1G0xxeB

3 2 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Mayhew’s position found scripture reasonable on the determination of theconduct of men in politics. Those who are would-be tyrants in all forms arehostile to reason and the development of the mind. Worse, tyrants diminishthe best and brightest. Samuel West’s 1780 sermon demonstrates the importanceof reason’s ability to know in a way that complemented faith:We want not, indeed, a special revelation from heaven to teach usthat men are born equal and free; that no man has a natural claimof dominion over his neighbors, nor one nation any such claim uponanother; and that as government is only the administration of theaffairs of a number of men combined for their own security and happiness,such a society have a right freely to determine by whom andin what manner their own affairs shall be administered. These are theplain dictates of that reason and common sense with which the commonparent of men has informed the human bosom. It is, however, asatisfaction to observe such everlasting maxims of equity confirmed,and impressed on the consciousness of men, by the instructions, precepts,and examples given us in the sacred oracles; one internal markof their divine original, and that they come from him “who hath madeof one blood all nations to dwell upon the face of the earth,” whoseauthority sanctifies only those governments that instead of oppressingany part of his family, vindicate the oppressed, and restrain and punishthe oppressor. 32Reason might be seen here as being in the service of God and Christianity.In accord with the self-evident truth of the Declaration, Mayhew and Westunderstand that the principles of freedom are capable of being understoodby all men. Put simply, the Revolutionary spirit found reason and revelationas indispensible supports.Before the mid 1800s, few colleges survived. Eighty percent of the collegesfounded prior to 1850 did not endure. 33 Yet by 1840, there were manyinstitutions of higher learning. Colleges of the nineteenth century lookedremarkably, and uniformly, liberal for the time. The classics loomed largein the classroom. Freshmen at Yale, for example, read Livy and Herodotus,sophomores read Cicero and Xenophon, juniors read Plato, Thucydides, andEuripides, and seniors read logic and Enlightenment authors, just to name afew. Students did not pick and choose their curriculum à la carte as they do32Samuel Cooper, A Sermon on the Day of the Commencement of the Constitution, in PoliticalSermons of the American Founding Era, 1730–1805, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund,1998), 1:637.33Kohlbrenner, “Religion and Higher Education,” 49.