John Witherspoon

The Reverend John Witherspoon, president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton (1768–94), was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. Like other Presbyterian ministers, Witherspoon abhorred violence but reluctantly conceded that revolution was necessary as the
last resort against tyranny. In June 1776, as one of New Jersey’s delegates to the Second Continental Congress, Witherspoon rose from his seat in response to another member’s claim that the country was not ready for independence. On the contrary, Witherspoon declared, the country was
“not only ripe for the measure, but in danger of becoming rotten for the want of it.”

Twelve members of the Continental Congress were former students of Witherspoon. Through his col-lege instruction and preaching, he would continue to have an outsize influence on the country’s future leaders, counting among his pupils a president, a vice-president, twenty-eight U.S. senators, and forty-nine members of the House of Representatives.