"'To the Trustees of Dartmouth College:
"'In making this communication to the Hon. and Rev. Board of Trustees I take the liberty respectfully to protest against their right to impose any religious, ethical, or political test upon any member of their own body or any member of the College Faculty, beyond what is recognized by the Charter of the institution, or express statutes or stipulations conformed to that instrument, however urged or suggested, directly or indirectly, by individuals or public bodies assuming to be as visitors of the college, or advisers of the Trustees.
"'The action of the Trustees, on certain resolutions of the Merrimack County Conference of Churches, virtually imposes such a test, inasmuch as it implicitly represents and censures me as having become injurious to the college, not on account of any official malfeasance or delinquency, for, on the contrary, its commendations of my personal and official character and conduct during my long term of service, far exceed my merits; but, for my opinions and publications on questions of Biblical ethics and interpretations, which are supposed by the Trustees to bear unfavorably upon one branch of the policy pursued by the present administration of the government of the country.
"'For my opinions and expressions of opinion on such subject, I hold myself responsible only to God, and the constitutional tribunals of my country; inasmuch as they are not touched by the Charter of the college, or any express statutes or stipulations. And, while my unswerving loyalty to the government of my fathers, proved and tested by more than seventy years of devotion to its true and fundamental principles, cannot be permanently discredited by excited passions of the hour, I do not feel obliged when its exercise is called in question, to surrender my moral and constitutional right and Christian liberty, in this respect, nor to submit to any censure, nor consent to any conditions such as are implied in the aforesaid action of the Board; which action is made more impressive upon me, in view of the private communications of some of its members.
"'But not choosing to place myself in any unkind relations to a body having the responsible guardianship of the college, a body from which I have received so many tokens of confidence and regard, and believing it to be inconsistent with Christian charity and propriety to carry on my administration, while holding and expressing opinions injurious, as they imagine, to the interests of the college, and offensive to that party in the country which they [the majority] professedly represent, I hereby resign my office as president.
"'I also resign my office as Trustee. In taking leave of the college with which I have been connected, as Trustee or President, more than forty years, very happily to myself, and, as the Trustees have often given me to understand, not without benefit to the college, I beg leave to assure them that I shall ever entertain a grateful sense of the favorable consideration shown to me by themselves and their predecessors in office; and that I shall never cease to desire the peace and prosperity of the college, and that it may be kept true to the principles of its foundation.
I am very respectfully,
"'Your ob't serv't,
"'N. Lord.'"
"'Adjourned Meeting, September 21, 1863. Resolved, 'that in accepting the resignation of President Lord, we place on record a grateful sense of his services during the long period of his administration; and his kind and courteous treatment of the Board in all their intercourse.'"
Dr. Lord continued to reside at Hanover, cordially co-operating with his successor in office, till his death, September 9, 1870. His wife, Mrs. Elisabeth King (Leland) Lord, died a few months previous to her husband.