Will to Resist: the Dartmouth College Case. INSTITUTION Dartmouth Coil., Hanover, N.H
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 097 837 HE 005 992 AUTHOR Morin, Richard W. TITLE Will to Resist: The Dartmouth College Case. INSTITUTION Dartmouth Coil., Hanover, N.H. PUB DATE Apr 69 NOTE 41p. EDRS PRICE MF-$0.75 RC -$1.85 PLUS POSTAGE DESCRIPTORS *Court Cases; Court Doctrine; *Governance; *Higher Education; *Historical Reviews; *Private Colleges; Trustees IDENTIFIERS *Dartmouth College Case ABSTRACT This document presents a historical review of the Dartmouth College Case, "Trustees of Dartmouth College vs. William H. Woodward, "February 1819. The case, testing the right of private education to survive, is presented in light of the chronological order of events as well as characterizations of the principal actors. (MJM) 1 1 , if BEST COPY AVAILABLE WILL TO RESIST The Dartmouth College Case By RICHARD W. MORIN '24 US DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. Librarian of the College, Emeritus EDUCATION & WELFARE MATIOMAL INSTITUTE Of EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO DIKED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED 'ROM THE PERSON OR of/GA(4am 101.4 ORIGIN ATIN6IT POINTS OE WEIN OR OPINIONS STATEN Port NOT NECESSARILY REPRE St NT tlf I or 'AL NATIONAL INSTITUTE Or I DU, A T ION POSIT ION OR POI IC Y 150 years ago, in February 1819, the United States Supreme Court in the case of "Trustees of Dartmouth College vs. William H. Woodward" ren- dered one of its landmark decisions. In a new account that concentrates on the College side of the case, Mr. Mono tells the full story of the controversy, from the first campus quarrel to the climax in Washington, where Daniel Webster successfully defended the independence of his alma mom .1.. 1. ,11,{{,..oliino,1111git,,,,,,U,1/11.{0111/111111Mhal 111111"1,111111.111011,111t111,11,11111111110!101.',U.111.110.1,,,t DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE, April 1969 Tfir Dartmouth College Case belongs to two socie- st.,:ceed him. His older brother, Ralph, who was his father's ties. The firstis the Dartmouth College family first choice as successor, had become incurablyill. The itself; the second is the larger community of legal founder's second choice was his stepson, the Rev. John scholars end practitioners, and Constitutional his- Maltby, whose death preceded Dr. Wheelxk's. There ap- torians. the College family tends to view with a mixture of pears to have been no consideration given to a selection out- pride and regret this required sharing. The second society side the family. That a son should inherit the presidency the professional one regards the members of the first with followed naturally upon the founder's custom of looking upon a kind of amused tolerance. Unmoved by the dramatic rescue the College as a private family preserve. After all, to whom of a "small college.- the professional society indulges the did the College owe its existence? To George III in theory; Dartmouth College family only so long as it does not insist to Colonial Governor John Wentworth as the instrument of on dealing in misty-eyed irrelevancies in its claim on the the sovereign; but to Eleazar Wheelock in fact. On whom Case. It will not long be in doubt which of the two constituen- rested the authority not only for the day-to-day life of the Col- cies is the more favored in the following account. lege but for its fundamental direction and supervision? In Chartered in 1769 in the name of the British sovereign, theory on the Trustees perhaps; but in practice this responsi- George III. Dartmouth, the last of the Colonial colleges, was bility was Eleazar's and his alone. Equally spontaneous was predesigned to test, fifty years later before the United States it for John Wheelock, once in office, to view himselfs in Supreme Court, the right of private education to survive. every way his father's natural successor, in authority as well Behind the historic decision in Trustees of Dartmouth Col- as title. lrge r. William H. Woodward, known to lawyers and laymen For the next 25 years John Wheelock reigned without chal- alike as the Dartmouth College Case, lay years of upheaval lenge. dedicated and despotic. The early part of his rule was and bitterness which cast into balance the very life of the generally beneficial to the institution, despite his disposition institution. This festering torment, ended only by Chief Jus- to find too often an identity between his own interests and tice Marshall's opinion in 1819. took shape in the opening those of the College. This relatively smooth course might have years of the nineteenth century. But it might be said to have continued indefinitely had no changes occurred in the makeup had its earliest beginning; in a provision of the charter itself of the Board of Trustees. However, as Trustee replacements which authorized Eleazar Wheelock. founder and first Presi- occurred in the early years of the nineteenth century, serene dent of the College. to name his own successor as President. acceptance by the Board of all presidential acts began to At the time, in view of Eleazar Wheelock's single-handed ele- fade, and in the face of opposition. John Wheelock exposed vation of the College from a dream to a reality, nothing could qualities of wilfulness which had not before come harmfully have seemed more natural than the granting to him of such a to the surface in his official conduct. power. In fact, at the moment of the College's birth, and for The instrument for polarizing Trustee opposition to John long thereafter, it was impossible to distinguish between it Wheelock was Nathaniel Niles. Llected to the Board as early and Wheelock. so completely did the former depend upon the as 1793, Niles was a Princeton graduate and resident of energy. resourcefulness, and determination of thelatter. Fairlee, Vt. Qualified both as a lawyer and as a minister, he Though tnc charter vested the supervision of the College remained oti the Board until 1820, a lone Republican* among in twelve Trustees of which Wheelock was but one, it was Federalists. At first the Board's only independent voice, he Wheelock who had in fact selected most of the Trustees was joined in 1801 by Thomas W. Thompson of Concord, appointed by the charter, and acquiesced in the remainder. N, H., a Harvard graduate, lawyer, Federalist Member of Con- Throughout Eleazar Wheelock's life those Trustees and their gress, and later United States Senator. The next potential dis- successors were content to leave to the founding father the senter was Timothy Farrar, New Hampshire resident, graduate entire control of the institutimi. His skillful guidance seemed of Harvard, lawyer, and judge, who became a Trustee in 1804. to them evidence of the wisdom of such a course, and when Following him was Elijah Paine of Williamstown, Vt., elected Elcazar Wheelock by his will appointed his son John to suc- to the Board in 1806. Like Farrar, Paine was a lawyer-judge; eced him it is probable that none among the Trustees con- he was, moreover, a former United States Senator. Two ceived that a day could come when the Board would choose to exercise its charter power to remove John Wheelock from the presidency. On the contrary their dominant concern was * Based on Jeffersonian principles the Republican Party, as it of- to persuade John Wheelock to accept the office, in the face ficially called itself, held control of the Presidency of the United of his own reluctance to do so. States throughout most of the first half of the nineteenth century. In New Hampshire it was ascendant during the liveliest part of the Putting aside his personal preferences, John Wheelock College controversy. Though its members were known, almost inter- became the second President of Dartmouth College on Oc- changeably, as "Republicans" or "Democrats," only the former term is used here, in the interest of consistency. quotations excepted. By tober 19. 1779 at the age of 25. He was the second son of the 1830s the terms "Democratic Party" and "Democrats" had be Eleazar, and actually had been his father's third choice to come more common. Bar COPY411111111E Trustees died between the annual meetings of 1808 and 1809. President alone but in a majority of the "Executive Officers" One was old Professor John Smith, friend, admirer and sub- of whom the President was only one, and the faculty the servient of both the Wheelocks, Dartmouth teacher since balance. 1774 and Trustee since 1788, and a central factor in the Other blows to the President occurred. In addition to the church controversy later described. These two vacancies were death of the pliable Professor Smith, he lost by the same tilled at the August 1809 annual meeting by the elections of cause a second supporter on the faculty. Their replacements, Charles Marsh of Woodstock, Vt., a Dartmouth graduate Professor Ebenezer Adams and Rev. Zephaniah Swift Moore, during John Wheelock s presidency and a lawyer by profes- threatened his hegemony within the institution. Moore had sion who had declined appointment to the Vermont Supreme been chosen by the Trustees contrary to Wheelock's express Court; and Asa McFarland, also a Dartmouth graduate in desire that the appointment be accorded to his sycophantic the John Wheelock era, a former Dartmouth tutor, and at friend, the Rev. Elijah Parish. The wisdom of the Trustees the time of his election the pastor of the First Congregational was demonstrated when Parish later L.-;ned Wheelock in his Church in Concord, N. H. Thus by 1809 there were already anonymously printed attacks on the Board. in office six of the eight Trustees later to make up the famous The Octagon was completed in 1813 when the Rev.