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Benjamin D. Grimm

Professor Stephen P. Shoemaker

Religion 1513: History of Harvard and Its Religious Evolution

29 April 2015

Rebellion, Retrenchment, and Rancor:

Factors Surrounding the Resignation of President Kirkland

On March 28th, 1828, beloved President John Thorton Kirkland resigned from his

position at Harvard College after nearly two decades at the helm of America’s great university.

His departure came as a shock to students and faculty alike, for while his health had been slowly

deteriorating following a minor stroke, he was still as active and as adored as ever before. In a

letter to the Corporation penned by his wife, he explained that “considerations…imperative

induce me to resign,” and that although he would continue his appointment until the end of term

if necessary, “the resignation is absolute.”1 The ostensible cause, though unnamed, was his

enfeebled health. Though he continued to conduct his duties as President after his stroke of

paralysis the previous year, “the elasticity and vigor of his mind did not return” and his

confidence as an administrator suffered.2 It seemed that the aging and ailing Reverend could no

longer keep up with the demands of his position. So would the public perception have remained,

were it not for the intervention of Mrs. Kirkland. Within private circles, she circulated another

version of the incident, revealing that it was a vitriolic and egregious personal attack on President

Kirkland by Corporation member Nathaniel Bowditch that so offended the President that he was

forced to resign.

1 Eliot et al., 419. 2 Josiah Quincy, 371.

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This tantalizingly dramatic verbal assault was promulgated by the public papers as the

true cause of Kirkland’s resignation. Though the veracity of the exact offense remained

unconfirmed – Bowditch admitted to speaking frankly, but fervently denied using such acerbic

speech while Dr. Kirkland, for his part, never addressed it – it was widely disseminated and

universally believed. Ink wells depleted rapidly as declamations, pamphlets, and letters of

defense went flying from all sides. With the decades since Kirkland’s departure, the fading of

emotions and a rising tendency toward historical revisionism have elicited a more balanced view

recognizing Kirkland’s financial oversights in fomenting discord within the Corporation.

Harvard’s biography of the President notes the role of Kirkland’s “fiscal nonchalance,” in

eliciting the “tongue-lashing” from Dr. Bowditch that instigated Kirkland’s resignation.3 Samuel

Eliot Morison states boldly that “a few thousand dollars would have softened the clash of

temperament” within the college quelled the conflict within

While financial maladies certainly contributed to animus toward and from President

Kirkland, this paper argues that pecuniary concerns were merely emblematic of a much broader

problem with Kirkland’s administration and his relationship to the Corporation. The meticulous

accounts of Dr. Bowditch enumerate a panoply of administrative improprieties on the behalf of

the President beginning years before his resignation: following the notorious Rebellion of 1823,

Kirkland had drawn scorn for his absence at College chapel; for three-and-a-half years, he kept

no financial records, distributing funds at his whim; when the Corporation admonished

administrators or students to whom he was partial, he would refuse to fulfill their punishments.

His unreliability and abuse of power extended far beyond just the financial realm of the College.

For years, President Kirkland’s favoritism among employees and students, disorganized records,

and refusal to cooperate with Corporation measures he personally opposed deepened the fissure 3 ”John Thorton Kirkland.” History of the Presidency.

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between the two parties. This long-standing divide engendered an atmosphere of distrust and

volatility between the President and the Corporation and it was from this matrix that Dr.

Bowditch’s comments came and precipitated Kirkland’s exit.

To begin, the offensive comments of Dr. Bowditch that substantiate Mrs. Kirkland’s

account must be subject to careful scrutiny. Traveling orally within brahmin circles, and

discussed only furtively within the walls of the College, the comments were implicated, but

never actually reprinted in the newspapers. Bowditch himself, however, provides the original

charges, as tracked down through anonymous sources: “Mrs. Kirkland had circulated a report

that I had accused the President in presence of the Corporation of being imbecile, unfit for his

office, and told him if he had any regard for his own dignity he would resign.”4

Before any journalist had caught wind of Mrs. Kirkland’s account, members of the senior

class had spoken to the same effect in college chapel on April 2nd. After extolling Kirkland’s

virtues, the committee elected by the seniors made reference in the concluding paragraph of their

speech to the “untoward circumstances” into which President Kirkland had been placed.5 “To

seize the opportunity of physical weakness,” they continued, and to “sit in judgment upon

inadvertent errors” was the deplorable act of “individuals in our own community.”6 Though

scanty in detail, their remarks were certainly awash in resentment; the oration became cannon

fodder. It was immediately picked up and reprinted in the public papers. The very next day, it

appeared in the Boston Journal, preceded by the disclaimer that “at the present time of evidence”

it was improvident to “incriminate either of the persons who may have had an agency in

producing this unexpected event.”7 On April 5, the Evening Gazette reported that “rumors and

4 Bowditch, 127.5 Morison, “The Great Rebellion,” 55.6 ibid, 55-6.7 Nichols, 1.

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insinuations are afloat”8 in a community which the Evening Bulletin declared to be “electrified

with resentment.”9 While the Journal may not have seen fit to indict a particular party, the

unchallenged repetition of the seniors’ insinuations left no doubt in the public’s mind as to who

may have spurred them. Though unnamed, the charge was laid against Dr. Bowditch. He was

denounced as a “Salem sailor” in the papers his immediate resignation demanded.10 Bowditch

took great exception with the decision to “judge” and to “censure” him for a transgression that

“had no foundation in truth.”11

Interestingly, Bowditch does not deny that he spoke harshly to the President. He admits

that he spoke with censure, but only within the “limits of bold parliamentary usage.”12 In a letter

published after his death, Bowditch’s children concur that he spoke with “reluctance and

forbearance” and only because he “found himself obliged” by his duty to the Corporation.13

Bowditch was in the estimation of many, himself included, a man of “high and rigid integrity”

and “punctilious justice in the conduct of complicated affairs”.14 One particularly flattering

author declares that Dr. Bowditch was so pure that “he never tasted any wine till the age of

thirty-five”15 – of course, at the time beer was as excusable a beverage as water. Bowditch does

not deny his firm speech, but dismisses the accusation that he deemed the President an imbecile

or called for his resignation. He presents compelling evidence to suggest that while he did speak

critically toward Dr. Kirkland, he never used the exact terms Mrs. Kirkland alleged. An

anonymous source informed him that Mrs. Kirkland admitted she had “said too much” and

8 ibid, 5.9 ibid, 10.10 Palfrey, “Remarks Concerning the Late Dr. Bowditch,” 4.11 Bowditch, 129.12 ibid, 131.13 Nathaniel I. Bowditch, 171.14 Palfrey, “Bowditch’s Translation,” 180.15 Young, 88.

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hoped the fervor would abate to avoid a “re-action on the President.”16 The linchpin of

Bowditch’s argument came from Professor Ware. After a conversation with Dr. Kirkland about

his recent resignation, Ware reported to Bowditch that the President made no mention of any

incendiary language.17 To Bowditch, this was proof that Mrs. Kirkland had embellished the

entire affair.

Regardless of its content, Bowditch’s criticism of the President emerged from a long-held

disdain. Supporters of Dr. Bowditch point to the state of the College Treasury as the motivation

behind Bowditch’s outburst. Kirkland’s financial scruples had long aroused worry within the

administration of the college. His woes began after the Rebellion of 1823. The President’s

inability to quash the uprisings resulted in the loss of the $10,000 yearly state grant; dissuaded by

“public clamor” and “student disorder,” the legislature resolved not to renew the grant.18 On

January 17th, 1828, the records of the Board of Overseers included a vague statement from the

Corporation regarding the income of the College “having been much lessened” in the previous

years as a result of the lost state grant, “and by other causes.”19 These causes, while not

elaborated therein, were meticulously recounted by Dr. Bowditch: the President capriciously

granted raises to professors and failed to adjust the College budget after losing the state monies.20

In 1825, a full year after the expiration of the grant, Hollis Professor of Divinity Henry Ware’s

salary still included an additional $200, and the President’s a grant of $300.21 Kirkland too had a

tendency of doling out college funds to poor boys without updating the college books.22 Samuel

Eliot Morison’s summary of the President’s resignation underscores the financial state of the

16 Bowditch, 131.17 ibid, 131.18 Morison, “The Great Rebellion,” 102.19 Records of Overseers, 405.20 Bowditch, 60.21 Report of a Committee of the Overseers of Harvard College, 5.22 Morison, Three Centuries, 201.

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college as a primary factor in Kirkland’s departure. “An addition of $100,000” he argues, would

have “softened the clash” between Kirkland and the Corporation and allowed both to continue in

peace.23 Bowditch’s supporters as well promote finances as the sticking point for the Corporation.

Contemporary arguments and more recent historical views possess a tendency to

implicate the financial issues of the College as the primary divisive force between Kirkland and

Corporation. This argument in some ways allows Kirkland’s honor to escape unscathed,

depicting him as a victim of tough retrenchment, perhaps a sub-par financier, but still the great

Augustus of the College. The perception prevalent in the public was that a compassionate

sternness sprung from Kirkland’s paternalism that made him so beloved by both student and

colleague. In contrast to this halcyon view of the President, the actual administrative records of

the College paint a more flawed picture of Dr. Kirkland and reveal deep-rooted discord within

the Corporation. While financial concerns of the College certainly contributed to the

Corporation’s discontent with the President, Dr. Bowditch’s accounts indicate much broader

tensions regarding Kirkland’s role and responsibilities as President of which his financial

missteps were merely emblematic.

The underlying factor fuelling friction within the administration of the College was a

fundamental disagreement about the role and privileges of the President. Grievances about

Kirkland’s abuse of his authority permeate records from 1823 until his resignation. Initially,

Kirkland was merely ineffective at controlling the students. Pickering Dodge’s journals

recounting the Great Rebellion of 1823 show a President failing to control the churlish scraping

in chapel, vacillating in his punishment, and more inclined to preach “pointed sermons” and

dispense “public admonition[s]” than to effect true punishment.24 However, as time went on,

23 Morison, “The Great Rebellion,” 112. 24 Dodge, 10, 16.

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Kirkland’s failures were no longer as harmless. He and the Corporation locked horns again over

the issue of chapel in 1826. Preferring his business with the aristocrats of Boston to his clerical

duties at the College chapel, Kirkland proposed a change to the time of chapel. Starting at nine

o’clock in the evening, he contended, would fix the inconvenience for some and disturb no one.

Dr. Bowditch, however, “could see no reason for this change” except that the President would be

able to stay longer in Boston.25 Bowditch became further enraged when the President suggested

that were this change not made, he would be absent up to four times a week, whereas College

statues permitted only two absences each month.26 The true pith of Bowditch’s anger lies not in

the President wanting to visit Boston, but in his subverting College rules to do so. Kirkland’s

requests came at the “utter neglect of the important measures” of the Corporation, and

overstepped his bounds as President.27 Sensing the Corporation’s opposition, Kirkland dropped

the matter.28

Financial issues constituted a major concern of the Corporation, but Bowditch’s

recounting of Kirkland’s financial missteps is colored primarily by outrage at Kirkland

exceeding his prerogative as an administrator. Indeed, what truly “infuriated” Dr. Bowditch was

not the College’s financial state, but the President’s refusal to comply with retrenchment

measures to rectify it.29 Bowditch’s financial investigations revealed that Treasurer Davis had

failed to keep a single treasury record for three-and-a-half years, since September 1823. While an

egregious financial fault, it was also an administrative oversight on Kirkland’s part. The

President displayed an “unpardonable degree of negligence” in failing to monitor Judge Davis30;

25 Bowditch, 6.26 ibid, 7.27 ibid.28 ibid, 8.29 Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 220.30 Bowditch, 36.

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at his worst, Judge Davis lost a $50,000 lease to David Greenough’s estate which the President

forgot about for nearly three years before it was found in a stack of scrap papers.31 (One should

note that the President himself was prone to misplacing papers, and the administrative notes he

kept were “very abridged” and to Dr. Bowditch resembled “shorthand or hieroglyphics32).

While the President’s hand in the function of the administration was largely absent, when

present, it was transgressive. Kirkland had a troubling tendency to subvert the authority of the

Corporation for measures he personally opposed. In an unctuous treatise on the “life and

character” of President Kirkland, Alexander Young eulogizes that while the President preferred

“mild and moderate measures, he never flinched from executing the laws which the Government

had enacted.”33 However, Corporation records corroborate Bowditch’s assertion that “if the

President disliked any measure proposed by the Corporation, it was very difficult, if not

impossible to make it succeed.”34 Prone to administrative favoritism, he would pardon students

who failed to pay their term bills and allow them to remain on campus.35 He would simply

instruct the Treasurer and Steward to do so, and it would be done.36 Kirkland assumed

jurisdiction over disciplinary matters as well. When a student by the name of Crocker was found

to have filched a book from the College Library, Kirkland withheld his name from the

Corporation – “one member of the Faculty knows [his name], but as the book has been found, he

thought it best to do nothing about it” 37 (emphasis in original) – for fear he would be punished. In

doing so, he violated the bounds of his office.

31 ibid, 40. 32 ibid, 56.33 Young, 56.34 Bowditch, 108.35 ibid, 48.36 ibid, 48.37 Bowditch, 102.

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In response to Kirkland’s various improprieties, Dr. Bowditch took measures to purge

Kirkland’s lackeys from the College offices. He procured the resignations of both Treasurer

Davis and Steward Higginson.38 When the Corporation moved to vote on their dismissal, the

President attempted to adjourn the meeting before the letter had been read.39 After the meeting,

Kirkland proclaimed that he “had no idea of an officer of the college being elbowed out in that

way,” and as he spoke, he swung his body “round as if the action of ‘elbowing.’”40 Bowditch

sneers, perhaps too harshly, that it must have been “a very unpleasant affair” for the President to

lose “an officer who was very much under his control” and who consented to many things “not

authorized by College laws.”41 In losing Higginson and Davis, Kirkland lost much of his ability

to manipulate College proceedings.

References to Kirkland’s transgressions outside the walls of the Yard were quashed;

Kirkland was a charismatic public figure and to tarnish his public image would only have

negative repercussions for the College. Thus, the College thought best to keep its internal

quandaries internal. However, some College documents had intimations of the administrative

roadblocks that surrounded the President. Andrews Norton presented an Overseers’ report

regarding the “instruction and discipline of the college” in the spring of 1824.42 Clouded by a

long treatise on educational philosophy, underlying anxieties about the role of the President seep

into Norton’s remarks. He describes the power of that position as “arbitrary and irresponsible,”

subject to the President’s capricious “judgment and will.”43 Norton’s administrative agenda leads

him to question “to whom will the President be responsible for the exercise of his discretion?”44

38 ibid, 17, 49.39 ibid, 52.40 ibid, 52. 41 ibid, 53. 42 Norton 5.43 Norton 5.44 ibid.

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The careful vagary unravels however, as he evokes a none-too-subtle hypothetical. “Supposing a

collision” between the President and another “[body] of government, in which he is clearly in the

wrong,” Norton advances a litany of checks-and-balances to ensure that the President’s volition

is monitored.45 One need not even mention the Corporation to know to what body he refers. To

Norton, the Presidency was overly endowed with unchecked authority. He saw the true Harvard

arrogance in granting powers to the President that were “not exercised by any other office in the

country.”46 Not even the President of the fledgling nation was endowed with such authority, and,

with “the good providence of God, never will be.”47 Even fifty years later, the threat of tyranny

still rang true at Old Harvard.

In an unheralded but riveting publication in the Boston Centinel, John Lowell presents a

novel explanation for the Kirkland’s bad blood with the Corporation. Even a year after

Kirkland’s resignation, the heated exchange of opinion pieces continued, and Reverend Parsons

Cooke of Ware Factory Village penned a particularly acrimonious attack on President Kirkland

in the Centinel. He denounced the Corporation and Board of Visitors for unscrupulous behavior.

The President he accused of embezzlement, specifically the distribution of $80,000 “with most

of which he had no sort of concern.”48 In response, Lowell wrote a defense of the former

President and charged Reverend Cooke with being “a practiced libeler.”49 More importantly, he

reveals the underlying motivations behind Reverend Cooke’s ire. “Blind must that man be,” he

writes, “who does not perceive that it is the flame of religious persecution which has lighted this

faggot.”50 Cooke was known to be an ardent Trinitarian who took “evangelical labors” to oppose

45 ibid.46 ibid.47 ibid.48 Lowell, John. Boston Centinel clipping in “John Thorton Kirkland.” Quinquennial File.49 ibid.50 Lowell, John. Boston Centinel clipping in “John Thorton Kirkland.” Quinquennial File.

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the work of the “‘heretical’” Unitarians51 at Harvard; Kirkland, and an increasing proportion of

the Corporation and Overseers, were Unitarians themselves. Lowell goes on to challenge

Cooke’s assertion that Providence “threw these facts his way” regarding Unitarian scruples:52

Away with this solemn invocation of the most holy, and sacred name, in support of

malicious falsehoods. No – there is a name, in Mr. Cooke’s creed, which might be more

appropriately cited; one, who has not been celebrated for his veracity from the beginning.

If any superhuman suggestions were made to Mr. Cooke, they must have come from such

a being.53 (italics in original)

Though accusation of demonic possession perhaps qualifies as the ultimate ad hominem

fallacy, Lowell raises a relevant question. Cooke’s external scrutiny of President Kirkland stems

from a belief that “all institutions under Unitarian controul must naturally be corrupt and

wickedly administered.”54 It is thus conceivable to suggest that Unitarian-Trinitarian tensions

may have exacerbated the divide between the Corporation and President Kirkland. Alas, as

Lowell evinces, the majority of the Corporation was Unitarian as well, and the Unitarian

presence at the College was only growing. Nathaniel Bowditch sprung from a Unitarian church

in Salem, and was joined by many prominent professors including Louis Agassiz, George

Ticknor, and George Bancroft.55 Lowell imputes a motivation that is purely a source of external

scrutiny.56 Within the Corporation, administrative tension, not theological differences, sowed

dissension.

51 Gura, 142.52 Lowell, John. Boston Centinel clipping in “John Thorton Kirkland.” Quinquennial File.53 ibid.54 ibid.55 Batchelor, 69. 56 Lowell, John. Boston Centinel clipping in “John Thorton Kirkland.” Quinquennial File.

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The troubling trend of Kirkland overstepping his authority came to a head with two

transgressions in the beginning of 1828. Early in the year, it was discovered that President

Kirkland had granted numerous certificates to the dismissed members of the Class of 1823

stating that they had attended Harvard College from 1819 until 1823. He failed to include,

however, that they had been dismissed in that year for their participation in the rebellion. When

confronted about the granting of the misleading diplomas for expelled students without

Corporation permission, Kirkland replied laconically, “I was not implied to incriminate them”; in

response, Bowditch took the diplomas and cut the students’ names out.57

The second contention of the 1828 year would be President Kirkland’s last. It was March,

and the Corporation had recently moved Professor Ticknor’s recitation rooms to the south entry

of Hollis. Previously, his courses had been scattered across four buildings, but they would now

be centralized on the fourth floor of Hollis.58 Among the students displaced was none other than

the book-pilfering Crocker, who refused to vacate his room. For the second time, Kirkland

defended him before the Corporation. He refused to consent to Crocker’s dismissal. Bowditch

reveals that this further attempt to subvert the Corporation “led to a discussion which terminated

in the resignation of the President.”59 For years, administrative tensions had been building over

Kirkland’s recalcitrance in executing Corporation measures. From the resignation of Higginson

and Davis, to retrenchment measures, to Crocker’s first offense, and finally to Crocker’s second,

Kirkland had revealed himself to be “perfectly hostile to almost every important step [the

Corporation] had taken.”60 Bowditch told him as much, thus provoking his resignation, and all

that followed. Fundamentally, though, Kirkland’s resignation was only a reaction to Bowditch’s

57 Bowditch, 94-5.58 Morison, “The Great Rebellion,” 10959 Bowditch, 103. 60 Bowditch, 124.

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words insofar as Bowditch’s comments encapsulated more than five years of hostilities, tiffs and

kerfuffles. With his health failing, Kirkland was simply no longer in a place to continue this

protracted battle with the Corporation. Under the counsel of his wife and friends, he submitted

his resignation the next day.

A historical glimpse at the year following Kirkland’s departure elucidates the safeguards

put in place by the College to prevent another scenario like Kirkland’s. True to their precedent,

the Overseers of the College endeavored to present a candidate who would rectify President

Kirkland’s shortcomings: Josiah Quincy fit the bill precisely. Unlike Kirkland, whose eyes

turned down toward the students and not around to the infrastructure of the College, Quincy was

“primarily an administrator.” He was “straightforward,” dutiful, and “practical”: everything

Kirkland was not.61 As an industrious man, one might assume he would possess an unflattering

opinion of the less scrupulous Kirkland. However, Mrs. Quincy recounts that the new President

was nonetheless fond of Jolly Old Kirkland.62 Acknowledging the “faults in Kirkland’s

management,” President Quincy still felt that the responsibility “ought to be divided with

Corporation,” and felt “obliged” to say something of Dr. Kirkland in his inaugural address.63

Accordingly, he penned a short paragraph praising Kirkland’s “great sagacity,” “great

knowledge of human nature” and “great popularity.”64

Despite Quincy’s urge to commend President Kirkland in his inaugural address, a curious

scholar will find himself incapable of locating such a paragraph in the speech. In fact, he will

have difficulties even locating a copy of the speech itself. Just one copy exists, in the Harvard

61 Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 246.62 Eliza Quincy, 1.63 ibid, 3.64 Josiah Quincy, 372. This paragraph of such contention mysteriously cannot be found in Eliza Quincy’s handwritten transcription. It appears that even there, President Quincy wished not to upset Dr. Bowditch. As Mrs. Quincy notes, however, the exact text was moved to Josiah Quincy’s The History of Harvard University from which it is here cited.

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University Archives, handwritten by Mrs. Quincy. Why is it that this address, considered by

some the best he ever delivered, 65 never appears in print? A note by Mrs. Quincy taped into the

front cover reveals the reason: after reading the complimentary paragraph regarding Kirkland’s

presidency, Dr. Bowditch refused to vote for “the publication of the Address which contained

it.”66 Not wanting to act “contrary to Dr. Bowditch’s wishes,” Quincy never published the text.67

On August 17, 1770, Old Kirkland at last passed away. In his eulogy, Reverend John

Palfrey did not shy away from addressing Dr. Bowditch’s “disrespect” to the President.68

However, in a 1936 historical piece in the Boston Herald, a reporter spoke obliviously about

President Kirkland’s resignation “because of ill health,” clearly ignorant of the storm that had

raged in Cambridge over a century in the past.69 In the deluge of new times and fresh

controversies, the scandal surrounding John Thorton Kirkland appears to have been

overshadowed by the penumbra of more scintillating characters. However, returning to the

primary accounts of Dr. Bowditch, John Lowell, and Josiah Quincy exhumes a rich and layered

discord within the Corporation spanning five years. While scholars like Samuel Eliot Morison

elevate financial woes in the College as the primary factor dividing President from Corporation,

administrative records reveal that Kirkland’s financial negligence was merely one example of his

overarching transgression of his presidential powers. In all matters, Kirkland was given to go

against the Corporation’s directives wherever he felt obliged to do so. His dismissal of term bills,

protection of misbehaving students, and assumption of unchecked power sowed the seeds of

dissension within the College administration. It was his inability to fulfill the role of President in

all its obligations and its limitations that drove the Corporation away. Dr. Bowditch’s critical

65 Eliza Quincy, 1.66 ibid.67 ibid. Mrs. Quincy explains that after the fact, President Quincy “regretted he did not publish the address on his own account.” 68 Palfrey, “Remarks Concerning the Late Dr. Bowditch,” 4.69 Boston Herald, 26 November 1936, by Jack Frost in “John Thorton Kirkland.” Quinquennial File.

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comments of the President punctuated years of enmity between the Corporation and the

President, and precipitated a departure long-portended. Kirkland was by no means a bad person

nor an unscrupulous man. The event of his resignation complicates perceptions of the late

President and reveals that with his paternalism came administrative costs. With Dr. Kirkland’s

departure, so departed the paternal president. His exit, however, allowed the College

infrastructure to recuperate, and taught the Corporation a valuable lesson that it would carry into

each presidency to come.

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Grimm 17

Morison, Samuel Eliot. “The Great Rebellion of Harvard College, and the Resignation of

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