'Lux, libertas, and learning': The first state university and the transformation of North Carolina, 1789-1816

Capitalizing on a wave of optimism following the ratification of the United States Constitution, Federalists in the North Carolina General Assembly chartered the University of North Carolina in 1789. They hoped that the first state university would provide North Carolina with well-educated men who would use their talents to preserve the American Republic. On a more visceral level, the university's advocates desperately wanted to reform North Carolina's image as a benighted wilderness.;The trustees also faced the difficulties of administering an institution of higher education. An inability to retain a qualified faculty and recurring student rebellions were perennial problems. The student uprisings were particularly troubling to the administration because they ran counter to the ambitions of the trustees.;In 1804 the trustees appointed Joseph Caldwell as the first president of the university. During his tenure, the university emerged from a season of fragility into an era of stability.;Robert Hett Chapman succeeded Caldwell during the early months of the War of 1812. Chapman lacked Caldwell's charisma and managerial talents, and his opposition to the war created tension between him and students eager to fight America's old enemy of 1776. Chapman's administration collapsed in late 1816 after another campus disturbance. Caldwell quickly resumed the presidency and initiated efforts to improve upon his earlier accomplishments.;The early trustees of the University of North Carolina portrayed themselves as nonpartisan benefactors of North Carolina society. However, they found their efforts to bring the university into existence hampered by several factors: the poverty of the state, the apathy of the general populace toward education, and, especially after 1800, the hostility of the state legislature.;By 1816 the university had become an important mechanism for socializing the young men of North Carolina. It had taken individuals from various parts of the state and exposed them to a common pattern of ideas and experiences. Its graduates entered adulthood with the mission of perpetuating a conservative society founded upon vast inequality. Thus, the University of North Carolina achieved its goal of transforming North Carolina from a howling frontier into a state that resembled the rest of nineteenth-century America.