong doing imposed upon me, of speak-
ing of him as 1 have ; and though 1 may yet have other steps lo take for
the maintenance of my just rights, I shall never cease to utter for him
with reverence and simplicity, the prayer which the Church pus into the
Tips of her children, for " all those who have done, or wish us evil."
Ever yours, &c.
P. S I find I have inadvertently passed over some insinuations which
I intended to expose. But it does not signify.
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