Rot, Riot, and Rebellion: Mr. Jefferson's Struggle to Save the University That Changed America

11. “Rebellion Rebellion!”

11 “Rebellion Rebellion!” For nearly a decade, the professors and governing board of the university had labored to keep the students in check. Yet the mayhem continued unabated. After a decade of trying, the school’s leaders still had not hit on the right formula to tame the wild teenagers in their midst. Nighttime on the Lawn often remained a scene of drunken revelry. Students blew horns, fired pistols, and sang profane songs. When professors rolled out of their beds and left their pavilions to end the disturbances , more students would pour out of their dormitories, joining in the commotion or hiding those who were involved. A raucous, nocturnal a≠ray that began with a half-dozen students easily mushroomed into a clamorous parade of dozens. Even some of the students began to complain about the constant nightly din. In September 1833 the Board of Visitors—possibly at the suggestion of Professor Bonnycastle—devised yet another strategy to calm the campus. The Visitors adopted an order stating that whenever there was a “riot, or other serious violation of good order and decorum” on the precincts at night, the faculty chairman could “cause a signal to be given” for all students to return to their rooms and stay there until the morning . The Visitors suggested that the best signal would be the ringing of the Rotunda bell. Students caught outside their rooms after the bell was rung would be subject to any punishment, including expulsion, the faculty deemed appropriate.1 The rule’s intent was clear: students making noise on the Lawn at night would no longer be able to count on their fellow students to swell their ranks. But, as in previous e≠orts to bring 102 Rot, Riot, and Rebellion order to the university, school o∞cials ultimately buckled under pressure from students. Professors did not tell students about this new restraint until November , when it suddenly became a flash point and cause of widespread alarm. During the first week of the month, Bonnycastle received a tip that students were plotting a “nullification” of the Uniform Law. Angry at professors for enforcing the rule so rigorously, some students had posted a notice headlined “Rebellion Rebellion!” on at least one of the school’s pillars, and the notice called for a student meeting to be held in a dancing room to determine how to resist the “tyrannical conduct” of the faculty. Many students had signed their names to the notice.2 Bonnycastle responded by posting the new antiriot law—the one that imposed a curfew at the ringing of the Rotunda bell. Students’ outrage at this latest attempt to curb their behavior caused them to suddenly forget their discontent with the Uniform Law. The antiriot law now became the target of their ire. To plot resistance against the faculty, they agreed to meet in one of the hotels. When Bonnycastle had the hotel doors locked, several smashed a door and entered anyway, letting more than sixty determined students pour in behind them. At the meeting, they resolved that the antiriot curfew was an ex post facto law that they did not need to obey. The professors, whom Bonnycastle encouraged to stand firm in the face of the growing rebellion, reacted by targeting the students who broke into the hotel, singling three of them out for punishment, possibly dismissal. As usual, their fellow students rallied around to protect them. Douglas Cooper of Mississippi and John Jones of Pennsylvania notified the professors that sixty-eight students had vowed to leave the university if the faculty punished the three. Bonnycastle replied that “such an intention would not alter the course of the Faculty.”3 The lines were drawn. Neither side would back down. At one point in the stando≠, Bonnycastle, fearing the students would seize the Rotunda and thwart any attempt to ring the bell and impose curfew, considered a plan to put a bell by his pavilion. But the students met again. They appointed Thomas L. Preston of Washington County, Virginia, who would one day go on to become the university’s rector, as head of “Rebellion Rebellion!” 103 a committee to address the professors. Preston told them the three students they had charged with breaking into the hotel were in fact innocent . Preston reiterated the students’ view that they were not obligated to obey the antiriot law, and as for breaking into the hotel, they felt they had a...