Further remarks on the memorial of the officers of Harvard College / by an alumnus of that college.

  • John Lowell, Jr.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Further remarks on the memorial of the officers of Harvard College / by an alumnus of that college. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    MO powers, and its most valuable privileges, has almost rendered nu- gatory the functions of the overseers? Did not this sentence claim the corporate powers for the immediate government, and consider them as their most valuable privileges ? Is the language of the memorial admitted to be so loose, that no sense whatever is to be ascribed to these words? What are we to understand hy the declaration, that this privilege [that is, of constituting the Corporation] was in 1806, after 170years possession, entirely wrested from them by the non-resident Corporation ? Let alone the facts, which were by their own confession directly opposed to this bold and unqualified statement ; how could a privi- lege be wrested from a body of men, which, it is admitted, they never claimed or enjoyed? If I comprehend the present ground, (and I feel great diffidence in making any conjectures, as to what is the ground assumed,) the Corporation and overseers are competent to fill the existing vacancy by electing any man in the State That they may do this lawfully, but the Fellow so elected must go to Cambridge, and reside in or near the Col- lege. What then is this privilege which was wrested from the immediate government ? It has been on their own principles equally wrested from every other citizen, who has not been elect- ed. But all these quotations, conclusive as they are, cannot be compared with the concluding sentences of the memorial to the Corporation, the very place, in which the gist, and scope of a petition is expected to be found, and where it ought to be de- fined ; and there, it is put most expressly on the ground of right. I repeat, therefore, that the overseers must be deeply embar- rassed, in considering the question, without a declaration of the immediate government as to which position they mean to as- sume, and I think they are bound to express their sentiments distinctly on this point. It could not, of course, be expected, that I should so far forget what is due to decorum, as to reply to the numerous sneers upon my remarks ; such, for one example, as imputing to me the declaration, that the masters and fellows of the colleges