Clashing Creeds
The Administration Cracks Down |
With the rise of the students' anti-slavery organization, the Board of Trustees decided the group's views were a thorn in the school and the city's side. To stop the Rebels, when the term at Lane Seminary closed, "the trustees did more than abolish the society, they passed 'creation regulations' " (A Review of the statement). "In [the trustees'] eyes, the students were self-righteous in their propagation of their belief in the vincibility of race prejudice, and had acted without regard to the consequences of their actions on the welfare of the Seminary." |
The trustees' new regulations included:
"1. That societies, relating to slavery, that have been recently formed in the seminary, are abolished.
2. It shall not be lawful for the students to have public communication with one another, at table or elsewhere, without leave of the faculty. [...]
The Executive Committee of the Trustees shall have power to dismiss any student, when they shall think it necessary to do so."
-("Lane Seminary Rebels," Huntington Lyman)
Using the last law, the trustees meant to dismiss William T. Allan, "a gentleman, most agreeable to his peers and to the faculty . . . obnoxious only because he had been made president of our anti-slavery society" (Lyman).
"The trustees of a Theological Seminary abolished a benevolent society, formed by theological students. It is difficult to conceive of reasons to justify such a measure, when the piety and talents of the young men are brought to view. The faculty entertain no doubts of their piety. . . . And they speak of their talents in terms no less favorable." |
"For . . . the trustees, the issue had become "who shall govern? Students? or faculty in concurrence with Trustees? The recent history of our seminary had rendered the question altogether dubious."
-Lawrence Thomas Lesick (The Lane Rebels: Evangelism and Antislavery in Antebellum America)
-----
Students Defend Free Speech
The Rebels were outraged that their rights to speak their minds and perform their theological duties were restricted. Through their abolitionist actions they flaunted free speech, but the administration feared remonstrations. Defended by some authorities, denounced by others, the students persevered. "We are commanded to discontinue anti-slavery society. We are prohibited from holding meetings among ourselves and from making statements and communications at table, or elsewhere, without permission. A committee of the board of the trustees is set over us to exercise censorship. . ." |
-----
Loyalty Over the Law
Rather than let their classmate be unjustly dismissed, 51 students--including Allan--felt that "duty to [Christ's] cause demands from us . . . secession" (Defence of the Students).
They left Lane Theological Seminary. |
-----
"It [the Lane debates] becomes a standard of the meaning of free speech. . . . Just doing what they [the Rebels] did and then walking out of Lane instead of agreeing to stop talking about abolitionism became a great inspiration to later generations of student activists."
-Richard Newman, Professor of History, Rochester Institute of Technology