Lane Seminary

Lane Seminary, sometimes called Cincinnati Lane Seminary,

Its board intended it to be "a great central theological institution at Cincinnati — soon to become the great Andover or Princeton of the West." However, the founding and first years of Lane were difficult and contentious, culminating in a mass student exodus over the issue of slavery, or more specifically whether students were permitted to discuss the topic publicly, the first major academic freedom incident in America. There was strong pro-slavery sentiment in Cincinnati, and the trustees immediately prohibited further discussion of the topic, to avoid repercussions. With the city being on the border of the South, a lot of fugitive slaves and freedmen went through Cincinnati, including James Bradley, who would participate in the pivotal Lane slavery debates in the 1830s. Their competition for jobs had led to the anti-abolitionist Cincinnati riots of 1829 and would soon produce the Cincinnati riots of 1836.

Inauguration

"The founding of Lane Seminary was accomplished after years of sometimes disparate efforts on the part of a large number of people." "Walnut Hill was a pretty little village, quite distant from Cincinnati, the first stopping-place for the stage on the Madisonville or some other northern Ohio route." "The location of Lane Seminary is in the midst of a most beautiful landscape. There is just enough, and just the right admixture of hills and dale, forest and field, to give it the effect we love in gazing upon a calm and quiet scene of beauty," wrote a visiting minister in 1842.

A board was set up in October 1828, and the Ohio General Assembly issued a charter on February 11, 1829, specifying that the manual labor system would be "the fundamental principle" of the Seminary. In July, 1830, Beckwith visited the Oneida Institute and wrote back to Cincinnati that manual labor worked well and that the farmers and mechanics of the neighborhood approved of it. He resigned in August 1830.

The Oneida Institute and Lane

thumb|Theodore Dwight Weld, leader of the Lane Rebels

By coincidence, the local efforts to set up a seminary fit with the desires of the Tappan philanthropists, Arthur and Lewis, to found a seminary in what was then the growing west of the new country. Lane, Weld concluded, would do as a manual labor theological school, if Beecher would come. "Such an institution would undoubtedly attract many of Weld's associates who had been disappointed in the failure to establish theological instruction at the Oneida Institute." The house the Beecher family lived in is now known as the Harriet Beecher Stowe House.

A contemporary commentator points to the work on rafts as reflecting the students' experience with manual labor at Oneida.

A modern retelling of the same incident:

"[T]he institution itself is second in importance to no other in the United States." Beecher "assured us that he had more brains in this theological camp than could be found in any other in the United States." What he says about Oberlin is roughly correct, but none of the black students at Oneida moved to Lane. The one black student currently known of at Lane, James Bradley, by his own description "so ignorant, that I suppose it will take me two years to get up with the lowest class in the institution," despite Beecher's regret felt it wiser not to attend a student gathering at Beecher's home. as was Harriet Beecher Stowe, daughter of Lane's president. They were nominally on the topic of colonization of freed slaves, on sending them to (not "back to") Africa.

They were publicized nationally and influenced the nation's thinking about slavery, creating support for abolition. and Garrison and Knapp, printers of The Liberator and most books on slavery in the U.S. in the early 1830s, issued it in pamphlet form. A seven-page response, under the title "Education and slavery", appeared in the Cincinnati-based Western Monthly Magazine; Weld published a lengthy reply. The affair got further publicity late in 1834, when 51 of the Lane students — the vast majority — published a 28-page pamphlet, A statement of the reasons which induced the students of Lane Seminary, to dissolve their connection with that institution (Cincinnati, 1834).

Background

The abolition–colonization controversy

Part of "the negro problem", as it was seen in the antebellum United States, was the question of what to do with former slaves who had become free. Since the eighteenth century, Quakers and others had preached the sinfulness of slave ownership, and the number of freedmen (and freed women) was rising and showed every sign that it would continue to grow. The freed slaves married and had children, so the number of free people of color (Blacks born free) was rising even faster. Some owners freed their slaves in their wills. Philanthropic societies and individuals raised or donated funds to purchase slaves' freedom; freedmen sometimes were able to purchase the freedom of family members. In some Northern cities there were more than a handful of escaped slaves.

The status of these free blacks was anything but comfortable. They were not citizens and in most states could not vote. They had no access to the courts or protection by the police. In no state could their children attend the public schools. They were subject to discriminatory treatment in everyday life.

The original "remedy" for this problem was to help them go "back to Africa". The British had been doing this, in Sierra Leone, moving former American slaves there who had gained their freedom by escaping to British lines during the American Revolution, and who found Nova Scotia, where the British took many of them, too cold. The British also took to Sierra Leone slaves captured from slaving ships who were being smuggled illegally across the Atlantic to North America. A well-to-do African-American shipowner, Paul Cuffe, transported some former slaves to Sierra Leone.

However, sending former slaves to a British colony as a policy was politically unacceptable. The American Colonization Society was formed to help found a new, American colony of freed blacks. Although there was some talk of locating the colony in the American territories of the Midwest, or on the Pacific coast—a sort of reservation for Blacks—what was decided was to follow the English example and start an African colony. The closest available land was what became Liberia.

The rejection of colonization

The colonization project got off to a promising start, with various governmental and private donations and the participation of distinguished individuals: U.S. presidents Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison; Senator Henry Clay, who presided over its first meeting; as well as most of the future white abolitionists. The problem had been solved, and in an honorable way; the former slaves would fare better in Africa, it was argued, among other blacks.

The situation quickly started to unravel. First of all, the disease rates among the new colonists were the highest since accurate record-keeping began. Over 50% of them died of malaria and other diseases.

Particularly telling to Gerrit Smith, an abolitionist philanthropist, was that the American Colonization Society allowed the sale of alcohol (as well as guns and chewing tobacco) in the colonies that became Liberia. He commented on it in the Society's African Repository magazine. Smith was for temperance, and according to him, the fact that blacks in Africa were allowed to import liquor from the United States revealed the true goals of many of the white members of the American Colonization Society: to get rid of the Blacks without having them up north.

Weld organizes "debates"

Lyman Beecher, head of the Seminary, was a colonizationist, At Lane there was a "colonization society", supporting the efforts of the American Colonization Society to send free blacks to Africa, to Liberia. How it came to be is not known, but it was there when the Oneida contingent and friends arrived. There had been similar groups at Western Reserve and other colleges.

Weld read William Lloyd Garrison's new abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, begun in 1831, and his Thoughts on African Colonization, which appeared in 1832. These had a great influence at the other eastern Ohio college, Western Reserve College, leading to Beriah Green's four published sermons, and his relocation under pressure to Gale's school, Oneida. What Garrison desired, and he convinced Green, was "immediatism": immediate, complete, and uncompensated freeing of all slaves.

Over a period of several months Weld convinced nearly all of the students individually of the superiority of the abolitionist view. To generate publicity for the abolitionist cause, Weld announced a series of "debates". Weld "had no intention of holding a debate on the pros and cons of antislavery." In his correspondence Weld informed friends that he was trying to get the anti-slavery (immediatist) argument and evidence out to as many people as possible. Nevertheless, what was announced was debates, on two points.

When the merits of the proposed solutions to slavery were debated over 18 days at the Seminary in February 1834, it was one of the first major public discussions of the topic, but it was more of an anti-slavery revival than a "debate". No speaker appeared to defend either American slavery or the colonization project.

The stated topics of the debates

The two specific questions addressed were:

"Ought the people of the slaveholding states abolish slavery immediately?", and
"Are the doctrines, tendencies, and measures of the American Colonization Society, and the influence of its principal supporters, such as render it worthy of the patronage of the Christian public?"

The debates were not transcribed, and there was no attempt afterwards, as there would be later with Pennsylvania Hall, to collect the texts which were written out — not all were — and make a booklet of them. However, Garrison promptly published a pamphlet,

Participants

Notable people present

"The President, and the members of the faculty, with one exception [Biggs, an "implacable foe" of abolitionism

Gamaliel Bailey, physician, lecturer on physiology at Lane, who went on to become an abolitionist newspaper editor.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, at that time simply Harriet Beecher, daughter of Lane's president; 18 years later published Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Henry Ward Beecher, alumnus, minister, called, after his father Lyman, "the most noted minister of the nineteenth century". Supported sending rifles ("Beecher's Bibles") to emigrants trying to make Kansas a free state.
Lyman Beecher, president of Lane, father of Henry and Harriet.
James G. Birney, attorney, former American Colonization Society Agent, author of a lengthy published break with or attack on the Society. "His knowledge and pervasive influence informed the Lane Seminary debate, lifting it to the height of its subject."
James Bradley (former slave), the only Black participant.
Samuel Crothers (probable but unconfirmed
Asa Mahan, minister, and the only Lane trustee who supported the students; resigned with the students and accompanied them to the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, becoming its first president.
John Rankin (abolitionist), author of the first American anti-slavery book, and key figure on the Underground Railroad in Ohio. In 1835 Rankin published a pamphlet defending the students who debated.
Henry Brewster Stanton, future abolitionist speaker and politician, and husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Calvin Ellis Stowe, Lane professor, future husband of Harriet Beecher.
Theodore Dwight Weld, former Oneida student, anti-slavery activist.
Hiram Wilson, former Oneida student; moved to Canada and ran Canadian terminus for the Underground Railroad.

Speakers at the debates

"Mr. Henry P. Thompson, a native and still a resident of Nicholasville, Kentucky, made the following statement at a public meeting in Lane Seminary, Ohio, in 1833 [1834]. He was at that time a slaveholder."

"Rev. Coleman S. Hodges, a resident of Western Virginia, gave the following testimony at the same meeting:"

The threat of violence

Cincinnati was convulsed as never before.

Trustees ban the discussion of abolition

As Cincinnati businessmen, the members of the school's board of trustees were quite concerned about being associated with such a radical expression of abolitionism, which could have led to a physical attack on the Seminary. "A riot was very [narrowly] averted, probably only because of Lane's summer vacation."

President Beecher did not want to escalate the matter by overreacting, but when the press began to turn public opinion against the students that summer, he was fundraising in Boston. In his absence, the executive committee of the trustees issued a report ordering the abolishment of the school's antislavery society, stating that "no associations or Societies among the students ought to be allowed in the Seminary except such as have for their immediate object improvement in the prescribed course of studies." They also declared that they had the right to dismiss any student "when they shall think it necessary to do so.") The committee underlined their position by dismissing professor John Morgan for taking the side of the students. In October, without waiting for Beecher to return, the board ratified the committee's resolutions. as did trustee Asa Mahan (another member of Finney's contingent). (Technically, they requested dismissal from the school, which was granted.) In December they published a pamphlet of 28 pages, published anonymously but written by Weld, The pamphlet received national attention, as it was reprinted in full in The Liberator.

Hostile press reports turned this incorrectly into the expulsion of the students, "in consequence of the dangerous principles they held in relation to slavery."

The Rebels were a loosely defined group, and different sources give different names and figures. The Statement had 51 signatures, but it adds that "several of our brethren, who coincide with us in sentiment, are not able to affix their names to this document, in consequence of being several hundred miles from the Seminary." There were also prospective students who declined to enroll. According to Oberlin, 32 of them enrolled, although some others who enrolled at the same time, though not students at Lane, are considered part of the Rebels.

At Cumminsville, "the students continued their work in the black community. William T. Allan, Andrew Benton, Marius R. Robinson, Henry B. Stanton, and George Whipple taught in the Sabbath schools. John W. Alvord, Huntington Lyman, Henry B. Stanton, James A. Thome, and Samuel Wells gave lectures twice a week in the black community. The students also alternated in preaching at eight different churches, including two black churches. They helped support Augustus Wattles' teachers in schools, enlisted the cooperation of local black ministers, and kept Weld, now an anti-slavery agent, and Joshua Leavitt informed of local events."

"Of the several gloomy years that succeeded the abolition secession, I need only say, that the wonder is, that Lane did not perish. It had few students and little money."

"The institution was disgraced and wrecked; it

never recovered from the experience."

In 1837 "the seminary had no students", but Beecher went on a recruiting trip and persuaded some to enroll.

After the Civil War, the New School and the Old School Presbyterians had reconciled, and Lane Seminary was reorganized along more conservative Presbyterian lines. In 1910, it became affiliated with the Presbyterian Seminary of the South, and the Seminary continued as a small but respected school, though financial pressures continued to increase. Following a brief period of growth in the 1920s, it became apparent that Lane could no longer survive as an independent school. In 1932 it suspended operations and transferred its library and other resources to McCormick Theological Seminary, in Chicago. While a permanent Board of Trustees for Lane Theological Seminary remained in service until the Seminary was legally merged out of existence in 2007, the faculty, library collections, and students were transferred to Chicago, and the last remnants of the Cincinnati campus, except for the house of president Lyman Beecher, were destroyed in 1956. A historical marker in front of an automobile dealership at 2820 Gilbert Ave. marks the site of the campus.

Historical re-enactments

The Lane Debates have been re-enacted in recent years by historians from Yale University, the University of Connecticut, and Oberlin College.

Media

A movie about the debates, Sons & Daughters of Thunder, was released in December 2019. It is based on a play by Earlene Hawley and Curtis Heeter.

Archival material

Archival materials of Lane are located at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia.

Historical marker

Students who enrolled at Lane

24 of the 40 members of Lane's first theological class were from the Oneida Institute.

George Bristol
Charles P. Bush; Michigan politician
Horace Bushnell
Amos Dresser
Alexander Duncan, not to be confused with Alexander Duncan (politician), from Cincinnati
Hiram Foote
Augustus Hopkins †1841 Stone published two lengthy letters reporting on Southern slavery.
Sereno Wright Streeter (1810–1880) graduated from Oberlin and was ordained in 1836. After much organizing work and several ministerial positions, he was professor at Otterbein College from 1857 to 1860. (italics in original)
Theodore Dwight Weld
Samuel T. Wells, described as "student monitor-general" on Lane's farm
Hiram Wilson

Notable alumni

Moses N. Adams, missionary to the Dakota people
Edward H. Allen, Kansas City Mayor
Henry Ward Beecher, 1837
Jonathan Blanchard, abolitionist and founder of Wheaton College
John Gregg Fee, abolitionist and founder of Berea College
James C. White

References

Notes

External links

Web site for Sons and Daughters of Thunder
Lane Debates - Resources. Oberlin College.
Randy McNutt (September 28, 2003). Lane Seminary propelled anti-slavery movement. The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Lane Seminary, 1841
Lane Seminary, Walnut Hills
Lane Rebels Who Came to Oberlin
Presbyterian Historical Society archives