John Witherspoon

John Witherspoon 1723-94, Scottish-American Presbyterian clergyman, political leader in the American Revolution, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Haddingtonshire (now East Lothian), Scotland. He was educated at the Univ. of Edinburgh. From 1745 to 1768 he occupied pastorates in Scotland. A conservative in religion, he wrote Ecclesiastical Characteristics (1753) as an attack on those ministers who preached humanism instead of dogmatic truth, and in his Serious Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Stage (1757) he maintained that drama was not an innocent recreation but an arouser of immoral passion. In 1768, Witherspoon was appointed president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton Univ.), where he broadened the curriculum and considerably improved the quality of education. He promoted the growth of the Presbyterian Church in America and healed schisms. Despite his original feeling that the clergy should avoid politics, he accepted a position as delegate from New Jersey to the Continental Congress and served almost continuously from 1776 to 1782. His last years were spent in restoring the college at Princeton and in participating in New Jersey politics. His collected works appeared in nine volumes in 1815.

Bibliography: See biography by V. L. Collins (1925, repr. 1969).

Witherspoon, John (1723–94), Scottish‐born Presbyterian minister, came to America to accept the presidency of the College of New Jersey (1768). He healed the breach between the New Side and the Old Side, revitalized his church in the Middle colonies, and as a philosopher denounced the theories of Berkeley and championed empirical common sense. He encouraged advanced methods of instruction, and enlarged the curriculum, but because of the suspension of exercises during the Revolution, the institution suffered during his administration, and he turned his interest to political affairs. A member of the Continental Congress, he signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. His hand can be traced in several keen political publications of the period, to which he contributed anonymously. His most memorable sermon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, preached at Princeton (May 17, 1776), is a calm statement of his advocacy of independence. His best secular writing is the Essay on Money (1786), opposing paper currency. He is better remembered for his coinage of the word “Americanism” in “The Druid,” a denunciation of the American language published in the Pennsylvania Journal (1781). His writings were collected (4 vols., 1800–1801).