John Witherspoon: President and Patriot

Life and Books and Everything

Clearly Reformed

Books, Religion & Spirituality, Arts, Christianity

4.6 • 635 Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2022

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A Princeton University president, teacher, preacher, politician, Declaration of Independence signatory, and a slave owner. As an early American patriot, John Witherspoon has been the center some recent controversy as a statue of him may be removed from historic Princeton University library grounds.

In this episode, Kevin reads from his article written for “Princetonians for Free Speech” and reflects on his life as a whole, including his status as land owner and what his motives were for also owning one slave.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Greetings and salutations and hope you had a Merry Christmas.
0:14.3	This is Kevin DeYoung.
0:15.2	You're listening to Life and Books and Everything.
0:19.1	One last post, one last podcast that is, before the new year. And this one is
0:26.2	on John Witherspoon. Maybe needs just a little bit of introduction. Princeton University,
0:32.9	where Witherspoon was president for 26 years back in the 18th century is considering tearing down a
0:41.1	statute that they have prominently placed of Witherspoon.
0:45.3	And a number of people have brought this to my attention over the past months, seeing as
0:51.2	how I have a special interest in Witherspoon, having done my doctoral work on him,
0:55.5	and reading everything he's written and hoping to write a biography of him someday.
1:02.0	So through a few mutual contacts, I was put in touch with a group called Princetonians for free speech
1:09.0	who are advocating to keep up this statue and they ask,
1:14.5	this group asked if I would write a historical piece on the accomplishments and the work of
1:20.2	Witherspoon and most importantly for their concerns at Princeton to try to put into context
1:26.2	his views on slavery and the fact that he owned two slaves.
1:31.2	So this is an article that I wrote about 3,000 words, a little more than that, on Princetonians for free speech on their website.
1:41.9	And you can find it there.
1:44.1	It's entitled John Witherspoon President and Patriot.
1:49.9	For now, the John Witherspoon statue stands in its prominent place outside Firestone Library at Princeton
1:56.9	University. I say for now, because some students, including 300 graduate students,
2:02.9	who signed a petition initiated by graduate students and a faculty member in the philosophy department,
2:08.5	are adamant that this statue should be removed. At one level, the debate is about public symbols,
	...

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