Faculty Report on Student Anti-Slavery Society 1835

the duties of the Instructors, & without essential injury to the improvement and future usefulness of the students.

And we have little doubt that this [ere?] long be the judgement of ^{who are entrusted with} the great interests of our literary & theological students seminaries.

In behalf of the faculty, Leonard Woods Theological Seminary, Andover, feb 4 1835

These transactions are followed by a very desirable state of things in the Seminary. There was diligence in study, freedom from strife, & the prevalence of brotherly love & harmony. There was moreover an uncommon degree of sympathy for the slaves & much fervent prayer for their present & eternal welfare.

This result however was far from bring satisfactory to Mr Thompson & others, who were engaged with him in advocating the cause of immediate emancipation & had hoped for some more active cooperation from this Seminary in promoting their objects. Unwilling therefore that the matter should end thus, they determined to visit us again, & to make extraordinary efforts,-- efforts of a bolder character, & of more certain efficacy. These efforts they began on the fourth of July, & continued them, as ^we were informed seventeen days in succession. Mr George Thompson was the prinicpal lecturer, & Rev. Amos A. Phelps, & Mr Garrison, his assistants. The two former, as we were told, addressed themselved to their work, publicly & privately, with remar-

-kable diligence, & warmth of feeling. Mr. Thompkin's most conspicious effort was made in his attack upon the transactions of the Seminary published last February. Those transactions of ours disappointed his hopes, & proved to be no small trial to his sensibilities. His feelings & expressions on that occasion were said to be such, that one would hardly be willing to undertake to describe them. So far however as the members of the Seminary were concerned, the effort was a failure. The students who were present (and the number was large) even those who had taken the liveliest interest in his previous address, generally expressed a strong disapprobation of much that he uttered on that occasion. It was Friday evening the close of his first week's labors,-- public

notice having been given before of what he determined to do. He displayed not a little zeal to distratct from the influence of the Instructors & Governors of these three Institutions, & to stimulate the members of the Seminary, & the youth in the Academies to go forward, & form antislavery societies whether their Instructors consented or not, & in defiance of their authority. This attempt to introduce disorder & insubordination among young men who were quietly pursuing literary & theological studies, was something before unknown in the history of New England; & it was no ordinary mistake for any one to suppose that an enlightened community would look upon it with indifference. The time will come if it has not already come,-- then the chief actors in

this scene will wish to draw out their doings veil of concealment. But what, it will be asked, was the effect of their labors? It was this. A prevailing & very prominsing attention to religion was suddenly brought to termination end; A number of inexperienced youth in one of the Academies had their minds inflamed and perverted, & in consequence of this, pursued a course of conduct, of which many of them have already repented, & which all sober men here regarded with pity & shame.

The evnts which followed in the Seminary, were these:-- On August 4th, near a fortnight after the abolition agents had left the place, twenty seven members of the Seminary, i.e. four of the senior class, one of the middle,