Collaborative Research: Hampden-Sydney College

In James W. Alexander's The Life of Archibald Alexander, the author writes briefly about the founding of Hampden-Sydney College. Archibald Alexander was the founding and long-term president of Princeton Theological Seminary. This blog post is part of a larger collaborative research project intended to provide greater context to the people, places, books, and themes identified in the original source material.

As Chapter Three opens, the Presbyterian minister William Graham had traveled with his student Archibald and others east across the Blue Ridge Mountains to Briery, a small town on the border of Charlotte and Prince Edward counties. It is 1789 and at the time of what Alexander called "the Great Revival" (almost certainly the beginning of what we now call the Second Great Awakening). "[I]n the very midst of revival scenes, Graham and his students met Dr. John B. Smith, son of the Rev. Dr. Robert Smith and brother of Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith.

Alexander provides additional detail in Chapter Eight. Samuel Stanhope Smith proposed a college in south-central Virginia in 1771 and raised funding as well as identified faculty (which included his brother, John). After the Presbytery of Hanover secured a gift of 100 acres two miles north of Nathaniel Venable's Slate Hill plantation (about an hour east of Lynchburg, Virginia), the Presbytery founded the school in 1775 and named Smith its first president. At the suggestion of Dr. John Witherspoon, the Scottish-Presbyterian minister and President of the College of New Jersey at Princeton, Smith named the school Hampden-Sydney College after the English republicans John Hampden and Algernon Sidney (Alexander uses the older spelling Sidney which the college also used, but later changed to the alternate spelling Sydney). The first board of trustees included James Madison and Patrick Henry, among others. The college has been in continuous operation ever since.

John B. Smith became the captain of a company of students around 1777 and assigned to the defense of Williamburg, although there is no evidence if they were ever involved in operations during the Revolutionary War.

Samuel Stanhope Smith stayed on as the first president until 1779 when Samuel was called to the College of New Jersey and his brother John became president until 1789. Archibald Alexander would travel to Hampden-Sydney again where he met the vice president (and acting President) Drury Lacy, who served in that capacity in 1797 when Alexander himself became president (until 1806). Union Theological Seminary (now Union Presbyterian Seminary) was founded at Hampden-Sydney in 1812 where it stayed until moving to Richmond in 1895.

Archibald Alexander would go on to become the first professor and founding president at the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1812 where he would serve until his death in 1851.

The history of Hampden-Sydney College is maintained in part by the Esther Thomas Atkinson Museum. Many of the buildings on campus are named for notable people in the college's history, among them Cushing, Graham, and Venable.

Among the valuable primary sources available for the college is a book of the Calendar of Board Minutes from 1776 to 1876. This book also includes a narrative history of the college and portraits of many of the early trustees.

Here is an advertisement for the college that was published in the (Williamsburg) Virginia Gazette on September 1, 1775 (transcription below the image):

"By the generous exertions of several Gentlemen in this and some of the neighbouring Counties, very large contributions have lately been made for erecting and supporting a public Academy near the Courthouse in this County. Their zeal for the interests of Learning and Virtue has met with such success, that they were enabled to let the Buildings in March left to several Undertakers, who are proceeding in their Work with the greatest Expedition. A very valuable library of the best Writers, both ancient and modern on most Parts of Science and polite Literature, is already procured; with Part of an Apparatus to facilitate the Studies of the Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy, which we expect in a short Time to render complete. 

The Academy will certainly be opened on the 10th of next November. It is to be distinguished by the name Hampden-Sidney, and will be subject to the Visitation of 12 Gentlemen of Character and Influence in their respective Counties; the immediate and active Members being chiefly of the Church of England. The Number of Visitors and Trustees will probably be increased as soon as the Distractions of the Times shall so far cease as to enable its Patrons to enlarge its Foundations. 

The Students will all board and study under the same Roof, provided for by a common Steward, except such as choose to take their Boarding in the Country. The rates, at the utmost, will not exceed 10£. Currency per Annum to the steward and 4£ Tuition Money; 20 shillings of this to be always paid at Entrance. 

The system of Education will resemble that which is adopted in the College of New Jersey; save, that a more particular Attention shall be paid to the Cultivation of the English Language than is usually done in Places of public Education. Three Masters and Professors are ready to enter in November, and as many more may be easily procured as the increased Number of Students may at any Time hereafter require. And our Prospects at present are so extremely flattering that it is probable we shall be obliged to procure two Professors more before the Expiration of the Year. 

The Public may rest assured that the whole shall be conducted on the most catholic Plan. Parents, of every Denomination, may be at full Liberty to require their Children to attend on any Mode of Worship which either Custom or Conscience has rendered most agreeable to them. For our Fidelity, in every Respect, we are cheerfully willing to pledge our Reputation to the Public; which may be more relied on, because our whole Success depends upon their favourable Opinion. Our Character and Interest, therefore, being at Stake, furnish a strong Security for our avoiding all Party Instigations; and our Care to form good men, and good Citizens, on the common and universal Principles of Morality, distinguished from the narrow Tenets which form the Complexion of a Sect; and for our assiduity in the whole Circle of Education." 

~Samuel S. Smith 

P.S. The principal Building of the Academy not being yet completed, those Gentlemen who desire their Children to enter immediately will be obliged to take Lodgings for them in the Neighbourhood, during the Winter Season; which may be done in Houses sufficiently convenient, on very reasonable Terms.

References

Alexander, James W. The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D., L.L. D., First Professor in the Theological Seminary, at Princeton, New Jersey. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1857.

Esther Thomas Atkinson Museum

Hampden-Sydney College History

History of Hampden-Sydney College

Morrison, Alfred J. Calendar of Board Minutes, 1776-1876. Richmond, VA: The Hermitage Press, 1912.

WMATA, sovereign immunity, and AEDs

Reminder: I am not a lawyer (yet), and this is not legal advice.

Under what conditions might a lawsuit against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) succeed in overcoming WMATA's sovereign immunity, for failing to properly maintain an installed automated external defibrillator (AED)?

To understand this, we need to review the concept of sovereign immunity and how it applies to WMATA; and more importantly, the associated waivers of sovereign immunity. Essentially, sovereign immunity is a principle that states are immune from being sued without their consent (or, by their own waiver).

See the following from Morris v. WMATA (781 F.2d 218), which is a nice summation of the history of WMATA's sovereign immunity:

On November 6, 1966, Congress consented to, and enacted for the District of Columbia, a compact whose signatories were Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia....The Compact created WMATA to operate a mass transit system for the District of Columbia and the surrounding suburban areas of Maryland and Virginia.

...

WMATA's sovereign immunity exists because the signatories have successfully conferred their respective sovereign immunities upon it. Congress has power to legislate for the District of Columbia and to create an instrumentality that is immune from suit....

The relevant portion of the WMATA Compact is Section 80. The section in bold below is important because this identifies WMATA's partial waiver of immunity:

80. Liability for Contracts and Torts

The Authority shall be liable for its contracts and for its torts and those of its Directors, officers, employees and agent committed in the conduct of any proprietary function, in accordance with the law of the applicable Signatory (including rules on conflict of laws), but shall not be liable for any torts occurring in the performance of a governmental function. The exclusive remedy for such breach of contracts and torts for which the Authority shall be liable, as herein provided, shall be by suit against the Authority. Nothing contained in this Title shall be construed as a waiver by the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and the counties and cities within the Zone of any immunity from suit.

So the distinction here is a matter of function: WMATA cannot be sued for "governmental" functions but it can be sued for "proprietary" functions. So, what is the difference? Let the courts answer (all citations omitted for clarity):

Federal courts...interpreting the WMATA Compact have adopted certain tests

to aid in their determination of which functions are “governmental” and thus immune from suit.

Activities that are “quintessentially governmental” fall within the scope of § 80's grant of

immunity. Such functions have been defined as those activities exclusively within the purview of the government by way of its legal and authoritative nature. The oftcited prototypical governmental function as pertains to WMATA is the act of maintaining a police force.

So, immunity applies to governmental functions but not proprietary ones. If a function is proprietary, a second test must be applied:

If it is not discretionary, as where a “statute, regulation, or policy specifically prescribes a course of action for an employee to follow,”  the activity is “ministerial” and not protected by governmental immunity. If, on the other hand, the activity is “discretionary,” the court must decide whether it falls within what the Supreme Court has termed the “exception for discretionary governmental functions,” commonly referred to, by the federal appellate courts, as the “discretionary function exception.” If the discretionary function exception applies to the challenged activity, then that activity, like activity falling within a quintessential governmental function, “constitute[s] [a] ‘governmental’ activit[y] within the meaning of the ‘governmental/proprietary’ test” of section 80 of the WMATA Compact, and is thus shielded from tort liability.

Got it? Good (yeah, it's a little confusing to say the least!).

Essentially, the function must be both proprietary and also ministerial or WMATA's sovereign immunity applies.

Here's an example. In this case, "WMATA failed to maintain, repair, inspect, or operate the escalators at the Anacostia station such that they became wet and icy, and second, that WMATA failed to warn the public of the wet and icy escalators...WMATA concedes that its actions were not 'quintessentially governmental activities.'" So the first part of the test is conceded; the function of maintaining, repairing, inspecting and operating of escalators is not a governmental function, but a proprietary one. However, the court found that "discretion exercised over the maintenance, repair, inspection, and operation of the escalators is 'subject to policy analysis' and thus discretionary." So escalator maintenance fails the second test because it is discretionary and not ministerial. Thus, WMATA's sovereign immunity applies.

Can we assume that AEDs are similar to escalators in that the function of maintaining, repairing, and inspecting of AEDs is not a governmental function, but a proprietary one? I don't see any reason why not. Absent a strong argument otherwise, the first test appears to be met.

WMATA has much less of an argument if they want to suggest that function of maintaining, repairing, and inspecting AEDs is subject to discretion. There may be differing methods of dealing with escalators in cold and wet weather, but the maintenance of AEDs seems pretty straight forward. In fact, to have AEDs installed without a specific maintenance procedure seems negligent, no?

To establish that the function of  maintaining, repairing, and inspecting of AEDs as a ministerial function rather than a discretionary one, an argument would be bolstered by specific instructions, or policies, to check AEDs on a regular basis. A further example would be the District of Columbia's AED law which states in part that:

The defibrillator is maintained and tested according to the manufacturer’s operational guidelines, and written records of the maintenance and testing are maintained...

(For the record, I know the action took place in the Pentagon Metro Station in Virginia, I am simply citing the DC law as an example of a positive duty to maintain the AED device. I haven't found related laws in Virginia or Maryland yet).

This DC law (whether or not it is truly applicable to WMATA remains to be seen) seems to suggest a positive duty to maintain the AED device; such would make it (in my opinion) a ministerial function. Even absent specific laws in MD or VA, some cases suggest that certain organizations may have a duty to maintain.

In such a case, the function of maintaining AEDs would be both proprietary and ministerial and thus not subject to WMATA's sovereign immunity; as such, WMATA could be sued for failing to maintain the AED (this post does not elaborate on whether or not such failure contributed to the death of the passenger, although common sense suggests it is probable).

I am curious to hear your thoughts and opinions.