Editing Lane Seminary (section)

==The slavery debates==
Lane Seminary is known primarily for the debates held there over 18 evenings in February 1834; [[John Rankin (abolitionist)|John Rankin]] was in attendance,<ref>{{cite journal|title=John Rankin, Antislavery Prophet, and the Free Presbyterian Church|first=Larry G.|last=Willey|journal=[[American Presbyterians]]|volume=72|number=3|date=Fall 1994|pages=157–171|jstor=23333630}}</ref> as was [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]],<ref name=Williams>{{cite book
|title=Prudence Crandall's legacy: the fight for equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education|first=Donald E.|last=Williams Jr.|location=[[Middletown, Connecticut]]|publisher=[[Wesleyan University Press]]|year=2014|isbn=9780819574701}}</ref>{{rp|171}} daughter of Lane's president. They were nominally on the topic of colonization of freed slaves, on sending them to (not "back to") Africa.

They were publicized nationally and influenced the nation's thinking about [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]], creating support for abolition.<ref name=Williams/>{{rp|170}} A four-page report by H. B. Stanton appeared in March in both ''The Liberator'' and the ''[[New York Evangelist]],''<ref>{{cite news
|title=Cheering Intelligence
|first=H. B.
|last=Stanton
|author-link=Henry Brewster Stanton
|newspaper=[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]
|location=Boston, Massachusetts
|date=March 29, 1834
|page=2
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4171204/liberator_coverage_of_lane_debates/
|via=[[newspapers.com]]
|access-date=November 14, 2019
|archive-date=November 1, 2019
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191101091148/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4171204/liberator_coverage_of_lane_debates/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> and [[William Lloyd Garrison|Garrison]] and [[Isaac Knapp|Knapp]], printers of ''The Liberator'' and most books on slavery in the U.S. in the early 1830s, issued it in [[pamphlet]] form. A seven-page response, under the title "Education and slavery", appeared in the Cincinnati-based ''[[Western Monthly Magazine]]'';<ref>{{cite journal
|title=Education and slavery
|pages=266–273
|first=James]
|last=[Hall
|authorlink=James Hall (writer)
|journal=[[Western Monthly Magazine]]
|volume=2
|year=1834
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_y84AQAAMAAJ&dq=Western+monthly+magazine+%22education+and+slavery%22&pg=PA266
|access-date=January 17, 2022
|archive-date=May 17, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517123907/https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Western_Monthly_Magazine_and_Literar/_y84AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Western+monthly+magazine+%22education+and+slavery%22&pg=PA266
|url-status=live
}}</ref> Weld published a lengthy reply.<ref>{{cite news |last=Weld |first=Theodore D. |date=May 30, 1834 |title=Discussion at Lane Seminary |newspaper=[[Cincinnati Journal]] |url=http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:1852/utc/pretexts/abolitn/@Generic__BookTextView/33026;pt=32287?DwebQuery=%22Antislavery%2BImbroglio%22%2Binside%2B%3Ctext%3E%2Binside%2B(%3Ctei.2%3E)&DwebSearchAll=1#X) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060827000834/http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:1852/utc/pretexts/abolitn/@Generic__BookTextView/33026;pt=32287?DwebQuery=%22Antislavery%2BImbroglio%22%2Binside%2B%3Ctext%3E%2Binside%2B(%3Ctei.2%3E)&DwebSearchAll=1#X) |archive-date=August 27, 2006 |authorlink=Theodore Dwight Weld}} Reprinted in [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/36182826/theodore-weld-on-lane-theological/][[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]<span> (</span>[[Boston, Massachusetts]]<span>), 14 Jun 1834, p. 1.</span></ref> The affair got further publicity late in 1834, when 51 of the Lane students — the vast majority — published a 28-page pamphlet, [https://archive.org/details/ASPC0001868700/page/n1 ''A statement of the reasons which induced the students of Lane Seminary, to dissolve their connection with that institution''] (Cincinnati, 1834).

===Background===
====The abolition–colonization controversy====
Part of "the negro problem", as it was seen in the [[Antebellum South|antebellum]] United States, was the question of what to do with former slaves who had become free. Since the eighteenth century, Quakers and others had preached the sinfulness of slave ownership, and the number of [[freedmen]] (and freed women) was rising and showed every sign that it would continue to grow. The freed slaves married and had children, so the number of [[free people of color]] (Blacks born free) was rising even faster. Some owners freed their slaves in their wills. Philanthropic societies and individuals raised or donated funds to purchase slaves' freedom; freedmen sometimes were able to purchase the freedom of family members. In some Northern cities there were more than a handful of escaped slaves.

The status of these free blacks was anything but comfortable. They were not citizens and in most states could not vote. They had no access to the courts or protection by the police. In no state could their children attend the public schools. They were subject to discriminatory treatment in everyday life.

The original "remedy" for this problem was to help them go "back to Africa". The British had been doing this, in [[Sierra Leone]], moving former American slaves there who had gained their freedom by escaping to British lines during the [[American Revolution]], and who found [[Nova Scotia]], where the British took many of them, too cold.{{Efn|See [[Black Nova Scotians]].}} The British also took to Sierra Leone slaves captured from slaving ships who were being smuggled illegally across the Atlantic to North America. A well-to-do African-American shipowner, [[Paul Cuffe]], transported some former slaves to Sierra Leone.

However, sending former slaves to a British colony as a policy was politically unacceptable. The American Colonization Society was formed to help found a new, American colony of freed blacks. Although there was some talk of locating the colony in the American territories of the Midwest, or on the Pacific coast—a sort of reservation for Blacks<ref>{{cite journal
|title='Its Origin Is Not a Little Curious': A New Look at the American Colonization Society
|first=Douglas R.
|last=Egerton
|journal=[[Journal of the Early Republic]]
|volume=5
|number=4
|date=Winter 1985
|pages=463–480, at p. 466
|doi=10.2307/3123062
|jstor=3123062
}}</ref>—what was decided was to follow the English example and start an African colony. The closest available land was what became [[History of Liberia|Liberia]].

====The rejection of colonization====
The colonization project got off to a promising start, with various governmental and private donations and the participation of distinguished individuals: U.S. presidents Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison; Senator [[Henry Clay]], who presided over its first meeting; as well as most of the future white abolitionists. The problem had been solved, and in an honorable way; the former slaves would fare better in Africa, it was argued, among other blacks.

The situation quickly started to unravel. First of all, the disease rates among the new colonists were the highest since accurate record-keeping began. Over 50% of them died of malaria and other diseases.

Particularly telling to [[Gerrit Smith]], an abolitionist philanthropist, was that the American Colonization Society allowed the sale of alcohol (as well as guns and chewing tobacco) in the colonies that became Liberia. He commented on it in the Society's ''African Repository'' magazine. Smith was for temperance, and according to him, the fact that blacks in Africa were allowed to import liquor from the United States revealed the true goals of many of the white members of the American Colonization Society: to get rid of the Blacks without having them up north.

===Weld organizes "debates"===
Lyman Beecher, head of the Seminary, was a colonizationist,<ref name=Beecher/><ref name=Lesick/>{{rp|94}} and gave a speech on that topic to the Cincinnati Colonization Society on June 4, 1834.<ref name=Beecher2>{{cite magazine
|first=Lyman
|last=Beecher
|authorlink=Lyman Beecher
|title=Dr. Beecher's Address
|magazine=African Repository
|date=November 1834
|url=http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abes38at.html
|access-date=November 1, 2019
|archive-date=May 31, 2017
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170531163738/http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abes38at.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref> At Lane there was a "colonization society", supporting the efforts of the [[American Colonization Society]] to send free blacks to Africa, to Liberia. How it came to be is not known, but it was there when the Oneida contingent and friends arrived. There had been similar groups at Western Reserve and other colleges.

Weld read [[William Lloyd Garrison]]'s new abolitionist newspaper ''[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]'', begun in 1831, and his ''Thoughts on African Colonization'', which appeared in 1832. These had a great influence at the other eastern Ohio college, [[Case Western Reserve University|Western Reserve College]], leading to [[Beriah Green]]'s four published sermons,<ref>{{cite book
|first=Beriah
|last=Green
|authorlink=Beriah Green
|title=Four sermons preached in the chapel of the Western Reserve College : on Lord's Days, November 18th and 25th, and December 2nd and 9th, 1832
|location=Cleveland
|year=1833
|url=https://archive.org/details/foursermonspreac1833gree}}</ref> and his relocation under pressure to Gale's school, Oneida. What Garrison desired, and he convinced Green, was "immediatism": immediate, complete, and uncompensated freeing of all slaves.

Over a period of several months Weld convinced nearly all of the students individually of the superiority of the abolitionist view. To generate publicity for the abolitionist cause, Weld announced a series of "debates". Weld "had no intention of holding a debate on the pros and cons of antislavery."<ref name=Lesick/>{{rp|77}} "There was little opposition, little conflict, and consequently little debate."<ref name=Richards>{{cite book
|title=Gentlemen of property and standing: anti-abolition mobs in Jacksonian America
|last=Richards
|first=Leonard L.
|year=1970
|oclc=923435787
|url=https://archive.org/details/gentlemenofprope0000rich/page/74/mode/2up/search/Filled
|location=New York
|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-501351-1
}}</ref>{{rp|41 n. 39}} In his correspondence Weld informed friends that he was trying to get the anti-slavery (immediatist) argument and evidence out to as many people as possible. Nevertheless, what was announced was debates, on two points.

When the merits of the proposed solutions to slavery were debated over 18 days at the Seminary in February 1834, it was one of the first major public discussions of the topic, but it was more of an anti-slavery revival than a "debate". No speaker appeared to defend either [[slavery in the United States|American slavery]] or the colonization project.

===The stated topics of the debates===
The two specific questions addressed were:

* ''"Ought the people of the slaveholding states abolish slavery immediately?"'', and
* ''"Are the doctrines, tendencies, and measures of the [[American Colonization Society]], and the influence of its principal supporters, such as render it worthy of the patronage of the Christian public?"''<ref name=Courant>{{cite news
|title=Re-Creating 1834 Debates on Abolition
|first=Jesse
|last=Leavenworth
|newspaper=[[Hartford Courant]]
|url=https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2003-05-22-0305221555-story.html
|date=May 22, 2003
|access-date=January 27, 2020
|archive-date=January 27, 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200127202141/https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2003-05-22-0305221555-story.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref name=Cincinnati>{{cite book
|title=Fifth annual report of the trustees of the Cincinnati Lane Seminary: together with the laws of the institution and a catalogue of the officers and students, November, 1834
|location=Cincinnati
|year=1834
|publisher=Corey & Fairbank
|author=Cincinnati Lane Seminary
|url=https://archive.org/details/fifthannualrepor00lane}}</ref>{{rp|34–35}}

The debates were not transcribed, and there was no attempt afterwards, as there would be later with [[Pennsylvania Hall (Philadelphia)|Pennsylvania Hall]], to collect the texts which were written out — not all were — and make a booklet of them. However, Garrison promptly published a pamphlet,<ref name=Letter/> and there are excerpts in newspapers and books.

Each question was debated for two and a half hours a night for nine nights. Among the participants:

* Eleven had been born and brought up in slave states.
* Seven were sons of slaveowners.
* One had only recently ceased to be a slaveowner.
* One, Bradley, had been a slave and had bought his freedom.
* Ten had lived in slave states.
* One, Birney, had been an agent of the Colonization Society.

Arguments addressing the first question in favor of the immediate abolition of slavery included:

* Slaves long for freedom.
* When inspired with a promise of freedom, slaves will toil with incredible alacrity and faithfulness.
* No matter how kind their master is, slaves are dissatisfied and would rather be hired servants than slaves.
* Blacks are abundantly able to take care of and provide for themselves.
* Blacks would be kind and docile if immediately emancipated.

In response to the second question, the Reverend [[Samuel H. Cox]], who had served as an agent for the Colonization Society, testified that his view of the Society's plan changed when he realized that no blacks, despite the claims of those who ventured to speak for them, would ever consent to be removed from their native country and transplanted to a foreign land. He reasoned, therefore, that the plan could only be enacted by a "national society of kidnappers".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem%2Frbaapc%3A%40field%28DOCID+%40lit%28rbaapc29400div2%29%29%3A |title=American Memory from the Library of Congress |access-date=May 17, 2022 |archive-date=March 2, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220302195424/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem%2Frbaapc%3A%40field%28DOCID+%40lit%28rbaapc29400div2%29%29%3A |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Participants===

====Notable people present====
"The President, and the members of the faculty, with one exception [Biggs, an "implacable foe" of abolitionism<ref name=Abzug/>{{rp|127}}<ref name=Thomas/>{{rp|81}}], were present during parts of the discussion."<ref name="Stanton">{{cite book
|title=Debate at the Lane Seminary
|location=Boston
|publisher=[[William Lloyd Garrison|Garrison]] and [[Isaac Knapp|Knapp]]
|year=1834
|url=https://archive.org/details/debateatlanesem00stangoog/page/n12
|last=Stanton
|first=H. B.
|author-link=Henry Brewster Stanton}}</ref>{{rp|3}}
* [[Gamaliel Bailey]], physician, lecturer on physiology at Lane, who went on to become an abolitionist newspaper editor.
* [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]], at that time simply Harriet Beecher, daughter of Lane's president; 18 years later published ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]''.
* [[Henry Ward Beecher]], [[alumnus]], minister, called, after his father Lyman, "the most noted minister of the nineteenth century".<ref name=Perry>{{cite news
|title=Lift up thy voice: the Grimké family's journey from slaveholders to civil rights leaders
|last=Perry
|first=Mark
|date=2003
|url=https://archive.org/details/liftupthyvoice00mark/page/n17/mode/2up
|isbn=9780142001035
|location=New York
|publisher=[[Penguin Books]]}}</ref>{{rp|18}} Supported sending rifles ("[[Beecher's Bibles]]") to emigrants [[Bleeding Kansas|trying to make Kansas a free state]].
* [[Lyman Beecher]], president of Lane, father of Henry and Harriet.
* [[James G. Birney]], attorney, former [[American Colonization Society]] Agent, author of a lengthy published break with or attack on the Society. "His knowledge and pervasive influence informed the Lane Seminary debate, lifting it to the height of its subject."<ref>{{cite book
|title=James G. Birney and his times; the genesis of the Republican party with some account of abolition movements in the South before 1828
|last=Birney
|first=William
|author-link=William Birney
|date=1890
|location=New York
|publisher=[[D. Appleton and Company]]
|page=[https://archive.org/details/jamesgbirneyhist00birn/page/137 137]
|url=https://archive.org/details/jamesgbirneyhist00birn}}</ref>
* [[James Bradley (former slave)]], the only Black participant.
* [[Samuel Crothers]] (probable but unconfirmed<ref name=Lesick/>{{rp|80}})
* [[Amos Dresser]], Lane student; would become famous for being publicly whipped in [[Nashville, Tennessee]], for distributing abolitionist literature.
* [[Huntington Lyman]]<ref>{{cite book
|last=Lyman
|first=H[untington]
|chapter='Lane Seminary Rebels'
|pages=60–69
|chapter-url=http://www2.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/LaneDebates/Lyman-Rebels.pdf
|title=The Oberlin Jubilee 1833–1883
|editor-last=Ballantine
|editor-first=W. G.
|location=[[Oberlin, Ohio]]
|publisher=E. J. Goodrich
|access-date=November 11, 2019
|archive-date=January 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125034714/https://www2.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/LaneDebates/Lyman-Rebels.pdf
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
* [[Asa Mahan]], minister, and the only Lane trustee who supported the students; resigned with the students and accompanied them to the [[Oberlin Collegiate Institute]], becoming its first president.
* [[John Rankin (abolitionist)]], author of the first American anti-slavery book, and key figure on the [[Underground Railroad]] in Ohio. In 1835 Rankin published a pamphlet defending the students who debated.<ref>{{cite book
|title=A review of the statement of the faculty of Lane seminary : in relation to the recent difficulties in that institution.
|last=Rankin
|first=John
|author-link=John Rankin (abolitionist)
|year=1835
|location=[[Ripley, Ohio]]
|publisher=The author
|url=https://archive.org/details/ASPC0001922700/mode/2up}}</ref>
* [[Henry Brewster Stanton]], future abolitionist speaker and politician, and husband of [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]].
* [[Calvin Ellis Stowe]], Lane professor, future husband of Harriet Beecher.
* [[Theodore Dwight Weld]], former Oneida student, anti-slavery activist.
* [[Hiram Wilson]], former Oneida student; moved to Canada and ran Canadian [[Train station#Terminus|terminus]] for the [[Underground Railroad]].

===Speakers at the debates===

* "Mr. Henry P. Thompson, a native and still a resident of [[Nicholasville, Kentucky]], made the following statement at a public meeting in Lane Seminary, Ohio, in 1833 [1834]. He was at that time a slaveholder."

{{blockquote|''Cruelties,'' said he, ''are so common,'' I hardly know what to relate. But one fact occurs to me just at this time, that happened in the village where I live. The circumstances are these. A colored man, a slave, ran away. As he was crossing Kentucky river, a white man, who suspected him, attempted to stop him. The negro resisted. The white man procured help, and finally succeeded in securing him. He then wreaked his vengeance on him for resisting — flogging him till he was not able to walk. They then put him on a horse, and came on with him ten miles to Nicholasville. When they entered the village, it was noticed that he sat upon his horse like a drunken man. It was a very hot day; and whilst they were taking some refreshment, the negro sat down upon the ground, under the shade. When they ordered him to go, he made several efforts before he could get up; and when he attempted to mount the horse, his strength was entirely insufficient. One of the men struck him, and with an oath ordered him to get on the horse without any more fuss. The negro staggered back a few steps, fell down, and died. I do not know that any notice was ever taken of it.<ref name=Weld>{{cite book|title=American Slavery As It Is. Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses|first1=Theodore|last1=Weld
|author-link1=Theodore Weld
|first2=Angelina
|last2=Grimké
|author-link2=Angelina Grimké
|first3=Sarah
|last3=Grimké
|author-link3=Sarah Grimké
|date=1839|location=New York|publisher=[[American Anti-Slavery Society]]|url=https://archive.org/details/DKC0106}}</ref>{{rp|87}}}}

* "Rev. Coleman S. Hodges, a resident of Western Virginia, gave the following testimony at the same meeting:"

{{blockquote|I have frequently seen the mistress of a family in Virginia, with whom I was well acquainted, beat the woman who performed the kitchen work, with a stick two feet and a half long, and nearly as thick as my wrist ; striking her over the head, and across the small of the back, as she was bent over at her work, with as much spite as you would a snake, and for what I should consider no offence at all. There lived in this same family a young man, a slave, who was in the habit of running away. He returned one time after a week’s absence. The master took him into the barn, stripped him entirely naked, tied him up by his hands so high that he could not reach the floor, tied his feet together, and put a small rail between his legs, so that he could not avoid the blows, and commenced whipping him. He told me that he gave him five hundred lashes. At any rate, he was covered with wounds from head to foot. Not a place as big as my hand but what was cut. Such things as these are perfectly common all over Virginia; at least so far as I am acquainted. Generally, planters avoid punishing their slaves before strangers.<ref name=Weld/>{{rp|87–88}}}}

*"Mr. Calvin H. Tate, of Missouri, whose father and brother were slaveholders, related the following at the same meeting. The plantation on which it occurred, was in the immediate neighborhood of his father's."

{{blockquote|A young woman, who was generally very badly treated, after receiving a more severe whipping than usual, ran away. In a few days she came back, and was sent into the field to work. At this time the garment next her skin was stiff like a scab, from the running of the sores made by the whipping. Towards night, she told her master that she was sick, and wished to go to the house. She went, and as soon as she reached it, laid down on the floor exhausted. The mistress asked her what the matter was? She made no reply. She asked again; but received no answer. "I'll see," said she, "if I can’t make you speak." So taking the tongs, she heated them red hot, and put them upon the bottoms of her feet ; then upon her legs and body; and, finally, in a rage, took hold of her throat. This had the desired effect. The poor girl faintly whispered, "Oh, misse, don't — I am most gone", and expired.<ref name=Weld/>{{rp|88}}}}

* The most notable speaker at the debates was [[James Bradley (former slave)|James Bradley]], as he was the only Black participant and so far as is known the only Black in attendance. This is the first instance in the history of the United States that a Black man addressed a white audience:

{{blockquote|James Bradley, the emancipated slave above alluded to, addressed us nearly two hours; and I wish his speech could have been heard by every opponent of immediate emancipation, to wit: first, that "it would be unsafe to the community;" second, that "the condition of the emancipated negroes would be worse than it now is; that they are incompetent to provide for themselves; that they would become paupers and vagrants, and would rather steal than work for wages." This shrewd and intelligent black, cut up these white objections by the roots, and withered and scorched them under the sun of sarcastic argumentation, for nearly an hour, to which the assembly responded in repeated and spontaneous roars of laughter, which were heartily joined in by both Colonizationists and Abolitionists. Do not understand me as saying, that his speech was devoid of argument. No. It contained sound logic, enforced by apt illustrations. I wish the slanderers of negro intellect could have witnessed this unpremeditated effort. ..."They [the enslaved] have to take care of, and support themselves ''now, and their master, and his family into the bargain;'' and this being so, it would be strange if they could not provide for themselves, ''when disencumbered from this load.''" He said the great desire of the slaves was "liberty and education."<ref name=Letter/>{{rp|4, italics in original}}

"How strange it is that anybody should believe any human being could be a slave, and yet be contented! I do not believe there ever was a slave, who did not long for liberty. I know very well that slave-owners take a great deal of pains to make the people in the free States believe that the slaves are happy; but I know, likewise, that I was never acquainted with a slave, however well he was treated, who did not long to be free. There is one thing about this, that people in the free States do not understand. When they ask slaves whether they wish for their liberty, they answer, 'No;' and very likely they will go so far as to say they would not leave their masters for the world. But, at the same time, they desire liberty more than anything else, and have, perhaps, all along been laying plans to get free. The truth is, if a slave shows any discontent, he is sure to be treated worse, and worked the harder for it; and every slave knows this. This is why they are careful not to show any uneasiness when white men ask them about freedom. When they are alone by themselves, all their talk is about liberty — liberty! It is the great thought and feeling that fills the mind full all the time."<ref name=Myself/>{{rp|110–111}}}}

===Sequela (the following events)===
The debates were closely followed by the national press and the religious community.<ref name=Perry/>{{rp|101, 103}}

"The trustees soon expressed a determination to prevent all further discussion of the comparative merits of the policy of the Colonization Society, and the doctrine of immediate emancipation, either in the recitation rooms, the rooms of the students, or at the public table; although no objection had previously been made to the free discussion of any subject whatever. During the vacation that followed, in the absence of a majority of the professors, this purpose was framed into a law, or rule, of the seminary, and obedience to it required from all."<ref name=Arthur/>{{rp|227}}

The trustees laid down the doctrine that "no associations or societies ought to be allowed in the seminary, except such as have for their immediate object, improvement in the prescribed course of 
studies." This was followed by an order in these words: "Ordered that the students be required to discontinue those societies [the Anti-slavery and Colonization societies] in the seminary."<ref name=Arthur>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofarthurtapp00tapp_1/page/226|title=The Life of Arthur Tappan|location=New York|publisher=[[Hurd and Houghton]]|year=1870|first=Lewis|last=Tappan|author-link=Lewis Tappan}}</ref>{{rp|227}}

The event resulted in the dismissal of a professor, John Morgan, and the departure of a group of 40 students and a trustee. It was one of the first significant tests in the United States of [[academic freedom]] and the right of students to participate in free discussion. It also marked the first organized student body in American history. Several of those involved went on to play an important role in the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] movement and the buildup to the [[American Civil War]].

At the end of the debate, many of the participants concluded not only that slavery was a sin, but also that the policy of the American Colonization Society to send blacks to Africa was wrong. As a result, these students formed an antislavery society and began organizing activities and outreach work among the black population of Cincinnati. They intended to attain the emancipation of blacks, not by rebellion or force, but by "approaching the minds of slave holders with the truth, in the spirit of the Gospel."<ref name=Fletcher/>