EDITORIAL NOTE

Addressing John Adams’s concern that James Madison might fall victim to boredom in retirement, Thomas Jefferson offered assurances that Adams’s fears were unfounded. “Such a mind as [Madison’s] can never know ennui,” Jefferson explained. “Besides,” Jefferson continued, “there will always be work enough cut out for him to continue his active usefulness to his country.” The particular work Jefferson had in mind for Madison was “a collegiate institution to be established in our neighborhood.” Accordingly, even before Madison arrived at Montpelier from Washington after his second term as president expired in March 1817, Jefferson wrote to offer congratulations “on the riddance of your burthens” and to request that Madison attend a board meeting “as a visitor of our proposed college on Tuesday the 8th. of April” (Jefferson to Adams, 5 May 1817, Looney et al., Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, 11:311–12; Jefferson to JM, 10 Mar. 1817, PJM-RS description begins David B. Mattern et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Retirement Series (4 vols. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 2009–). description ends , 1:8–9).

For good reasons, the founding of the University of Virginia is closely associated with Jefferson. He had spent decades promoting the idea of a state university, selected its site and secured the acceptance of his selection by the 1818 Rockfish Gap commission, planned and supervised the construction of the buildings, drafted the curriculum and regulations, and served as the university’s first rector. Madison acted as a trusted associate in many of Jefferson’s endeavors for the university. For example, Madison served on the Board of Visitors of first Central College and then the university itself from 1816 on; was a member of the Rockfish Gap commission; and contributed $1,000 to a fund drive for the establishment of the university (Wilson Cary Nicholas to JM, 18 Oct. 1816, PJM-PS description begins Robert A. Rutland et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series (11 vols.; Charlottesville, Va., 1984–2020). description ends , 12:468 and n. 1; JM to Nicholas, 22 Oct. 1816, ibid., 473; James P. Preston to JM, 18 Mar. 1818, PJM-RS description begins David B. Mattern et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Retirement Series (4 vols. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 2009–). description ends , 1:239; JM to Jefferson, 29 Mar. 1818, ibid., 242 and n. 1).

When Jefferson died on 4 July 1826 after only one year as rector of the university, Madison succeeded him in that office. Accordingly, much of the work of putting into practice Jefferson’s ideas for the operation of the university fell to Madison. Whereas Jefferson rode to the university grounds almost daily from his home at nearby Monticello, Madison could not be present in person on such a regular basis. Consequently, he relied more than Jefferson did on advice and help from friends and colleagues associated with the institution. Foremost among the members of this group were John Hartwell Cocke, Madison’s colleague on the executive committee of the Board of Visitors, which was responsible for much of the university’s day-to-day affairs, and the university’s proctor, Arthur S. Brockenbrough (Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, 2 Oct. 1826; JM to Richard Rush, 5 Oct. 1826).

Another valuable source of information was Jefferson’s grandson-in-law Nicholas P. Trist, who was appointed secretary of the Board of Visitors shortly after Madison took over as rector. According to Trist, he had been “in the habit of unreservedly calling [Jefferson’s] attention to any fact or idea, the notice of which by him occurred to me as likely to promote the interests of the institution,” and he now offered to do the same for Madison. Trist wrote a lengthy memorandum, printed below, conveying his thoughts as well as his observations regarding others’ opinions on how to deal with the shortcomings of Jefferson’s original university regulations, which had become apparent during the first year of operation (Minutes of the Board of Visitors, 5 Oct. 1826; Trist to JM, 16 Sept. 1826).

As Trist noted, the major issue that confronted Madison and the rest of the Board of Visitors was student discipline—or the lack thereof. In the expectation that students would be serious-minded young men who would put all their energy into the pursuit of knowledge, Jefferson’s initial code of discipline was rather lax. Instead of a strictly regulated regime of authority as at other universities of the time, he envisioned the relationship between students and faculty as egalitarian and based on mutual interests. In keeping with his political beliefs, Jefferson followed “the principles of avoiding too much government,” thereby leaving “room to the Student for habitually exercising his own discretion.” As far as possible, students were to govern themselves, and the faculty lacked far-reaching disciplinary powers: student misbehavior was to be dealt with by a student court (Minutes of the Board of Visitors, 7 Oct. 1825 and 4 Oct. 1824, PJM-RS description begins David B. Mattern et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Retirement Series (4 vols. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 2009–). description ends , 3:616, 405).

Yet events soon proved that Jefferson’s idealistic hopes were misguided. Many of the students coming to Charlottesville when the university opened its doors in March 1825 were not the studious, mature, responsible aspiring scholars that Jefferson expected; instead, those who enrolled were the sons of planters, often rather young, and were more inclined toward drinking, gambling, showing off their wealth, and pursuing ladies than toward serious studying. In addition, these young men were animated by a prickly sense of honor that was extremely sensitive to any slights (real or perceived), abhorred being treated as inferior, and frowned on being asked to monitor and report on each other’s behavior (Minutes of the Board of Visitors, 3 Oct. 1825, ibid., 605, 606–7).

Within months, this combination of factors rendered Jefferson’s envisioned student self-government unworkable. The first major incident occurred on the night of 1 October 1825, when as many as fourteen students in masks noisily paraded up and down the Lawn. Two professors attempting to stop the uproar seized one of the revelers and were subsequently attacked with bricks and sticks. In keeping with Jefferson’s rules, the faculty demanded that the entire student body identify and deal with those involved in the riot, but such calls fell on deaf ears. Perceiving the request to turn on their fellow students as an attack on their honor, students closed ranks and handed the faculty a paper signed by sixty-five students in which they expressed “their determination not to act the part of Informers and […] their indignation at the aspersion thrown upon them by the Faculty in expressing a belief that they were capable of such baseness.” Eight students submitted a written statement denying that an assault on the two professors had occurred and instead charged them with attacking a student (Robley Dunglison to the Board of Visitors, 1 Oct. 1825, PJM-RS description begins David B. Mattern et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Retirement Series (4 vols. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 2009–). description ends , 3:604–5 and n. 1; Minutes of the Board of Visitors, 4 and 6 Oct. 1825, ibid., 609–10, 613; Minutes of the General Faculty, 3 Oct. 1825, ViU: Special Collections).

The ensuing standoff between the enraged students and the indignant faculty, who had threatened to resign en masse, alarmed the Board of Visitors and compelled it to reluctantly intervene. In a memorable episode, Jefferson, rising to address the rebellious students, broke down in tears of frustration and anger at their behavior. A witness to the scene recalled that “Mr. Jefferson’s tears […] melted [the students’] stubborn purpose.” Shamed, several students came forward and confessed their involvement in the riot. Three of the young men—Jefferson’s grandnephew Wilson Miles Cary among them—were expelled, and eight others were admonished. More important, the riot led the board to the realization that Jefferson’s idea of student self-government had failed. Consequently, the Visitors decided “that coercion must be resorted to” since “confidence has been disappointed.” The faculty were given police powers and encouraged to “exactly and strictly” enforce the rules, and the janitor and the hotelkeepers were to report any violators (Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society: Portrayed by the Family Letters of Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith (Margaret Bayard) […], ed. Gaillard Hunt [New York, 1906], 229; Minutes of the Board of Visitors, 3, 6, and 7 Oct. 1825, PJM-RS description begins David B. Mattern et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Retirement Series (4 vols. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 2009–). description ends , 3:606–8, 613–14, 616, and 7 Apr. 1826).

Yet despite the new and harsher rules, student unrest did not subside. As Edgar Allan Poe, who arrived at the university in February 1826, witnessed, students soon reverted to their old habits of drinking, gambling, and fighting (including duels). Some of the fights between students were quite vicious. Poe observed one encounter in which one of the brawlers’ arms “was bitten from the shoulder to the elbow—and it is likely that pieces of flesh as large as my hand will be obliged to be cut out.” The violence became so widespread in 1826 that university authorities called for an official grand jury to investigate matters. According to Poe, the sheriff’s list contained the names of about fifty students, many of whom fled the university to avoid apprehension. As a result, in the university’s second year in existence and Madison’s first year as rector, 28 percent of the 177 students were fugitives from the law (Poe to John Allan, 21 Sept. 1826, Quinn, Edgar Allan Poe, 97, 99, 102, 104, 105).

Given the severity of the situation, Trist’s memorandum focused on how to reform the university regulations to provide an environment that would compel students to concentrate on their education and thus make riots and other disturbances less likely to occur. High on Trist’s list of suggestions was limiting students’ discretionary money to prevent them from spending funds on drink, gambling, and luxury items. One way to achieve this goal was the introduction of a uniform for university students, thereby preventing students from running up debts in attempting to outdo each other in fashion and thus contributing to the university’s reputation as a preserve for the rich. This measure was also calculated to enable authorities to easily identify students outside the university grounds. Other proposals to curb students’ profligate habits included prohibiting Charlottesville merchants from extending credit to students and making them pay in advance for a full year’s room and board.

The Board of Visitors implemented many of Trist’s suggestions during sessions on 14 and 16 December 1826. The board resolved that students ought to wear a “coat, waistcoat & pantaloons, of cloth of a dark gray mixture, at a price not exceeding six dollars per yard,” though Madison reportedly would have preferred a simple black gown, as used in other universities. To a degree, the board’s decision signaled a change in the power dynamics within the university’s governing body. Jefferson, usually with Madison’s support, had been able to overawe the other members and sway the Visitors’ decisions in his favored direction, even if members would have preferred another option. Madison, who did not quite equal Jefferson’s standing or personality, was more inclined to accept differing opinions and go along with the board’s majority. As a result, other members gained influence and were able to shape decisions more to their liking. In light of the fact that board members Cocke, Breckinridge, and Monroe came from military backgrounds, it may not be surprising that they sought to solve the students’ misbehavior with increasingly strict disciplinary measures. Requiring a school uniform was one such step. Another was an 1827 schedule change that would require students to rise early in the morning: lectures would begin at 7:30 A.M. from August through April and at 5:30 A.M. from May through July (Minutes of the Board of Visitors, 16 Dec. 1826, 19 July 1827).

But the board’s tightening of the screws worked no better than Jefferson’s original leniency. Increasingly petty regulations such as the early rising rule merely meant that students routinely overslept and missed lectures. In reaction, the faculty employed the proctor and janitor to report tardy students, resulting in a climate of distrust and continuous contention between faculty and students that constituted the exact opposite of the cordial and mutually beneficial relationship Jefferson had envisioned. During Madison’s tenure as rector, these tensions repeatedly escalated into violence. The uniform law was so hated by students that in 1831 its enforcement sparked yet another major riot. The following year, two students physically restrained the proctor—who constituted the university police—while a third threatened him with a knife. And in 1834, a group of armed students intended to beat up faculty chairman Charles Bonnycastle, who was able to ward off the attack only because he kept loaded pistols on his desk.

Student riots in the early republic were not peculiar to the University of Virginia. Students at the College of William and Mary rioted in 1802, smashing the windows of most professors’ dwellings, after two students were punished for dueling. In 1807 Harvard students staged the aptly named Rotten Cabbage Rebellion to protest the bad food they received. In the same year, students at the College of New Jersey (Princeton University), protesting the expulsion of three classmates, barricaded themselves in Nassau Hall and drove off the militia sent to reclaim the building.

Yet student riots during Madison’s time on the Board of Visitors and as rector of the University of Virginia were particularly dangerous to the institution. “Mr. Jefferson’s university” was a much more recent creation than these older schools, and the opposition to the university’s founding had been strong. Jefferson’s political enemies had opposed the idea for principled and personal reasons, ministers of virtually all denominations had denounced it as atheist since it would not have any religious affiliation or theological professorship, members of the state legislature had grumbled about the cost, and even quite a few supporters of a state university in general had been unhappy about the choice of Charlottesville as its location. This animosity did not just fade away with the university’s opening in 1825, and critics remained ready to capitalize on opportunities to stymie Jefferson’s experiment.

To prevent the university from dying in its infancy, Madison and the board strove to present to the public and especially to the state legislature, which controlled the university’s funding, the image of an orderly, flourishing institution. Student misbehavior and riots obviously did not fit this picture, and university officials did their best to conceal such episodes. Thus, many incidents, such as Bonnycastle’s armed standoff with students, never made it past the faculty report. Madison certainly did not include them in his annual reports to the state legislature, which routinely downplayed student unruliness—if he mentioned it at all. He did, however, discuss the issue in his letters to friends and acquaintances, and news of the students’ more flagrant transgressions could not fully be kept from becoming public.

The ensuing negative publicity did not help Madison’s efforts to persuade the legislature to increase the university’s funding. The state’s contribution had been set at $15,000 annually, and while legislators did not cut this amount during Madison’s tenure as rector, they also never answered his pleas for more money or for the state to assume the university’s debts. Luckily for Madison and the board, the university had not only detractors but also eminent advocates on whose support they could count in times of need: in July 1827, for example, the university borrowed $20,000 from members of the Randolph family (To the President of the Literary Fund, 24 Nov. 1826; Minutes of the Board of Visitors, 19 July 1827).

Ultimately, the verdict on the University of Virginia’s development under Madison’s stewardship is ambiguous. On the one side, student enrollment rose from 125 in 1825 and 120 in 1829 to 205 in 1834. The number of graduates increased correspondingly, and in 1832 the university conferred its first master of arts degree. On the other side, neither the university’s financial troubles nor the recurring student unrest had been resolved when Madison resigned as rector in 1834. In fact, student violence increased in the following years, culminating in the murder of law professor John A. G. Davis in 1840. Unable to translate Jefferson’s idealistic and perhaps unrealistic plans for the university into practice, Madison had his hands full ensuring the institution’s continuing viability between 1826 and 1834.

(Secondary sources used for this note: Bruce, History of the University of Virginia, 1:4–5, 57–60, 71–72, 181–82, 215–20, 277–78; Ketcham, James Madison, 646–58; Rex Bowman and Carlos Santos, Rot, Riot, and Rebellion: Mr. Jefferson’s Struggle to Save the University That Changed America [Charlottesville, Va., 2013], 2, 4–7, 27–50, 66, 73, 74–75, 83–85, 88, 104, 123–25; Alan Taylor, Thomas Jefferson’s Education [New York, 2019], 208–9, 237, 272.)