John Witherspoon (5 February 1723 – 15 November 1794) was a Founding Father of the United States and a signer of the US Declaration of Independence.
Biography[]
John Witherspoon was born in Beith, Ayrshire, Scotland in 1723, and he was a staunch nationalist and republican, causing him to oppose the reactionary Jacobite rising of 1745, for which he was imprisoned. He went on to become a Church of Scotland minister, and he emigrated to the Thirteen Colonies to serve as President of Princeton University from 1768 to 1794. He implemented a Scottish-style syllabus and new entrance requirements in order to compete with Harvard and Yale. Witherspoon also served in the Continental Congress and signed the US Declaration of Independence, and he later signed the Articles of Confederation and supported the ratification of the US Constitution. He died blind in 1794.