Thomas Roderick Dew | |
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13th President of the College of William & Mary | |
In office 1836–1846 | |
Preceded by | Adam Empie |
Succeeded by | Robert Saunders,Jr. |
Personal details | |
Born | King and Queen County,Virginia,United States | December 5,1802
Died | August 6,1846 43) Paris,France | (aged
Education | The College of William &Mary |
Occupation | Professor of History,Metaphysics,and Political Economy,College of William &Mary |
Known for | Proslavery writings |
Thomas Roderick Dew (December 5,1802 –August 6,1846) was a professor and public intellectual,then president of The College of William &Mary (1836-1846). [1] Although he first achieved national stature for opposing protective tariffs,today Dew may be best known for his pro-slavery advocacy. [2] [3]
Thomas Dew was born in King and Queen County,Virginia,in 1802,son of the former Lucy Gatewood and her Maryland-born husband,Captain Thomas Dew (1763-1849). His father had been a Revolutionary War soldier. [4] Settling in Virginia,the elder Thomas Dew established a plantation near Newtown in King and Queen County that he named "Dewsville" and which prospered by the use of enslaved labor (Thomas R. Dew owned 39 slaves in King and Queen County in 1820). [5] The family included five sons. The eldest son,Dr. William Dew (1796-1855),received 500 acres and a new house (now operating as Providence Plantation and Farm) as a wedding present in 1826. The family also included at least one daughter who survived to adulthood,married and had children,Mary Ellen Gresham (1786-1836). The namesake son (this man) received a private education appropriate to his class,and in 1818 began attending The College of William &Mary in Williamsburg. After graduating in 1820,Dew continued his studies and received a master's degree in 1824. [1] Having been diagnosed with a pulmonary illness,Dew traveled and studied in Europe for two years. [6] : 1110 [2]
On October 16,1826,Dew became a professor of history and political law at William &Mary. [2] He would teach those subjects,as well as metaphysics and political economy at William &Mary from 1827 to 1836. In 1836,Dew became the College President,and enrollment grew during the decade of his presidency,which ended with his death as described below. [1] While Dew's positions on slavery and opposition to women voting are discussed at length below,his opposition to tariffs was also popular with Southern audiences. [2] Dew twice declined invitations to run for political office,as well as invitations to teach at South Carolina College (today the University of South Carolina) and the University of Virginia. [1]
Dew came to national prominence in 1828 when he attacked the tariff that passed that year (also known as the "Tariff of Abominations"). He was a proponent of free trade,arguing that export taxes benefited Northern manufacturers at the expense of Southern planters. He supported state banks over a national bank,stating that centralized banking would give the government too much control over the economy. [1] Dew contributed to the Southern Literary Messenger and the Southern Review as well as gave lectures,but his largest book was the posthumously published Digest of the Laws,Customs,Manners,and Institutions of Ancient and Modern Nations (1853). [6] A source was P. Austin Nuttall's 1840 Classical and Archaeological Dictionary. [7]
In 1832,Dew published a review of the celebrated slavery debate of 1831–32 in the Virginia General Assembly,A Review of the Debates in the Legislature of 1831 and 1832,which went far towards putting a stop to a movement,then assuming considerable proportions,to proclaim the end of slavery in Virginia. [8] : 21–47 The Virginia Legislature's debate was a response to Nat Turner's slave rebellion of August 1831. [9] Dew argued that whites and freed blacks could not live alongside one other in peace,and stated that slavery was established by God while also acknowledging slavery violated the spirit of Christianity. [1] Dew dismissed colonization of freed American blacks in Africa as prohibitively expensive and logistically impractical;that Blacks did not want to go was of no importance to him. He noted also that the deportation of blacks would prevent Virginia from profiting from its breeding and export of negroes,as "a negro raising state for other states" of the South. [1] While many Southern readers were convinced by Dew's pro-slavery arguments,Dew also argued that Virginia was "too far north for slave labor" and personally owned only one slave from the 1830s until his death. [1] Moreover,Jesse Burton Harrison,of Lynchburg,Virginia,wrote a robust response that argued that colonization (sending freed slaves to Africa) was possible and that slavery was economically inefficient. [10] One recent scholar denies the nuances or contradictions in Dew's market-based slavery advocacy. [11]
In his inaugural speech as President at William &Mary,Dew "admonished young planters to resist fanatics who wished to eliminate slavery. Dew emphasized the importance of a broad-based liberal arts education but singled out morals and politics as the most significant subjects of study." [1]
Dew was well respected in the South;his widely distributed writings helped to confirm pro-slavery public opinion. His work resembles Southern surgeon and medical authority Samuel A. Cartwright,who defended slavery and invented the "diseases" of drapetomania (the "madness" that makes slaves want to run away),and dysaesthesia aethiopica ("rascality"),both of which were "cured" with beatings.[ citation needed ] Dew's 1833 Review was republished in 1849,and collected in The Pro-Slavery Argument,together with writings by Harper,Hammond and Simms. [12]
Contemporaries credited Dew for defeating proposals to end slavery in Virginia in the 1830s. Dew opposed even gradual emancipation. His teaching and his writings influenced later generations,which opposed Reconstruction and created Jim Crow. [13] : 1137–1139
Dew characterized women as modest,passive,virtuous,and religiously devout,which he attributed to women's physical weakness,and which made them dependent on male goodwill. Dew also asserted that men were intellectually superior to women (across all cultures and historical periods),but blamed the disparity on differences on educational differences rather than unequal natural endowments. Dew advocated denying suffrage to women "because their intense focus on their own families impeded their ability to comprehend broader political developments." [1]
Dew also described the hardships men faced in the marketplace,as well as the almost brutal strength needed to survive in such a competitive atmosphere. He stated that courage and boldness are man's attributes. For Dew,women were dependent and weak,but a spring of irresistible power.
Dew died of bronchitis in Paris on his honeymoon,a day after completing his transatlantic voyage. [2] [1] He had married Natalia Burwell Hay,daughter of Dr. Hay of Clarke County. He was buried at Montmartre cemetery,but in 1939 his remains were moved to the crypt under the Wren Chapel on the William &Mary campus. [1] [14] A compilation of his history lectures was published posthumously as A Digest of the Laws,Customs,Manners,and Institutions of the Ancient and Modern Nations (1853). [1] Providence Plantation and Farm,his eldest brother's house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009,although still in private hands.
At least four of his nephews fought as Confederate soldiers in the American Civil War:Sylvanius Gresham having participated in thwarting Dahlgren's Raid and his namesake Thomas R. Dew rising from corporal to captain and his two brothers also were CSA officers. [15] [16] Although Dew had no children and thus no direct descendants,a collateral relative,Charles B. Dew,a professor of Southern history at Williams College,wrote in The Making of a Racist (2016) of his Southern family's tradition of racism. [17]
With William Harper and Albert Gallatin.
Reprint from Washington newspaper The Madisonian. Selected Americana from Sabin's Dictionary of books relating to America ; fiches A-11,071-11,072).
A letter to Professor Millington dated Sept. 21, 1837, requesting him 'to purchase 2 or 300$ worth of books for Wm. & Mary College Library'.
Dew's family papers [18] and papers from his time as president of the College of William and Mary [19] can be found at the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William and Mary.
This section of the timeline of United States history concerns events from 1820 to 1859.
Thomas Corwin, also known as Tom Corwin, The Wagon Boy, and Black Tom was a politician from the state of Ohio. He represented Ohio in both houses of Congress and served as the 15th governor of Ohio and the 20th Secretary of the Treasury. After affiliating with the Whig Party, he joined the Republican Party in the 1850s. Corwin is best known for his sponsorship of the proposed Corwin Amendment, which was presented in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the oncoming American Civil War.
Henry St. George Tucker Sr. was a Virginia jurist, law professor, and U.S. Congressman (1815–1819).
James Henry Hammond was an American attorney, politician, and planter. He served as a United States representative from 1835 to 1836, the 60th Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1844, and a United States senator from 1857 to 1860. A slave owner, he is considered one of the strongest supporters of slavery in the years before the American Civil War.
George Frederick Holmes, emigrated to the United States where he taught history and literature and became the first Chancellor of the University of Mississippi. From 1857 until his death, Holmes taught literature, history and political economy at the University of Virginia and became known for textbooks designed for use in schools in the southern United States.
Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb was an American lawyer, author, politician, and Confederate States Army officer, killed in the Battle of Fredericksburg during the American Civil War. He was the brother of noted Confederate statesman Howell Cobb.
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Proslavery is support for slavery. It is sometimes found in the thought of ancient philosophers, religious texts, and in British writings and in American writings especially before the American Civil War but also later through the 20th century. Arguments in favor of slavery include deference to the Bible and thus to God, some people being natural slaves in need of supervision, slaves often being better off than the poorest non-slaves, practical social benefit for the society as a whole, and slavery being a time-proven practice by multiple great civilizations.
Archibald Austin was a 19th-century slave owner, politician and lawyer from Virginia who served as a member of the 15th United States Congress.
The history of the College of William & Mary can be traced back to a 1693 royal charter establishing "a perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and the good arts and sciences" in the British Colony of Virginia. It fulfilled an early colonial vision dating back to 1618 to construct a university level program modeled after Cambridge and Oxford at Henricus. A plaque on the Wren Building, the college's first structure, ascribes the institution's origin to "the college proposed at Henrico." It was named for the reigning joint monarchs of Great Britain, King William III and Queen Mary II. The selection of the new college's location on high ground at the center ridge of the Virginia Peninsula at the tiny community of Middle Plantation is credited to its first President, Reverend Dr. James Blair, who was also the Commissary of the Bishop of London in Virginia. A few years later, the favorable location and resources of the new school helped Dr. Blair and a committee of 5 students influence the House of Burgesses and Governor Francis Nicholson to move the capital there from Jamestown. The following year, 1699, the town was renamed Williamsburg.
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Adam Empie was an Episcopal priest in North Carolina and Virginia, who also taught and served as President of the College of William and Mary.
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Conway Robinson was a Virginia lawyer, author, slaveholder and politician aligned with the Democratic Party who represented Richmond, Virginia during the 1852-1853 session of the Virginia House of Delegates. He also served many years on Richmond's City Council and like his brother Moncure Robinson headed the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Petersburg railroad.
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ignored (help)Chapter: 'The proslavery argument revisited: Thomas Roderick Dew and the beginning of the positive good thesis'.
Chapter 2: The Rebel and the Professor: Nat Turner, Thomas Roderick Dew, and the Utility of Slavery