The History of Dartmouth College

by Baxter Perry Smith

"Very cordially yours,

Thomas W. Thompson."

August 28, 1816, a majority of the old Trustees formally refused to accept the provisions of the act.

A meeting of the Trustees of the university, under the act of June 27, 1816, was called, but through the illness of a single member, failed for want of a quorum. The judges of the Superior Court, on December 5, 1816, in answer to the Governor and Council, gave their opinion that the executive department had no authority to fill the vacancies which had occurred. To remedy this, the Legislature, on December 18, 1816, passed an additional act providing for filling the vacancies, the calling of meetings and fixing a quorum; and on December 26, 1816, passed another act imposing the penalty of five hundred dollars upon any person who should assume any office in the university except by virtue of the preceding acts.

In view of this action President Brown writes to Mr. Timothy Farrar, of Portsmouth, January 3, 1817:

"Now, what shall we do? One of these four courses must be taken. We must either keep possession and go on to teach as usual, without any regard to the law, or, withdrawing from the college edifice and all the college property, continue to instruct as the officers of Dartmouth College; or, relinquishing this name for the present, collect as many students as will join us, and instruct them as private but associated individuals; or else we must give all up and disperse. Will you give us your opinion, what may be duty or what expedient, as soon as convenient? Particularly, will you give us your opinion whether, supposing this oppressive act to be judged constitutional, we should be liable to the fine, if we instruct as the officers of Dartmouth College, relinquishing, however, the college buildings, the library, apparatus, etc."

The Faculty of the college issued the following:

"ADDRESS OF THE EXECUTIVE OFFICERS OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE TO THE PUBLIC.

"As the undersigned, after the most serious and mature consideration, have determined to retain the offices which they received by the appointment of the Trustees of Dartmouth College, and not voluntarily to surrender, at present, any property committed to them, nor to relinquish any privileges pertaining to their offices, they believe it to be a duty, which they owe to the public no less than to themselves, to make an explicit declaration of the principles by which they are governed.

"They begin by stating the two following positions, as maxims of political morality, which they deem incontrovertible: