John Witherspoon

From Virginia, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.

From the state of Pennsylvania, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross from the state of Delaware, Cesar Rodney, George Reed, Thomas McKean from the state of New York, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris from the state of New Jersey, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, From the state of New Hampshire, Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple.

From the state of Massachusetts, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Payne, Elbridge Gary.

From the state of Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery.

We've lost who we are.

So Benjamin Rush, one of the founding fathers, John Witherspoon, this founding father is the man most responsible for the economic clauses in the Constitution.

Now, on top of that, he's also the president of Princeton University.

A number of the founding fathers were taught by him.

Pamphleteers, preachers, and publicists rose, however, to meet the needs of the hour.

John Witherspoon, provost of the College of New Jersey, forsook the classroom for the field of political controversy.

The poet, Philip Frenot, flung taunts of cowardice at the Tories and celebrated the spirits of liberty in many a stirring poem.

Songs, ballads, plays, and satires flowed from the press in an unending stream.

But he receives an answer from a Scotsman in a black clerical gown.

"Not ripe, sir? In my judgment, the country is not only ripe for the measure, it is in danger of rotting for the want of it." That man was John Witherspoon.

He's a fifty-three-year-old Presbyterian minister from Yester, Scotland.

He is from the same line of clergymen as the famous Reformed theologian John Knox, and for all intents and purposes, John Witherspoon was a genius.

He's said to have read the entire Bible by the age of four, and he was at the University of Edinburgh at the age of thirteen.

And at this time, he is the president of the College of New Jersey, Princeton, and has only been in the country for eight years.

But yeah, so the American Revolution was the Presbyterian Revolt.

Another thing is that John Witherspoon was the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence, and he was a Presbyterian.

In fact, he was the same denomination as I am, PCUSA.

My denomination, the Presbyterian Church USA, just had its 227th General Assembly.

Yeah, well, although, like...

Hold up.

If you went and polled everybody at the PCUSA General Assembly and read John Witherspoon's greatest hits...

They would, they would like start peeing their pants and vomiting and blood would be coming out of their ears.

That's the first thing I thought, too.

Now, you said you are not related to Reed, but you wrote about John Witherspoon and the fact that you descended from the Witherspoons of Scotland.

Yes.

My genealogist friend did determine that John Witherspoon and I both descended from a common ancestor.

just a few generations before him.

I'm not directly related to John Witherspoon, wish I had been.

He was the first clergyman and the first, or not the first, I mean the only, the only clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration of Independence.

He was active on behalf of freedom and independence from the day he arrived in 1768 from Scotland.

... is, is something that you see in England distributed really well.

And sometimes the barons side with the people 'cause you have a tyrannical king, like, uh, King John, and they force him to sign the Magna Carta.

And there's this thing-

Hmm

[laughs]

So every time a new reaffirmation happens, it's at a time of trouble or difficulty.

So, like, the Magna Carta is written because King John was being such a tyrant.

Mm-hmm.

I think, I mean, I'm glad you mentioned his time at Princeton.

And, you know, he studied under John Witherspoon.

And John Witherspoon was a Scot who'd emigrated to become the president of the College of New Jersey.

He transformed the curriculum.

And the curriculum they're teaching at Princeton when Madison is studying there is very much different.

In fact, they are barely more than acquaintances.

But over the next two decades, their paths will cross again and again in the courtroom, in New York politics, in Congress, in presidential elections, and eventually at the very center of American political power.

One will become one of the great architects of the American government.

The other will become one of the most formidable political operators in the young republic.