Lyman Beecher

Personal Background
•I was born on October 12, 1775 in New Haven, Connecticut.
•I attended Yale in 1793 for my formal education.
•Some of my notable achievements include being asked to become the President and Professor of Theology at Lane Seminary, serving as minister at a Presbyterian church in East Hampton, New York, as well as serving at the First Church in Litchfield, Connecticut. Overall, I was known as a successful revivalist whose ideas many Americans could connect with.
•During my career, I defended Calvinist and Puritan Orthodoxy, supported the Temperance movement, attacked the practice of dueling, and voiced out against Liberals and Unitarians to preserve religion.


Issues
•Some of the issues I voiced my opinion on included the Temperance Movement, Abolition, the practice of dueling, and moral reform.
•I wholeheartedly supported the Temperance Movement and even published “Six Sermons on Intemperance.” As for Abolition, I support antislavery and gradual emancipation but not the extremes of Abolition that the students of Lane Seminary were for. I also believe that dueling is for the privileged upper class that believes they are above the law and morality.
•My main inspiration for everything I do is my religious beliefs. I was taught by Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale, and share his religious and social views.

Solutions
•[Temperance] My solution to the alcohol problem in America is for people to simply follow abstinence. I have given speeches and published Six Sermons on Intemperance in hopes of convincing the people to follow Temperance.
o The Temperance movement, as a whole, was successful and it did cut down on this country’s alcohol consumption. I like to think that I played a part as one of the leading voices for the movement.
•[Abolition] I favor gradual emancipation of slaves instead of immediate, but that isn’t my main concern. The students at Lane Seminary were way too concerned with Abolition and that took away from their studies.
o The students of Lane Seminary were not pleased with what the trustees and I told them so they left Lane Seminary and joined Oberlin College.
•[Dueling] I advocated voting duelists out of office. Dueling, in my opinion, is symbolic of the decline in social order which a republic needs to survive.
o This issue wasn’t that important to catch on nationwide.
•[Moral Reform] I urged a return to the ways that the Puritan founders of New England preached: laws against intemperance, Sabbath breaking, and other forms of immorality.
o I faced great opposition from Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, and Deists. In the end, Congregationalism was removed as the official church in Connecticut and my plans ended up failing.

Relationships to others
• There are very few that I would agree with completely, perhaps those that supported Temperance primarily.
• I do not get along with Charles Finney, Theodore Dwight Weld, William Lloyd Garrison, among other liberals, Unitarians, and Catholics.

~Shuipys