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News about the College of New Jersey and its students—including their connections to the South—spread across the country through multiple forms of print media.

As tensions over slavery led to sectional crisis in the first half of the 19th century, Princeton’s commencement addresses became increasingly pro-slavery in tone.

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.