Editing Lane Seminary (section)

===Trustees ban the discussion of abolition===
As Cincinnati businessmen, the members of the school's board of trustees were quite concerned about being associated with such a radical expression of abolitionism, which could have led to a physical attack on the Seminary. "A riot was very [narrowly] averted, probably only because of Lane's summer vacation."<ref>{{cite book|title=The Origins of Knox College|first=Grant|last=Forssberg|url=https://www.knox.edu/about-knox/our-history/perspectives-on-knox-history/origins-of-knox-college|publisher=[[Knox College (Illinois)|Knox College]]|access-date=July 30, 2019|archive-date=July 13, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190713172216/https://www.knox.edu/about-knox/our-history/perspectives-on-knox-history/origins-of-knox-college|url-status=live}}</ref>

President Beecher did not want to escalate the matter by overreacting, but when the press began to turn public opinion against the students that summer, he was fundraising in Boston. In his absence, the executive committee of the trustees issued a report ordering the abolishment of the school's antislavery society, stating that "no associations or Societies among the students ought to be allowed in the Seminary except such as have for their immediate object improvement in the prescribed course of studies." They also declared that they had the right to dismiss any student "when they shall think it necessary to do so."<ref name=Vermont/> They further adopted a rule to "discourage...such discussions and conduct among the students as are calculated to divert their attention from their studies", meaning that students were not to discuss abolitionism even when dining<ref name=Statement/>{{rp|4}} (talking to students while they were eating was specifically prohibited in the Standing Rules enacted by the trustees on October 13, 1834.<ref name=Vermont>{{cite news
|title=Lane Seminary
|newspaper=[[Vermont Chronicle]] ([[Bellows Falls, Vermont]])
|date=November 7, 1834
|page=3
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39224438/activities_at_lane_theological_seminary/
|access-date=November 18, 2019
|archive-date=July 17, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210717103658/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/39224438/activities-at-lane-theological-seminary/
|url-status=live
}}</ref>) The committee underlined their position by dismissing professor [[John Morgan (professor)|John Morgan]] for taking the side of the students. In October, without waiting for Beecher to return, the board ratified the committee's resolutions.<ref name=Fletcher/>{{rp|158–161}}

On his return, Beecher and two professors issued a statement intended to assuage the anger of the students regarding the action of the trustees, but it was regarded by the students as a faculty endorsement of the trustees' action.