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Samuel Stanhope Smith, Princeton’s seventh president (1795-1812), was an early defender of the unity of mankind—arguing that environment, not innate biological differences, determined one’s race.  His convictions, however, did not prevent him from owning slaves himself, and his teachings ultimately influenced Princeton alumni to establish the American Colonization Society.

Betsey Stockton (1798?-1865), enslaved as a child in the household of Princeton president Ashbel Green, became a prominent and respected educator in Princeton, Philadelphia, and the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawai'i).

The secession of southern states from the United States in 1860 and 1861 bitterly divided Princeton’s students along regional and political lines—prompting the withdrawal of one quarter of the student body, many of whom later fought in the Confederate Army or served in the rebel government.

Princeton’s faculty and students actively opposed abolition, creating a climate of fear and intimidation around the subject during the 19th century. Although some Princeton affiliates were critical of slavery, the institution demonstrated a catastrophic failure of leadership on the greatest moral question of the age.

Ten years after their graduation, alumni from the class of 1859 established a prize meant to demonstrate their class unity after the divisive Civil War years. Their efforts to reconcile North and South reflected a national trend to obscure serious ideological differences and the role of slavery in the Civil War.