Harvard defeats tyranny. (At least, it did 250 years ago.)

Boston Globe

14-05-2025

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Like Lexington and Concord, Cambridge was a front of its own in 1775. To be sure, Harvard alumni included both Tories and patriots, and to this day, the university's architectural legacy reflects this mixed heritage. Near the campus, a stretch of Brattle Street is still called 'Tory Row' because of its association with wealthy Loyalists. One of the prettiest buildings on the campus is Holden Chapel, a Georgian gem, completed in 1744. Its financing was arranged by a prominent son of Harvard, Thomas Hutchinson, later reviled by most of Massachusetts for his pro-English policies as governor. When things got too hot for him, he emigrated to England, where he received an honorary degree from Oxford, conferred on July 4, 1776.
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But overwhelmingly, Harvard was on the patriot side during the struggle to establish the United States of America.
It was perhaps natural for Harvard to join the cause of resistance to a distant monarch, for many of the university's founders had fled England precisely to escape the oppressive policies of King Charles I a century and a half earlier. To a striking degree, the founders of Massachusetts and Harvard included alumni of Oxford and Cambridge (130 of whom were living in greater Boston in 1646, 10 years after Harvard's founding). They were eager to maintain their intellectual distance from a monarch who was trying to bend England's universities to his will. Creating a new university, across the ocean from Charles I and his censorious archbishop, William Laud, was an effective way to do that.
In the 1760s, political tensions were growing again under a different king, George III, and were keenly felt on campus. Then as now, student protests were a fact of life, and well before the Battle of Lexington, undergraduates were rallying around a 'Liberty Tree,' or 'Rebellion Elm,' in Harvard Yard, denouncing British oppression, and swearing never to drink the 'pernicious herb,' British tea.
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Cambridge grew crowded between 1770 and 1773, when the British ordered the General Court to meet there, to avoid Boston's angry mobs. This is one of the reasons for a line in the Declaration of Independence blaming King George III for moving legislative assemblies to places 'unusual, uncomfortable and distant.' Yes, our country's founding document takes a swipe at Cambridge.
To the students, however, the General Court's sessions offered a welcome distraction. When the Revolution came, they were ready. On April 19, 1775, six undergraduates joined the Minutemen who were making their stand at Lexington and Concord. Later that day, the first alumnus to be killed in the war was Major Isaac Gardner, shot by the British in North Cambridge as they were retreating to Boston.
Things heated up quickly after that. Campus buildings were converted into barracks for the Continental Army. The students were let out early on May 1, the library was packed up and sent to Andover for safekeeping, and the soldiers were welcomed in. Parents who worry about campus overcrowding today may be astonished to know that little Massachusetts Hall held 640 soldiers.
It was in Cambridge that George Washington took command of the army (a local hotel, the Sheraton Commander, still bears tribute). He was also given an honorary degree, the first of 16 presidents to be so honored.
Throughout the 1775-1776 academic year, for the only time in its history, Harvard convened at a new location, in Concord. By the time the students returned, in June 1776, the British had evacuated Boston, and the Revolution had moved south. But Harvard alumni played an important role in the work of creating the political and diplomatic architecture needed for a new country. Eight alumni signed the Declaration of Independence.
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That document has assumed new relevance in recent weeks, arguing that Americans should not have to submit to the imperious demands of a ruler exceeding his authority. The catalog of royal sins includes 'cutting off our trade with all parts of the world,' sending 'swarms of Officers to harass our people,' 'depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury,' and 'transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.'
An America that trusted knowledge
Even as the new country was coming into existence, the Founders were looking at history in creative ways. For John Adams, seeking examples of earlier alliances among the Colonies, it was helpful to read about the New England Confederation, an alliance among Massachusetts, Plymouth, and the various Connecticut Colonies, launched in 1643. Adams and others also scoured Harvard's library for books on military tactics, since the war was coming so close to them.
There were many reasons the patriots prevailed in the existential crisis that began in April 1775. It goes without saying that courage was needed, but the American cause also benefited from a solidarity among the states that surprised and confounded the British. In other ways, too, Americans proved more resilient than the British: living off the land, enduring greater hardships, and adapting constantly. In a similar way, America's universities have shown unexpected pluck in recent weeks,
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The Founders never surrendered their vision of a civil society, even as they endured severe privations. To a remarkable extent, they kept building even as they fought for survival. This was true on campus as well. Harvard's medical school stems from the improvised field hospitals that were created around Boston during the early years of the Revolution. A learned institution, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was founded in Cambridge at nearly the same moment, in 1780. Its first class embraced foreign as well as local intellectuals, including a Swede and five Frenchmen.
In all of these ways, the Founders built a United States of America that trusted knowledge and reached out creatively to the rest of the world. Harvard was only one of many universities that contributed to the result. But because of the attacks that have arrived with such frequency in recent weeks, America's oldest university has come to represent something larger than itself.
It is unclear how the coming legal standoff will play out. It may simply fade away, as so many other Trump policies have. But the American Revolution suggests that an essential advantage is conferred upon the side that learns from its history.