Thomas E. Thomas, Hanover College Inaugural Address
This published inaugural address documents Rev. Thomas Ebenezer Thomas's installation as president of Hanover College. It also preserves Thomas's own explanation of Christian education, social responsibility, justice, freedom, the rights of man, and the role colleges should play in preparing leaders for public life.
Title page of Thomas E. Thomas's inaugural address as president of Hanover College, delivered March 28, 1850.
Why This Source Matters
The title page directly identifies Thomas as president of Hanover College and dates his inaugural address to March 28, 1850. The address shows that Thomas understood higher education as preparation for moral and public responsibility. He argued that colleges should prepare people to advocate justice in courts, shape law, influence the press, and lead states and nations in the path of freedom, rectitude, and happiness.
The address also discusses the social and political condition of oppressed people, the inherent rights of man, and condemns despotism in several forms, including the plantation. These passages fit Thomas's independently documented abolitionist reputation, but the address itself should not be described as an abolitionist speech because it does not explicitly develop an argument against slavery.
Selected Passages
“lead States and nations in the path of freedom, rectitude and happiness”
Thomas E. Thomas, Hanover inaugural address, 1850
“Let them learn the rights of man ... from Him who gave to man both his rights and his existence.”
Thomas E. Thomas, Hanover inaugural address, 1850
Citation and Full Source
Thomas Ebenezer Thomas, An Address, on the Occasion of the Author's Inauguration as President of Hanover College, Indiana, delivered March 28, 1850.