John Knox Witherspoon was a Scots Presbyterian minister and a signatory of the United States
Declaration of Independence as a representative of New Jersey. As president of the College
of New Jersey, he trained many leaders of the early nation and was an active clergyman
and the only college president to sign the Declaration.
Early life and ministry in Scotland John Knox Witherspoon was born at Gifford,
a parish of Yester, at East Lothian, Scotland, as the eldest child of the Reverend James
Alexander Witherspoon and Anne Walker, a descendant of John Welsh of Ayr and John Knox. This latter
claim of Knox descent though ancient in origin is long disputed and without primary documentation.
He attended the Haddington Grammar School, and obtained a Master of Arts and Bachelor
of Divinity from the University of St. Andrews. He also obtained a Master of Arts from the
University of Edinburgh in 1739. He remained at the University to study divinity.
Witherspoon was a staunch Protestant, nationalist, and supporter of republicanism. Consequently,
he was opposed to the Roman Catholic Legitimist Jacobite rising of 1745-1746. Following the
Jacobite victory at the Battle of Falkirk, he was briefly imprisoned at Doune Castle,
which had a long-term effect on his health. He became a Church of Scotland minister at
Beith, Ayrshire, where he married Elizabeth Montgomery of Craighouse. They had ten children,
with five surviving to adulthood. From 1758-1768, he was minister of the Laigh
kirk, Paisley. Witherspoon became prominent within the Church as an Evangelical opponent
of the Moderate Party. During his two pastorates he wrote three well-known works on theology,
notably the satire "Ecclesiastical Characteristics", which opposed the philosophical influence
of Francis Hutcheson. Princeton
At the urging of Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton, whom he met in Paisley, Witherspoon
finally accepted their renewed invitation to become President and head professor of
the small Presbyterian College of New Jersey in Princeton. Thus, Witherspoon and his family
emigrated to New Jersey in 1768. At the age of 45, he became the sixth President
of the college, later known as Princeton University. Upon his arrival, Witherspoon found the school
in debt, with weak instruction, and a library collection which clearly failed to meet student
needs. He immediately began fund-raising—locally and back home in Scotland—added three hundred
of his own books to the library, and began purchasing scientific equipment.
Witherspoon also instituted a number of reforms, including modeling the syllabus and university
structure after that used at the University of Edinburgh and other Scottish universities.
He also firmed up entrance requirements, which helped the school compete with Harvard and
Yale for scholars. Witherspoon taught personally courses in Eloquence
or Belles Lettres, Chronology, and Divinity. However, none was more important than Moral
Philosophy. An advocate of Natural Law within a Christian and republican Cosmology, Witherspoon
considered Moral Philosophy vital for ministers, lawyers, and those holding positions in government.
Firm but good-humored in his leadership, Witherspoon was very popular among both faculty and students.
Rev. Witherspoon had been a prominent evangelical Presbyterian minister in Scotland before accepting
the Princeton position. As the College's primary occupation at the time was training ministers,
Witherspoon became a major leader of the early Presbyterian church in America. He also helped
organize Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, N.J.
Nonetheless, Witherspoon transformed a college designed predominantly to train clergymen
into a school that would equip the leaders of a new Protestant country. Students who
later played prominent roles in the new nation's development included James Madison, Aaron
Burr, Philip Freneau, William Bradford, and Hugh Henry Brackenridge. From among his students
came 37 judges; 10 Cabinet officers; 12 members of the Continental Congress, 28 U.S. senators,
and 49 United States congressmen. When the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
in America met in 1789, 52 of the 188 delegates had studied under Witherspoon.
Revolutionary War As a native Scotsman, long wary of the power
British Crown, Witherspoon saw the growing centralization of government, progressive
ideology of colonial authorities, and establishment of Episcopacy authority as a threat to the
Liberties of the colonies. Of particular interest to Witherspoon was the crown's growing interference
in the local and colonial affairs which previously had been the prerogatives and rights of the
American authorities. When the crown began to give additional authority to its appointed
Episcopacy over Church affairs, British authorities hit a nerve in the Presbyterian Scot, who
saw such events in the same lens as his Scottish Covenanters. Soon, Witherspoon came to support
the Revolution, joining the Committee of Correspondence and Safety in early 1774. His 1776 sermon
"The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men" was published in many editions and
he was elected to the Continental Congress as part of the New Jersey delegation, appointed
Congressional Chaplain by President Hancock, and in July 1776, voted to adopt the Virginia
Resolution for Independence. In answer to an objection that the country was not yet
ready for independence, according to tradition he replied that it "was not only ripe for
the measure, but in danger of rotting for the want of it."
Witherspoon served in Congress from June 1776 until November 1782 and became one of its
most influential members and a workhorse of prodigious energy. He served on over 100 committees,
most notably the powerful standing committees, the board of war and the committee on secret
correspondence or foreign affairs. He spoke often in debate; helped draft the Articles
of Confederation; helped organize the executive departments; played a major role in shaping
foreign policy; and drew up the instructions for the peace commissioners. He fought against
the flood of paper money, and opposed the issuance of bonds without provision for their
amortization. "No business can be done, some say, because money is scarce," he wrote. He
also served twice in the New Jersey Legislature, and strongly supported the adoption of the
United States Constitution during the New Jersey ratification debates.
In November 1778, as British forces neared, Witherspoon closed and evacuated the College
of New Jersey. The main building, Nassau Hall, was badly damaged and his papers and personal
notes were lost. Witherspoon was responsible for its rebuilding after the war, which caused
him great personal and financial difficulty. In 1780 he was elected to a one-year term
in the New Jersey Legislative Council representing Somerset County.
Death and burial
Witherspoon had suffered eye injuries and was blind by 1792. He died in 1794 on his
farm Tusculum, just outside of Princeton, and is buried in the Princeton Cemetery.
Philosophy According to Herbert Hovenkamp, Witherspoon's
most lasting contribution was the initiation of the Scottish Common-Sense Realism, which
he had learned by reading Thomas Reid and two of his expounders Dugald Stewart and James
Beattie. Witherspoon revised the moral philosophy curriculum,
strengthened the college's commitment to natural philosophy an early form of science tempered
with Christian principles, and positioned Princeton in the larger transatlantic world
of the republic of letters. Although a proponent of Christian values, Witherspoon's common
sense approach to the public morality of civil magistrates was more influenced by the Enlightenment
ethics of Scottish philosophers Francis Hutcheson and Thomas Reid than the Christian virtue
of Jonathan Edwards. In regard to civil magistrates, Witherspoon thus believed moral judgement
should be pursued as a science. In this regard, he held to old Roman Republic concepts of
virtue in determining moral leadership in civil magistrates.
It could be cultivated in his students or deduced through the development of the moral
sense, an ethical compass instilled by God in all human beings and developed through
religious education or civil sociability. Contrary to modern distinctions of morality,
Witherspoon saw morality as having two distinct components: spiritual and temporal. Civil
government owed more to the latter than the former in Witherspoon's Presbyterian doctrine.
Thus, public morality owed more to the natural moral laws of the Enlightenment than traditional
sources of Christian ethics. However, as a Christian, Witherspoon saw the impossibility
of maintaining public morality or virtue in the citizenry without an effective religion.
In this sense, the temporal principles of morality required a religious component which
derived its authority from the spiritual. Therefore, public religion was a vital necessity
in maintaining the public morals. Thus, while "public morals" were derived from
natural virtue, its ultimate source lay in the public religion of Christianity. However,
in this framework, non-Christian societies could have virtue, which, by his definition,
could be found in natural law. Witherspoon, in accordance with the Scottish moral sense
philosophy, taught that all human beings, Christian or otherwise, could be virtuous.
Nonetheless, in keeping with the direction of destiny taught by the English Reformation,
Scottish Reformation, and Irish Reformation colonial founders, he saw the new American
national leaders, guided by their Christian religion, natural virtues, and republican
sense of government, would be the most Protestant, Christian, free, and, therefore, noble nation,
a light to the world. Legacy and memory
The President's House in Princeton, New Jersey, his home from 1768 to 1779 is a U.S. National
Historic Landmark, though the guide views him as "not a profound scholar" but rather
"an able college president". A bronze statue at Princeton University by Scottish sculptor
Alexander Stoddart is the twin of one outside The University of the West of Scotland, Paisley,
Scotland. In Princeton today, a University dormitory built in 1877, the street running
north from the University's main gate, and the local public middle school all bear his
name. Another statue stands near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., at the intersections
of Connecticut Avenue, N and 18th Streets. Paisley, Scotland honored Witherspoon's memory
by naming a newly constructed street in the town center after him, in honor of his having
lived in Paisley for a portion of his adult life.
A son-in-law was Congressman David Ramsay, who married Frances Witherspoon on 18 March
1783. Another daughter, Ann, married Samuel Stanhope Smith, who succeeded Witherspoon
as president of Princeton in 1795. The Witherspoon Society is a body of laypeople
within the Presbyterian Church in existence since 1979 that is activist in liberal and
progressive causes. The Witherspoon Institute is an independent
research center that works to enhance public understanding of the moral foundations of
free and democratic societies. Located in Princeton, it promotes the application of
fundamental principles of republican government and ordered liberty to contemporary problems
through a variety of centers, research programs, seminars, consultations, and publications.
John Witherspoon College is a private liberal arts college in the Black Hills of South Dakota
founded after Witherspoon's vision and accomplishments. Witherspoon was portrayed in the musical 1776,
about the debates over and eventual adoption of the Declaration of Independence, by Edmund
Lyndeck in the 1969 stage play and by James Noble in the 1972 film. His early life is
the subject of a recent Scottish documentary: The Young Witherspoon by Friday Film Productions,
2013. The Witherspoon Building at Philadelphia is
named in his honor. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
John Witherspoon is said to be a relative of actress Reese Witherspoon. However, it
has been noted by the Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence
that her claim of being a direct descendant has yet to be verified.
A merchant ship, the SS John Witherspoon, saw service during World War II. It was part
of convoy PQ-17, and was sunk by a German U-boat in the North Atlantic on July 6, 1942.
References
Sources
Burns, David G. C.. "The Princeton Connection". The Scottish Genealogist 52. ISSN 0300-337X.
Collins, Varnum L. President Witherspoon: A Biography, 2 vols.
Ashbel Green, ed. The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon, 4 vols.
Morrison, Jeffrey H. John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic
Pomfret, John E.. '"Witherspoon, John" in Dictionary of American Biography
Tait, L. Gordon. The Piety of John Witherspoon: Pew, Pulpit, and Public Forum
Moses Coit Tyler "President Witherspoon in the American Revolution" The American Historical
Review Volume 1, Issue 1, July 1896. pp. 671–679. [1]
Woods, David W.. John Witherspoon External links
Biography on Princeton University's website John Witherspoon at the Biographical Directory
of the United States Congress Works by John Witherspoon at Post-Reformation
Digital Library Photographic tour of John Witherspoon's grave
at Princeton Cemetery. Biography by Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 1856
Who Is That Man, Anyway? Witherspoon's statue, near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.
John Witherspoon at Find a Grave