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= The role of the College of William and Mary in the American Revolution =

Overview
The College of William and Mary, frequently cited as the “alma mater of the nation”, has produced numerous alumni that served at the forefront of the American Revolution. Under the Committee of Correspondence for the Stamp Act, seven of the eleven committee members attended William and Mary, including Peyton Randolph and Thomas Jefferson. This dominance of William and Mary alumni can also be seen at the Committee of Safety, where six of the eleven appointed in 1775 were from the Virginian institution. Significant number of alumni were also present in the Committee who framed the Declaration of Rights and State Constitution, signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as the Continental Congress.

Classics and History
One main factor for such active participation within and beyond the college was its curriculum, which included the reading of classics, such as Plutarch’s Lives and the orations of Cicero and Demosthenes. This classical education had armed and radicalized their students with political principles that would later benefit the business of state and the American Revolution. Clinton Rossiter wrote that the:

“roll-call of Harvard and William and Mary men in the Revolution should be enough evidence that Latin, Logic, and metaphysics were not such poisonous fertilizer after all in cultivation of reason, liberality, virtue, honor, and love of liberty.”

Samuel Eliot Morison believed that the college, alongside the other colonial colleges aside from Columbia, had thus became a Whig stronghold due to classical scholarship. Beyond classical learning, the subject of history was also fundamental in creating budding revolutionaries in their political convictions and leanings; as the lessons of history, in particular 17th century history, helped these colonialists navigate their future through warnings of the past.

Faculty influence
Thomas Jefferson’s tutor, William Small, influenced Jefferson with liberal politics and was a key figure in shaping Jefferson’s political career. Jefferson held Small in great reverence, complimenting his tutor with much fervor:

"... a man most profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication correct and gentlemanly manners, & an enlarged & liberal mind".

Small had also introduced Jefferson to George Wythe to secure his legal education. Together with Small, they frequently dined together and the two members of the William and Mary faculty had prescribed the young Jefferson with an "unofficial political and cultural education". Wythe was among the members of the Continental Congress, and later signed the Declaration of Independence written by his protégé. Wythe's other famous students included the fourth Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall and the nineth secretary of state Henry Clay, in which the former student served as a Captain for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

1779 Reforms
There was also great turmoil in the college due to the 1779 reforms proposed by Jefferson for this institution. Jefferson believed that the college should reflect the current state of its society and benefit its people, and should thus lose its royal charter and instead become a public institution. While the proposal led by the then Governor of Virginia was ultimately rejected, the legislature conceded by agreeing in principle that it could one day be a categorially sectarian school instead of one of royal foundation.

Power struggle between the Visitors and the Society
Additionally, there was a power struggle within members and faculty of William and Mary. During the initial years of independence, those who were suspected of having royalist or tory beliefs, inclusive of the college’s Visitors and Governors, were dismissed, and the college had also decided to appoint James Madison as president. Prior to the reforms, there was already been antecedence of major animosity between the Visitors, a lay governing board, and the Society, made up of the president and professors. The Visitors were "local-minded" colonialists who governed the school and were willing to change the college statutes based on the societal expectations in Williamsburg. However, the Society prided themselves as men of English origin. Along with other reforms such as the inclusion of professional education such as the study of law and medicine, the college was able to navigate itself out of its royal and English roots and transform itself into a distinctively American college. During the decade 1765 1775, only two presidents were of pronounced Tory persuasion: Myles Cooper of Columbia and John Camm of William and Mary. Camm would also be the last tory president of the college, as well as the last priest representing the Church of England. Because of his stance against the Revolution, he was removed from office in 1777.

However, winning control of the college from the Society was not an easy task for the Board of Visitors. The faculty of William and Mary had more autonomy over the status and direction of the college than any other of the colonial colleges. The faculty was also being represented by the House of Burgesses. Camm, as well as many professors in the college, denounced the violence that occurred in reaction to the Stamp Act from 1765 to 1766. He was also an ardent supporter of Lord Dunmore, who was appointed as the new Royal Governor of Virginia, and contested that Britain should only grant Virginia the status of a dominion at most in the empire's interest. Many of the faculty members, under his leadership and guidance, shared his tory sentiments, and also extended their support to Dunmore. Professor Thomas Gwatkin even served as Dunmore's personal chaplain. Gwatkin, along with fellow faculty member and Loyalist Samuel Henley, would later leave the college for England in 1775, after experiencing great disdain over the status of the colonies.

Relationship between the college and Virginian society
William and Mary was only able to participate in the Revolution in such an active state due to its relationship with the greater Virginian society. Daniel Boorstin wrote that colleges "tended to be at the center of each colony’s affairs." William and Mary was not simply a mecca for scholarship, but an extension of the Virginian community. Hence, there were discussions of dissent in the college from 1765 onwards, as reflective of the mood of the general population. In college, there were banishment of imports and tory merchants, as well as the intimidation of tory students in the campus. Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. believed that out of the approximate 3000 graduates in the colonies in 1776, roughly five out of six of their alumni supported the revolt.

George Washington
Main article: George Washington

George Washington obtained a surveyor's license from the college in 1749. His education and experience in surveying in his early life would serve Washington well, as he had extensive knowledge of the topography and terrains of Virginia and Pennsylvania, which would prove advantageous when launching guerrilla attacks against the British. Washington's surveying career would also allow him to serve and connect with the Virginian gentry, as well as being able to serve in the British army, which would arm him with military experience that would prove vital in the later years. Washington was elected to be commander in chief of the Continental Army in 1775, and served in his rank until December 1783, after the Peace of Paris treaty on September of the same year. He would later be elected as the first President of the United States in 1789.

Peyton Randolph
Main article: Peyton Randolph

Peyton Randolph studied at the William and Mary Grammar School in 1739, before furthering his studies in the field of law at Middle Temple. Although Randolph had an education in London, and was courteous towards the British Establishment, he supported the protests against polices such as the Stamp Act, the Townshend duties, as well as the Intolerable Acts during his time as Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses. Randolph had also assisted in allowing his cousin William Stith to be the President of William and Mary, which in turn helped placate and convince some members of faculty to be more agreeable towards the Two Penny Act. Peyton later served as President of the First Continental Congress in 1752.

Thomas Jefferson
Main article: Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson attended the college at the age of seventeen from 1760 to 1762. Jefferson contributed to the American Revolution in a multitude of roles in the continental government, such as a delegate for Virginia in the Continental Congress and Governor of Virginia. He would also author the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Daniel Webster reflected on Jefferson's role in the Declaration:

"Let us rather say, that he so discharged the duty assigned him, that all Americans may well rejoice that the work of drawing the title-deed of their liberties devolved upon him."

The Declaration's significance lies in its ability to justify the revolt against the British, and laid the foundation for American politics in the years to come. Jefferson served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809.

James Monroe
Main article: James Monroe

James Monroe enrolled in the college in 1774, before leaving the institution to join the Continental Army in 1776. Due to help of his maternal uncle Joseph Jones, as well as having a college education, Monroe was able to be commissioned as Lieutenant of the Third Virginia Infantry. He later also served as a brigade commander in battles such as the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. George Washington had written a letter to Colonel Archibald Cary about Monroe, and praised the service of the young officer in the "highest terms". After his stint in the military, he delved into a political career, and served in a number of positions in government before being elected as the fifth President of the United States in 1816.

Patrick Henry
Main article: Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry attended William and Mary sporadically under the tutelage of St. George Tucker, who taught law in the college. He later became a lawyer, and his Parson's Cause speech and Treason speech in disfavor of the Stamp act brought him much popularity within the region. The general public became enamored with Henry, as William Wirt noted that:

"as a sturdy and wide spreading oak, beneath whose cool and refreshing shade they might take refuge from those beams of aristocracy, that had play upon them so long, and with rather an unpleasant heat."

Perhaps Henry's magnum opus was his Liberty or Death speech, where it as believed that his linking of biblical imagery with revolutionary sentiments placates American gentry, who only wanted the status quo for colonial politics, and directed Virginia to prepare for war. He served as Governor of Virginia in his later years.

Executive

 * John Marshall
 * Edmund Randolph

Judiciary

 * John Blair Jr.
 * Bushrod Washington
 * St. George Tucker
 * John Tyler Sr.

Legislative

 * Richard Bland
 * Carter Braxton
 * William Fleming (judge)
 * Benjamin Harrison V
 * George Plater
 * George Wythe
 * John Francis Mercer
 * John Brown (Kentucky politician)
 * Edwin Gray
 * Stevens Thomson Mason (senator)
 * Wilson Cary Nicholas
 * Daniel Smith (surveyor)
 * John Taylor of Caroline
 * Henry Tazewell
 * James Breckinridge
 * Samuel Jordan Cabell
 * Joseph Eggleston
 * Thomas Evans (Virginia politician)
 * Carter Bassett Harrison
 * Roger Nelson (politician)
 * John Nicholas (congressman)
 * Wilson Cary Nicholas

Religion
There was shift of religious tolerance in the favor of the Catholics during and after the Revolution. William and Mary had conferred an honorary degree to the Marquis de Chastellux, showing their appreciation for their Catholic allies. This is a stark contrast to what the college was during King William’s War, where the college was under the auspices of the Anglican Church. There were plenty of Anti-Catholic literature in the library of William and Mary, alongside Harvard and Yale.

In 1779, Jefferson, as a member of the board of William and Mary, founded the law and medical schools of the college, and abolished its divinity school. There, Jefferson had hoped to lift the college away from an institution rooted in private religious education since its royal charter and transform it to an egalitarian non-sectarian state university. When Jefferson realized the improbability of reinventing William and Mary into a public college after 1796, he turned his attention to the establishment of the University of Virginia.