joined Professor Eaton and others in opposing it. When the friends of
Rochester learned that a suit might be initiated in his name they used
every possible appeal to induce him to change his stand, pointing out
that since removal was inevitable he would bring upon himself in his
old age the obloquy of the Baptists throughout the State of New York
by refusing to give way to their wishes. It is told that, seated silently at
a table with his eyes lowered, he listened calmly to their arguments,
seemed to yield, and then after a pause raised his eyes, lifted his right
arm and brought his clenched fist on the table with startling energy
and slowly and solemnly declared, “It shall not be moved!”
Forthwith,
he and Medad Rogers, a Hamilton resident who also had been a party
to the original contract, sought an injunction against the Society and
the University which Judge Allen granted temporarily on August 28th.
The University Trustees assembled at Albany on August 30 “to
When they convened, however, they were
perfect removal measures.”
confronted with the Hascall and Rogers injunction. Under these cir-
cumstances they, with Albany and New York City Baptists, issued a
summons for an educational convention in Albany on October 9 in
conjunction with the annual meeting of the Baptist State Convention,
which it was thought would formally endorse removal. Friends of
Rochester planned also to have Deacon Cobb, as President, announce
a meeting of the Education Society at the same time, which they
anticipated would promptly nullify the transactions of the recent
annual meeting and reelect the Board chosen in 1848.
Deacon Cobb, fully cognizant of the designs to gain control of the
Society, declined to call the meeting. The educational convention,
however, assembled on schedule and, contrary to expectations, its
deliberations were generally harmonious. The friends of Rochester
were determined to have a University in that city, but they advocated
a compromise which the convention adopted: that Madison University
surrender its charter for the use of the Rochester collegiate institution;
that Hamilton be made the seat of theological education; and that the
Constitution of the Education Society be so modified as to eliminate
Anti-Removalist control. In case the friends of Hamilton should reject
the compromise, the Removalists were ready to provide for theological
as well as collegiate instruction at Rochester.
Many Baptists hailed the scheme as a practicable and amicable
adjustment. They failed, however, to make a true assessment of the