Site Search

The Witherspoon-Jackson community, centered around Witherspoon Street, comprised the heart of Princeton’s African-American community during  the 19th century.

Princeton students engaged in heated debates over slavery during the contentious 1860 election, in which New Jersey was the only northern state where Abraham Lincoln lost the popular vote.

John Maclean Jr., Princeton’s tenth president (1854-1868), was a non-slaveholder and held moderate antislavery views. His commitment to attracting southern students to the college and reducing sectional tension on campus, however, contributed to Princeton’s conservatism in the years leading up to the Civil War.