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Princeton alumni from South Carolina owned successful plantations, large numbers of slaves, and served as leaders in the Confederate cause during the Civil War.

Princeton student Thomas Ancrum attacked Black abolitionist minister Theodore Wright during the commencement of 1836. The incident exposed the commitment to white supremacy among college students and officials.

In September 1835, a crowd of students descended on Princeton’s African American neighborhood to apprehend an abolitionist. The assault underscored the presence on campus of a large number of students committed to slavery and white supremacy.

Princeton’s rival Whig and Clio societies provided students with powerful platforms to discuss controversial issues of the day, frequently slavery and emancipation. From the late 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War, members of both societies consistently opposed the emancipation of slaves, fostering a conservative, anti-abolition intellectual climate on campus.

James Collins Johnson, a fugitive slave freed after an 1843 trial in Princeton, became a prominent figure in town and on campus over the course of his many decades working at the College of New Jersey.