SOUTHERN HONOR AND NORTHERN PIETY: HENRY TUTWILER, ALVA WOODS, AND THE PROBLEM OF DISCIPLINE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, 1831-1837 by KEVIN LEE WINDHAM A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Technology Studies in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2010 Copyright Kevin Lee Windham 2010 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT The University of Alabama opened its doors in April 1831, and over the next six years, the first president, Alva Woods, was confronted by numerous episodes of student misdeeds. Knife fights, dueling, shootings, slave baiting, hazing, the torture of animals, and the destruction of property were common events on campus. Woods—a Baptist minister from Vermont—was never able to end the troubles; in fact, student defiance ultimately led to mass resignations by the faculty and the installation of a new president. However, the traditional reading of Woods’ tenure at Alabama has not taken into account deeper issues. At the heart of Woods’ difficulty was a contest for discipline. He came to Tuscaloosa determined to establish a religiously orthodox vision of virtuous conduct for the future leaders of Alabama. Woods himself was the product of New England’s theological schism between Calvinism and Unitarianism. At that time he was mentored by his uncle Leonard Woods, who instilled in him a challenge to counter the spread of liberal theology by teaching the ethics of Christian piety. This was the charge that he pursued first at Columbian College, then as interim president of Brown University, as president of Transylvania University, and finally at Alabama. While resolved to carry out his mission, he was met by seemingly constant waves of student insubordination. The students hailed from the homes of the planter elite where their rearing supplied them with ideals of privilege, and where spiritedness and indulged independence were rewarded rather than harnessed. Honor not piety was the Southern way and this premise was juxtapose Woods’ theory of moral discipline. These two guiding principles remained at loggerheads until 1837 when Woods retreated to New England. Moreover, these are ii the two ideologies that have been neglected in the historiography of The University of Alabama. The first six years of the University’s history must be understood not just as an era where boys were being boys or where student actions are summed up as the expected exaggerations of adolescence; rather, it was an era shaped by the clash of two great cultures, honor and piety. iii DEDICATION To God be the Glory. In thanksgiving to God, I dedicate this dissertation in memory of my father and honor of my mother. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many professors, teachers, colleagues, and friends deserve applause for their help either directly with this project or due their consistent support of me during the process or researching, writing, and editing. Writing a dissertation is alone a daunting task; however, when coupled with family tragedy, the project can seem Sisyphean. In the midst of researching, in September 2005, my father was murdered. I experienced a set-back mentally, emotionally, and even intellectually. If it were not for my faith in God, I am certain I would not have had the resolve to continue this study. Fortunately, I have the most empathetic and understanding chairperson, Stephen Tomlinson, to whom I am greatly indebted. Not only has he been supportive on a personal level but he has also guided and directed me through this academic exercise, the most rewarding I have ever experienced. Moreover, I would like to think my committee: Wayne Urban, Natalie Adams, Michael Harris, and Beverly Dyer. It would be a great failure if I did not thank my friends at the W. S. Hoole Library, including Clark Center, Tom Land, Donelly Lancaster- Walton, Kevin Ray, Jessica Lacher-Feldman, and Allyson Holliday. My co-workers at Shelton State Community College also deserve my gratefulness as they have persevered through my countless stories of University history. Finally, I must thank my mother Kathy, brother John and sister-in-law Kelly, nephew Clifton, as well as my closest friends—Glenn Brasher, Christian McWhirter, and Jon Hooks—who I met while a Masters student in the History Department at Alabama and who kept me focused and never let me surrender. v CONTENTS ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………………...... ii DEDICATION ………………………………………………………………………………….. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………………………………………… iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ………………………………………………………………….... v 1. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………….… 1 Prologue Institutional Histories Historiography The University of Alabama’s historian and his text The Harvard of the South Alva Woods Henry Tutwiler Generation Excluded Statement of the Problem 2. POLITICAL HISTORY ………………………………………………………………………16 Bibb brothers and Broad River Constitution Israel Pickens The Trustees The Board and Money Problems vi Pickens’ Victory Tuscaloosa Nichols’ Creation Ideology and State Politics Flush Times C. C. Clay, the Whigs, and the end of the Flush Times 3. ALVA WOODS ………………………………………………………………………………44 Alva Woods and the Orthodox Mission in Education Building the Baptist Academy Woods the Whig Alabama’s Political Climate Lindsley 4. HONOR ………………………………………………………………………………………68 American Youth Philip Greven Great Expectations The Schoolhouse as Nursery Southern Honor: Primal and Genial vii 5. INITIATION ………………………………………………………………………………… 88 Troubles Begin University Prospectus Curriculum as a Cause Escalation 6. CLIMAX …………………………………………………………………………………… 104 The ’34 Riot The Power of Noise The Inquiry: Woods Versus Tutwiler A Continued Contest One Way or Another Scuffs and Scrapes Gambling The Circus 7. DECLINE AND FALL …………………………………………………………………… 131 The Final Year Merit/Demerit System Perfect Anarchy The Public Call The Report Protest! viii Fallout Basil Manly Tutwiler’s Fate Back to Brown Reflections 8. WORKS CITED …………………………………………………………………………… 155 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In September 1837, Gessner Harrison, the head of the faculty at the University of Virginia, wrote to his friend Henry Tutwiler: “So the Alab Univ has to begin again. I have little hope of amendment. You have withdrawn from the contest and I trust for the better. You must write to inform me more particularly of your new position.” 1 Tutwiler had been the chair of ancient languages at The University of Alabama, but after six tumultuous years in Tuscaloosa, he had resigned and removed to Perry County. He was not alone; by the end of 1837 all but one of the University’s faculty members had resigned. Basil Manly, newly installed as the second president, inherited a school in dire straits. Freshmen enrollment was down and the students had developed a hardened attitude against the school’s faculty members and its administration. Public trust in the institution, once predicted to be the “Harvard of the South,” had largely evaporated. Even the state’s legislature lamented that “abandoned by all its officers, brought into extensive discredit by a series of misfortunes unprecedented in the history of literary institutions here or elsewhere, and regarded by most as an institution on which some unaccountable fatality rested, the prospect presented to those who attempted its resuscitation was, to say the least, unpromising and doubtful.” 2 How, after its auspicious beginning had the University arrived at this sorry state? 1 Gessner Harrison to Henry Tutwiler, September 25, 1837, Papers of Gessner Harrison, Special Collections, University of Virginia. 2 T. A. Street, Corolla, 1893 (Cleveland: Cleveland Publishing Company), 70. The Corolla is The University of Alabama’s yearbook. Here the editor is quoting part of an 1843 report made in the Alabama state senate. 1 Prologue The University of Alabama, opened in April 1831, was just one of the hundreds of colleges established in the early nineteenth-century. Highlighting the development and growth of American higher education, educational historian John Thelin notes how, in the new National era (1785-1860), colleges, universities, and schools in general were opening at a breathtaking pace. Stepping from twenty-five degree-granting colleges in 1800 to fifty-two in 1820, the number jumped to nearly 250 by the outbreak of the Civil War. For Thelin, higher education had become a cottage industry for the new nation. While Richard Hofstadter views the era as the age when one of the giant steps toward utilitarianism and anti-intellectualism took place, the period saw collegiate evolution—not just in the number of colleges—but also in their type, curriculum, size and character of the student body. 3 Thelin, Frederick Rudolph, and Arthur Cohen, among others, detailed the rapid emergence of professional, specialized, religious, and secular schools during the era. They chronicle how the Louisiana Purchase opened the West, internal improvements began to connect the new nation, a growth in population spurred innovations in industry and manufacturing, religious denominations spread while recruiting new members, reform movements attached themselves to crusades against alcohol, child labor, and slavery, and ultimately they argue that optimism drove each of these national developments. Yet while this confidence led to revolutions in the markets, these developments were also met by chaos in both economic and educational spheres. The Panics of 1817 and 1837 hit the emerging nation hard. Many plans for future